Not doing too bad. Yes, the pigs have come in again, twice since the last blog. Took a couple of hefty chunks out of a couple of huge new bamboo canes but I'm thankful they are not digging up the yard. My neighbor came over on Thursday. We cut down some trees and used the long poles from the trunks as path markers and the smaller branches and leaves we tossed over the fence as pig blocker. Stuck some branches in as stakes along the fence line and it did the job. Then last night the pigs found another weak spot so i was out there again with metal posts blocking the holes. I'm getting good at tracking now. I know which direction the little piggy trotters are pointing and know which way they were running. Can almost tell you how big the pigs are by the depth they sink in the mud. I'm sure they are small by the gap they squeeze through under the fence. Smart little buggers. Always remember where they came in and where to get out.
Today I put the last of the bamboo roots into the ground. Eleven in all. It was a bit of a challenger breaking the two large clumps into 2 and even then the two halves were heavy. Tried to give one away to my neighbor but he is kind of a "boutique" gardener. He did not like the look of the clumps, dry with ugly cut off canes, rocks among the roots. So OK. Just come look at them in a couple of years see how they look. I have given this guy many, many bamboo roots over the years and he has yet to take a spade to one of his precious clumps even to move them around his own garden. He has one variety I do not have and I keep dropping hints and he says "Yep, time to dig one out for you" But not yet. Oh well he is a really nice friend and I am have patience.
Going out to the back fence line to fix holes confronted me with the reality that the whole garden area along the back fence line is getting out of control. Bamboo canes are leaning horizontal, pine needles are six inches deep and all the marked pathways are overgrown and the poles marking the location of the paths are rotting away. So a new project of renewal is under way. Will likely move some Helicona and ginger plants back there, I gave my neighbor a bamboo plant that was not doing good in the shade of the trees. (yes that same neighbor). Looking forward to turning the are, once again, into the parkland it was in the past.
Still hanging on to my position as volunteer gardener at the zoo. It became tenuous last week as I had to admit stealing a seed pod from a rare tree. It was just too tempting and I had a partner in crime. The seed pod was out of reach so i stood on the seat of a picnic bench to reach it with a rake and my gardening companion stood on the picnic table with the loppers. We are both over 70 and look like too kids in an apple orchard. Any way we got away with it. Next day i get an email from the zoo manager. She asked if I knew anything about the missing seed pod. I admitted i did and asked if I was still welcome at the zoo. Yes thats OK. She thanked me for being honest as she was blaming the contractors. Will any contractor I've talked to would not know a seed pod from the end of a shovel. It turns out that zoo staff have been watching this seed pod for it to ripen. Story goes that they only geminate when they fall from the tree. Well you know the next line. This one fell from the tree. Zoo manager says I should keep the two seeds in pots and return them to the Zoo if they germinate. I wonder if they will.
Had twelve night blooming orchid cactus give us a show a couple of nights ago
I love the one with the red center?
Gutter cleaning and gutter painting project is 90% complete so I will be moving on the skylight cleaning (the brown strips on the roof in the last blog) and then start painting under the eaves of the second floor which can be reached from the first floor shed roof over the bird room and back lanai.
Peruvian Fuchsia tree blooms
Globba blooms (please google if you don't know Globbas)
New Augustafolia bamboo shoot. If i let it stay there it will go to about 90ft.
Candy
Ranger
Other than the usual trimming, weeding and chainsaw activities here a few highlights from the last few weeks.
