Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Introduction to Bonsai!

Hi everyone.
My garden is progressing and everything is looking good. Some of my plants were taking a little to get settled in, but now they are all happy and I'm seeing a lot of new growth.

About a week ago I was talking to someone about bonsai plants and looking at things online and found that it was right up my alley. Why had I never tried it before, I asked myself.

Who knew as I'd always admired them and seen tons throughout my travels as a child.

So, I did more research and ended up ordering a couple and then visiting a local bonsai nursery and wow, I can already tell I'm going to be hooked.

There is so much to learn in that there are tons of varieties of plants and trees that can be used for bonsai, there are special tools to use, all kinds of pots, different growth and care habits and so much more.

I wanted to share a few of my plants. A couple or more mature than others, but all are pre-bonsai.
Tropical Cherry

Black Olive Tree

Black Olive Tree




Ficus Plant

Dwarf Pine

Ginger Ficus Tree

Tropical Cherry tree after thinning

Top of dwarf pine

Top of Ficus tree

Trunk and root of Ginger Ficus

So far I'm pretty pumped to see how these do. I will continue to grow them in my sunroom and wait for them to get bigger before shaping them more and putting them in a bonsai pot. I'll be sure to post more updated photos weekly or bi-weekly.

If you are interested in bonsai, would like to start growing bonsai or just like talking about it I've started a Facebook Group to just chat. Look for Bonsai growers and enthusiasts and join us!!

Thanks!

Thursday, December 4, 2014

New additions, Calamondin Orange, Tree Tomato and Hardy Chicago Fig

Earlier today I made my way out to Logees. I had a few things in mind to pick up, but of course, when I got there those ideas all went away with all the great plants they have there.

After walking around for a bit I settled on the Calamondin Orange plant and the Tree Tomato. I had tried to grow the tree tomato before, but I don't think I fed it enough, so I'm making another go at it as they say it grows quite fast. The Calamondin plant is just neat and smallish.

I also got my order in of a Hardy Chicago Fig. It is really small, but I plan on watching it grow.




Wednesday, November 19, 2014

My NEW sunroom garden november 2014

If you saw my last post you noticed that I'm back in action and ready to start growing some new plants. The last time around I had too much going on, some stuff worked and others didn't. Some plants required more maintenance than I thought and others did great.

So I'm taking it back to what really got me started and that is FRUIT!

My first plant I ever grew was a Super Dwarf Cavendish plant, so it made sense to pick one up this go around again. I visited my local nursery who has a lot of great fruit plants and picked out a great new plant. I also picked up a few more plants and I'll be sharing those with you shortly.

Here is a shot of my current sunroom garden as it stands. I repotted all of my new ones to new pots today and the rest seem pretty content where they are.

Please note that none of these are from seed, but plants I specifically ordered a little more mature to give them their best shot. My sunroom can get cold at times with our harsh winters here, and dry as well. You'll see a few random containers there with water in them to hopefully help with the humidity.  We'll see how that goes.

This is my southeast window side of my sunroom. Generally this area sees the most sun, so I set everything up on that side. In the past I had it more on the south side. There are 7 plants there, but one is sort of hidden.

I'm going to start with this plant here which is the Cara Cara Navel orange plant. If you look closely there is a small orange forming. I purchased it like that and hope that I can let it continue to grow. I think I overwatered it initially so the leaves were bending upwards. I've cut back on that a little.
This is a closer look so you can see the fruit there.
This next plant is the variegated kumquat plant. I like that the leaves are green with yellow and white stripes. Because of this they do tend to grow slower, but they look neat. There are several small fruit on there as well. I did try one of the large ones yesterday and it tasted great, but none of these are fully ripe yet. I am told that when they are fully ripe they do turn to the orange yellow color and lose the stripes.

Here is a closer look at one of the larger fruits. Most kumquats don't get larger than a golf ball.
This next plant is the pineapple guava plant. They produce miniature guava looking fruit, slightly elongated with a pineapple type taste. These fruit have a furry skin like a peach and supposed to taste really good, and the fruit is just scooped out much like you can with a kiwi.

This is a closer look. You can see the top two branches are trying to produce new leafs.
This is a cousin of the other plant, only by name though. This one is the lemon guava. This one more closely resembles a mini guava fruit. It has more of a lemony flavor, although I've never had one before. This one is also good for growing in pots indoors, but is not as cold hardy as the pineapple guava. I'm super curious about both of these plants so it made sense to get one of each.

This is the Meyer Lemon tree. I ordered it as a 2 yr old plant so you can see that its quite tall. It is still getting used to my sunroom.

This is my Super Dwarf Cavendish banana plant. It looks super healthy and am excited to see the leaves continue to grow. On my previous plants I always enjoyed seeing new growth. This one is more mature to the ones I had before so I'm very hopeful for it.

This is a closer look so you can see the new leaf that is growing there. I would say another full day of sun will allow it to open up. 
This is my new Celeste Fig tree. It looks very healthy and has a small fig growing on the top. I also noticed a new leaf trying to develop and possibly two more figs that should come out soon. This is a hardy variety so I'm hoping that it will like its new spot. Fig trees are known for going dormant in the winter if they get too cold. They will drop their leaves and fruit and just nap basically. There is nothing wrong with that of course as they rest and come back vigorous in the Spring. For me, I want to be able to enjoy the nice foliage and plant all winter so I'm hoping that likes where it is.

There was another spot on this small tree that I saw possibly where more fruit will form. Figs grow in the armpit area of new branches. They do not grow from a flower per say.

This is another branch attempting to grow a new leaf.


 So that is just a quick look at my sunroom garden near the middle of November 2014. I'll update periodically and also will share some videos as my plants continue to grow.

Thanks!