I can now identify when a flower will open, and through observation, I know the flowers will open around noon. This has given me time to set up the camera. The actual opening only takes a few minutes, but it's a magnificent few minutes!
Is it possible for your passion flower to bloom in its first year?

I spent a lot of time Googling this question without getting a straight answer. Why did I want to know? I ordered some American Passion Flower seeds from Richters in January, after realizing that the previous year I had grown Passion Fruit (seeds also from Richters) with the hopes of having passion flowers, but ended ...
2018 Post-holiday garden
Although it is like living in a greenhouse (because we haven't had air conditioning since returning from our holidays), most of the plants (indoors and out) are soaking in this heat and humidity. I've only had about four casualties within the indoor group, and no deaths or injuries to the outdoor group. Speaking of my ...
2018 Urban Garden

In the past, I've provided updates from the moment I seed, so obviously I have some catching up to do. Something I struggled with last year and again this year is figuring out the optimal time to start seeding (based on my previous successes and failures). It's difficult to keep all the details straight in ...
I purchased a carnivorous plant

On a walk down Roncy with a friend, I had discovered this jem of a flower shop called Willem & Jools. I had purchased a beautiful calathea (prayer plant). So when hubs and I were invited to a housewarming, I immediately thought of this shop. Unfortunately they no longer carried the calathea, but I found ...
Air layering my fig tree

It's not news that The King (desert king fig tree) is getting too tall for us to easily bring into our garage for the winter. It has grown approximately four feet taller this year, but there is a significant gap between the first junction of branches, and the new growth - 22-inches of space! I managed ...
August garden update – more blushing!

Yep, that's my garden. The forecast for this week is upper 20s, but of course we can't have one predicted dry week. There's rain in the forecast, but at least today is gorgeous. You can imagine how delighted I was to find this happening in my pepper patch! This is definitely a new development. This is ...
It hasn’t been an ideal summer for my garden
It's almost mid-August, and the days are noticeably getting shorter. Yes, it's kind of depressing. We've had some short stretches of hot days, but compared to last summer, it hasn't been a hot summer. It's definitely been a much wetter summer than last year. Combine this with me starting my seeding a month later than ...
Green

Everything is green! The Marcato peppers are a very nice size - all green! Shishito peppers - green. At least I can harvest them green. Another new variety is the Doe Hill pepper. They are round, and green! Remember my Arbol pepper plant that looked all gnarly? It's grown out of that phase (or the thrips have moved ...