Perennials

I have just about everything settled for the growing season if and when it ever occurs (it's going to be a cold weekend), but I'm still figuring out what will go just outside the greenhouse in the four window boxes, two large grow bags, and the barrel.

Today I decided much of that with the purchase of six perennials, starting with a Monarda 'Balmy Purple' for the barrel. I have two Monarda I've been trying to grow since February 25. They are about five inches high, a bit scraggly, and I have to kill aphids on them every few days. When I saw a green bushy plant at Nana's today, I said the hell with it and decided it will be the centerpiece of the barrel. If the other two ever grow, I will stick them in my yard.

I got three salvias, two of them at Nana's under the Proven Winners Rockin' brand name. One is 'Playing the Blues,' a blue variety of course. The second one is 'Deep Purple,' which is a dramatic dark purple. The third salvia is a blue no-name sold under the Better Homes and Gardens label at Walmart.

Yesterday on a Garden Crossings video, Heidi mentioned 'Vermillionaire,' a Proven Winners Cuphea hybrid. With its tubular flowers, it is supposed to attract hummingbirds and butterflies. I saw one at Nana's so snapped it up. The three salvias and the 'Vermillionaire' probably will go into the window boxes.

Finally, at Nana's I saw an Agastache 'Hummingbird Mint' 'Guava Lava' in a big container. I probably will put it in a big grow bag.

One feature I wanted when picking these was deer resistance, and all of them supposedly have that. However, even though all of these plants are perennials, only the Monarda is rated hardy enough to survive our winters. I'm considering whether to plant them in containers in the window boxes so they can be moved inside the greenhouse in the fall. Companion plants in all of these outside locations will be some combination of zinnias, nasturtiums, alyssum, marigolds, rosemary, Plectranthus 'Velveteen Aromatic' ™, mint (in a container), thyme, oregano, sage, and whatever else will grow and not be eaten by the deer.

Here is today's perennial haul:

I resisted buying any succulents at any of the five garden centers I visited today. However, I did get one at the grocery store. And the great thing is, it had an ID tag: Echeveria agavoides 'Miranda Red.' Why does Albertsons have ID tags on succulents but Gainan's and Nana's often do not? For the longest time I resisted getting an agavoides, and now I have two. On the left is the red, and the other is the 'Ebony' I got a few days ago. 'Miranda' shows almost no red except on the very tip of its leaves, but images on the interweb indicate it will start to blush in time.

The other thing I did in the greenhouse today was continue stacking succulents on the bench and shelves. There are nearly 60 now, and the final number will be about 80. I still have some Haworthias, Crassulas, cacti, and a Mountain Crest Garden order that isn't there yet. The number doesn't include any Aloe Vera or Plectranthus 'Velveteen Aromatic' ™. I'm hoping to come out of the summer with five good pots of each of those. I'm not going to move the three big succulent bowls over as they will stay at the house, hopefully outside for most of the summer. Anyway, there are 15 Sempervivums on the top shelf, and the rest is mixed up and arranged by pot size. My biggest problem with this arrangement is the Sempervivums are too high to be visible, but the medium-range plan (this fall) is to move all of those plants to the southwest planting bed.

I ran the sprinklers for eight minutes a day while I was gone, which doesn't sound like a lot but it was. Due to moisture meter readings, I skipped watering most of the plants today, and I might skip tomorrow also. I made that decision before I noticed that I have mushrooms growing in the big grow bags that have the sunflowers and potatoes. According to the interweb, mushrooms are a sign of healthy soil, but also indicate high moisture and shade. In this particular greenhouse there is not constant sun beating down on each location inside. The wood frame construction is the reason. Everything I have heard says succulents want bright but indirect light, so they should have a good summer in there if they don't get soggy.

And finally, I have come to a decision on last year's petunia pot. It was looking sickly, but it has packed on the foliage the past few weeks and seems healthy now. But it is not blooming. Assuming it starts blooming, I'll put it and three other big pots with geraniums and petunias in cages next to our house. That will free up the back row of the north wall of the greenhouse for grow bags with tomatoes, peppers or whatever. I ordered a 5' x 50' wire fence to cut up into cages. I was supposed to get it today, but Home Depot screwed up the order somehow and maybe I will get it next Wednesday.