Seeds and seedlings in the potting greenhouse were getting attached by rats and slugs. The Brownia tree seeds and the Yellow Jade seeds are round and about an inch wide. The rats dig in the pots and haul them out like squirrels after nuts. The sunflower seedlings get chewed off at ground level as they emerge. Slug slime trails covered the Cattelya Orchid buds so enough was enough. We had parts for a walk in bird aviary in storage so I put it up in our small duck yard. The ducks keep the slugs down and the rats cannot get into the aviary. Problem solved
My friend who is landscaping her yard emailed me a couple of days ago to say there was a root of Bamboo waiting for me. Please come as soon as possible. It is a variety known as Panjang. Really nice. The next day I turn up with my chainsaw and plenty of energy to find a huge rootball laying on its side about 4 ft high and 8 ft across that had been dragged out with an excavator. 20ft long canes still attached. Go to it she says. There is no soil in the yard only gravel and lava rocks. the garden is filled with heavy equipment and workers. I hacked away at the root for a while and got a couple of pieces separated. Chainsaw blade now useless. Then a young landscaper came up and offer help with his axe. Very slow progress so this young man got into his large bobcat and tried to use the bucket to split the root and we had a little more success. His boss told him to get back on the job helping to move large palm trees so I was left on my own again. My look of defeat caught the eye of the landscaping boss who was driving an excavator (a big one on tank tracks) so he came over and used the excavator claw to break the last big piece into two big pieces. I was able to drag all but two pieces around the house to my van in the front drive way. The last two big pieces of root appeared in the bucket of the bobcat with two young guys to put them in my van. Now if the rain would stop i could get these roots in the ground
This past two days I have had pigs get under the fence and start a little digging here and there. I've patched three fence holes so far but I'm running out of supplies. No spare fence posts and fencing wire. The past three days of light rain have turned pathways into mud. Great for the pigs but not me. I think I'm going to buy a new roll of fence wire and 10 posts and put them on standby. Must not use them to enclose more forest.
Yard work has been kept to a minimum lately as I have started a much delayed project of painting the house and doing gutter and roof maintenance.
Still working 2 hrs a week at the Zoo. The contractor at the zoo is ripping up pathways and building wheelchair ramps to comply with ADA so we get moved around to areas we can work safely.
My clumping bamboo are starting to show good growth. New canes coming up in many places.
Weeds are getting out of control and forest paths need mud patches filled with gravel.
I have a tray of Hedychium Borneese ginger seedlings now in pots. I think there are about 50 seedlings. Over the next two or three months they will progress into one gallon post. The Hornbill ginger seeds are just poking through so they will get moved to pots in the next week or so. Probably 50 of those. Then the Hedychium Borneese plants that gave me the aforemention seedlings has seeded again. Do I start the process all over again or let the birds have them? Can't resist planting seeds.
The Hedychium White Clover ginger plants that were seeds 18 months ago are getting close to 6ft high but no blooms yet. My guess is I will see blooms in November or December. Then I can confirm their ID and sell a few.
I received another bag of coleus cutting a couple of weeks ago. Just poke them in (like I've said before) and they barely wilt before perking up and looking good.
The two varieties of Passion vines growing the the dog yard fence have really taken off this year. They have worked their way up into tall trees. Both are ornamental so no fruit.
Water lilies are blooming. So far a red nighbloomer, white nightbloomer, purple, yellow and pink day bloomers
Overall life in normal
I just can't keep up with all the blogs. i try and read a few and can't understand why i am not keeping my garden activity records going. Maybe its because i can read last years activity report and this year reads just the same.
I seem to have a knack of attracting plant trading activity. Last week a friend came for a garden tour with a young couple (in their 20s) they have staying with them from New York. They lost their jobs due to Covid and have been here for a number of weeks so well quarantined. They arrived with a bucket of Coleus cuttings and I had already prepared a large pile (1/2 a truck load) of Azalea cuttings and some pond weed, and an orchid in return. Had a really fun garden tour. When we visited the bird room the masks were put on but not sure why. We were not going to catch anything from the birds and if our visitors carried Covid it was "curtains" for us already. The young lady from New York had never been close to a Scarlet Macaw before and had never walked through a rainforest garden. I'm so happy when people can have new experiences. It helps reinforce how lucky we are.
