by angela@diggingbliss | Aug 16, 2013 | air plants, fertilizing, ponds
I love how blogs propagate neat ideas somewhat randomly and virally throughout the land. Via The Horticult, I recently learned that by soaking your air plants in pond water, they are actually being fed by “pond scum” at the same time! Check out their post titled “Soak City: An Unlikely Fertilizer for Tillandsia”.
I love this idea because it’s a clever, efficient and thrifty use of a waste product. As is the way of the web, the folks at The Horticult learned this tip from Florida air plant purveyor Air Plant City’s “Caring For Your Tillandsia” page.
I was able to put this feeding method into practice at the nursery yesterday, but will have to wait until I have a pond at home to determine how well this works as a long-term feeding regimen. Until then, I can use Grow More 17-8-22 Bromeliad & Tillandsia Fertilizer
on my tillies at home. Grow More’s is the only commercial tilly fertilizer I’ve come across that’s relatively inexpensive and readily available.
by angela@diggingbliss | Aug 9, 2013 | container gardening, moss, planters
Being a tomboy who came to lipstick later in life, I don’t have the ability to get super excited about handbags and high heels. I have one purse, a little Tignanello backpack purse, that holds all my stuff and allows me to move about my life with both hands free. The allure of a really expensive handbag slung over one shoulder escapes me entirely. My affliction is rare, judging from the abundance of websites, blogs and gossip rags devoted to the daily chronicling of female celebrities and their $10,000 designer handbags. To me, purses and shoes are just… meh. Unless they’re made of moss.
Finally, something ladylike I can get excited about! Hmm… what to plant? A little string of pearls succulent to go with that plantable high heel of yours? Super Moss
makes these adorable moss purse planters, which make fun gifts, planted or unplanted.
Moss purse with String of Pearls (Senecio rowleyanus), Echeveria and Calibrachoa
by angela@diggingbliss | Aug 5, 2013 | container gardening, talini's nursery, vertical gardening
We got new wall pots, aptly named WallPots, in at Talini’s. Each WallPot contains three deep pockets and has plenty of grommets for attaching to vertical surfaces. This one, I planted with mostly shade-loving plants. Update: the lobelia bit the dust, but the begonia and potato vine are thriving.
WallPots
by angela@diggingbliss | Jul 29, 2013 | landscaping, trees
We finally did the dirty deed. The huge sycamore tree dominating our small backyard is gone. Granted, the tree was not diseased, nor a danger. But it snuffed out precious morning light, dropped anthracnose-ey leaves everywhere, and it was simply too big and oddly placed.
The work was done while I was at work, but my fiance Kim was able to photograph and videotape everything. He texted me photos throughout the day, so I could see the progress.
When I first moved in, my friend Cheryl said,
“It would be a sin”
to cut down the ginormous tree in the back. And my mom recently declared,
“You can’t cut down that tree.”
I did appreciate their concern for the tree and all it provides (loveliness, greenery, shade), but every once in a while ya gotta do something selfish. The tree was casting a shadow, literally and figuratively, on my happiness.
The first few cuts on the backyard sycamore
In my mind, I was left with two options– either move to another house or kill the tree. After much mulling and several bids from arborists, I finally went with my gut. After all, we live here and want to be happy here. And my folks just built a house behind ours, so if we move now, we’ll lose out on the closeness that proximity affords. (more…)
by angela@diggingbliss | Jul 20, 2013 | books, digital gardening, gardening books
If you’re not one of those people who needs to smell the papyrus when reading, you might be interested in knowing there’s starting to be quite a nice selection of digital gardening books available for FREE from your local library. OverDrive is the mover and shaker in the business these days, with some competition from the 3M Cloud Library. While OverDrive and 3M are the e-book vendors, your library is the provider. (more…)
by angela@diggingbliss | Jul 12, 2013 | air plants, houseplants
At the nursery where I work, we regularly receive shipments of Tillandsias or “air plants”. Thoughts on maintaining them varied among employees, but the general consensus was that they required “occasional misting”. That seems logical, but what we ended up with were air plants that were too dry at the tips and rotted at the base.
With multiple employees whisking by at random times to give a quick spritz , we were probably misting our tillandsias to death. Over time and after doing a bit more Googling, we decided instead to give our air plants a nice long bath in tepid water, with absolutely no misting between baths. Soaking times can vary, but the longest recommended time I found on Tillandsia sites was 24 hours. The result? Happy air plants!
When I soak my plants at home, the average soaking time is two to four hours, once every week or two. I let my plants’ appearance guide me in determining when to water. After removing my tillandsias from their bath water, they feel turgid back on their Thigmotrope Satellite Fleet tillandsia holders they go. To gauge when to water again, I just give the plants a gentle squeeze. If the leaves look curled or dull or limp and have some give when I squeeze them, it’s time to water again.
