Happy New Year!

Hello everyone! Happy belated new year! I hope everyone has been good since November. Now with the start of a new year, means a brand new growing season, even if it is freezing right now. In my plant inventory right now, I am continuing to grow the canna, pomegranate, aloe vera, small sedum, and venus fly trap. But in addition to the plants I already have growing inside, there are a few others that I've added to my repertoire.

In an egg carton I am growing some nasturtium (as I absolutely love the flowers and I can control their temperature indoors. They are more of a warm season plant but, as you can see from the picture above, one has already began sprouting up. Hopefully the other little seedlings, as well as the two lavender seeds I planted in it, will start popping up soon as well.

Next plant that I'm growing indoors are some Daicus carota, more commonly known as carrots. They are a cool season plant so I could plant them outside right now (technically) but if you can't tell from the background, we have just been hit with snow after snow after snow. For right now, I'm simply growing them in a nice water bottle which I cut the top off of. As you can see by the image, they are doing quite well in their little container.

Next plant I'm growing is in the sunroom and I got these seeds from my weekly grocery shopping. They are bell peppers, which I literally popped the seeds out of the pepper and planted them in some name brand potting soil. It's small for now but hopefully more seeds will germinate and I'll be set for life with billions of bell peppers.

The next two plants that have popped up were actually unplanned on my part. One of them I believe I planted last year and only after being watered recently by me, began germination. I know it's hard to see from the picture but it is a tiny garlic pod which has began sprouting. I will continue to water it and hopefully it will do better this year than last.

The final plant that has seemed to appear all of a sudden I'm not entirely sure what it is. From the smell of it, it seems to be some sort of onion and looking at the final image (the right image) it looks almost like a shallot. However, I have no clue how it got in there or how it has seemed to get into multiple planters. 

Indoor plants

Hello all! Well with fall here and winter just around the corner, I decided that I'd try and work with some indoor plants for the next few months. My two newest plants, Adenium obesum and Allium cepa. One of these plants is a very exotic plant, the other something you probably have right in your kitchen.
Adenium obesum, desert rose, is the exotic plant I have bought. It is native to Africa likes sandy fast draining soils. It is used in America as an indoor tropical plant. The absolute coldest it can take is zone 10 so unless you live in southern Florida, this plant will only be good inside your house during the winter. Because it is a member of the Apocynaceae family, this plant is used primarily for its beautiful flowers. Some other members of this family that you might know of include Vinca minor, perwinkle, which is quite invasive, and Plumeria ssp., Frangipani trees and shrubs. All members of this family have beautiful, most of the time fragrant, flowers which have 5 petals. I bought this plant as I love the flowers that this family produce and the unique look of the trunk and bark of the tree (It's other common name is Elephant's foot).

Now the other plant I'm growing, allium cepa, is none other than the common onion. It was quite easy to grow it actually. I simply took the butt of the onion that everyone cuts off, put it into a 4" by 4" by 5" planter with some soil. I watered it and within a few days bam! I already have some half inch sprouts popping up! I kid you not! Next time you have an onion butt don't toss it in the trash. Plant it in a planter. It can be TINY and it will still sprout a new plant. I am never going to toss out onion butts from now on, that's how easy it is.
I am definitely going to take advantage of this easy plant to grow and possibly take a larger planter and grow multiple onions in it over the winter.

Update

Hello people, sorry for such the delay. I've been uber busy with school and all kinds of stuff like that. I'm messaging here today to give a somewhat update as to what has happened since my last post. Today I had one of the first carrots from the planter and although it wasn't the largest it was quite delicious. I'm hoping the other carrots were spaced far enough away so that they can gain some girth to the roots. I'll just have to learn in a few more weeks.