Anyway back to plant trading. A few days earlier i made contact with a guy on facebook who was looking to buy Australian Tree Ferns. I jumped right in and said "don't go buying them. I throw them away) A few days later he came for a visit and in return for the tree ferns I got a packet of Tobacco seed and 6 pots of orchids and some orchid magazines from Malaya. Nice pictures.
Two weeks earlier I had visited the garden of the same friend that visited with the NY couple. After a tour of their garden i came away with a large bag of Coleus cuttings and an armful of Gardenia cuttings and a root of varigated ginger.
Tomorrow I'm off to visit a friend, give him some of my excess plastic pots and pick up some more plants.
Its an endless parade of new plants coming to my yard and all this is true.
On facebook I established a connection with a plant fanatic in Florida. He grows a similar mix of tropical plants like mine except that he has ones i don't have and back at you. So we are now on our second USPS "if it fits it ships" exchange.
Back in late June I delivered promised Hawaiian Tree Fern plants to a friend who had given me clumps of bamboo. This is the lady who is having her garden landscaped. I'm not going to go into what she is having done. Its mind boggling. Anyway i came away with five huge roots of red Ti plants that she could not be troubled to have put back in her landscaping. Oh that visit I was on my way to trade ginger plants with a local nurseryman.
Throughout all these adventures I'm getting home and hauling these plants out to The End garden and amazing myself at how many plants have been added. As more plants go in the chainsaw comes out and clears more forested area.
The new garden beyond The End garden will be called the Wood Pile garden. While clearing The End garden i was throwing the branches over the new fence to defend against pigs and, of course, some of that area will be within the expanded fence line and I'm not going to move those branches twice.
Otherwise everything in the garden is normal. Bamboo shoots are coming up on the clumping bamboos and I have just passed 700 new canes on the running bamboo. Thankfully the running bamboo is slowing down. The Giganteus Cane that was 12ft high in my last blog is now 60ft high and a second one is 20ft high. I have about 20 blooms on the Bulbifur amorphophallus. Orchid Cactus are still blooming well.
The bench wire in my greenhouse and the outside bench is rusting badly so today I purchased a 5ft by 16ft length of wire with a 4 inch grid. Needed to cut it into two pieces to get into the van. Luckily my potted plant count is down a bit as things get put into the ground so not too much to move around so that I can take off the rusted wire grid and put in the new one.
The hibiscus cuttings a got about a year ago are doing well. Most went in the ground but I have about 20 to move into two gallon pots so I can put then in the sun on the driveway so we can enjoy them close to the house. Who wants a 15 minute walk into the forest to see one or two monstrous hibiscus blooms?
Volunteer work at the Zoo is still disrupted by construction. We have to trim and weed where we can get access and walkways are ripped up and replaced and everything is made ADA compliant. A few cuttings and bromeliad pups find their way into my trash bag but that is accepted.
Weather is a mix or rainy days followed by hot sunny days but that is OK as it is our hurricane season. A couple of weeks ago we had a 4.6 earthquake which woke us up one evening, followed the next day by a 4.3. No big deal, just aftershocks from the 6.9 quake two years ago.
As you can see life goes on as normal. if I end the day tired, soaking wet or covered in mud and forest debris I'm happy.
Is it really three weeks since by last blog. Just don't have the time. Microb was so far down the list of blogs this time when I tried to look for my last blog to review. The days are getting longer, I get up earlier, do more stuff and then too tired in the evening. Plus we have had three weeks of gorgeous gardening weather and my wife says I have tank top sun tan. Plus how many months of closed barbers shops but no ponytail yet!
Weather during the last two days has turned wetter so the forest trails are all mud again. Planning to change my keep fit regime to pushing gravel to do path maintenance again.
The End Garden has made good progress. I finally was able to define all pathways but some are just a mess of fallen branches and vines. Clear enough to push through but not walkable. But all the paths connect so now its just a case of clearing them.
