Random plant event: Huernia oculata, Plus an Outdoor Question

I realize that I just posted about Huernia oculata a month ago, and it wasn't that interesting then either, but not much is going on with the non-Anthurium plants lately. This is also the first bloom I've seen on this particular specimen of H. oculata, which presumably makes it at least a little newsworthy even if it isn't fully open yet.

On an unrelated note: when we first moved to this house, I had bought a bunch of plants from the ex-job. Planted most of them in containers, because we didn't have beds established yet (and, five years later, we still mostly don't, though we're working on it), and I remember being struck by one color combination in particular -- Geranium 'Rozanne' (blue-violet) and some unnamed red-orange Zinnia. (See the last picture on this post.)

I'm wanting to do something like that again somewhere, eventually, though maybe with something more of a true blue and true orange. Would anybody want to recommend some plants for me? Ideally, they would:

1) Be reseeding annuals (preferred) or slowly-spreading perennials, that
2) bloom at more or less the same time (ideally over a long period of time),
3) either aren't fussy as to soil type or could live together in the same soil type, whatever the ideal type might be,
4) could coexist for a reasonably long time without one crowding or shading the other out,
5) would survive a very windy, bright location in zone 5b.

The idea got re-sparked when I ran across the Annie's Annuals page for Nigella damascena 'Miss Jekyll Dark Blue'; I'm also possibly interested in thoughts on Lobelia erinus 'Monsoon', Eschscholzia californica, orange Tagetes patula cultivars, Zinnias, or whatever.

Saturday morning Sheba picture

Flies in (and out of) Drag

Because of the recent and ongoing ruckus about honeybees and colony collapse disorder, I've been watching carefully for honeybees on the various flowering plants we've got outside this year. So far, not a one, though that might just mean we're not growing anything they find appealing.

There are plenty of other insects to look at, though. A few are even bees. They're just not honeybees.

Is there any plant that looks more like fireworks than dill does?
We sowed some dill seeds this year, because I was hoping to get swallowtail caterpillars and/or butterflies (also I just really like dill pickles, so now I can smell them all the time). Nothing so far, but I don't have much of a grasp of when swallowtail butterflies are supposed to be in Iowa in the first place.

What's appreciating the dill instead are mostly green bottle flies (Lucilia sericata). Which I suppose I don't mind, since nobody else was using it, and bottle flies do have their positive qualities, but this was hardly the original plan.

I should probably also note that we've used the dill once, in cooking. Turns out that there is in fact such a thing as too much dill.

The cilantro (Coriandrum sativum) that came with the house keeps popping up here and there; it's gotten moved at least two times so far, but every year, enough seeds manage to survive to keep the population going. We haven't done any cooking with it, despite having had it around for four years: I'm not particularly a fan (though I can understand why people could be), and really my main interest in it is visual: the clouds of little white flowers appeal to me.

"Morning, Ralph."
"Morning, Sam."
They're apparently also appealing to ants. I really like that picture. Something about their posture, or something.

Flies are also really fond of the Coriandrum flowers. I don't know what species this is, but they are everywhere this year. I see them all the time on the marigolds and Portulacas as well. I don't know the ID; I haven't even been able to come up with a general ballpark guess on an ID. They're flies of some kind, and that's as much as I can tell you.

Sometimes, I don't even know that the insects are there, when I take the picture. Like, I didn't see this until I uploaded the pictures to my computer:

Oh, what a nice picture of a flower OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT FUCKING THING GET IT AWAY GET IT AWAY GET IT AWAY.
After some searching on-line, I've tentatively identified this as the larva of Coleomagilla maculata, the spotted lady beetle. This could be better news: C. maculata is allegedly capable of surviving almost entirely on pollen, so it's not necessarily helping me out that much with insect pests. Not that I've seen much in the way of insect pests this year. (A few whiteflies. No pictures of those yet.)

OTHER WAY! GO THE OTHER WAY!
There is at least one actual bee so far this year; I don't know which one it is. (I tried looking it up, but there are so many tiny bees in Iowa that I didn't even know where to start.)

They're not very picky, whatever they are. I think this is the same species, on Tagetes:

And maybe again on a dandelion:

But the insect I started this post to talk about is this last one.

Because it looked enough like a honeybee at first glance, I initially got excited about this, but the longer I looked, the more it seemed . . . not quite right. Once I'd uploaded the pictures to the computer, and had a chance to look around a bit, I concluded that, whatever it might be, it was definitely not a bee -- no pollen baskets on the legs, only one pair of wings, stubby antennae, huge eyes, and it didn't seem nearly fuzzy enough to be a bee.

