Weeds: Treatment with Roundup Super Concentrate

I bought Roundup Super Concentrate a few weekends ago and tried to use it last week. The instructions indicate to combine a small amount of the concentrated weed killer with one gallon of water. What could go wrong with that?
Well, I thought, Hey, I have an empty 1-gallon water container. Why not load that up [...]

Tree Saplings: Fit to Be Tied!

I just came in after tying green plastic ties around my four new fruit tree saplings, just as the winds started picking up! I had already placed wooden stakes up against each sapling last weekend but had not secured them with the gardening tape. I did not know that it was going to be gusty just one week later!
From my [...]

Christmas Kalanchoe: Trio of Loveliness!

In one container, I have three Christmas kalanchoe in bloom: white and red, in the typical four-petal form, and the multi-petaled lighter red one (the blurry ones on the right), with layers of petals. Regarding the multi-petalled ones, when I got them from the store, each of the flowers looked like they were very tightly closed [...]

Succulents from Seeds: Follow-up

Many thanks to Julie, who blogs on http://www.asucculentlife.blogspot.com/ for recommending another on-line source for succulent seeds, Cactus & Succulent Society of America’s seed depot: http://shop.cssainc.org/seed-depot.html
As she noted to me, there are no photos of the plants themselves, and you will need to know the scientific names of the plants you want, not just the popular names, since the [...]

Succulents: From Seed!

As mentioned in my previous post, I will be installing a succulent garden in my backyard. It’s in its embryonic stage, but during my course of investigating ways to create such a garden without chopping up all of my existing succulents and to do it on the cheap, I found a website, based in Canada, [...]

Succulent: Fan Aloe!

Also known as Aloe plicatilis, this stunning succulent native of South Africa was gifted to me a few years ago, purchased at a yard sale! Apparently, I’ve got to go on the yard sale circuit myself if beauties like this can be found! Click on the image to see the absolutely gorgeous details! I am [...]

Radiant Perfume Rose

Before planting my fruit tree saplings, I will be planting a bare root rose: the Radiant Perfume rose. No flowers on it, yet (!), but it has evidence of new, healthy green sprouts. This hybrid tea is supposed to be very fragrant and yellow, with long stems.
Until last year, I’ve always left my rose flowers on the [...]

Apple and Pear Saplings, 3-in-1

I went to a local gardening center and on the clearance rack were various fruit tree saplings, among other trees. What caught my eye were 2 types of fruits trees, apple and pear. Both are identified as 3-in-one, meaning that each sapling had grafted onto it 3 varieties of apples or pears, and self-fertile, meaning [...]

Pink Breath of Heaven, Rescued!

A lovely shrub, native of South Africa, I rescued two of these plants from the clearance bin. It’s been nearly a year and they’re both still alive, with one thriving a bit better than the other. Click on the photo on the far right to get a better view of the very pretty small pink flowers! [...]

Red Leaf Lettuce: Container of Deliciousness!

This will be part of my dinner this evening! It seems like only yesterday when I dropped a few red leaf lettuce seeds into a 5-gallon container. What is especially impressive is in that there are 3 heads of lettuce in that one container, yes, 3! Now that is a great use of limited space!
A [...]