Repairing the Big Raised Bed. 19 Dec 24.

 This raised bed developed a sagging side.   I was concerned it might fall.  I had to remove the entire side, and re-start from the bottom up.

My original plan was to make it more narrow, because it's hard to reach the muddle.  But this is too much hard physical labor for an old, handicapped guy like me.  

I had to use that steel fencepost to pry the lower blocks out.

I can see that moles undermined the outside side, causing the soil to sink.  I'll fill in the gaps with lava gravel, which I hope is more difficult for moles to dig.  Then re-build in place.

I can mulch the difficult-to-reach area so it doesn't need much care this year.  It's not a lot.

I'd like to finish before the soil freezes, but I need a break first.

Micro-mini Roses, Year Two. 19 Dec 24.

 Here are two of the micro-mini roses that I was playing with last year.  

I want to keep them very compact, so they will fit in the indoor shelves garden.  Also, I kept them outside for the summer.  They had problems with spider mites and aphids.  I sprayed with a neem spray, which caused the leaves to look bad.  Finally, I gave a dose of systemic houseplant insecticide - which I don't like using- and cut the stems very short.  Basically leaving only the lowest viable looking buds on each stem.  I gave the remaining stems a spray of neem oil.

Here they are a few weeks later, putting on new growth.

I think they'll do OK.  I saw a tiny amount of webbing on one stem, so sprayed again with neem oil. 

These are the "button flower" type.  The type that look like mini tea roses seem to grow bigger.  The yellow one grew too big and had leaf spot, so I discarded it.

This is the other one.  It had spider mites too.  I just gave it the same treatment as I previously did for the others.

I thought about discarding it, but decided to give it a try too.

Strawberry Cleanup For Winter. 19 Dec 24.

 Here are the container "Ozark Beauty" strawberry plants, cleaned up for winter.  I uses a kitchen scissors to cut off all dead or dying leaves, and all remaining fruit clusters that were missed earlier.

I mulched with some loose straw bits for protection.  I moved the planters to a location that won't get rain, or too much sun, under the house eaves.

These will need dividing around March.  I planted five plants per container.  That's too many.  I will change to three.

Poinsettias In Full Bloom. 19 Dec 24.

 These are the poinsettias that I grew over the past year.

This one is in its third year.

I'm very pleased at how colorful it is.

This one is in its second year.  It's bigger than I want, but I'm still happy with it.  It's a very rewarding plant to grow.

I don't do any special darkness treatment, even though lots of websites say to do that.  I think our nights here are long enough. 

I think a key thing to do, is repot before starting to "over summer" them.  The peat is too easily dried and too difficult to re-wet.  I use a regular potting soil.  Also, they become top heavy, so I use fairly heavy ceramic pots.   In the summer, I try not to let them dry out completely.  I use a houseplant fertilizer (Schultz) per label instructions.

I want to keep these growing.  I may see if the variegated on can be pruned back a bit further, or re-start a cutting from it.

I don't want too many, but this week I added this small Poinsettia.

I don't care much for the other color varieties (white, pink, cream"), but I like the bright red and white speckles on the variegated ones.  This one is quite small, so I think I can get it started right in a good potting soil and good attention to pruning, early and short.

Lavender Seedlings. 25 Nov 24.

These are my second attempt at growing lavender from seeds.  I sprayed my first attempt with BT in an attempt to avoid fungus gnats.  That killed the tiny seedlings.

This is how the new seedlings look at about four weeks after sowing.  These are sowed on top of moist seedling mix, room temperature, under plant lights, no stratification.  Two cells weren't planted.

Those are starting to grow their first real leaves.  Pretty nice.

These are two or three weeks after sowing.  Same treatment.  I ordered a couple of additional varieties to try.

They are growing just as well, just a little behind because I sowed them later.

This will give me a variety of colors of blooms and plant type, for the xeric border and containers.  These varieties are described as very compact growing, and blooming the first year if conditions are right.