Hello friends, madgardener here,
just dropping in to peek over the hedges and fences to see whazzup
with all of you this warmer day at the end of fall. We're
experiencing the effects of the Canadian clipper that has plummetted
our temperatures below the normal these last few days. Enough that I
dragged through the assorted boxes that still clutter our rented home
in search for the suet feeders to hang near the back bird bath. Once
located, I quickly opened up several year round suet blocks to shove
into and hang with the help of me husband, James. Before he could
hang them up (and locating the triple suet holder in grabbing up one
of the hook poles) he had to shove the pole into the ground. Luckily
the strip at the back fence was soft and warm and no problem to get
into the ground to secure it's upright position.
The other day it was so cold, I noticed quite a horde of assorted
town birds huddled around the back bird bath oblivious to their
varieties or maybe just sharing the commonality of feathers. It was a
good example of an insane birdbath house. The robins that I think are
the winter residents that hunker down. The young cardinals, some
mourning doves that were elbowed out frequently as they all clamoured
for space in the shallow water. I took a jug of hot water out to thaw
the ice that was solid in the metal bowl, and was immediated chastised
by the flying dinosaurs to move along, they wanted access to the new
water. That was the main reason I decided I needed to put out the
suet, knowing that they'd like the fuel in the frigid temperatures.
Not quite sure if I can afford to purchase some black sunflower seed
which is the universal type I give them all. I don't have the variety
here that I had back on the ridge. But they agreed that between the
seeds of the spent perennials and grasses of the former Faerie Holler,
and the seed and suet, and scratchings for grubs and worms in the
deep, rich and raised beds, there was plenty of call for a wider
variety of not only feeder frequenting but the ground dwellers.
I'm still tempted to relocate the stone bath to the back to
increase their water capabilibites as I haven't seen signs yet that
there are any front yard visitors. The only thing so far I've seen is
it's an indicator for how cold it got the night before.
However inside, the cacti and succulents and few tropical plants
and African tender plants are struggling with a whole new environment
than what they had last year and the years past that I've had them.
Before, everyone was schlepped inside before frost to suffer at the
climate of warm and dry, a few places where I'd put the ones desperate
for cold and dry like my now lost forever Korean Crinum that Zhanataya
sent me 14 years ago through UPS.....Cacti and succulents died
regularly from too warm and a bit too dry as I'd lose track of
watering despite my more efficient system of monthly, I tended to be
distracted by the chaos of life around me and the simple fact that
containers dried out quicker and the four week mark should have been a
bit more frequent. But I also replaced beloved favorites if I lost
someone, or the others would squeek by with a hair's breath of
survival because they were tougher and hardier than even I knew.
Now I have deffinate favorites in the Euphorbia's. The
Sanseveria's, some philodendruns are tougher than you'd think, cacti
arent' hard, but each variety requires a bit of personal tweeking.
It's not always about what they're used to but how you have managed to
get them through the winters and how you retweek them. I have African
plants that should be getting ready to bloom as technically it's
almost the end of spring and approaching summer and their rest time.
This is why one of the kalanchole that I've known simply as "mother of
millions" is making blossoms. The foyer that it's sitting at at the
moment is incredibly cold, but bright sunny with indirect eastern,
direct southern and indirect western exposures of light. This is the
plant that sows it's daughters into every container of cacti, tropical
and succulent I own. Little babies along each of the leaves in
numbers of tens, they drop with teeny roots to grab anything
resembling soil, and pull in and grow quickly.
I pulled them out by the wads this spring and summer, but kept
two containers of them because I remembered the looooong stems of
funny little flowers that resemble little cotton balls the flowers are
so small and compact. Another type of fairy flower, the teensy
flowers could be a bouquet, and made me wonder what pollinated it in
their natural habitat. This isn't the bright and wild colored
kalanchole you see at the Lowe's and Ho-Me Deprived and every store
that sells a handful of cacti, tropical and succulents with bright
orange, red, or creamy white flowers like stars and fleshy leaves, no,
this has fleshy leaves, that are mottled dark greenish, the larger
leaf is silvery and I've not identified the variety yet (I will, give
me time) and there is actually another type of similar succulent like
kalanchole that is tubular and it's babies are on the ends of the tube
like leaves instead of the serrated leaves at each jagged point.
