Tag: KihakuGatoOriginalPosts

Hatiora gaertneri flowers
Photographed February 16 2018

Proof we can’t give seasonal-based names to houseplants; we got an Easter Cactus flowering around Valentines Day. It’s not just their cousins the Christmas Cacti (Schlumbergera) that tend to flower “offseason” lol.

Katsura (Cercidiphyllum japonicum) Germination
Photographed 2018

Stratford collected. Surface sown under growlights and on a heat mat, Generic Promix growing media. Will probably have to be thinned/repotted in the next few days.

Third time’s a charm?
Photographed January 29th 2018

This orchid is the very last survivor of the dwarf orchids and she’s gone through so much hell and isn’t even at top form yet here she is trying to grow her third attempt of a flower stalk. No pun intended in that I’m rooting for her to succeed this time! I have never seen her flowers before so it’d be such a treat to see.

Katsura (Cercidiphyllum japonicum) seed sown into a Windowbox planter, Photographed January 7th 2018

Have I mentioned that I’m surprised I got any seeds at all from stratford cause of how late in the season the harvest was? Cause I’m still floored I even got so many seeds. Little behind schedule again with seed sowing (I was gonna sow these guys back at the start of 2017 Christmas holidays) but nonetheless in the window of time I’d still prefer to get them their kickstart. Katsura are reputably tender to winter freezes/frosts when young so getting them started now will give them a better chance of survival for the next winter. Window boxes to put it bluntly have very poor drainage for seedlings so most window boxes I’ve been using I’ve been drilling holes into them like patterned swiss cheese to give lots of consistent drainage for when I start watering the trays more routinely. Ngl I’ve been doing the “is there sprouts yet?” checking ever since I sowed these up.

If my memory serves me right within the 20th+ days of this month onwards a lot more seeds are gonna be started from the fridge stratification and it’s gonna definitely fill up my growlights and probably spend through the majority of my currently prepped potting soil <A< sooo good thing I have these lights moved to their new place and already re-set up for the work that’s to come.

Badly photoshopped (or technically fireaplaca’d but w/e) ideas/brainstorms for my now empty canvas of a shadowbox (cleaning it out of gross jarred insects was so overdue). Thinking fruitiforms to make most of the space while following a botanical theme. In order with pros/cons of each organizational idea;

Picea (Spruce) Species

  • Pros– Very easy to acquire said fruitiforms. Very clean and easy to dry.
  • Cons– Least decorative/interesting, the majority of Picea save for P. abies cones are very small so detract from such a large shadowbox display without adding multiples to balance it out.

Pinus (Pine) Species

  • Pros– Moderately to very decorative, moderately easy to acquire.
  • Cons– Very few species acquirable in the locality outside of P. sylvesteris, P. nigra, and P. strobus (last being actually moderately tricky to acquire intact cones of though trees are common) so not a lot of variety for the display. P. strobus cones while decorative are also quite messy. Most Pinus species’ open cones are much too wide to easily fit into the box.

Magnolia Species

Pros– Very variable fruitiforms making for a very unique/exotic display. The rarity of such of a display of species would be worth getting smug about.

Cons– Difficult to acquire (majority only accessible via distant arboretums & botanical gardens). Depending on species the fleshiness of fruitiforms (M. macrophylla in particular) may be very difficult to dry. Seeds which could make the display even prettier both difficult to dry as well as too valuable to leave in a shadowbox when they could be cleaned/sown instead.

Mixed Species

  • Pros– Can cherry pick for most decorative/dryable species of each group.
  • Cons– Thematically chaotic/miscellaneous in a negative way. This is a bigger deal to me than it sounds.

Taking a pretty strong lean on having a Magnolia/Pine based display. What do you guys think? Anyone leaning to one of these themes more than others or do any of you have ideas for an entirely different fruitiform/herbaria theme for such a shadowbox?

Christmas Greetings from the December blooming Schlumbergeras
Photographed December 7th, 10th, & 13th, 2017

Merr Christmas. Even one of my tiny little Schlumbergera seedlings is blooming this month for the occasion! Gotta say though that the Schlumbergera x buckleyi is killing it for standing out this year though, even if the flowers are smaller than the rest!

Apparently it’s World Soil Day (or was, just missed by a few minutes) so here’re my soil-based books.

Publication 494 Ontario Soils- Physical, Chemical and Biological Properties and Soil Management Practices from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food

Soil Management- Best Management Practices from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs.

Ok I didn’t realize these two books were so localized, also the books are oriented for those heavy in the agricultural business (so mentioning the of certain machinery and practices which a common gardener wouldn’t use), however much of the information they have is applicable to those who want to learn about soil. 

THE GREAT BOOK MIGRATION- *bricked*

It is SO DAMN NICE to have a tall enough wall to actually be able to put my books in a legitimate bookshelf against the wall.

I’ve shown you the plant/gardening book collection in the past, but here’s a revisit, with them moved into some “new” shelves (they were used for video cassettes in the living room before) along with all the other books that I have in my book-hoarding claws. With the house addition, I get to take over the new basement as my new bedroom to settle into eventually, so we got ahead of the game and got the books moved down there. I just realized there’s one plant book out of the shot; a tall book on roses that’s put on top of the shelves due to its dumbly huge size, but I think most of you can just use your imagination to put it in the archive of books.

The amount of unread novels/manga should make it apparent as to why I haven’t been buying or wishing for any books anymore (that is, unless they’re new plant reference books), cause my novel devouring is sadly not what it used to be, I do however plan to fix that once I move into the new bedroom as the new shelving makes it less messy/dangerous to un-shelve books for casual reading.

EDIT- also realized I got part of the plant section highlighting wrong but it’s a small bit of that so it can be overlooked *had already deleted the source file I was using for this*

First Houseplant rebloomings
Photographed November 31st 2017

Schlumbergera truncata and Clivia minata did a rush of floral growth since their new room finally got heating for the winter. Funnily the S. truncatas I have began their flower openings around American Thanksgiving (making them for once live up to their common name of Thanksgiving Cactus, normally mine bloom around January), though the yellow flowered form took the lead/show of them all. Sadly there will not be any red Schlumbergera flowers this year as it was one of the few plants that perished from the previous neglect drought. I’m going to have to keep track of what other floral forms have perished before I begin to replace them. I’m nonetheless happy that at least the yellow form is doing well, especially when you consider the fact that it was once considered a far less vigorous colour form/hybrid in the indoor garden market.