chocolatechipelephant

[chocolatechipelephant]

Good morning! It's finally summer.

My partner and I are going to move out of the NYC area next year, so I am trying to sell all my plants that spent any time outdoors. Partly because it'd be hard to move them (some are a bit big now!) and partly because of the gd spotted lanternflies. I don't want to spread them wherever we go.

I'm selling:

two Alberta spruces that I dress up like small xmas trees each year

a Chicago Hardy fig that is mature enough to produce fruit but is too big for its current pot

two long containers and two small round pots of Sweet Charlie strawberries (2 years old and very fruitful!)

a 5gal pot of lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus)

spearmint

aloe

common chives

some kind of palm plant I grabbed while stooping

a dying english ivy for cheap if anyone wants to try to save it (it is in a nice pot otherwise itd be free)

and the healthy roots of my previously grafted desert rose

So! Dm me if you are interested in how I grew any of these, or if you think you 'd like to buy them and you're in the area!

I suppose I'll have to make a masterpost of the plant photos at some point.

[chocolatechipelephant]

I got a gardening log book!

So, quick update per my last which was oh so long ago. The pruning I did on my desert rose did not kill it entirely but it DID accidentally kill the graft. So now I just have a healthy caudex and new stems growing just leaves. Lol. Lmao, even.

I've been using my new log book to keep track of planting, blooming, and weather. I only just started it in January, but my orchids have bloomed, and my lemongrass put seeds out while overwintering in my indoor greenhouse?? I didn't know it could do that. I am trying to harvest the seeds, but I don't have a good resource for that process so it'll be a little experimental.

Have been planting outdoors a bit since we're around the final frost time for NYC. I planted pea, wildflower, Thai chilli, and persian cuke seeds a few weeks ago in pots outside, mulched with straw. It has frozen twice since then so I may need to replant if they don't sprout (especially the cukes, those should have waited lol). My seed potatoes just arrived and are chitting in a window - I got them from walmart and I hope they'll actually live. They have some growth already but it's all pale, no green.

Lots of rain today. Hyacinth bulbs have sprouted leaves but no flowers yet - I realize now I should have planted them in the late fall, not a few weeks ago. Ah well, live and learn! And I do think I'll get flowers, just after everyone else does, haha.

Oh, and my strawberries survived very well in their containers outside all through the winter, though we got multiple bouts of snow and ice!

[chocolatechipelephant]

After three beautiful blooms blossomed and dropped, I chopped up the desert rose to try to fatten her caudex. Some guy on youtube recommended putting ground cinnamon on the cut, idk why. And she's already got new growth!

In other garden news, I am in a battle with fungus gnats, which seem to be incubating in my tomato and potato pots. Currently have set out sticky traps, and I plan to apply nematodes to the soil later today to consume the larvae. Isn't nature amazing?

[chocolatechipelephant]

She bloomed!

[chocolatechipelephant]

A little adenium progress: the new leaves came in. They're a little veiny and on the small side but otherwise healthy, and you can clearly see she's put out a bunch of flower buds! We should have blossoms in maybe a month? I'm super stoked!

I have been keeping her in my greenhouse on the top shelf for max sun and heat. I wonder if the humidity in there is a little too much for her, but since she's grown new leaves and buds she must be doing all right.

In other news, my parents are moving from a very warm place, where my mother has grown really excellent citrus trees in pots for the past twenty years, to a very cold place where they won't thrive. She knows she has to give them up and offered them to me, but I have tried to keep a lemon before and killed it even in the greenhouse, so I can't take any of them. I told her to sell them - they are very productive fruit trees, and since they're in pots, they're mobile! Hopefully she finds them good homes. Feel free to DM me if you're in the southern US and might be interested in them.

My next post will be on the herbs I've been growing, which ones I struggle with and which ones are easy to maintain in a city apartment.

[chocolatechipelephant]

First post is about my adenium - desert rose! I bought it from Logee's (excellent nursery in CT that ships well) last October and it already had flower buds. It bloomed beautifully, then they dropped, and then I think it went dormant for the cold months. I kept watering it (shouldn't have!) about twice a month, and the leaves yellowed and started falling off.

That's when I spent some time on youtube and found out I needed to let it rest.

Wasn't it beautiful?!

It is potted in sandy soil topped with a stony bonsai mix, currently inside my little greenhouse for warmth moreso than the humidity. I stopped watering entirely in January, and just recently started watering again as the outside temperatures got a bit higher. Here's what I saw today!

New growth!

I am so excited to see how it does in the next month. Fingers crossed for new leaves!