Super Easy Geranium Cuttings. 22 Feb 24

Last summer knocked off a branch from a geranium  (or as the call it in UK, Pelargonium).

Here is the branch.  It was lying around more or less in the shade for about a month, while I had other things to concern myself with.

It stayed green and alive looking, somI thought I would use it for cuttings.  I cut it into four pieces, using a sharp knife.

Then Imstuck them all into a four inch pot with potting soil.  Not a special rooting medium, not peat moss or sand, no rooting hormone, no scoring the sides.  Just stuck them into the soil.

Then I watered just like any indoor plant.  They are in my sunroom.

Last month, they had grown quite a bit and were crowding each other.  I took them out of the container, separated them, and pruned back for better branched plants.  Here they are now.

They are growing very nicely.  By Spring, I'll have four nice geranium (pelargonium) plants, nice size and shape, probably in bloom.

I think these are one of the easiest plants to grow, take cuttings, overwinter.  They are very rewarding.

Onion And Leek Seedlings. 21 Feb 2024.

 The onion and leek seedlings look pretty good.  With mild weather conditions, but cloudy/drizzly, I moved them outdoors.  Most alliums don't mind cool Spring weather and they won't dry out as fast outdoors.

Saving A Grocery Store Mini-Rose. 21 Feb 2024

 This is a yellow throw-away rose, bought at grocery store for Valentine's Day.  It's a nice yellow rose.  The challenge with grocery store plants, is they are grown in a peat moss/ perlite medium, great for mass greenhouse blooming plant production, but not good for home growing.  It dries out super fast for me, and the plant goes through successive cycles of wilting and perking up, each time with more leaves becoming crispy dry and useless.

I'd like to keep it alive long enough to plant outside, probably in containers or in the garden.

Here's how it looked.  Pretty sad.

The remaining buds won't do anything.  I cut off the flowers, buds, and the worst of the dead leaves.

Then take out of container.  Not at all root-bound.  It was just that peat/perlite medium dries out so fast that the plant dries out.

This is actually five plants in one container.  I separated them.

My goal is to remove most of the old growing medium, and plant in the good stuff I use for everything else.  It's not necessary to wash off every bit, but I did soak them in rainwater and wash off most of the old medium.

Then I planted each into its individual container, in my usual potting soil.

I hope they grow.  I cut off some additional dry leaves and stems.  They look pretty good.  If buds start growing lower on the stems, I might prune back tower to make them more bushy.

I've never had good experiences growing roses indoors, so my goal is just to keep them growing and alive long enough to  transition to outdoors.

Alstroemeria Seedlings. 21 Feb 2024.

 The Alstroemerias are germinating over a wide range of time.  Of eight or nine original seeds, so far it looks like five or six have germinated.   I think five.  One is too tiny to show up in the photo (lower left cell) and I cant tell yet if another is one or two (lower right cell).   I read they need warm, then cold, then warm stratification.  These germinated before they could get the cold stratification, so they never got that.  I'll just continue watering and see what happens.  They are under LED lights in sunroom now.

Eucalyptus Seedlings. 21 Feb 2024

 Here are the Eucalyptus seedlings so far.

Eucalyptus citriordora.  Lemon bush Eucalyptus.  These are in their transplanted container. They look a little sunburned, although they are under the same LED lights as everything else.  Maybe it's just how they look.  They smell exactly like lemon balm, and very strongly for such small plants.

Eucalyptus cineria.  Silver Dollar Eucalyptus.  Some websites stated they needed cold stratification.  I did not, I just had them on the same seed warming mat as everything else.  Tiny, tiny seeds.  It looks loke most germinated.  More than I "need", anyway.

So far I'm quite happy with my Eucalyptus experiments.

Overwintered Garlic Looks Good So Far. 5 Feb 2024.

 Despite some historic cold last month, and slugs, the garlic looks pretty good so far.

Overwintered Chives and Chinese Chives Are Growing. 5 Feb 2024

 These are containers of chives and Chinese chives that I started from seeds last summer.

One has been pulled up.  That's probably a Stellar Jay.  They are pretty but they are obnoxious jerks LOL.

Container Bulbs And Rhizomes Are Growing. 5 Feb 2024.

 Most of the container - planted bulbs have emerged.

You can see tulips, daffodils, grape hyacinths so far.  

In addition to bulbs, some of the bearded iris rhizomes are starting to grow.  Some look better than others.

Onion Seedlings. Progress Notes. 5 Feb 2024.

 Here's how the onion seedlings look now.  They are all growing fine.

I dropped one of the Patterson hybrid onion containers.  That's the one on the far left.  Some have recovered.  I also planted another container of those.  Those have also started to germinate.

Eucalyptus Seedling Update, And Starting Some Silver Dollar Eucalyptus Seeds. 5 Feb 2024.

 Here are the Lemon Bush Eucalyptus seedlings now.  I have also seen them called Corymbia citriodora. 

 They are growing nicely and will need to be moved into larger containers soon.

With that success - so far - I found some seeds of Eucalyptus cinerea.  These are what we usually think of as the classic eucalyptus oil scent and greyish / bluish round leaf shape.  My intent is to have container plants or grow far from the house, because this variety is flammable.

Per the seller's instruction, the seeds should be soaked 24 hours but I forgot and soaked 48 hours.  They were so tiny, I spooned them out of the soaking cup with small amounts of water, and poured those spoonfulls onto the pre-moistened seed starting medium.  On the warming mat, and under an LED desk lamp, they germinated in one week.

These are tiny.  So far, so good...

Finishing the Wooden Box. 5 Feb 2024

 Here's the completed project.  I did six coats of aerosol satin finish polyurethane.  It gives a nice lustre and feel.

I was thinking about lining the drawers, but opted for just using a wood conditioner.

I made a template to get the handles as uniform as possible.

I could have painted, but I enjoy looking at the natural wood grain.  I think this looks much nicer than the original box, and is perfect for the planned use.  I like the way the joinery gives structural detail, rather than being hidden or painted over.