More Neglect

Yesterday I detailed my week of neglect of the greenhouse plants, today it's the neglect of the succulents which spent that week in the garage to keep from getting soaked by the greenhouse irrigation. I'll start with 'Neon Breakers' which grew a stalk during my absence.

Next is a new acquisition, Echeveria agavoides 'Ebony,' which I got during our travels at the Menard's in Scottsbluff, NE. I don't need to be purchasing more succulents, but this is my first agavoides. When it gets a little more sun, it should have very dark leaf edges and tips. This snapshot shows just a hint of that.

Here is a Sempervivum I barely recognize. It is from the Plants for Pets order, an unknown variety that I refer to as #3. Last winter it was all green and didn't have the runners, offsets, or whatever you want to call them.

I moved all of the cold-hardy succulents and some of the tender ones back to the greenhouse today. I envision the bench area and the shelves above it being the succulent area until I follow through on my idea of transforming the southwest planting bed, currently in onions, into a succulent garden. Here's a glimpse. The cold-hardy plants are to the right and the others are to the left. Cold-hardy sedums are in the two baskets and in one of the four-inch pots on the middle shelf. Most of the stuff on the bench except the four big pots around the toolbox (two Semps, two Delosperma) will be moved elsewhere, so maybe there is enough room for everything. There's still a lot to move and most of it may wait until the weekend cold snap passes.

Neglect

Sometimes I think the best thing for my plants is for me to stop helicoptering over them and give them a few days of neglect. I had that chance the past week with a driving trip to a family wedding. They weren't completely neglected as I had irrigation set up to water everything every morning. When I got back today, I did notice a few changes, perhaps the most significant is the potatoes are up. Here they are in the big grow bag surrounded by cilantro. They were planted April 4.

I wanted to plant potatoes in another big grow bag in our back yard, but the grocery store potato rotted instead of sprouting. Now I have to decide what to do with that bag.

The Supertunias all look fine after a week of semi-neglect, and the Vista Bubblegum continues to be the most vigorous. But this Hoopla Vivid Orchid together with Priscilla looks like it is developing into a good basket.

I did take some petunia cuttings as insurance against a frozen greenhouse, and these have been churning away in the garage closet under grow lights. Only one has definitely developed roots, and that one is (surprise) Blue Vein. I'll stick it in the basket with Royal Velvet to provide some contrast.

My grand plan has been to grow snow peas in hanging baskets through mid-June, then replace them with cucumbers. I envisioned the peas hanging over the edge of the basket, but it looks like they might climb up the chains instead. I put the pea baskets outside today, along with two strawberry baskets at the other end, but I will probably have to bring them back inside this weekend as the weather is supposed to get cold again. Never forget that our average last frost date is June 9. The fan blows on the pea plants, particularly in the basket on the right, but that just makes them tougher.

When I test-hung the baskets on the outside of the greenhouse last November, the baskets on the east side cleared the windows, and those on the west side bumped them by an inch. But those test baskets were empty, and the ones I hung today were laden with moist soil. They are interfering with opening/closing the windows on both ends. I can either shorten the chains by a few inches, or get used to wrestling the baskets when I want to open/close the windows.

On another negative note, it seems about five or six of the 27 strawberry plants are either lagging way behind or will not make it. The bothersome part about that is three of them are right in the middle of the east planting bed. I don't know whether to let runners fill in the apparently-empty spot, or transplant from one of the grow bags. Another bothersome development is the straw I used as mulch is sprouting. I should have used pine shavings. But most of the strawberries seem to be doing fine, and there are bees buzzing around to act as pollinators when they start to flower.

Momentary Panic

I arrived at the greenhouse today and was greeted by a power outage. Panic time, and a realization how dependent I am on electricity in this greenhouse. This time of year, I need the heater to keep the plants warm at night, the fan to keep them cool during the day, and water pumped from the well to keep them watered. Fortunately it turned out that the power was turned off by the plumber for just a few hours to do work in the main lodge, so false alarm. The well pumps are on the same circuit as the greenhouse, and I didn't know where all the switches were. Now I do.

On further reflection, the possibility of a power outage is why converting most of the greenhouse over to hardy succulents seems like a good idea. They tolerate the cold during winter, they can tolerate some heat during the summer, and they don't need much water. During the flood of 2022, the all of the town was out of power for a day, and parts of it for longer than that. At our house we were fine because we have a generator. I'm not buying another generator just for the greenhouse.

