Tag: house plants

March Garden in Pacific Northwest (PNW)

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This month is the busiest time in the garden. The spring flowers are starting to bloom, perennials waking up from their winter slumber and most of all seed starting for summer annuals and vegetables. The weather has been mostly mild and reached a high of 70F two days this month and did not dip below 40F. I feel spring is when my garden looks its best and I try to make sure that the clutter is removed and I “juzz” up the garden for the spring show.

The garden has lots of flowers this time of the year. Every day some new spring flowering bulbs start blooming – hyacinths and daffodils are already glorious, but the Red Devon Daffodils which are the late blooming variety are just starting to bloom. I just love primrose “Wanda” which I have been growing for many years now. It forms a lovely border around my front flower bed. I also divide them and it is now beautifully flowering in other parts of my garden. The camellia tree has exploded with stunning flowers and the two Japanese Plum trees are also so full of flowers. The hellebores are still looking beautiful – I feel they are the longest blooming plants! The Red Currants (Ribes Sanguineum) are starting to flower and I can’t wait for the hummingbirds to start visiting her! That truly makes my day!

An interesting anecdote about one of my trees. A gardening friend had given me a small tree which was 12″ tall 6 years ago when she had given to me saying that it was a seedling of a plum tree. I planted the then tiny tree and it grew tall every year but did nothing else. It is now approximately 20 feet tall but was not producing any flowers or fruits. I was growing frustrated with this tree and thought I will remove it if there are no flowers or fruits this year. Well, guess what – this one has beautiful flowers now!! I asked the local gardening group and they identified it as an American plum. How exciting is that!! I am looking forward to observing what the tree does in the coming months and years. Hopefully I will get plums soon!

I wanted to increase the depth of the raised veggie bed from 2″ to 6″. Keshav helped me with this and now I am happy that the veggie bed is 6″ deeper. I filled this bed with raised bed mix and sowed peas and beets so far. I also sowed 6 peas in the barrel.

March is when I sow most seeds that I want to start indoors and so the number of seedlings I have to take care of indoors increases. I am always amazed that dahlia seeds germinate so fast!! 3 days after sowing, the seeds germinate and start growing!

Garden Chores this month:

  • Planted ranunculus and anemones in the front flower bed after pre-sprouting. They are still very small but growing well.
  • Started applying mulch after cleaning the dahlia bed.
  • Sowed dahlia seeds indoors which are now growing nicely under grow lights
  • Snapdragons, swiss chards, and beets seedlings are growing well too.
  • Tomato seedlings look so big and strong!

Highlights of the garden in March are captured in this video:

February in my PNW Garden

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We rolled into February with hope for warmer weather and a pile of gardening chores. But first, it was so exciting to see the Iris Reticulata start to bloom as soon as the new month began!

Hellebore blooms are still going strong! Its amazing how long these lasts. I already cleaned up the older leaves, and the flowers look much better now – but still not as “flashy” as I would like. A little confession – though I appreciate the early blooms and the long lasting flowers, I am not sure that I love the hellebores too much. They remain very close to the ground and seem to disappear into the surroundings unless I peer close to them – even though I have 4 of them in my backyard. . They are expensive plants, so planting en masse is not an option for a thrifty gardener like me. I am on the look out for a very early blooming, deep shade plant that will lift the winter spirit.

The crocuses have started blooming too! These are very attractive to rabbits, so I truly treasure the few that manages to bloom in the garden. The ones that I planted in pots are strangely still not blooming. There are a few daffodils starting to bloom but I am waiting for the main show. My favorite pink camellia has started to flower but then again, the full display is eagerly awaited. Same with Primrose Wanda – I overlook this hardy, beautiful primrose but it adds the pop of color just at the right time. I have them as a border in my front yard and also all around the garden.

