Livin' on the Fringe

It's March, and it's warming up. At least this past week has been warm. I did a little re-arranging of some of the peripheral plants in Pergola-tory. The fringe flower Loropetalum chinense is in full flower (such as it is). I had thought of pulling it and relocating it to the front yard, but it seems to be doing just find where it is. With the little bit of rearranging that I mentioned, I think I'll leave it.

Febru-any and All

At the end of 2012, I was accepting seeds like mad. Not everything sprouted, but from the lot, I have more than my share of seedlings. Most are P. tarminiana and P. edulis var. flavicarpa, but I have a few hybrids as well that are growing along side their pure bred cousins. 'Blue-Eyed Susan' x 'Blue Bouquet' is doing the best of that group, but (P. actinia x P. sidifolia) x P.actinia isn't showing any signs of weakness.

The last two days have been very warm in the green house, so the inhabitants are really taking off. Most have matured to the point of needing their 4" pots, although I don't really have space for all of them, and I've been trying to gift many of them away. I'm toying with the idea of posting a flyer offering them for free to co-workers. If I had any passiflora friends in LA, I'd surely unload a few.

Light at the End of the...Year

The Winter Solstice has passed, the days are getting lighter, and Pergola-tory is getting lit up too. For Christmas I received from my parents an "Infinity Light", which is a plastic lantern assembled from identical translucent pieces with a color-changed LED bulb inside. It's a little Scandinavia (e.g. Lego), but the pattern is organic and fits well among the Passiflora. While the air is still cool, I think I'll enjoy it from inside.

Happy Christmas and a Floriferous New Year!

This is my last post of 2012. I easily beat the pests back this year with the prior year's lessons. I added some new species and hybrids to the collection including some highly sought after varieties. And, I started growing some plants from seeds in my new pop-up green house. It has been a good year in Pergola-tory. 2013 should prove to be even more exciting. I'm going to get that hybrid registered - that's the goal. Until then, cheers!

Blue (Da Ba Dee)

I was planting the little plastic name tags that I ordered in the germination wells a noticed a new sprout in addition to the others. I have a bunch of P. tarminiana, just one (P. actinia x P. sidifolia) x P. actinia, and now  one little 'Blue-Eyed Susan' x 'Blue Bouquet'. That's [(incarnata × edulis) × (incarnata × cincinnata)] × [( P. amethystina × P. caerulea) × (P. amethysitna × P. caerulea) × P. caerulea] The others were all gifts, but this one is something I put together on a whim. Who knows if it will ever grow up, blossom, or look interesting, but it will be fun to wait and see!

Ton o' Tarminiana

I returned from another business trip to check on the sprout from the previous post and found 7 more sprouts coming up from the P. tarminiana trays. One of those 7 was already the height of the (actinia x sidifolia) x actinia hybrid sprout. The source of these seeds had warned me that P. tarminiana is like a weed. I am beginning to see why. I'm pleased to find that I'm at least doing something right with the seeds that were gifted to me. There are still a bunch of empty tray wells to go, but in due time perhaps I'll have some incubation trays stuffed with sprouts. I think I've solved the heating issues by insulating the bottom of the heater so that more heat is entrained by the trays and less via convection to the air. It's December, and these little plants are coming up like it's Spring!

Update: The count is up to 40 sprouts now!

Double Bonus Update:

Germination Elation!

I just posted yesterday that nothing was coming up in my seen trays. Well, I'm not often so happy that I was wrong, but this time I am! I did my morning rounds today and after pulling the lid off of one of the trays I spotted something neon green! It was a very small sprout, but it made me very happy to see. I wasn't a complete failure at germination! It's on the edge of the tray, so perhaps there's too much heat in the middle? I'll give it a few days before I drop that temp a bit to test the theory just in case. Even if this is the only one to come up, I'll be thrilled. My first mutant baby! (P. actinia x P. sidifolia) x P. actinia.

Two days later...

A few more...