After some research, I think the genus is probably Eristalis (hoverflies, drone flies). One of the more likely candidates for the species is E. tenax. Which seemed fine, until I read the Wikipedia entry for E. tenax. Now that I have, I'm kind of retroactively grossed out by it: I could have been perfectly happy not knowing that there was such a thing as a "rat-tailed maggot." No wonder it wants to dress up as something else.

Random plant event: Tagetes patula 'Durango Bee'

This is one of those things that I expect will be minor -- possibly even trivial -- to most of you, but it's new (more like "new") and exciting to me, so I'm blogging about it anyway.

When we first moved in here, I bought some 'Durango Bee' marigolds to plant, because . . . well, it's one of those cases where although I can see perfectly well why people might not like them, and sort of feel like I shouldn't like them much myself, I nevertheless enjoy them. It's kind of weird. (The flip side, not liking plants that everybody else thinks are awesome, happens to me a lot more often, it seems like.) At the end of the 2009 season, I collected a bunch of seeds, stored them over the winter, and then somehow neglected to try sowing them anywhere. So in 2011, I threw them all into an otherwise-unused spot, in hopes that maybe they'd do something even though they were old, and to my surprise, they did! And I posted about it at the time.

So then history repeated itself. I collected seeds in 2011, and then for some reason didn't do anything with them last year, so I scattered them into the Portulaca / Muscari bed on the off chance that they might sprout, not really expecting them to. Having already forgotten about the 2011 experience, I was then delighted when they unexpectedly came up again. And we've now hit the point where the first flower bud of the year has opened.

The main conclusion we can draw from this: there will probably be a post in June or July 2015 in which I excitedly announce that I've discovered Tagetes seeds can remain viable ~18 months after collection.

I should also probably note for my own records that the color doesn't coordinate with that of the Portulacas very well. I'm not bothered by it at the moment (we'll see how I feel once more of the Tagetes flowers open up), but they're too dark too look right, I think.

Work-related: everybody looks bad

This post is a little over two years old. I ran into it during the recent blog maintenance, and I was initially surprised that I hadn't posted it, because it looked like it was more or less complete: the pictures were already present, the code for the footnotes (usually the last thing I do with a post, because it's awkward to change once in place) had been done. It's rare for a post to reach this stage without getting posted.

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Zinnia 'Profusion Mix.'
Ouch. The first Saturday of May should not be sunny. It brings out too many customers all at once. It wasn't necessarily terrible to be busy, though I did something to my back early in the day, which hurts, and which would probably heal up just fine if I could rest it, but I've got (as I write this on Sunday morning) two more days of work, and then I have to water all the plants at home, so that's not looking too likely.

(Just FYI, though: the first Saturday in May is probably the weekend you want to show up to shop, if you live around here: our actual last frost date is May 15, give or take, but if you want to be able to buy before we're sold out of things, a couple weeks earlier is about ideal. And actually the first Friday is probably even better, if you can manage it.)

For as many as there were, the customers on Saturday were very well-behaved (better than the co-workers, anyway: one of the co-workers is closer than s/he realizes to being beaten to death with a shovel¹), with one exception:

One lady waved me over to the succulents while I was watering and asked for a price on a $9.95 Adenium obesum.

I told her $9.95.

Tagetes patula 'Little Hero Yellow.'
Oh, she said, well someone told me it was only $5.99.

I don't know what to tell you, I said back. The prices go by pot size, that's a 4-inch pot, therefore it's $9.95.

CUSTOMER: But someone said $5.99.

MR_S: Well, um, we do have $5.99 plants, but That. Is. Not. One. Of. Them.

[long pause]

CUSTOMER: Okay, well, thank you.

Euphorbia 'Diamond Frost.'
So then a couple hours later, one of the front counter people comes back to the greenhouse for something or another, and while s/he's back there, s/he says, so -- what's the price on those plants that have the big bulb thing at the base? Are those succulents or tropicals or what?

MR_S: Which ones? These? [pointing to a Beaucarnea recurvata]

FRONT COUNTER PERSON: Maybe. I'm not sure.

Then it dawned on me why s/he was asking, and I pointed to the Adeniums, and s/he was like, yes, that one. What price are those?

MR_S: $9.95.

Osteospermum 'Summertime Red Velvet.'
FRONT COUNTER PERSON: 'Cause I had a customer insist that somebody had told her $5.99.

MR_S: Yeah, I know which customer you're talking about. I told her $9.95 repeatedly.

FRONT COUNTER PERSON: Wait -- you'd told her $9.95?

MR_S: Repeatedly.

FRONT COUNTER PERSON: [Expletives]²

Bracteantha bracteata 'Firey Orange.'
MR_S: Why? What price did you give her?