Here's a snapshot of the no-name Sempervivum I got at Nana's recently. Sturdy and reliable.

Water

I finished hooking up my irrigation system today. There are four lines snaking all around the greenhouse, including two going up to the baskets. Eventually these segments will go away as the baskets get moved out. For some reason it looks like the strawberry roots in the grow bags and baskets are bouncing back faster than those planted in the beds. It has been one week since they have been planted. If there are any big gaps in the bed, I'll moved some out of the grow bags. Shown here is a basket strawberry right after I tested the irrigation.

I know I shouldn't be watering strawberries by spraying water into the air, but they will be fine for the next few weeks. The timer is set for very early in the day and they have all day for the foliage to dry off.

I took a bunch of pictures, but they were just to provide a reference point for me to look back on in a couple weeks to see how things are progressing. I'm not going to post a bunch of them but I will include this one. All of the Supertunia baskets show some growth, but the Vista Jazzberry/Bubblegum basket is going to be a monster. None of the other five baskets are anywhere near this height. This is the Bubblegum side, with a few Jazzberry peeking around on the left. The foliage is already so thick it was hard to get the sprinkler head in there.

I have a few extra mint, rosemary and Plectranthus 'Velveteen Aromatic' ™, so I stuck one of each in the barrel outside. I have it set up with seven slots for buried 6-inch plastic pots. One thing which was immediately apparent was I need to have the dirt in the pots all the way to the top so they don't look like they are in a hole when I put them in the barrel. I will leave them there overnight (projected low 41) but will probably rescue them tomorrow since the forecast lows the next two nights are 33 and 25. Our "Last Frost" date is still over a month away so I might be swapping them in and out of there frequently. Eventually the Monarda (Bee Balm) will take the center spot, surrounded by hard herbs, alyssum and nasturtiums.

Family Reunion

Today was the best day of Spring so far. Not only was the temperature in the 60s, but for once there was no wind. It was time to water everything so I decided to do it on a mesh table set behind the garage. None of these are in their saucers so there was great drainage. The resulting images reminded me of family reunion photos where each family has their group shot before the big finale. It wasn't quite that structured, but I ended up with six "families." Tall ones in the back, short ones in the front.

First is about two-thirds of the plants from the southeast window in the garage. Most of these get grow lights in addition to the sunlight. Included are all the showstopper purple echeverias ('Red Sky' and 'Neon Breakers' are the best right now), demure 'Lola' there in the middle, and the two Delosperma 'Fire Spinners' in the big pots at the back.

Next is a mixture of the southeast and southwest garage windows. It's really an assortment, but my favorite from this little bunch might eventually be the Kalanchoe 'Desert Surprise,' the purple-spotted plant at middle right. It looks good and I can tell it is growing.

These are the remaining plants from the southwest window, including the unblemished but slow-growing Aloe Vera in the big black pot. I hope this thing reponds to warmth and sunshine so we can get some pups.

Also from the southwest garage window are the big bowls, and I included the 5-inch Home Depot pot so it wouldn't feel left out. I did some re-arranging yesterday but the No-Name bowl at right could still use some more color.

These are all the inside pots, Haworthias, Crassulas and Cacti. The Haworthias get evening light and the Crassulas and Cacti get morning light. I decided to move a few of the Crassulas, including the big Jade, to the garage so they would get more light.

We had some late arrivals to the reunion. These Sempervivums and Sedums left the greenhouse temporarily and will be spending a few days at the house, although I could not find room inside for the Sedums and they get to prove how hardy they are on our back porch tucked up against the house. The chives have been OK outside for the past week. The lows the next few nights will be right at freezing, maybe a few degrees below.

The previous images are just snapshots and I wasn't too choosy about the background. But I'll conclude with a composed shot of the Montage Bowl and Red Lodge Mountain. The camera is level, but it looks off because the table tilts a little to the left and the terrain slopes to the right. I bought the Zerene Stacker program today so I am officially on board with that, but one complaint I have is the PMax method really needs the color and contrast punched up. I did some here, but it's still a bit flat. I always look at the DMap conversion first, but it did not do well on this one so I went with the PMax.

