Almost a year since my last blog and I'm happy to say nothing has changed. I'm right in the middle of my second Caladium season. After potting about 600 pots last year, they went dormant and I had to wait until June for them to start waking up. Now they are in full swing I have repotted about 250 from 6 inch pots to 8 inch pots. The ones in the larger pots have much larger leaves but, of course, take up more bench space so I had to put some in hanging pots. Very few have rotted. I expected lose some but so far less than 20 pots failed. I just put in my 3rd order on Amazon for 100 more 8 inch pots. Many will stay in their six in pots until next year.
Amorphophallus bulbs have awakened from dormancy. The shade house is thick with new growth, some leaves reaching the7 ft roof. Lots of offset bulbs and seedlings in more pots. I've added about another dozen varieties from Etsy and Ebay shopping but getting plants to Hawaii but Ground Advantage takes 4 weeks, few vendors want to charge for Priority Mail that takes about a week.
As age creeps in I am not able to keep all my acres of garden going so I'm moving a lot of plants nearer the house and creating more intense plantings. I renovated 4 old fish ponds and they look great. New water lilies in place and more goldfish to be added in the next couple of weeks. Can't beat baby Goldfish from Petco for 59c each. They grow to 6 inchs in about 2 years.
Have had great benefits from trading plants with a local Bromeliad Nursery. My friend their wants Australian Tree Ferns and other types of plants. I want Bromeliads. So I take a van load of plants to her and then get the pick of the nursery (thousands of plants on benches to choose from).
I'm still organising the local Zoo's fundraising plant sale. Next one is in October and me have as many as 20 vendors - ALL NURSERIES OF COURSE. What better friends could you wish form.
Weather has been kind. We get very hot and humid spells for a few days and wish for rain. Then we get a run of rainy days and can't wait for the sun to shine to get back out in the yard. Volcano erupts about every 2 weeks. A few months ago it erupted with fountains up to almost 2000 ft. The wind was blowing the ash in our direction and for a few hours we had ash falling. The leaves of all plants were covered in a gritty ash, of course the roof also got covered. Only now are new leaves appearing on plants that are clean and not stained with black residue. Closer to the volcano they has baseball size rocks falling on the road, cars and roofs. Luckily we escaped that. 90% of the time the trade winds are blowing and keeping the ash away from residences.
Otherwise little changes, bamboos are putting their new growth, gingers are starting to bloom ....... Oh forgot to mention my new Cacti and Succulent collection. Now numbers about 250 small pots on my from deck. Unfortunately they are doing very well and will need dividing and repotting soon.
I will try and get some pics to post with the next blog. Try not to make it a year from now
Life goes on as normal as possible for a plant obsessed crazy man. My newest obsession is Caladiums. A friend gave me one last year. It did its thing and went dormant and then, with effort, put up a new leaf this year. Then my neighbor went to Ca. so I volunteered to keep his lawn cut and found a dried up pot with something trying to grow in it and it turned out to be caladium. I rescued it, split the bulbs into three pots and voila I had beautiful leaves, so I purhased two more from Walmart. After that things got out of control as I found Etsy. Lots of places to purchase named varieties. I got at least 89 different varieties in the mail, put them into pots and the benches are a mass of color. One very nice seller in Florida threw in a bag of Freebies - more pots. Then I asked her if she had any that needed to be rescued so she sold me a medium size USPS box stuffeed with 280 bulbs (yes I counted them as I potted them). Then this same wonderful lady sends me an email saying she is sorting out here left over unsellable stock would I like some more. Now waiting for another box of 300 bulbs to arrive in the mail. Getting a bit late in the season as these things go dormant. Where do I put the dormant bulbs to keep them dry?
Other than that I am propagating South American Fucshia seeds. Friend gave me some seeds that grew, plant produced flowers (nice) flowers produced seeds which, of course, I have to try and grow. Oh yes they grew. I have 61 new seedlings in pots and I'm throwing away hundreds of seedlings I can't handle.
One of my more unusual anthuriums if producing hundreds of seeds, see those little red dots on the stem. They are now turning into berry like seeds. Each one has to be squeezed to pop out the real seed and then that going into a clam shell on a bed of moss. In two years you get a small anthurium plant.
In the middle of planning the next fundraising plant sale for the zoo. Looks like 18 vendors this time around. Always fun to do and keeps me in touch with the local nurseries. One of the vendors is a Bromeliad Nursery. The owner wanted Autralian Tree Ferns and Bamboos which I have, I need(?) bromeliads so we are doing plant exhanges a van full at a time. If I can find it I will attach a photo of the palm trees behind their nursery full of wind blown bromeliads up in the trees. I have three of them giant plants now with flower heads.
Pigs have been a problem this year. No pigs for the last two weeks but before that there was a herd of nine small ones. Took me forever to find the hole in the fence. Very little plant damage, they like foraging in the green waste piles.