The tomato is finished for the year and I removed it from the large planter, which still has the carrots, basil, mint, oregano, and chives. The oregano has seemed to make a semi-groundcover around the planter which is quite cool to look at and the mint is actually somewhat staying in control. Starting this week in the Hardiness zone 7 it is going to be persimmon picking time and while I don't have a persimmon tree on my property, there are plenty of persimmon on the campus where I am going to school. Now for those of you who don't know what a persimmon tree is, it is a very cool native tree to the mid-Atlantic region, being a very large canopy forest tree. It has fleshy fruit that is quite a bizarre consistency but delicious nonetheless. The fruit looks like a strange combination between a peach and a tomato and the taste can only be described as sweet.
 In addition to it being good time to pick the lovely native fruit tree persimmon, for people who have yews near them, the fruit, or aril as it is called, is ready to be eaten now. A WORD OF CAUTION. Do not eat the aril from the yew bush unless you know how to eat it. You want to eat the squishy red fleshy part AROUND the seed and be sure to SPIT THE SEED OUT if you do eat it. Please for safety purposes, do not eat the arils in front of young children or young college students (or as some of my professors say, are essentially the exact same thing), as they will think "oh I'm gonna get a free snack and end up dying of yew poison. The seeds are poison to humans and if someone injects too many, they will die. PLEASE, thus, be careful when eating them, and be mindful of who is watching.
Lastly, I would like to mention that I have chosen to plant pumpkins along my deckline and the one plant that came up is doing quite well. I will get back to you on when it starts forming pumpkin.

Fall Plants

Hello everyone! Sorry its been so long. I've been busy with summer and work and what not but I have a break in all of that now and have things about my plants to report on. I think my tomato plant might be putting out its last few tomatoes, as the weather is just starting to change to fallish weather. My oregano and mint has started flowering and I must say oregano has some beautiful flowers. Due to the beans near it, my bluebeard is doing very well, growing many limbs and growing a few flowers now. In addition I was able to harvest 1-2 beans from my brothers science project from the school year.
I'm not entirely sure of what is going on, but it seems that something has eaten the tops of my redbud and honey locust which I have planted in my yard. I am planning on getting some sort of cage to put around them so that the animal doesn't continue eating on it. In addition to protecting my little bean trees, I am also going to protect the pumpkin plants which have just started to grow. I planted some seeds along our fenceline at the bottom of our yard and under our deck and they are both doing awesome.
On my final note, I would like to correct a mistake I made a few months back. The plants I previously called hostas are not hostas in all but a perennial called coleus. The coleus which is still in my front yard is doing fantastic and has beautiful pinnacle flowers.

Oddballs of the pack

Well this week seems to be mainly about plants that I haven't stopped to consider adding to my plant
collection. At the same store that I got the chives and the dwarf curry plant, I stopped by and bought 3 plants. The first was a healthy lavender bush, which is to replace the lavender I have, as it seems to not have transplanted well into the soil I put it in. While its difficult to see from the photo, the plant I chose is already starting to bloom and I plan on transferring it first into a somewhat larger planter and after it grows larger, putting it into the ground, as I think I put the young one in too soon. The second two plants I bought from the store however were an interesting plant that I learned about just about a week or so ago. These plants are called nasturtium

Nasturtium is a plant with edible leaves and flowers, both of which have a hot peppery taste. These plants can be trimmed to be a dense bush or a trailing ground cover, which is what I intend to do with them. I am planning to plant the canna in the front yard and have the two nasturtiums on either side of it. The flowers generally will vary from yellow to red in color, making them compliment the reccurent yellow bloom of the canna I have. Like the canna they like full sunlight as well as moist soils.
In addition to this interesting edible plant I bought for my garden, while at the grocery store with one of my friends, I couldn't help but notice that the place was selling a plant I think all of us have heard of, Venus flytrap. Quite by chance about a week before I found this plant, I was considering of trying to find one, as it is native to the Carolina beach areas. Seeing it, I simply had to buy it. Venus flytrap, a carnivorous plant, is typically found in swampy and poor soiled areas. It likes partial sun but doesn't do well in full sun so I plan on, for now, keeping it in its planter inside and having it sit near the east facing windows.

In terms of the other plants I am growing, the tomato plant is producing more and more tomatoes and they are ripening perfectly, no insects seeming to eat them or get to them. One thing however I am trying to decrease is the amount of mint I have, as more and more suckers have seemed to pop up. In the second planter, the one with the cilantro, parsley and peppers, the peppers are growing and forming quite nicely. The cilantro that flowered is now going to seed and I plan on taking a few for next year and taking the rest and making it into coriander powder.
The stevia has also grown quite a bit since I last checked, as I went on vacation from Friday to Monday and have had work all day this week. It's grown to about the length of a pinkie and the leaves are growing quite nicely. The hot muggy humid weather has also been helping it as it is used to rainforest climate conditions. Sometime in the next few weeks I am going to look up ways to turn the leaves into the substance used to actually sweeten food and beverages and get back to you. I am also trying to think of any creative uses for the nasturtium leaves and flower so if anyone has suggestions, feel free to leave them below.