Someone will understand my intricate description and give me the
proper name, I'm sure. (any takers? g)
But in the cold but not quite freezing foyer that leads both into
our downstairs area where the six rooms are, but upstairs to the rest
of the main house, and outside, it's apparently just cold enough to
mimic ?spring? I dunno. But I'm estatic.
On the back porch which is horribly cold and just about freezing
thanks to the windows almost falling out because the wood around
several of them (the old aluminum and glass ones from decades past) is
rotten and James put duct tape on it just to save the glass from
dropping out again and breaking (the landlady never sent her husband
over to work with James to fix it more permanently). Because of that,
it's drafty, and colder than it would be were it at least tighter.
Thankfully it's getting all that eastern, southern and western
sunlight so it doesn't quite get as cold as it would normally. (if
this were my house it would be the plant room, and sunroom, as this
summer lots of the smaller pots of cacti just spent the whole season
inside as it was hotter than outside due to the radiation of the sun
and humidity off the kitchen. When I watered everyone, they thrived.
The clivia were so happy, I had flowers to pick for my wedding bouquet
in September.
If I had the capability, I'd just buy this house (it's for sale,
unfortunately and fortunately. the time is wrong and it's grossly over
priced) and fix all that's wrong, but the yard isn't large enough for
either James or myself. It needs to have an acre to it before I'd
consider it, and the lack completely of downstairs heat is another
HUGE DRAW BACK.....
Rabbit alert: (that means I am taking a tangient thought, a phrase
my former attorney gave me as he described me as "chasing a lot of
rabbits"...LOL isn't it wonderful how cats choose where to tuck in?
The little mini cat, Maggie who is FINALLY coming into a more
hospitable attitude with everyone now that her evil competition of the
tailless one is long gone and has given her the position of Queen in
this feline household next to the old and less Krusty one, Pesters who
still reigns as alpha in the positions (he's not quite king, but he
grabs and snatches choice shared bits of food when I bestowe it on
them and puts her in her place). As I write this ramble about plants
and such, she's decided to come back into the house because she isnt'
amused by the birds gathering at the empty bath (I have since stopped
and filled it back up, it's that dry here) and came inside to visit
and get warm. She's chosen the empty valise that we carry the laptop
to the library in as her personal bed for the moment. But she could
have chosen her peach basket that I put a favorite towel into from the
other house to give her comfort. Or her choice of MY chair with the
cushion in the dining room, or the other hidden place or sneak
downstairs to slip inside the colder lower rooms to tuck in around the
western windows on a box of books.....but NO, she chooses to look like
a cute black and white meatloaf and sit here as I type away madly.
(or she did, as soon as I started this rabbit chase, she left me as if
she were psychic.....like all cats are prone to do. Pest doesn't give
a fig, he's stealing warmth from the two canine who have long ago
claimed the futon for their own bed and has made them his personal fur
covered bookends. LOL
Today is far warmer than yesterday by almost 20 degrees. The
temperatures last night in the unheated bathroom didn't drop to the
lower 30's threatening to freeze the tap water, but hovered around 48o
and 37o, the heater we have bought to suppliment however weakly into
the high ceiling room was far warmer when I stuck my nose out of the
covers this morning. Not like yesterday where I was in three pair of
socks, undershirt, gown, sweatshirt long gown over that, and a down
vest and my hands were still frozen appendages as I typed on the
downstairs computer until I couldn't stand it anymore and came
upstairs to find that the 78o on the heat pump's thermostat was trying
in vain to get the house up to 54o!!! It took until 1 p.m. to get it
to 67o! sigh........
I can hear Pen down in Australia now telling me the chill
temperatures will insure bud set come the end of the year for sure.
Out of frantic horticultural realizations did I remember the Jewel
orchid on the backporch before it got TOO cold and brought her
inside. The irony of yet another reseeder reminded me of just how
hardy some plants are and how determined they are to proliferate. The
"summer poinsettia" which is yet another euphorbia has seeded into
every pot of cacti and succulent and the outside perennial containers
I managed to save from the death grip of the landscaping former
friend. But instead of orange poinsettia markings on the one in the
terrestrial orchid's long window pot that I planted it in deliberately
so it could creep and grow huge in, the color is WHITE. So I might
have a throw......which would be neat, as all accidents aren't bad
ones.
