Meanwhile, Out in the Greenhouse...

Last week, you got to see some of my messy garden with pots of plants covering just about everything.  Planting has gone slowly because, even though there is a lot more daylight after work, we've had record-breaking high temperatures for this time of year so just keeping the pots watered and doing basic maintenance chores in the garden takes most of the available time.  Of course, everything is growing out onto the public sidewalks so I've also been doing a lot of cutting and tying back but much more is left to do.  It feels like I'm barely keeping on top of keeping everything alive and already the spider mites have decided to start attacking plants in the greenhouse.  Nifty.  If you thought the garden was a mess, wait until you see the greenhouse full of plants begging to be carried outside for the summer and/or be potted up.

These pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago.  Today, as I was watering, I noticed lots of blooms and buds on the brugmansias.  The largest one, not pictured, that stays in the greenhouse now because of it's size is nearly entirely defoliated courtesy of the spider mites.  Unfortunately, the leaves are so high that I didn't detect them until recently.  Fortunately, the greenhouse is much brighter without a canopy of huge leaves covering so much of the roof space.  First the little mites got a nice hard spray from the hose and then out came the neem oil.  Fun.

The agaves and other succulents rather like the heat of the greenhouse in the summer so some may get to stay in this year.

I'm thrilled that the Tephrocactus geometricus and Tephrocactus articulatus on the right made it through the winter in the greenhouse and just noticed that one of them is putting on some new growth. 

Plants have a tendency to get larger.  Funny thing, that.  "The puppy was small when I brought it home..."  It's time to cull the collection and find happy new homes for some of these darlings.

Never did get around to painting the interior.  Oh well.  

Some re-arranging is definitely in order!

The Spanish Moss loves it out here.  The experimental bits that I left outside for the winter are DYK (dead you know.)  The winter was certainly mild enough but it obviously wasn't happy out there. Fortunately, the birds have made the carcass disappear to be used as nest building material.

This space was just supposed to be a utilitarian place to throw tender plants for the winter but it has become another crowded garden room.  I'm not complaining,  mind you, just noticing.   So, this Saturday, visit Windcliff and Sudquist Gardens, tour a couple of gardens down south that I've not seen before, or stay home and get some work done in my own garden?

It's hard to get an answer from this guy. He's the strong silent type. 

Happy weekend!