Growing and Harvesting

Well the past few days have been very exciting for my garden, as far as product wise. As I walked around my deck the other day, I noticed the first of my tomatoes had ripened and decided to take it off before bugs and animals tried to get to it. Although it isn't the largest tomato, it still is a very nice sized one for being grown at home. I'm not sure what we plan to do with this little tomato but if we need a fresh tomato for a recipe we have one nice and ready.

In addition to having this tomato ripe, as well as a few other tomatoes close to ripening, while I was walking around our deck I noticed our pepper plant is beginning to form tiny little green peppers. as of now they are a little bigger than an average thumb nail.
In the same planter, I have parsley which just recently began to flower and, apparently, the flowers attract butterflies, bumble bees and many beneficial insects, such as predatory wasps. My only concern is that the wasps will begin nesting at our house, as oppose to living in the forests near by. Most people will clip the flowers in order to have the leaves stay fresh but if you are like me and decide to keep the flowers you can use the fruit to make the spice coriander.
As I continued to walk and water my different plants, I was pleased to see that in a very small planter I'm using, my stevia plant has began to sprout and leaf out. Although the leaves are very small for right now, I am very excited that they came out so quickly and can't wait for the leaves to be large enough to use as a natural calorie free sweetener. When the individual sprouts each get large enough, I also plan on transferring them into individual larger plants, as this plant is a perennial and as long as we can keep it warm, it will do alright. The only problem I've read about this plant is the initial germination as well as not being very cold hardy here. The germination didn't seem to be that large of a problem for me so I think I'll be able to keep them nice and warm in our sunroom during the cold months.
As I continued watering, I decided to check the side of our house to see how the blackberries were going and I'm proud to say we have our first ripe blackberries. I snatched a few of them yesterday and one today and they are the perfect taste and ripeness.
As for the other plants I am growing they all seem to be doing pretty well. The honey locust on the deck are growing nice and big and already forming a slight canopy. Pretty soon I think I'll have to either plant them in the yard or transplant them into larger planters so their roots can take off. The bluebeard for a while wasn't looking too good but it seemed to recover, having its leaves nice and firm instead of drooping. The sweetspire is starting to grow vertically as well. I think the only plant that isn't doing so well is the river birch I got last week, which is in the shade.

Seeds and saplings

Hello to everyone, I have quite the new assortment of plants this week! First plant I got this week was actually an herb to replace a plant I previously had. For whatever reason the thyme I had planted by the rosemary and sage vanished not too long ago and honestly it didn't look that healthy anyway. So while at the grocery store I decided I would go and buy a new more healthier plant and I am planning on putting it where I had the previous one.

In addition to buying new thyme, I decided to go to a small garden shop. While driving home from work during the week, I always pass this tiny little herb and flower shop and just a few days ago I decided "What the heck, I'll stop by."" The types of plants they had were amazing. Unfortunately for them I already have most of the ones they were selling. However, as I walked around, I remembered that chives are very good for carrots which I have planted with my tomato assortment.

Finding some chives, I went to go to the check stand when I saw, and smelled, something that caught my attention. It was a small herb called "dwarf curry." Although its culinary uses are limited, after buying it I did a little research on it and apparently it is used for medicinal purposes. If you steep the leaves into a tea it can help with sore throats. The oil can be used as a soothing ointment. If you want to look up more uses of it the Latin name is Helichrysum italicum. Here is a good website that explains all the uses of the plants oil http://www.helichrysum-italicum.com/properties.html. 

This plant is, like most aromatic plants, very drought tolerant. It likes dry soils and full sunlight, so top of a hill would be a perfect place for this plant. As the name entails, it has the smell of curry, although when cooked it apparently isn't strong at all. This plant is, from what I've learned, mainly used for its aromatic smell and medicinal qualities. 

In addition to these plants I bought, I also got some seeds from my neighborhood gardening store and bought watermelon, edamame, and stevia. Because watermelons like warm soil, and lots of room to grow in, I will probably have to think about where I will plant them. The edamame beans, becauses they are beans, will be planted along the fence and likely replace some of the dead beans that are simply flopped against it. As for the stevia, because it is a tropical plant, I will have it in a sandy loam soil and water it regularly.