The western side of the house outside the door is so warm, the
euphorbia I've identified as "Snow on the mountain" is not dead yet,
and hopefully it will reseed itself into the pot of sedums as I've
bent it's head down towards the soil in hopes of getting more than one
plant next spring once it warms up. These reseeders don't appear
until the ground is at least in teh 70's.
The pleas and gaspings of the cuttings of the split leaf
philodendrum are begging me to pot it up, but I intend to wait until
spring and know where we'll be after April. The idea of relocating
once again troubles me, and it's a day to day existence which for now
I can accept easier. Doesn't make it any easier, but I do alright so
far. There are many out there in worse situations than I am right
now. (last year at this time I knew I was going to lose Faerie Holler
but not when, so I ensured that the majority of the houseplants I've
had for decades had somewhere safe to stay. How I wish now I'd stored
the perennial containers with Gloria as well! oh well, can't lament
something I've put down, she more than made up for anything else by
lovingly caring for plants I've had since 1984, whereas the perennials
I'd had for 13 years or so.
The joy the house plants give me also give us a focus to how and
where we want to live the next place. and Hopefully it will be our
last place to live and ours. Were it not for the fact that the young
man we both love and adore is having his last year of high school and
wants to attend college to be a meteorologist (they call it
climatology now) and the colleges that have it ain't cheap, we'd know
where we wind up..........time will tell on that too, or as James says
it, "the proof in the pudding is in the eating of it".
I will write more ramblings about indoor gardening as they hit me,
and keep in touch with my friends. Thanks for letting me share. Fill
me in on YOUR horticultural escapades, I'm hungry for word from you!
If not here, then send them to me at me address at yahoo. I'll write
back since I now have internet at the house!
thanks again, I await hearing back in eager anticipation.

madgardener, gardening in the greene bowl in northeastern Tennessee,
surrounded by the Cherokee National Forest and Appalachians in zone 7
just off the main street of an old historical town.

Hi madgardener,

It's so good to see you back posting your rambles. We're getting some much
needed rain here in NE AL today, so I will try to move some of the shrubs I
have left that didn't succumb to the drought, this week. The ground should
be a lot softer for digging after this welcome rain.

Not much else going on here and that makes your postings that much more
welcome to see. Keep writing, I enjoy it!

Gloria
wrote in message
...
Hello friends, madgardener here,
just dropping in to peek over the hedges and fences to see whazzup
with all of you this warmer day at the end of fall. We're
experiencing the effects of the Canadian clipper that has plummetted
our temperatures below the normal these last few days. Enough that I
dragged through the assorted boxes that still clutter our rented home
in search for the suet feeders to hang near the back bird bath. Once
located, I quickly opened up several year round suet blocks to shove
into and hang with the help of me husband, James. Before he could
hang them up (and locating the triple suet holder in grabbing up one
of the hook poles) he had to shove the pole into the ground. Luckily
the strip at the back fence was soft and warm and no problem to get
into the ground to secure it's upright position.
The other day it was so cold, I noticed quite a horde of assorted
town birds huddled around the back bird bath oblivious to their
varieties or maybe just sharing the commonality of feathers. It was a
good example of an insane birdbath house. The robins that I think are
the winter residents that hunker down. The young cardinals, some
mourning doves that were elbowed out frequently as they all clamoured
for space in the shallow water. I took a jug of hot water out to thaw
the ice that was solid in the metal bowl, and was immediated chastised
by the flying dinosaurs to move along, they wanted access to the new
water. That was the main reason I decided I needed to put out the
suet, knowing that they'd like the fuel in the frigid temperatures.
Not quite sure if I can afford to purchase some black sunflower seed
which is the universal type I give them all. I don't have the variety
here that I had back on the ridge. But they agreed that between the
seeds of the spent perennials and grasses of the former Faerie Holler,
and the seed and suet, and scratchings for grubs and worms in the
deep, rich and raised beds, there was plenty of call for a wider
variety of not only feeder frequenting but the ground dwellers.
I'm still tempted to relocate the stone bath to the back to
increase their water capabilibites as I haven't seen signs yet that
there are any front yard visitors. The only thing so far I've seen is
it's an indicator for how cold it got the night before.