FRONT COUNTER PERSON: Well she kept saying someone had told her $5.99, so we wound up giving it to her for $5.99. [pause] You know, I don't mean to talk bad about [customer's ethnic group],

MR_S: [cringes in anticipation]

FRONT COUNTER PERSON: but . . . [proceeds to talk bad about customer's ethnic group]

MR_S: *facepalm*

Only 20 days left.³

Osteospermum 'Summertime Sunshine.'
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¹ Exaggerated for dramatic effect, but s/he has about a 50-50 chance of getting the verbal equivalent of being beaten to death with a shovel, whatever that would be, before I'm done with the job. S/he would be wise to stay out of my way. Tragically, s/he is not a particularly wise person, and probably will not stay out of my way.
² Also exaggerated for dramatic effect. I don't remember exactly what s/he said.
³ Unless I come back for June. Which I said I might do. Not looking real probable at the moment, though.

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For what it's worth, the one problematic co-worker didn't get beaten with a shovel. Still deserves it, though.

I'm not certain which front counter person was in the story -- my personal journal doesn't record the interaction -- but if it's who I remember it as being, then yes, s/he still works there.

Pretty picture: Tagetes patula 'Durango Bee'

Two years ago, when we moved into the house, I bought some Tagetes patula 'Durango Bee' plants along, which performed nicely and which I enjoyed. At the end of the season, I went out and collected a bunch of seeds, intending to plant them the next year and see what happened, and then last summer I didn't wind up planting anything anywhere, for what were no doubt noble and logical reasons, so the seeds wound up sitting in my file cabinet. This spring, I remembered that I had this container filled with hundreds of seeds, and figured that even though they were probably no good anymore, I could try to sprinkle them around outside and see if anything grew. If it worked, hooray, and if it didn't, at least I'd emptied out the container.

I didn't get very many at all: maybe 20 or 30. And the ones I did get all look like the originals, which is both good (I liked the originals) and bad (unsurprising). But that's still better than I'd expected, so I'm happy with this. Next year I'll know to try to start them earlier, inside, and have a designated place to plant them.

Pretty picture: Tagetes patula 'Durango Bee'

Beginning to get semi-permanent locations for the plants: all the shelves I have to set up have been set up, and the plants are slowly shuffling into positions. All the Anthuriums are in the living room, where they're hanging out with the African violets; the Dieffenbachias and Aglaonemas are in my office; the Clivias and Spathiphyllums have been banished to the basement. Unfortunately, that still leaves, you know, like four hundred more plants to deal with.

Confirmed casualties of the move so far: one coleus, one African violet, probably two, a Streptocarpus, which fucking deserved it (I am angry at the whole Streptocarpus genus right now), and a Dracaena fragrans 'Massangeana.' Though there will probably be more than that when this is all over. (On the other hand, there have also been several new acquisitions since the move, because apparently I really and truly cannot help myself.)

Anyway. So picture-taking has been minimal, and I can only really take pictures of the few plants I can still get to, so: marigolds. Whee.


My past experience has been that any major life change (relocation, new job, leaving a job) takes about three months to seem normal. So I figure I've still got another eight or nine weeks of this. Do. Not. Want.

Pretty pictures: Orange

Mom was fond of the color orange when I was growing up: we had orange curtains in the kitchen, and orange Tupperware containers for flour and sugar, orange measuring spoons, just orange orange orange. (It was the 70s: people did that then.) I never really cared for it, personally, but I can see how orange flowers in the garden might be nice. A lot of them have been grabbing my attention lately.

Bracteantha bracteata 'Sundaze Flame.'
Younger Co-Worker told me a few days ago that she hated strawflowers. I don't recall her giving any reasons, when I asked why, she just kind of gestured at them, like it was just obvious. Possibly she said something about them being noisy. I told her that I'd heard that only stupid people hate Bracteanthas. Then the next day, Wonderful Co-Worker spontaneously expressed a dislike of Bracteanthas too. I don't know what it is. They seem like perfectly nice plants to me. Last year, they hung around forever, not really selling, and then all of a sudden I came in one day and they were all gone, all sold to the same person. I'm hoping history repeats.