If I counted right, that's 91 succulent pots and four bowls, including seven pots that are empty now but will be filled on receipt of a Mountain Crest order around May 14. I didn't have any of these before late January except the Aloe Vera, two spiked aloes in the second group, and the Thanksgiving Cactus. This total doesn't include the cuttings and leaves that are developing into new plants and will require pots eventually. It also doesn't include any of the 12 or so Plectranthus 'Velveteen Aromatic' ™, which stayed in the greenhouse and did not make it to the reunion. And there's also the non-succulents that probably will overwinter: Rosemary, basil, thyme, marjoram, sage, chives, coleus, geraniums, petunia cuttings, and don't forget the six strawberry pots and baskets in addition to those in the planting bed. The chives, strawberries and maybe sage will survive in the greenhouse, but the rest need room in the garage. It is time to stop buying plants and make sure the greenhouse is ready to take the 21 hardy Sempervivums, Sedums and Delospermas next winter so I will have room for everything else in the garage and inside the house.

I had space for a garden at my house in Massachusetts, which I left in 2007. There was some foraging by critters, but it was manageable. In Sioux Falls, I had a small fenced lot and just had some tomatoes and peppers on the deck. When we moved to Montana in 2020, I continued with patio gardening but found that the deer will eat tomatoes and a lot of other things unless the plants are caged. With the acquisition of the greenhouse last year, I feel like I can finally do everything I wanted to do but couldn't. My motto is, "If it is worth doing, it is worth overdoing," and I am living up to that this Spring. It is satisfying when things grow and prosper under your care, and I hope to see a lot of that in the next month, the next six months, and the next five years. After that, everything is gravy.

Potential

As a new succulent grower, I have heard all about leaf propagation. It works! This is no longer a leaf with a tiny potential plant growing out of it, it is a little plant that is free of the now-dessicated leaf off to the right.

It is about an inch across and I probably will pot it up from a 2-inch to a 4-inch soon. March 25th, it was 1/4th of an inch across and was still very dependent on the attached leaf.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think this is a leaf I stole from my nephew's back yard in Texas. That would mean the process took a little less than 10 weeks to get to this point. I didn't recognize the plant in the pot I stole it from, so I'm not sure what this will become. But it is no longer just a potential plant, it has crossed the threshold.

Meanwhile, at the greenhouse, I finally got the AC Infinity controller reconnected to the app, but only through Bluetooth. I went over there at dusk so I could see the screen on the controller. Yes, to answer the obvious question from people who have to ask obvious questions, I turned the screen brightness as high up as it would go, and it is still way too dim to program in daylight. But now that it is on my phone, I can see as I scroll through their frustrating non-intuitive screens, which is a big improvement.

Drama

After a false start and two long waits, I finally got a Succulents Depot box today. The clerk at the Post Office, where we have to pick up all of our mail, said, "This box has seen better days."

So, preparing for the worst, I cracked open the box. The Sempervivum 'Hurricane' was located where it must have taken the brunt of the hit, but it looked relatively unharmed. Semps are tough. There were two rosettes and one of them was partly out of the pot, but I've learned that you just pot those pieces up and eventually they will be fine. Here is the 'Hurricane' after potting up. The smaller rosette on the right is the one that was popping out of the pot. It has a tiny offset forming off to the right.

The highlight of the order for me was the Echeveria 'Blue Rose,' and I ordered two of them to improve my chances of getting a good one. One of them now resides in a new 6-inch ceramic pot I ordered from Amazon. Due to the shape of the pot, it probably took twice as much soil as an ordinary terra cotta. I thought the 'Blue Rose' would go well with this blue pot, but it has a lot of growing to do to make this worthwhile.

I have been using the Black Gold Cactus and Succulent mix, but I didn't have much on hand so I opened up the Miracle-Gro Cactus, Palm & Citrus mix I got a few weeks ago on sale. Before looking at the labels, I thought that Black Gold had more grit and MG had more peat. The labels are not real specific, and after reading them I stand by my initial assessment. The amount of perlite or pumice in the MG seemed skimpy, so mixed it 70/30 with pumice. That made it more of the consistency I am used to with the Black Gold.

