Our average last freeze occurs between April 1st & 7th. (We haven't had a freeze in weeks, though!) The forecast looks good, so I busted stuff out of my greenhouses today! Here's a mix of stuff from the greenhouses & pansies already outside. Gerberas already blooming in their pots: [/img] Oleander fixin' to bloom: One of my 4 potted fan palms: [/img] Some of my unusual pansies: [/img] [/img]
Lovely photos! Your pansies are adorable. I so enjoy looking at their little faces. Gerbera is a house plant here, even the summers are usually too cold for them outside.
The fun is really starting now. The most colourful few months of the year are in swing. Thanks for the reminders WTX.
Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice fotos, WTD. They are just gorgeous. A little bit of everything. I sure wish that I could grow Oleander here. I like that plant so much. There is a long shady tunnel of it on the grounds of the Alhambra complex in Granada, Spain...sort of leading up to the Generalife. (well one of the approaches, anyway). Thanks for the nice pics.
Those are some nice looking flowers. How did you get your oleander to bloom so fast? Thanks for sharing!
oleander Well, I grew up in El Paso - smack in the middle of the Chihuahuan desert. Oleanders grew there and I liked them. Up here on the South Plains, I tried oleander in the ground & lost them in the Winter. So I have now potted them and I stick them in my greenhouse in Winter. This is season #4 for the 2 red oleanders I have. I did nothing special to get them to bloom now - they just spent November, December, January, February & March in the greenhouse and, voilà - it's a-bloomin'! I thought about feeding the flowering plants in the greenhouse, just so they'd be ready to bloom early, but Inever got around to it. Guess there was some residual phosphorous in their soil. I have bought petunias from the nursery & will be planting them soon. They smell so good & our back porch, where I've been keeping them out of the elements, smells really nice right now! I rarely put petunias in the ground, though, as they are susceptible to verticilium & fusarium wilt, which are common in these parts, because cotton grows everywhere. Wilt is a nasty thing and will wipe out a plant in a matter of hours. There are ways to combat wilt, but the best way I found was to plant those plants in pots with store-bought soils & only use tools devoted to wilt-susceptible plants - never letting the tools touch the ground outside. I also empty the pots, then spray them with a 10% bleach solution and let them air dry. Then, they are sterilized and I can safely plant petunias & vinca minor in them. I bought 4 big old oil barrels last year and plan to put soil from my gardens in them, set them in the sun & bake the wilt out of the soil. Then I can use it too, instead of buying store-bought stuff all the time.
WTD, Sounds like a lot of work WTD, sounds like a lot of work but to see them grow as you have makes it all worth while. I enjoyed the picts. Thanks for working so hard to give them to us. Until next time. Lavender Up! Purple Ranch Hand