Begonia NOID, possibly 'Britt Dark.' I usually take pictures of the ID tags after taking pictures of the plant: it's faster than writing things down. In this particular case, though, the pictures may have gotten out of order, and so I'm not sure what this plant's proper name is.
Rieger Begonias are one of those plants that have really, um . . . what's the opposite of "grown on me?" "Grown off me?" That doesn't sound right. In any case. I don't know why, exactly: they're tricky to water (too much and the leaves mildew, not enough and the edges of the petals turn brown and hideous), but that's not the entire story. I don't know. Whatever the reason, somewhere along the way I started referring to them in my head as "the vile Rieger begonias," and it's not entirely a joke.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis 'Caribbean Breeze.'
Hibiscus, though, are fine. I was actually incredibly tempted to buy this one when it was around (it's since sold). The picture doesn't do it justice. I held off because of the price (not outrageous, but a little high for what it was) and because Hibiscus are so bug-prone that I'm not sure I want one. I mean, I want one, but not if it's going to get aphids, whitefly, and spider mites.

Calibrachoa 'Tequila Sunrise.' I recommend opening this one, in particular, in a new window.
I like Calibrachoa in general, but 'Tequila Sunrise' in particular. The colors!

Cosmos 'Cosmic Mix.'
Cosmos 'Cosmic Mix.'
'Cosmic Mix' is the only Cosmos we've offered for sale since I've had this job. I know there are other colors and mixes, because we have them for sale as seeds, but for some reason we don't bother with them. I don't know why not. I do love 'Cosmic Mix,' though. Yellow-orange, orange, red-orange. Pretty hot.

Zinnia 'Profusion Apricot.'
Zinnia 'Profusion Apricot' doesn't photograph well: the first batch I took came out looking kind of pink-purple, and the above photo, from the second round, is closer but still wrong somehow. It looks all . . . muddy in a way that the real flowers don't.

Gerbera jamesonii 'Festival Spider Orange.'
We haven't actually had this particular plant around for a couple months, but it's worth throwing in here anyway. Orange is orange. I'm not a big fan of Gerberas, for essentially the same reasons as the Reiger Begonias: they're not easy to keep going at this time of year, when so many other things need our attention too. They tend to either get too wet (in which case mildew) or too dry (in which case wilting). Though like the Riegers, they sell well.

Tagetes patula NOID, probably 'Safari Orange' or 'Durango Orange.'
I like the little marigolds. This year's crop turned out much better than last year's: they're very pretty. We maybe should have started more.

Thunbergia alata.
Got this one in pre-finished as a hanging basket. We started some of our own from seed, too, but they're not really doing anything yet, and I'm thinking by the time they're ready to bloom, it may be too late.

Misc.

I've added three worthy new blogs to the sidebar for everyone to check out:

Daffodil Planter, which I first noticed when it happened to be on a list at Blotanical right next to PATSP, and checked out because it claimed to be funny (it was). Particularly recommended is Are you one of these difficult garden center customers?, because it's really really really timely this month, and also funny. I wish I could print a copy and stick it on the front door at work, and make customers read it before coming in. But I can't do that.

Callus and Chlorophyll, which is less frequently updated but also funny, which I found out about because DaffodilPlanter sent me a message through Blotanical that I should check C&C out.

Random Rants and Prickly Plants, added because Claude left a comment on the post this morning, prompting me to check out his profile and then his blog, reminding me that I'd intended to add RR&PP to the blogroll at some point a long time ago and then forgot.

In unrelated news, I bought three six-packs of the above marigold (Tagetes patula 'Durango Bee') yesterday. I was originally planning to put them in a large pot with an elephant ear (Colocasia?) and call it good, but now I'm thinking maybe something else should go with the elephant ear, and the marigolds should get planted elsewhere. Probably some form of the original plan, in the end, 'cause I don't have enough time to think about other options. I'm just hoping I can keep everything alive until I have time to get it to the house and plant it.

My just-received copy of Wicked Plants, being held by the (poisonous) Pedilanthus tithymaloides.
I also just got my copy of Wicked Plants. So far, houseplants appear to be somewhat underrepresented, but they do get pp. 27-29, which I suppose will have to do. Review to follow . . . eventually.

Pretty picture: Tagetes patula

I'm honestly unable to reach a decision on whether I like these guys or not. The smell's okay, the colors are good, the plants themselves come and go. They don't look so pretty when they need to be deadheaded, I'm discovering. (The same goes for Gazania, alas, though I still think I like Gazania.) Also they don't shake off spider mite infestations very readily, it seems. But still. There are worse plants out there. So I don't know.

Random plant event: Tagetes patula 'Little Devil Fire' flowers

Things happen so fast this time of year. It didn't seem like I was out sick for all that long, but I come back yesterday and there's all kinds of new stuff going on. These flats of marigolds were all green when I left them Monday, and now almost every single one has a flower on it.


People are funny about marigolds. I've already had one co-worker give me a little rant about how much she hates them (apparently mostly because of the smell, and because they're so common, both of which I can understand). I don't have any strong feelings either way, so far, but that will probably change. I kind of like the foliage, though.