New plants are being planted all the time. I purchased 5 new varieties of clumping bamboo a couple of weeks ago, bringing my total to over 60 different. I have moved about 20 different plants from other parts of the garden to The End garden and next week a fellow volunteer at the zoo is giving me more Heliconia roots.
I get to go out to The End garden at least twice a day as it is the best area to walk our new dog. He gets let of the leash and runs like crazy. Fun to watch!
The End garden was so named as it was at the end of the forest trail with nowhere else to go and it was the end of creating new gardens. Well hit the reset button. We have a gate in our forest fence close to the bridge. The gate leads nowhere. About 15 years ago is was access to a forest trail that we planned to clear to a second stream on the far side of our property. In a brilliant flash of awareness, while putting the fence in The End garden I realized that the fence wire and posts that were found in the forest were part of this old fencing. So I elevated my spirit self into the forest canopy and, looking down, realized that I could enclose another 1/4 acre by putting in a relatively should piece of fencing between the gate and the new corner of The End garden.
I climbed over the fence in The End garden with a chainsaw, laser beamed my eyes to when I guessed the gate was and carved a trail with the chainsaw. After 15 years the forest was so thick I was almost on the gate when it came into view. By the end of June I hope to have enough left over fencing wire and posts used up to complete the project.
Looking for suggests for what to call this new garden. "The Very Last Garden"?
The new succulent collection has about doubled in size in the last three weeks. Every store I go into seems to have one I don't have.
Finding a few orchids blooming in the forest. Orchid plants in the potting greenhouse are putting on good new growth so I'm hoping to have Cattlyas (spelling?) blooming new year.
The White Clover ginger is doing well and full of surprises. A few months ago I did have one weak, disfigured bloom appear which I discounted as a failure so in my last blog I mentioned I was still waiting for it to bloom. I walked past this particular plant a few days ago and noticed a bright orange flare of color, and there was an open seed pod, with two more pods about to ripen. I guess the blooms were not such a failure afterall. The two remaining pods burst open today so now I have 2nd generation seeds in pots hoping for germination. And then on the plant next to it is another bloom head forming. Time marches on.
Bamboo growing season is well under way. Over 300 running bamboos have been kicked over so far. That does no favors to my diabetic toe neuropahy pain. The clumping bamboos are starting to show good progress. The new Giganteus cane is now about 12ft high with a diameter of about 6 inches. More canes coming. New canes on Oldhamii, Bali White Stripe, Timor Black, Brandisii and Alfonse Karr.
Amorphophallus are putting on new leaf stems. Exciting to see the new acquisitions doing well. Bulbifer will be blooming in a couple of weeks.
Still working at the Zoo on Tuesdays. Zoo is closed until December for ADA construction. I'm hoping the small contingent of landscape volunteers can keep up with growth and have everything looking good for opening day when ever that may be.
One of the larger ponds (back to home report now) is getting clogged with blanket weed and algae. Invested in some Algicide and applied first treatment yesterday. Four more treatments over the next two months. I hope something changes.
A chicken is jumping up onto our front deck, she scratched out half the soil from a large orchid cactus pot and is now laying eggs. We have collected one a day for the last week. I love her and hate her. When she has finished laying and the Orchid Cactus has finished blooming I think I will move the pot. it contains two plants one with large white blooms and the other large purple and white. Maybe I won't move it.
I'm beat. Up at 5.30am, left for Costco at 7.30 (round trip 200 miles) had a good shop during "retiree hour" Got home about 2.30pm. Pizza from Costco for lunch, stopped at the southern most bakery in the US and grabbed coconut turnovers which we ate on a lookout above the pacific coast line. Nothing between us and Chile. Light rain showers here and there, some blue skies and no tourists!
FORGOT TO MENTION HOW MUCH I DISLIKE THE ADS THAT APPEAR AND BREAK UP THE BLOG. PLEASE PUT THEM ALL AT THE END OR THE BEGINNING. THERE MUS TO SOMEWHERE TO POST THIS COMPLAINT. SORRY FOLKS, HAD TO VENT. I will see if I can plug in photos as I go. Left all the photos until I had finished and they all go to the end. So they will appear in order of mention. The last three are the paths being laid out in The End Garden. The amazing weather continues. Mainly dry and partially sunny. A few showers at night but daytime temps starting to warm up.