On the house plant front, the Thanksgiving cactus is flowering again! I missed the flush of bloom during Thanksgiving time as I was vacationing in India, so I am thrilled to see some flowers now. The African Violets I bought last month are still in flower. So happy to see the long life of these beautiful flowers. I forced some forsythia branches to bloom indoors. I love the bright yellow flowers this time of the year which are also very appropriate for Saraswati Puja. If you want to know the process I use to force branches indoors, you can review my post on this.

The tomato seeds (Beefsteak variety) I sowed on 1/21 have germinated and doing well. They even grew tall enough and I repotted them into bigger pots. However, the pepper seeds (Hot Portugal variety) did not germinate. They seeds were very old and I think they were not viable.

Garden chores completed this month:

  • Cleaned up the two front yards.
  • The flower beds in the front yard now has nice, crisp edging – thanks to Anselmo who helped me with that.
  • Hydrangeas and roses pruned.
  • Hydrangeas fertilized.
  • Started the pre-sprouting process for Ranunculus and Anemones.
  • Sowed Swiss Chards seeds indoors on 2/6. Only one out of 6 germinated. I think I am wasting my time on the old seeds.
  • Spinach seeds sowed indoors on 2/6. No germination on this at all. I will try growing them as micro greens before discarding the seeds.
  • Sowed Apple Blossom Snapdragon seeds indoors on 2/27.

A short video encapsulating the February Garden is below:

My green house mates

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I want to start this post by providing a disclaimer that I am less enthusiastic about growing plants indoors than I am about growing them out in my yard. I mostly grow plant indoors for the aesthetic they bring in my home decor and I use them for styling spaces. Thats also the reason I struggle to find the plants that fits into the conditions where I want to have them. A “plant room” concept doesn’t appeal to me – yet! I have learnt that how I decorate a room has evolved over time and I am not going to predict that I will never take a liking to a room for my plants only. I also like to style the indoor plants in containers which go with my current decorating style. I change these containers as per season and as often as my mood strikes.

This pothos is very special to me and has lived with me for more about a decade. She was a gift from a gardening friend in when I was not sure I could take care of a house plant. She gave it to me with the reassurance “you can’t kill her” and I am happy to report that I have proved her right 🙂

The planter is also special and a handmade wooden one from Indonesia. I bought her when we moved into our first house in 2006. She is absolutely gorgeous and holds a place of pride in my living room.

These Angel Plants are newly acquired. I enjoy the gorgeous foliage of these lovely plants. The one in red pot is called the Dragon’s Tongue. The foliage is grass-like, wispy and purplish green. The pot itself is recycled from an Orchid that I had once owned.

The one in the pewter pitcher is called “Purple Waffles” angel plant. I love the crinkled edge foliage of this plant. The pitcher is from my collection of water jugs.

I “rescued” this palm recently from the clearance rack. It was suffering from very dry soil, there were multiple dried/dead fronds and the foliage also had hard water residue. I cut off the dead stalks, cleaned the foliage with neem oil and watered thoroughly. Approximately 3 weeks later, I can see a fresh new frond opening. It is beautiful and for now in a beautiful basket I already had at home. Thrifty tip of the week – always check the clearance racks when you shop for new plants.

The other plants I have around me indoors are a few succulents (echeverias), a couple of Christmas cacti, bamboo and a gorgeous umbrella plant. The echeverias are housed in smaller containers like this lovely season appropriate espresso mug. The two Christmas cacti are more than a decade old and blooms in all but the Christmas season. The flowers are pink and very dainty. The bamboos live in container filled with water in my dining table and the umbrella plant is in a corner of my dining room.

I have few other plants around the house like spider plants, snake plant (aka Mother-In-Laws tongue), Dracaenas and bromeliads. They blend into the background without trying to hog attention – just as I like all my house plants to do. One thing to add, I never feed/fertilize my house plants. I do change the soil every 3/4 years and give them fresh potting mix to enjoy. They all sit close to a light source (window sills, sky light) and I water them sparingly (once a month) during the winter and more often (at least twice a month) during the summer.

Hope you enjoyed seeing some of my house plants. Let me know if you did and tell me what you enjoy growing in your house?