Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Fabulous Flowers and Little Green Plants

Here are some beautiful baskets of Calliope interspecific geraniums growing in our house 3 today. The weather is chilly and bright, and it will be cold tonight. The baskets are just about perfect for their age-state, and will be just right to sell in early April. We'll have to move them to their final hanging positions within a week or so or their form will be affected by crowding.

We're feeding these everytime they are dry - about once a week right now.

No flowers? Just fine with me... we are busy cutting flowers off other geraniums right now so botrytis can't grow where the petals fall onto the leaves. We also use plant growth regulators on our geraniums to stimulate branching, and to keep leaf size small. This reduces humidity in the plant canopy, and helps suppress fungal disease.


Some of my personal pet plants are in bloom right now. The pink cymbidium is a profuse bloomer, and easy to care for the rest of the year. The plants get big, though, and aren't suited to windowsill growing. This plant has more than 20 spikes, and will bloom for months.










I don't know the name of this orchid, but it is in bloom right now and still has bud spikes emerging from the base of the plant. It is intensely fragrant, and was a gift from Patricia, my orchid-expert pal. I'll send her the pic and ask her for the name.

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