Recent Garden Acquisitions

[Darlica]

No garden or balcony this year...
But both L and I Have been suffering from "garden envy" so a trip to a local garden centre resulted in some new friends for our living-room window.

A small lemon tree, in full bloom and a glass bowl with 5 kinds of carnivorous plants (non of them sings yet but I suppose they have to grow a bit first or maybe they are just shy).   

We still have two types of Chilli a coffee plant and the old ficus tree and a Pelargonium graveolens as well as some miscellaneous plants and some slips in water growing roots. 

[Lindorm]

One of these days, we simply have to get ourselves a nice old chateau or stately home with a huge garden and conservatory. We'll probably disappear in a tangled rainforest of raspberries, deadly nightshades, carnivorous chili plants and celery stalks never to be seen again... 

[Opsa]

Buy your carnivorous plants a CD from "Little Shop of Horrors". "I'm a Mean Green Mother from Outer Space" ought to really inspire them to take up singing.

As for the chateau, well you don't want to rush things. The bargains are usually because a former monarch has had to flee for undisclosed reasons that the locals may make clearer to you when they show up with torches and pitchforks some evening.

In my garden the seedlings have only just sprouted. So yesterday I visited a local greenhouse run by some friends of mine and purchased some lettuce, tomato and sweet pepper plants. It's so nice to see something out in those bare plots!

[Lindorm]

The chili plants are flowering and budding -looks like we'll get another year of locally harvested Rocoto and  Baccatum.

The carnivorous plants have already made a noticable difference in the number of fruit flies in the flat! Any little bugs Darlica or I catch are now earmarked as plant food, and we do our best to feed the little darlings.

We have also gotten out our little germinating trays, where we grow sprouts. Right now, we have a mixed batch of radish and mustard seeds going. They are quite tangy and spicy, and are very nice as a condiment in a salad or a sandwich, or sprinkled on top of a soup.

[Darlica]

Here's the bowl of little monsters.  
The little blue frog is a rubber model of a Poison dart frog bougt at the Universeum in Gothenburg. I thought it fitted in just right.

[pieces o nine]

Cool plants & I love the little frog!

I found a handful of plastic poison dart frogs when I moved; I was a mentor to a girl who liked a shop that specialized in teacher tools and science-y toys. Each visit she picked out another, and rearranged them on the dash of my car. I still have my "half" and they still make me smile. If your carnivorous jungle ever grows enough to need more, I can "export" some to you...

[Opsa]

We have a little blue and red plastic poison dart frog at our house. Could this be another mysterious sibling coincidence? 

[Swatopluk]

What carnivorous plant species is best to deal with fruitflies and flour moths?

[pieces o nine]

We have a little blue and red plastic poison dart frog at our house. Could this be another mysterious sibling coincidence?  

rumbleribbit  

[Bruder Cuzzen]

They tore up both of my gardens  :(The pond is gone along with all the lillies and irises and weigelias and lilacs and rhododendrons and etc.
Alas , grass is now in the rear yard which will fail just like it always does for want of sunlight.
The hostas required very little sunlight and was doing well back there .

But this sort of thing is what my real estate agent always does to a house up for sale .
I can't bear to watch , so I have moved out of the house and am currently renting a room by the week .

An old chum from my childhood works for the city's water conservation program . He has been at the job for decades now and physically helped me engineer the water gardens on weekends.All that work gone .

[Opsa]

Oh BC, that's so awful!  That landlord certainly has terrible judgement, in my humble opinion. I'd be much more attracted to hostas than to dead lawn. What was he thinking?

Oh well. I hope you find another yard and garden again. I like your plant choices. I have all of those in my yard. I don't have a water garden though, but dream of doing that someday.

[Aggie]

They tore up both of my gardens  :(The pond is gone along with all the lillies and irises and weigelias and lilacs and rhododendrons and etc.
Alas , grass is now in the rear yard which will fail just like it always does for want of sunlight.
The hostas required very little sunlight and was doing well back there .

But this sort of thing is what my real estate agent always does to a house up for sale .
I can't bear to watch , so I have moved out of the house and am currently renting a room by the week .

That's silly. Lots of people like a peaceful garden much more than another scrap of lawn, and it's much more expensive for a prospective owner to install water features and plants than convert it to grass. I'm sorry to hear this.

[Swatopluk]

Lilac is currently blooming everywhere. Even the pitiful remnant of a lilac tree in our garden has put up some flowers.
Looking to take a picture to-morrow

[pieces o nine]

BC:  how awful that your real estate agent is more vandal than representative. I've seen similar things done to unusual and lovely interiors -- almost completely gutted; walls, ceilings, and woodwork painted white; (cheap) off-white carpeting put down everywhere to make the house look as Lowest Common Denominator as possible. Apparently too many Canadian buyers are much like too many of their US counterparts -- no imagination and must be reassured that the house "just perfect for them" has no distinguishing features whatsoever.

[Opsa]

I really believe that they are shooting themselves in the foot by spending all that time and money to rip out something lovely that's all ready there in order to make things bland.

When we were house hunting we looked at many bland houses. They were all clean and the walls were white. There was not a touch of personality in any of them. We chose a funky old house with outdated wallpaper because it was  ...funky! It was different. I may be flattering myself too much by saying that we may have a little more imagination than some people might, in being able to picture ourselves in an all ready busy environment, but maybe the real estate people are underestimating the value of a bit of uniqueness.

I would understand an overhaul if a bedroom was painted black with chains hanging from the ceiling, but a garden pond with hostas and irises? What's offensive about that? I would have been drawn to it and seen it as a plus.