To ensure even soaking, I flip my plants mid-soak.
My next assignment is to find a good air plant fertilizer regimen, because I want to encourage them to multiply and re-bloom. Can that be achieved in my filtered-light bathroom? We’ll see!
by angela@diggingbliss | Jun 16, 2013 | Uncategorized
I’ve had these Flora Grubb Thigmatrope Satellite Fleet air plant holders on my mental wish list since the first time I saw them online. This is the most clever, ingenious, slightly rustic, simple, elegant, artistic way to display air plants on a wall. At fifteen bucks a pop, I didn’t immediately order seven of them. I went through my usual internal dialogue–
Fifteen dollars? Each?! I wonder if I could make them. No. Who do I know who could make these for me? Elliot. Who do I know who would actually do it? No one. They really are clever. And somebody did already make them. Fifteen dollars really isn’t so bad and they’ll last forever. And here they are. And I’m only going to get three for now.
During my first visit to Flora Grubb on Friday, I decided that if I was going to buy anything, it should be a few of these, with an air plant for each. Perusing the air plants is half the fun. (more…)
by angela@diggingbliss | Jun 15, 2013 | flora grubb, nursery
I made my first visit to Flora Grubb Gardens yesterday, a San Francisco garden shop I’ve admired online for years. It’s wonderful, and exceeded my expectations in terms of overall fabulousness. Flora Grubb was our last stop of the day before heading home to Sacramento, and the timing was almost perfect.
Except for Ritual Coffee Roasters being closed for the day, we happened to visit in the last hour before closing time. They were “un-crowded” enough for us to enjoy the park-like peacefulness and the opportunity to explore all parts of the nursery, from the outdoor garden vignettes with color-coordinated plants, pots and furniture, to the napping nursery cat, to all the cool, clever and useful supplies inside.
This is air plant heaven, succulent heaven, junk art heaven, garden furniture heaven, and nursery + cafe heaven. We even experienced parking heaven as I was able to pull my Honda into a spot right out front. After a day of parking dramas and dodging buses, cyclists, and pedestrians, it felt somewhat decadent to be able to park… for free… at the entrance.
by angela@diggingbliss | Mar 15, 2013 | Uncategorized
I was so happy to discover that there’s an iPad/iPhone version of the heavy, moisture-sensitive but invaluable resource for Western gardeners, the Sunset Western Garden Book. Sunset has teamed up with Inkling to create the digital version of the New Western Garden Book.
I first tried downloading it to my iPhone 4S, but apparently, I lack sufficient storage on my phone. It’ll probably work and fit better when I upgrade to the iPhone 5 with more storage. It did download to my iPad and from what I can see so far, it’s going to be a useful tool at my nursery job and at home. You can search, highlight, take notes, bookmark plants, and there are features that are included in the app that are not in the book.
The app is also compatible with PC and Mac, and includes bonus content such as regional gardening calendars and Inkling-only plant listings. Not to mention, you can share WGB plant entries by e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and a simple hyperlink. This makes me positively giddy.
by angela@diggingbliss | Jan 29, 2013 | Uncategorized
I don’t know if it’s this sudden shift toward Spring-like weather, or the fact that I just bought the house I’ve been renting since my divorce in ’09… and the fact that my fiance is about to shed his money-sucking house that screamed all that was instead of all that we were trying to become… but suddenly, I feel like blogging again!
I was pretty burnt-out on garden blogging and felt like I’d never go back to it because there are simply too many blogs out there on gardening, yoga, cats, cooking, politics, etc., and really, who cares, and what the hell do I have to say about anything anyway, in my now-tiny yard and rental house? When I had a kick ass garden and a lot more free time, blogging was an easy outlet for me. Around the time I fled the big house and garden, Facebook came along replaced the enjoyably distant connectedness that my blog had provided me.
Facebook is still fun, but I can’t seem to quiet that nagging voice in the back of my head saying, “Hey, why are you making Mr. “I’m CEO, Bitch!” Zuckerberg even richer by giving him your words, your friends and family, and your photos?” After happening upon a superb food blog, Pinch of Yum, it got me thinking about going back to blogging. I’m a decent writer, a decent photographer with Photoshop skills, and I am passionate not just about gardening, but food and homemaking and entertaining and humor and integrity and love and run-on sentences, and, yes, goofy animals and… about every four years… I throw in a liberally biased post or two because I’m preoccupied with the election (Yay, Obama!). :-)) (more…)