My final plant, which I obtained today while gardening, is the deciduous tree Betula nigra, river birch. While I was weeding an azalea and rhododendron garden, I noticed a small birch sapling that didn't belong in the bed. Instead of simply tossing it into the trash however, I decided I would wrap it in paper towels and bring it home. River birch is a good native tree that can do well in a wide variety of areas. It can handle incredibly dry soil as well as incredibly thick clay soils. In addition to being adaptable, it is also a very good landscape tree. It can grow 40-50 feet in height and its most prominent and interesting feature is the exfoliating paper-like bark. I have it now planted in my backyard next to the Little Henry sweetspire.

In terms of my other plants, the tomato has began producing more fruit and the first few ones have started to change from green to orange. The bell pepper has just started to bloom its flowers and hopefully I will be able to see some peppers forming soon. The oak sapling, as well as many other saplings I've tried to propagate,  have unfortunately passed away, but the bluebeard, which is near the rosemary and sage, is doing alright, albeit being a tad bit lopsided. The blackberries have yet to ripen, but I walked by just today and the berries are fully formed and starting to turn red, which means that in a couple of weeks they will be ripe and ready to eat. Sometime in the next few weeks, I'm going to do a post solely dedicated to "what not to plant." This will be in terms of primarily landscape plants and ornamental plants, rather than fruiting ones. I will also go over good native alternatives or good non-native plants that aren't as aggressive. Good night and happy gardening!

Saplings

Hello followers! Sorry for the delay in posts. This past week I started a new job working at the University of Maryland campus. It has been quite fun. I have been helping to maintain gardens and pretty soon I will be helping the Arboretum Outreach Center by cataloging woody plants and shrubs around campus, which means I will be able to get lots and lots of cuttings and small saplings. Just this past week I took two saplings from flower beds.
The first one is Quercus sp. or some species of oak. It is a red oak of sorts, as oaks are divided into two different groups, red oaks and white oaks. The only way I could identify it right now though is by the leaves, which on red oaks have little "hairs" at the points of the leaves. Red oaks have the "pointy" edged leaves while white oaks have the smooth or way edged. Red oaks include Quercus acutissima, Q. cerris, Q. falcata,  Q. georgiana, Q. imbricaria, Q. marilandica, Q. nigra, Q. palustris, Q. coccinea, as well as a handful of others. Red oaks, and oaks in general, aren't incredibly picky trees. Within each species they vary slightly but they aren't incredibly high maintenance. They like well drained moist soil, a good bit of sun, and aside from their acorns, are generally problem free. There is the problem "Sudden oak death" caused by an organism, Phytophthora ramorum. As of now it is in a little planter and one of its three leaves is starting to brown despite the enormous amount of rain we've gotten (or perhaps that's why its browning). Anyway I'll let you all know how it's doing in a week or so. Additionally I obtained a Caryopteris xcladonensis, also known as bluebeard. It is a small shrub that has bright blue flowers in late summer. It is a cross between C. incana and C. mongholica and is a very common form for cultivation. It likes a loose, loamy soil and should be in full sun. It is tolerant of acidic and lime-based soils. Too much moisture in the soil however will destroy this plant, and I will be trying to find good soil for it that keeps water but doesn't hold it for a long time. Starting now, I will be trying to create names for each plant i propagate, either from cuttings or from saplings, and for this one I have yet to think of the name. Although it didn't last long, the small Amelanchier arborea earned the name Amelia, AMELancheir arborEA. However I have found a large tree just down the road to which I will name Amelia now. May little Amelia rest in peace. If anyone has suggestions for names for either plants I mentioned today, feel free to suggest some. Seeing as the Caryopteris is actually in a poorly draining planter, I think I should move it into the yard while there is a break in the rain downpour.

Planting Day

Well seeing as yesterday I took a plant straight from the ground and transplanted it (unfortunately it doesn't look so well today) I decided that today I would not only plant the plants I had, but take the empty planters I have accumulated and go and explore the nearby wooded area.

I first started my day by deciding to plant the hostas and poinsettias that I had on our deck into our yard. The central one is hard to see but is the one with beautiful mixed foliage colors. I decided since I only had one, I would make it the center of attention. Next to it, I planted the matching maroon hostas on either side of it. Deciding the poinsettias weren't going anywhere being in their little planters, I would round out the little pattern I was making by placing them on either side. I am hoping that in nice open soil they will possibly grow larger but if they don't it's fine.