The plant descriptions on Succulents Depot often have NO information (same with Ramseys), so I go to Mountain Crest for details on items like this Mammillaria gracilis fragilis 'Thimble Cactus.' They say, "The stem segments fall off easily but readily re-root." Good thing, because first thing I did after unboxing was knock it off the shelf to the ground, and it lost four little segments. I potted up the main part in a 6-inch squat pot, and put the four little balls into a ceramic. My three other cacti are in similar ceramics.

Succulents Depot makes a big deal about shipping plants bare root, but the only one that came that way was the Echervia 'Atlantis.' All the others were smaller and had 2-inch pots. 'Atlantis' has some leaf damage it may grow out of eventually.

The other two items in the order were Graptoveria 'Debbie' and SunSparkler Sedum 'Blue Pearl.' Both have some growing to do and that's all I will say.

Summing up, despite the condition of the box, all of the plants were in survivable condition. Showroom quality, no, but I've come to expect that from plants that spend several days in the hands of the US Postal Service. Contrast that with this no-name Sempervivum that I got at Nana's Bloomers, which I think is showroom quality. This snapshot was taken when it was still in the nursery pot. Oh well.

I have another order coming from Mountain Crest. I delayed shipment until May 11 to fit my schedule, and I am looking forward to greeting 'Doris Taylor,' 'Mexican Snowball,' Graptoveria 'Titubans Variegata,' and a few others into the fold. Mountain Crest didn't have everything in stock and there still are a few on the wishlist I would like to have, including Echeveria lilacina 'Ghost Echeveria' and Echeveria 'Orion.' The Next Gardener has some interesting Pachys, but I have to remember that those usually get blown up in shipping. And I also have to remember that my shelves are full and there are at least 13 propagations that are at or beyond the leaf-forming stage. So once again after an unboxing, I say "Never again" to online orders. This time I mean it.

The crushed box from today's order turned out to be not as bad as it looked, but there was more drama on this day. The original Pachyphytum 'Apricot Beaty' I received six weeks ago from The Next Gardener died, mostly, and they sent me a replacement two weeks ago. The new pot had two stalks in it, and I potted them together. Today I noticed one of the stalks was shriveled, so I did an emergency beheading and the cutting is now in my office next to the cutting that is the only surviving piece of the original plant. The first cutting seems to be rooted. Comparing the two they actually don't look the same. Looking back at the image I took after the first beheading, the color and thickness of the leaves appear to have changed, so we will see whether these two pieces resemble each other more in a few months. On the left is the older cutting, which has been in an east-facing window and has lost its pastel coloration. The newer cutting was under grow lights in a south-facing window until today.

In the greenhouse, I got about 80% done with the irrigation installation, which will be four lines. I have the three lines laid out to cover the beds and baskets, but I need more sprinkler heads for the line that will water the plants on the ground and along the north wall. I haven't tested any of it yet. I know I am going to get wet as I adjust the heads, so I would rather do that all at once. That could be Saturday depending on when the Amazon delivery happens.

In the garage, I reconfigured some of my grow lights. I had Sansi grow lights on a shelf above LED tubes, and I swapped them. What it accomplished was giving the three big bowls their own shelf, although the smallest bowl doesn't get its own Sansi. There is some natural light, but the shelf is below the window sill so doesn't get the full benefit. I could move the shelf perhaps four inches higher to get more natural light and be closer to the grow lights, but currently the Purpusorum's flower stalk would interfere with that. I must say I like the way the Montage Bowl (left) and the Bonsai Bowl (center) are progressing, although I'm still thinking about cutting out some of the big clump of Sedum 'Shooting Stars' on the left side of the Montage Bowl. The Unnamed Bowl (right) has caught up some with the additions of the past few days, but needs something else to pop. There is a small flowering Echeveria languishing in a shared Home Depot 5-inch that might get the call soon.

What I do in the greenhouse and the garage often are two different things, sometimes even conflicting. Growing Supertunias and strawberries is far different than propagating Echeverias and Sempervivums. I'm putting the irrigation system into the greenhouse not because I want to, but because otherwise the plants would die when we are gone for a few days. But I know it raises the humidity and the water can go where it is not supposed to go, which is not the environment that succulents enjoy. Two years from now I see the greenhouse three-fourths full of hardy succulents (Sempervivums, Sedums, Delospermas), and the petunias, berries, tomatoes and a few other things crammed into the east end or outside. Don't tell my spouse. The air flows through from west to east, which should hold down the humidity for the succulents.