Lots more going on but too much to write about but at least I'm still here and kicking and checking other blogs from time to time
I just read the blog I did last April and everything sounds about the same.
Not much new to write about. Still clearing forest, its been so dry for a couple of months that I was able to clear a large bog area but now the rains have returned and I can see the water level rising.
Three little pigs in the garden right now. Been around about 2 weeks. Puppy size, probably came through the fence and maybe grown too much to get out. Not causing much plant damage but I need to get rid of them one way or another. Maybe I will have a neighbor come over and trap them.
Ordered a packet of Cape Primrose seeds by mistake some months ago. First one just bloomed. Not sure if they will survive our hot summer. They are in pots under shade cloth so we shall see.
I will try and do another blog with photos soon.
Lots of hard work the past few months. Chainsaw has been busy along with friends clearing some more forest for more plants. The new area is on the house side of the bridge so closer for viewing. I'm harvesting plants from the far side of the bridge to bring them closer so I can enjoy them without walking for 8 - 10 minutes. I've also created a "jungle room" (maybe it was taking shape on my last blog). Now it is really filling in with plants in hanging pots and those planted in the "bed" on the shelf. The pots in the gutters hanging of the wall are starting to run and hang down to create a green growing wall in the future.
Last obsession is Begonias. I had a few that were doing really well which inspired me to put in two orders from a nursery in Oregon. First order arrive some weeks ago, second order is in the mail. Should be a total of 33 varieties.
Spring has arrived, subtle though it is here. Grass starts to grow, days get longer and warmer and everything is getting out of control once again.
My friend with the orchid nursery gifted me some more trays of "seconds" because he needed to free up bench space. He has over 100,000 pots of orchids in various stages of growth. Some of my is spent mounting the orchids on trees and on tree fern poles in the jungle room. Many will survive and bloom in years to come.
Orchid Cactus are starting to show buds, Amorphophallus are waking up, collection of philodendrons are growing and starting to climb trees.
I discovered I had a Heliconia called Red Carpet. It bloomed for the first time this year. Recently a local nursery had it on sale for $120 a root. Maybe I could chop a piece of mine and sell it for $80. Thats a lot of Begonias
Otherwise life in the garden is about the same. Various pictures follow.
They promised us a dry winter but so far its been relatively rainy and windy. We get low pressure systems pass across the north of the Pacific and they drag weather fronts down across the islands. As the fronts approach the winds turn strong and southerly. We get wind advisories, watches and warnings for areas on the down slopes from the mountains and that is us when the wind is from the south. 10 days ago we had a gale blow through, ripped half the plastic roof off the front deck. Purchased 8 new sheets from Home Depot and put those up. Today we have another front coming through, gales again and already a large bough is down from a Paper Bark tree. So chainsaw will be busy again. Lots of small branches and leaf debris along the forest trails need raking up.
Spent the last couple of days taking out 7 large Waiwi trees that fell about 5 years ago. They have been leaning across the Secret Garden all that time and resting on a rain shelter so if I wanted to make use of the garden area they had to go. Just about finished that project and left with a stack of 6 inch thick trunk sections to carry into the forest for path markets.
Checked out a section of fence line and found out I had not been there for some months and parts are rusting out. So I have a 35 foot length of new fence to put up. Instead of replacing the long stretch of rusted fence a friend and I will get our chainsaws going, thin out some forest to make a new garden area (its already got a name sign up "The Dark Forest Garden") and then set the branches along the outside of the fence to make a pig barrier. Got lots of that working well all around the forest.
Camelias, Azeleas, Vireyas are all blooming like crazy. Philodendrons continue to put out new leaves and climb the trees. I have another plant order in the shopping basket on Ecuagenera California website. Its just waiting for me to hit the checkout button. Not had the nerve yet to spent $300 on 8 rare Philodendrons. Its not in my basket yet but there is one called Spiritus Sanctus (I think I got that right). Its the Holy Grail of Philodendrons and cost $100. I have this vision of it dying. Not sure why.
I should really keep my plant buying to the local stores. Muck cheaper but they carry the unusual varieties. Embarrassed to say I have most of the locally stocked plants. Best source locally is Lowes in Kona and luckily thats 100 miles away near Costco. So we only go there about once every three or four months.
I've been gathering Anthurium seeds to try and propagate them. I gathered about 100 seeds, had them nicely set up on a bed of moss in a clam shell, left the lid open one night to give them a bit of air and rats ate them all. End of project. So the next seeds I gather I will spread around the forest on mossy branches and see what happens. Not sure why I'm doing that because there are plenty of Anthurium seedlings under the parent plants anyway.
Cold weather slows down the grass growing so not having to cut grass much at all.
Leaf blower makes it much easier to remove bamboo leaves from the roof and gutters. I will be up on the roof blowing leaves in the next few days. How many people do you see using a leaf blower on the roof.
Will stay out from under the trees today until this gale blows over then its back out there raking up debris and cutting up fallen branches.