After planting the hostas and poinsettias, I decided to go for a walk through the woods to find some native plants for our landscaping. I went for a walk through the woods and transplanted some Virginia creeper, Parthenocissus quinquefolia, from the ground into a small planter. It is a native vine/ivy like plant. You can identify it by the star or palm shaped look of the leaves. It is what is called palmately compound. Compound meaning that there are multiple leaflets per stem and palmate describing the way the leaflets are arranged on stem. Virginia creeper is a great strong native plant that is great for trellises, ground covers, green walls, climbing vine, essentially a great plant for a huge variety of uses. It is also a great landscape plant year-round. It provides pretty white flowers in the spring and summer. It provides pretty blue berries in the summer and fall. It provides amazing fall leaf color in the fall and the branchlets are a vibrant red color on the new growth, making it quite pretty in the winter. It is also good for a variety of conditions. The plant that I found was in practically full shade and it was competing well with other vines. It can grow well in nearly every type of soil and is resistant to strong winds. It's pollution and urban tolerant. It is hardy zone 3-9. Possibly the only drawback is it is difficult to get rid of once established. If there were one native plant that I would be sure would be invasive in other countries, it would be this plant.

As I continued exploring through the woods, I discovered this next plant. I walked along and nearly gasped at the horrible condition it was growing in. Vines were climbing over it, weeds were all around it. It was in basically full shade with one small entrance to the west where it was possibly getting some evening sun. Having only a small digging trough with me, I set to work digging up this tiny tree, trying my best to not cut too many roots. This small scraggly tree that I dug up is Eastern redcedar, Juniperus virginiana. Now instantly by the Latin name you are likely confused. This plant is not a true cedar but in fact a juniper tree. By the genus name virginiana, it is also obvious that this is a native plant to the east coast, as well as the common name "eastern redcedar." This tree is medium growing and will grow to be about 50' by 20'. It does well in poor soils as well. It will grow in gravelly areas and is very pH adaptable, being able to adapt to both extremely acidic and alkalkine soils. It is a lovely east coast native that adds some nice evergreen coloring to your personal garden. One word of advice if you are going to either buy one or pick it from the forest like I did. It has a very strong taproot and very sharp spiny needles, making planting it very painful and difficult. 

Seeing as I got plants from the forest, and deciding that the Juniper needed to go in the ground asap, I planted the other plants which I had in planters, wanting to get them out of the potters and into the ground and established. Here is the Little Henry sweetspire in the part of our yard that typically gets wet and swampy. This plant loves moist even swampy soils so I figured it would be good for this back area. There is also poison ivy on the tree behind it, so any plant to buffer off poison ivy is good for when daycare kids are in the hard. It also adds a nice pretty look to the area. 

 Seeing as I was taking pictures of the plants I had, I remembered that I said I would take a picture of the bean plants I had put in yesterday. Here they are. They are somewhat hard to see, as most have very thin "trunks" but they had just got a nice summer rain just a few minutes before and I am hoping they will do well and take off.

Exploration Day

Well today me and my family went to Sugarloaf Mountain, a mountain about an hour from our house. We went there and we were exploring the paths and trails and I decided to do a little detour route. Well as I was doing so, I stumbled upon some wild serviceberry, a small native fruiting tree that is part of the rose family, and I was elated. I got my hands a little bit dirty, but I successfully dug one up, keeping the roots nice and intact and carried it along with me for the trip. It is now planted in my backyard. The one thing that I absolutely love about it is the fact that the berries, which ripen in June, are edible and, apparently, taste like wild blueberries. Although I don't think my sapling will be fruiting this year, I saw that others the same size as it were fruiting so I know next year it will definitely have fruit.
Additionally before the trip I decided to plant the beans that have survived from my brother's science fair project and planted them by our fence in a nice sunny spot. I have also planted some pumpkin along the same fence and apparently beans and pumpkin are great companion plants.
The other day I also transferred the Eastern Red bud into the yard, putting it in a spot which has light shade. I've jimmy rigged a system to keep it upright but I hope that it can support itself sometime down the road. In terms of the Hostas and Canna I will likely be planting them in the next few weeks and once I do I will take pictures of them as well as all the other things, as to show my progress.