Ghost Roots

Two of the tiny rosettes on the presumed Graptopetalum paraguayense 'Ghost Plant' I got at Gainan's three weeks ago are developing air roots.

The interweb says this indicates the plant is searching for more moisture, light or stability, especially in the case of a leggy plant. It is somewhat leggy and I already have chopped off one of the four large rosettes and planted it in one of the bowls. This summer the remaining three large rosettes and three small ones (two already with air roots) will get the same treatment. It's a good thing. I haven't noticed this on any of my other plants, but none of them came right from the store with mostly-bare 3-inch stalks.

Petunias

Today was finally the day that I put the remaining six Supertunias in hanging baskets. All of the April stuff is done, and the next phase is potting up tomatoes, peppers and other seedlings for eventual planting in a bed, pot or bag, and doing some more directing seeding inside in beds and bags. Weather conditions were low 50s with occasional snowflakes, little wind, and 80% cloudy. That's a big improvement over the past four days.

I had four baskets, so two of them got two plants. First I did the Vista Jazzberry and Vista Bubblegum together. Two weeks ago I potted up all of the plants because some of the original containers were cracked. The new 6" containers were only slightly larger than the original, and the two Vistas were well on their way to being rootbound in just two weeks. Because Vistas have a reputation for being vigorous, I sort of regretted putting them both in the same basket, but I'm sure it will be a centerpiece whenever we have something this summer.

The other plant that looked especially vigorous was Royal Velvet. Originally I was going to pair it with Priscilla, but decided to put Priscilla and Hoopla Vivid Orchid together and give Royal Velvet its own basket. The other plant that got its own basket was Latte. One week ago, Blue Vein and Honey were planted in separate baskets, so that is eight plants in six baskets. In a few weeks I will decide whether to pick up a few more Supers at Nana's to fill out some of the baskets, Blue Vein being the leading candidate for getting a companion.

After using a ladder to hang the Supertunias in the rafters, I got some images from on high. Here are Latte, the Jazzberry/Bubblegum combo, and Blue Vein, with strawberry baskets to the left and the strawberry bed below to the right. I should have taken the picture before watering because the blooms look a bit droopy.

This view is a step lower and also shows the two baskets of snowpeas which were planted April 4. All 14 seeds came up.

Royal Velvet has been blooming ever since it was unpacked April 9. The overhead view is Royal Velvet, Priscilla/Hoopla Vivid Orchid, and Honey, with the Wall O' Sempervivums to the right.

After finishing the Supers, I tackled the clones and volunteers from last year's generic purple-veined petunias. I decided to make a new pot with two large clones, and the 'Red Lodge Red Vein'™ volunteer. Since I used a new pot, that left the old pot of about five surviving plants from last year. I considered saving two of the better looking ones and binning the other three, but ultimately did nothing, kicking the can down the road to another day.

I also divided the basil purchase into four pots, and hooked up the water. It leaked at the pump handle connection which probably was inadequately protected over the winter, but fortunately we have a plumber who is happy to do small projects at reasonable prices, and he said he might be able to fix it tomorrow. Then I have to hook up the irrigation, which isn't really that hard but is not something I am looking forward to. When we are home, I probably will irrigate just the strawberry bed and the adjoining flower bed and pots. But when we are gone, I have to irrigate everything, including 14 hanging baskets. One of the downsides of that is I should move all the succulents to the garage (17 pots if I'm counting right) because it will get humid in there and it may take some diligence to keep water from spraying everywhere. If I move them, I would not have to be so diligent.

The greenhouse has a gable over the door, which looks nice, but the stream of water from both sides splashes into the window boxes and carves holes in the soil. I used my extensive engineering skills and knowledge of 3D printing to produce a little splashguard. I am too old and confused to use Autodesk Fusion, so this was done with the basic but still confusing tools in Bambu Studio. This is just flat plate with slots and a screw hole, and a short wall at the back to help hold it in place. I only made one so far because the materials I need for weather resistence won't arrive until Friday. This one probably will deteriorate in a year or so. If I knew how to quickly make about 100 holes rather than five big slots, I would do that.