"Don't wait for someone to bring you flowers. Plant your own garden and decorate your own soul."
– Mario Quintana
2/17/17:
Blustery windy soaking wet day! Well, all my taller potted trees are braced against the house, the patio umbrella is secured, and I'll have all weekend to clean up whatever tree bits and other debris blows into the yard.
It was quite nice out a few days ago. I found the narcissus bulbs in bloom, and new lettuce sprouts. The wallflowers are also doing really well, in the large wooden pot I transplanted them to last year. Currently the plants are producing lots of little yellow-orange flowers. Sometimes the simple petal shapes look like butterflies to me.
It's now the peak of camellia season. I was climbing around the bushes, trying to get good close-up photos of these gorgeous flowers. Under one of the pale pink varieties, I found an old plastic tag. I looked up the name, Kramer's Supreme. Turns out this is from one of the other bushes nearby, that has big ruffled double blooms in a rich pinkish-red color. I wonder how long ago our landlady brought the camellias into the yard's landscape? I think the house was built in 1976. I've been here since 2001, and the camellias were already fully grown then, from 4 to 9 feet tall.
Clicking on the small images below will bring up the full version.
Narcissus.
Camellias under fuchsia.
Wallflower "butterflies".
While puttering about last weekend, I started experimenting with the rapidtest meter. It turns out that much of my soil is slightly alkaline, which is not surprising this near the coast (limestone deposits). However, I am growing plants such as camellias, fuchsias, peppers, and blackberries, which prefer mildly acidic conditions.
The meter also measures fertility: nitrogen, phosphorus and potash content. Containers that hold mostly store-bought potting mix, recently purchased, fared the best on this test. The pots I'd added my homemade compost to were mostly balanced in nutrients, while older plantings that I'd not fertilized in a while were sadly lacking.
So I've added coffee grounds to the dirt around the camellias and fuchsias, and stirred them into pots of plants that crave acid. Sulfur, vinegar and peat moss are also recommended for lowering pH levels. I could try those eventually. As far as general fertilizer, it looks like I should simply feed the plants more often. I have some compost, and Jobe's Organic. I distributed a few scoops of this to several plants around the yard, in pots and otherwise. The rains over the past few days have started to dissolve the granules. I plant to test things again in a few weeks and see how improved my results are.
