I'm Back!

I left the plants for five days... was it five days? I don't know! Anyway, the javanica/multiflora, australis ssp tenuipes and retusa obviously were not amused and all produced a yellow leaf for me, but I think they all pulled through fine. Even the lacunosa tove cuttings which I decided to pot up when I'd had one cider too many seem to have pulled through. Bristol is still miserable, the weather for the new year has been forecast for drenching rain and gales and I do worry that the plants will have to live through another two months of cold and low light before, if they and I are lucky enough, we see some sun. The bulbs outside don't seem to mind too much though and are all ready pushing their way through into the outside light...

Christmas Comes To The Hoyas....

I hope you'll forgive me but I'm feeling particularly festive (if not tipsy... after 12 hours of drinking cider, oops) and I hope you all have a good holiday... I'll be here next week, but I may be away over the "festive season"!!!! ha ha a break for a change!

P.S. I'd like you to note I rent this place and therefore have no say over the curtains or the nasty wallpaper (and this is the room I spend the most time in, with the radiator that has so much sludge in it it doesn't work.. grumph)...

It Seems Everything But the Hoyas Are Flowering...

Yes, this is my African Violet. It is a really happy bunny at the moment. These plants seem to go through periods of misery, not growing, not really doing anything, then they get used to their surroundings and decide to flower. This one has flowered twice in fairly rapid succession so I'm really pleased. It's at work and not in any direct sunlight, and fairly cool (we all freeze at our desks!). It sits on a pebble tray and gets watered very infrequently. I hope it'll be ok over the Christmas period when they shut all heating off in the department. I think it's a real tough plant.

PS you may guess from this picture and the one of the Schlum I'm not the tidiest person ever!!

Hooray - The Lacunosa "Tove" Starts to Grow!

I got this plant six months ago in a trade with a Swedish girl. I decided to bring it into work, with rooting hormone on it, but it just sat there, not rooting. After a while the leaves started to look a bit shrivelled so I got concerned. I cut off some nodes to try and get at least some of it to root, but still nada. In the end I placed all the cuttings in water. A couple of weeks later, bingo, roots start growing. I think, hooray, maybe now they'll be happy. I thought too soon. I place the now-rooted plants back in their pot and the plants continue to look sad and unhappy (don't ask me how I know this, they just did. The leaves just kept looking withered). Another couple of weeks go by, and the plants just aren't doing well and haven't fixed themselves in the soil. Around this time I get a little plant incubator for the cuttings I got from Paul Shirley. I decide to take the Lacunosa home and place it in the incubator. I pot all my new aquisitions that aren't doing very well, including the Lacunosa, into Jiffy 7's. Two thirds of the cuttings from P.S. root, the rest die probably because I did something wrong (too cold/too humid/not enough sun etc etc) and the lacunosa is still sat in the incubator not really rooting and not really dying. Finally this cutting fixes itself into the soil and starts looking happier again (the leaves filled out...) so I take it out of the incubator and place it on the cuttings shelf - my lounge window, a place where all cuttings that have finally fixed themselves in the soil are left until I have too many and have to figure out whether they'd cope being upstairs instead. Finally, one month later it's sprouted its first new leaf. Yay, and possibly phew! Now all I have to wait to grow is the pentaphlebia...