Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread March 2

Happy March! Happy Saturday!

Well, we have some welcome signs of spring this week, but we also have some welcome photos which Neal in Israel took over the fall and winter months. Here are some of them.

Veteran plants - Brugmansia: Our Brugmansia gave a strong flower wave once fall weather began.

Clementine: I had some good results making clementine marmalade. I took the lime marmalade recipe I've used for some time, with appropriate adjustments. Replaced most of the water with additional juice. Since the juice is sweet, rather than lime tart, significantly reduced the amount of sugar. Finally, towards the end of preparation, I added a good dose of cognac.

Beautiful!

New plants - As I'm feeling the years, I'm more and more replacing seasonal plants with perennials along the garden's drip irrigation line.

Bromeliad: The plant has handled an usually cold and rainy winter quite well. Hope it will do as well when it faces summer heat.

Camelia: The nursery tag said "Japanese Camelia". Here again, hoping it can stand the heat.

Both are gorgeous plants. Good luck with the camellia.

Clivia: Winter flowering bulb, to balance my spring flowering Amaryllis. Cold and rain damaged the flowers very quickly.

Tibouchina urvilleana: I planted this for the leaves. They're large, with interesting, sculpted contours, and are covered with small hairs, which gives them a velvety feel. The detail work is enough to make you believe in intelligent design.

A wonderful observation about the plant.

I love Clivia. It is a great entryway plant for coastal areas, and it can be grown indoors in some situations.

The Tibouchina also has a bonus: It has lovely purple flowers in summer:

Princess Flower is an evergreen tropical shrub native to Brazil that is best used as an annual or house plant in zones lower than 9. In zone 8 it will die to the ground in winter but may come back in spring. This shrub can be trained into tree form and typically reaches 6-8 feet but can grow to 10-20 feet in warm winter areas. It prefers moist acidic well-drained soil. In hot summer areas, it likes some protection from the afternoon sun. It is tolerant of drought once established and has moderate salt tolerance.

The showy purple flowers appear in terminal panicles and the tree has a long bloom season. The evergreen leaves are dark green with lighter undersides and are 4-6 inches long.

How to prune it

I have a feeling that the leaves tend to grow smaller in hotter areas.

Adventure

Touring/Lupine - Good rains have turned the hills across Israel a strong green, and wild flowers are blooming. We joined a group of friends to visit, among other points, the Crusaders' Belvoir fortress, overlooking the Jordan Valley. Lupine grows wild here, as in many other locations in Israel. In the first photo, you see fish ponds down below in the Valley.

Breath-taking.

Edible Gardening/Putting Things By

From By-Tor:

One of four entries to the 2024 LA County Fair Culinary competition. This is applesauce, made with Honeycrisp apples, sugar and cinnamon.

Good luck, By-Tor!

Sharing the first blossoms on the Anna's apple from Southern Arizona. Got to bloom now if we're going to have apples by the 4th of July!

Nan in AZ

Love to see them!

Ah, Nature

Great video about growing a Monstera house plant. Stay with it for a little while.

Yard Planning

What do you think?

Biodiversity in the garden pic.twitter.com/2yt07XDoOD

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) February 26, 2024

Gardens of The Horde

I took several photos of my crocus, but this one's the best. You can see all 3 colors in the mix I bought - white, purple, and white striped with purple. This is their second spring.

-The Famous Pat*

Love them.

Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

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Week in Review

What has changed since last week's thread? Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, Feb. 24

Any thoughts or questions?

I closed the comments on this post so you wouldn't get banned for commenting on a week-old post, but don't try it anyway.

posted by K.T. at 01:32 PM

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