Forest trails and the gardens are drying out. Easy to work with out mud.
Running bamboo in full swing. Kicked over more that 70 so far this year. Three months of hell to follow.
Longer days have got the water lilies started. First bud has broken the surface.
Amaryllis have given us four more bloom spikes. Mostly a creamy color but latest bloom bud will be a big red.
A nice spray of Dendrobium orchids appeared in the potting greenhouse.
Orchid cactus are going crazy with blooms of all shades.
My new collection of succulents is stable. They grow so slow and don't need a lot of attention but give me a point of interest on our front deck. Will be adding more now that I've found another table to expand on.
Not sure if a should have started collecting Begonias. The ones I have purchased are doing well but surviving on the growers energy. Can I keep them going. A leaf cutting that was given to me finally produced so small plantlets and one started to bloom so I thought I should split them up. Turns out that one leaf cutting produced 8 plantlets. They are in intensive care for now but looked quite strong. I watched a youtube video about laying begonia leaves flat on a bed of growing mix, putting small cuts in the viens underneath the leaves, holding the leaf flat with small rocks so the contact with the ground is maintained and hope each cut produces roots and then plantlets on the surface. So had to try that. I have two large foil dinner plates set up, sealed with Seran wrap sitting on the top of a cupboard in our sun room. Should take about 4-6 weeks for the leaves to rot away and be a failure. On the other hand I might get lucky and have dozens of plantlet.
Have had success with Angel Trumpet seeds. I have large trees of white, double white, pink and gold and found a seed pod on the white one. I've been watching the tree produce seed pods for years but never paid much attention. So a couple of weeks ago a found a ripe pod, teased out a small handful of seeds and put them in a pot. Wow, how fast they grow, now have a small forest of 3 inch seedlings to pot up. Why do I need twenty more Angel Trumpet trees? Of course you know I'm going to try the other colors.
The hibiscus cuttings I got about 6 months ago and now going into bud. About 50% survived. Looking forward to the colors.
I thought my cannon ball tree had died but seems like it is deciduous. We don't use that word much in Hawaii. But the tree is making new leaves.
I thought my Mahogany tree had died. It was looking like a dead stick in the ground but now new shoots are appearing on the inch thick trunk around the bottom. There is hope for that one.
Still waiting for the White Clover gingers to bloom. The seed germinated in January 2019 and now the plants are really starting to show growth that might project blooms later this year.
So way out at the End Garden progress is being made. About 50% of the paths are walkable. Another 25% have been cleared an defined. The remaining 25% are looking good on paper. Its so nice to have a secure area where we can let our new dog run free while I work.
A posting on facebook last Wednesday offered free Heliconia plants if the customer did the digging. I was in touch within minutes of the posting. Turns out this nice lady lived about 5 minutes away and had huge clumps of amazing upright Heliconias. I got 11 roots and put them in the ground in The End garden. The lady will be coming to my garden in a week or so to pick plants of here choice in return. I think I will get a second shot as some more of her Heliconia plants.
Or course routine trimming goes on. Went through the Aloha Garden today and remover last years Heliconia blooms stalks. This years growth is already budding. Found an orange heliconia I did not realize I had in the Secret Garden. The Secret Garden is a little of the beaten track and gets ignored but the plants grow unrestrained and produce so really strong growth. Will be getting in there soon to harvest plants for The End Garden.
Giganteus Bamboo has a really large new cane. Biggest yet. Base must be 10 inches across and getting bigger. The actual cane will be a couple of inches less than that as it grows out.
Bamboo Alphonse Karr has two new canes and the Costa Rican weeping bamboo has new pencil thin canes starting.
Spring is in the air.
