Egypt4u

Well Superstar is now residing outside under the maple tree planted in a big ceramic pot I'm going to show a few hostas into. If he/she lives up to his name they'll grow big (but I doubt it). I think this case is terminal.

Horus wrote:That is a flower spike Grandad, it will bend back once you put it in a pot

You were correct H, it did just that until some pesky creature smapped it off. A couple of weeks in water and I did get a poor quality bloom but I think I can claim an honerable last place in 'The Amaryllis Challenge' with Minerva

10/10 for perseverance Grandad looks nice though

Well earned Grandad, you rescued the bulb and at least saw it's beautiful flowers. Congratulations.

Looking lovely! Amaryllis are almost 100% guaranteed to flower (sooner or later) although they can't fight off animals. The huge flowers you get are always pretty impressive so IMO well worth the effort to grow them.

Last year I put my bulbs outside after flowering and the snails and slugs ate leaves and bulbs nothing was left/ So this year I decided to keep them indoors.

They appear to be happy under the window in my sitting room, having 4 ft long leaves which look thick and heathy in fact since flowering from the 5 bulbs only 2 leaves have died. I'm beginning to wonder if they will die back? I'm not going to move them or repot - I hope to leave them where they are to flower again. I won't be buying any more this year whether these survive or not.

Mine are all outside taking their chances, most have dried up leaves so not holding out much hope of a re-flowering

My two, Minerva and Red Lion, have both suffered one way or another. I did put them back in pots after cutting right back. They are now outside and both are showing good leaf growth. No sign of any flower stems showing as ye

A real success is my banana plant. Although I wrapped it over winter it looked as if it had given up early spring. Mrs G said ditch it but I had faith and it is now a superb plant with several large leaves and more on the way. Amazing how resilient plants can be.

Well done Grandad! It is indeed amazing how resilient plants are - my success story this year is a runty geranium left over from last year that was accidentally dried off with the Begonias . Once I started watering it, it began to thrive and has a good show of flowers from a very small pot.

Way cool about the banana Grandad. They can be super showy!

Amazing how a half dead plant can turn into a showy featured specimen.

Half dead is right in the case of my Stephanotis plants this spring. My daughter bought me one and within the week exactly half of it had died back because of the tightness of the way it was trained round a hoop. I took it back and suggested the garden centre chide the supplier, and bought another one.

Damn me same thing happened, I was left with two stems about 18 inches long. I hate rings so I bought two tall hoops of about 4 ft and a big flower pot then put the two of them in the same pot and gently started to spiral them upward. They've gone crazy, lovely long shoots climbing on the frame and one a good three feet higher. I never expected this amount of growth. I thought the biggest hoops which I've got my Mandevilla on would be far too big, but too late to change it now. Maybe I'll air layer some later on.


That reminds me my "little" red Mandevilla and the Stephanotis are tight spiralling climbers, the big pink Mandevilla is very lax in habit. No twining. When I can get time I'll take some photos of the leaves of these climbers which have a special "trick" to help them, as they have no thorns with which to grapple.



PS I put 2 hoops at right angles to give me 4 uprights in each pot.

Today I am removing the last of the leaves of my 5 Amaryllis from last season, that have been left to die back naturally.

I'm keeping them dry now having removed most but not all of the compost. I'll give them a tidy before I put them on a north facing window sill where I can see if they start to shoot.


So who is up for the next challenge? Fancy a change? Any ideas?

Mine were left outside, but the leaves were ravaged by slugs, so last wek I put them in my garage to dry out. Not sure what the outcome will be once I start watering them again around November, but I shall give it a go.
As to a new challenge does anyone have any ideas?

How about a propagating challenge?

Open to stem cuttings, leaf cuttings, root cuttings, arial cuttings and so on...……………………. choose your variety and how you do it, just one or as many as you like?

Afraid that at the moment I am not really into the gardening thing with cuttings etc as I don't really have much to go with.

Mad Dilys wrote:How about a propagating challenge?

Open to stem cuttings, leaf cuttings, root cuttings, arial cuttings and so on...……………………. choose your variety and how you do it, just one or as many as you like?

It is probably a bit late but I might try a few geranium cuttings. I used to do loads each year in the past but not for many years.

My three tomato plants this year were propagated from seed by my DiL. She planted many plants on their allotment and had buckets of fruit. I might try that for myself and take some seeds from a tomato and see what I can do.

This is my tag line from another forum "I don't have green fingers......just a green eye for those that do " So don't expect miracles

Well, we don't have to do it right now do we? Thank goodness we can take our time in gardening.

I thought I'd take arial cutting of my crazy climbers, the last time I did it was about 16 years ago of a Hoya Carnosa. The Mother plant was about 20 years old and had been my Mother's. I took the baby out to Egypt and my DH wouldn't let anyone else touch it when I was in the UK. Of course eventually I put it in my shade house in Luxor garden and it disappeared. I think I know what happened to it but gone is gone.

I think next year I will collect climbers if I move. If I'm still in the UK then I shall collect different kinds of Hoya, and I must get a stagshorn fern I miss my old one. They are such forgiving plants, both kinds, good for gardeners like me.

I LOVE my Hoya. I had one for years when I was in the States. It was large and super healthy and would occasionally bloom. I always used to love when it would throw out one long arm that would creep towards a window and would suddenly entwine itself. I could leave it for months and it always looked the same. It was solid green.

I couldn't find a green one when I moved back to Canada but I did find a variegated one. I've had it probably five years now and it is doing OK but hasn't really grown or moved too much. I have it downstairs so I do sometimes forget to water it and it is very forgiving. Am anticipating one day it'll start to move and bush out and grow better.