However inside, the cacti and succulents and few tropical plants
and African tender plants are struggling with a whole new environment
than what they had last year and the years past that I've had them.
Before, everyone was schlepped inside before frost to suffer at the
climate of warm and dry, a few places where I'd put the ones desperate
for cold and dry like my now lost forever Korean Crinum that Zhanataya
sent me 14 years ago through UPS.....Cacti and succulents died
regularly from too warm and a bit too dry as I'd lose track of
watering despite my more efficient system of monthly, I tended to be
distracted by the chaos of life around me and the simple fact that
containers dried out quicker and the four week mark should have been a
bit more frequent. But I also replaced beloved favorites if I lost
someone, or the others would squeek by with a hair's breath of
survival because they were tougher and hardier than even I knew.
Now I have deffinate favorites in the Euphorbia's. The
Sanseveria's, some philodendruns are tougher than you'd think, cacti
arent' hard, but each variety requires a bit of personal tweeking.
It's not always about what they're used to but how you have managed to
get them through the winters and how you retweek them. I have African
plants that should be getting ready to bloom as technically it's
almost the end of spring and approaching summer and their rest time.
This is why one of the kalanchole that I've known simply as "mother of
millions" is making blossoms. The foyer that it's sitting at at the
moment is incredibly cold, but bright sunny with indirect eastern,
direct southern and indirect western exposures of light. This is the
plant that sows it's daughters into every container of cacti, tropical
and succulent I own. Little babies along each of the leaves in
numbers of tens, they drop with teeny roots to grab anything
resembling soil, and pull in and grow quickly.
I pulled them out by the wads this spring and summer, but kept
two containers of them because I remembered the looooong stems of
funny little flowers that resemble little cotton balls the flowers are
so small and compact. Another type of fairy flower, the teensy
flowers could be a bouquet, and made me wonder what pollinated it in
their natural habitat. This isn't the bright and wild colored
kalanchole you see at the Lowe's and Ho-Me Deprived and every store
that sells a handful of cacti, tropical and succulents with bright
orange, red, or creamy white flowers like stars and fleshy leaves, no,
this has fleshy leaves, that are mottled dark greenish, the larger
leaf is silvery and I've not identified the variety yet (I will, give
me time) and there is actually another type of similar succulent like
kalanchole that is tubular and it's babies are on the ends of the tube
like leaves instead of the serrated leaves at each jagged point.
Someone will understand my intricate description and give me the
proper name, I'm sure. (any takers? g)
But in the cold but not quite freezing foyer that leads both into
our downstairs area where the six rooms are, but upstairs to the rest
of the main house, and outside, it's apparently just cold enough to
mimic ?spring? I dunno. But I'm estatic.
On the back porch which is horribly cold and just about freezing
thanks to the windows almost falling out because the wood around
several of them (the old aluminum and glass ones from decades past) is
rotten and James put duct tape on it just to save the glass from
dropping out again and breaking (the landlady never sent her husband
over to work with James to fix it more permanently). Because of that,
it's drafty, and colder than it would be were it at least tighter.
Thankfully it's getting all that eastern, southern and western
sunlight so it doesn't quite get as cold as it would normally. (if
this were my house it would be the plant room, and sunroom, as this
summer lots of the smaller pots of cacti just spent the whole season
inside as it was hotter than outside due to the radiation of the sun
and humidity off the kitchen. When I watered everyone, they thrived.
The clivia were so happy, I had flowers to pick for my wedding bouquet
in September.
If I had the capability, I'd just buy this house (it's for sale,
unfortunately and fortunately. the time is wrong and it's grossly over
priced) and fix all that's wrong, but the yard isn't large enough for
either James or myself. It needs to have an acre to it before I'd
consider it, and the lack completely of downstairs heat is another
HUGE DRAW BACK.....
Rabbit alert: (that means I am taking a tangient thought, a phrase
my former attorney gave me as he described me as "chasing a lot of
rabbits"...LOL isn't it wonderful how cats choose where to tuck in?
The little mini cat, Maggie who is FINALLY coming into a more
hospitable attitude with everyone now that her evil competition of the
tailless one is long gone and has given her the position of Queen in
this feline household next to the old and less Krusty one, Pesters who
still reigns as alpha in the positions (he's not quite king, but he
grabs and snatches choice shared bits of food when I bestowe it on
them and puts her in her place). As I write this ramble about plants
and such, she's decided to come back into the house because she isnt'
amused by the birds gathering at the empty bath (I have since stopped
and filled it back up, it's that dry here) and came inside to visit
and get warm. She's chosen the empty valise that we carry the laptop
to the library in as her personal bed for the moment. But she could
have chosen her peach basket that I put a favorite towel into from the
other house to give her comfort. Or her choice of MY chair with the
cushion in the dining room, or the other hidden place or sneak
downstairs to slip inside the colder lower rooms to tuck in around the
western windows on a box of books.....but NO, she chooses to look like
a cute black and white meatloaf and sit here as I type away madly.
(or she did, as soon as I started this rabbit chase, she left me as if
she were psychic.....like all cats are prone to do. Pest doesn't give
a fig, he's stealing warmth from the two canine who have long ago
claimed the futon for their own bed and has made them his personal fur
covered bookends. LOL
Today is far warmer than yesterday by almost 20 degrees. The
temperatures last night in the unheated bathroom didn't drop to the
lower 30's threatening to freeze the tap water, but hovered around 48o
and 37o, the heater we have bought to suppliment however weakly into
the high ceiling room was far warmer when I stuck my nose out of the
covers this morning. Not like yesterday where I was in three pair of
socks, undershirt, gown, sweatshirt long gown over that, and a down
vest and my hands were still frozen appendages as I typed on the
downstairs computer until I couldn't stand it anymore and came
upstairs to find that the 78o on the heat pump's thermostat was trying
in vain to get the house up to 54o!!! It took until 1 p.m. to get it
to 67o! sigh........
I can hear Pen down in Australia now telling me the chill
temperatures will insure bud set come the end of the year for sure.
Out of frantic horticultural realizations did I remember the Jewel
orchid on the backporch before it got TOO cold and brought her
inside. The irony of yet another reseeder reminded me of just how
hardy some plants are and how determined they are to proliferate. The
"summer poinsettia" which is yet another euphorbia has seeded into
every pot of cacti and succulent and the outside perennial containers
I managed to save from the death grip of the landscaping former
friend. But instead of orange poinsettia markings on the one in the
terrestrial orchid's long window pot that I planted it in deliberately
so it could creep and grow huge in, the color is WHITE. So I might
have a throw......which would be neat, as all accidents aren't bad
ones.
The western side of the house outside the door is so warm, the
euphorbia I've identified as "Snow on the mountain" is not dead yet,
and hopefully it will reseed itself into the pot of sedums as I've
bent it's head down towards the soil in hopes of getting more than one
plant next spring once it warms up. These reseeders don't appear
until the ground is at least in teh 70's.
The pleas and gaspings of the cuttings of the split leaf
philodendrum are begging me to pot it up, but I intend to wait until
spring and know where we'll be after April. The idea of relocating
once again troubles me, and it's a day to day existence which for now
I can accept easier. Doesn't make it any easier, but I do alright so
far. There are many out there in worse situations than I am right
now. (last year at this time I knew I was going to lose Faerie Holler
but not when, so I ensured that the majority of the houseplants I've
had for decades had somewhere safe to stay. How I wish now I'd stored
the perennial containers with Gloria as well! oh well, can't lament
something I've put down, she more than made up for anything else by
lovingly caring for plants I've had since 1984, whereas the perennials
I'd had for 13 years or so.
The joy the house plants give me also give us a focus to how and
where we want to live the next place. and Hopefully it will be our
last place to live and ours. Were it not for the fact that the young
man we both love and adore is having his last year of high school and
wants to attend college to be a meteorologist (they call it
climatology now) and the colleges that have it ain't cheap, we'd know
where we wind up..........time will tell on that too, or as James says
it, "the proof in the pudding is in the eating of it".
I will write more ramblings about indoor gardening as they hit me,
and keep in touch with my friends. Thanks for letting me share. Fill
me in on YOUR horticultural escapades, I'm hungry for word from you!
If not here, then send them to me at me address at yahoo. I'll write
back since I now have internet at the house!
thanks again, I await hearing back in eager anticipation.

madgardener, gardening in the greene bowl in northeastern Tennessee,
surrounded by the Cherokee National Forest and Appalachians in zone 7
just off the main street of an old historical town.