You Grow Girl™

Farmer's Almanac Weather Prediction for Ontario: "Warm, showers."

I love May. May is the month that the weather picks up a quick pace towards a summer of warmth. May means May Two Four weekend, aka planting weekend here in Southern Ontario! Things have been busy on the plant front yet I haven't actually hit the outside since that last warm spell weeks ago. We had exceptionally pleasant weather on Saturday, and while running errands I managed to get a glimpse of things to come. We walked through Trinity Bellwoods park and I was amazed at the buds and leaves on trees. The grass is getting greener, the dandelions are out in full force and things are generally headed towards colour again. We walked down a few side streets and I was happy to see all the spring flowers in bloom. Some people have really made the most of their tiny urban front gardens. I got some gorgeous shots with my digicam.

We recently did some new furniture buying and subsequent rearranging. The place has been a disaster for a week now. All that furniture shifting got the cogs in my head churning and I came up with the brilliant plan to take down wall shelves in my office and replace them with a large 5 shelf bookcase. The wall shelves had been holding some of my plants but weren't adequate in terms of lighting. Being in a south facing window, lighting is great on bright, sunny days, but days like that are few and far between during the winter. I have mostly cacti and succulents in this room (the "desert room") and as a result I NEED light. I had one sad grow light in place that needed a bulb change about a century ago. So over the weekend I took down the shelves (haven't filled in the holes yet), put the new shelf in place and replaced all the plants. I hung grow lights over two of the shelves (one for seedlings and one for small cacti and succulents. I am so proud of this new arrangement. Already my withering stevia has perked up! And what does a new setup require? A new plant of course!

Sunday we attended the Old Paper Show and Sale in a sick need to further our paper burden. I really wasn't in the mood to be easily parted with my money that day and was happy enough to mostly look at stuff. I did purchase a few new plant-related cigarette cards and a book on wild flowers. Davin surprised me with a nice botanical print depicting primulas. On the tortured walk home through cold, pouring rain (it was my bright idea to walk) we stopped at my favourite corner stores at Queen and John to look at plants. Both stores have decent selections. Of course I couldn't resist a new something to grace my new setup and came out with a bargain orchid. It is some kind of phalaenopsis with smallish leaves with a purple hue on the underside. There a few tiny buds left on the flower stem. I'm hoping it will flower so I can see just what on earth I bought. One of the qualities I like best in orchids are the foliage and the way the roots stick out from the pot (and the neat pots with holes) so I'm not overly bothered with the actual flowers themselves. My plant was suffering in a mess of overly damp spagnum moss so I was careful to repot it in a good orchid bark mix as soon as I got it home.

I have recently developed a new "problem". I have an urgent need to save every poorly plant I see in a store. They had loads of new orchids in the store where I bought my plant. The sale orchid wasn't much of a "bargain". But it was still in good shape and I knew that with no flowers on it, no one would buy it. I just felt it had to be rescued now before it succumed to poor conditions. Why do stores wait until a plant is literally dead before reducing the price to a reasonable amount? If they reduced the price earlier, they'd sell out rather than chucking everything later on.

So I now have two orchids. Barely a month ago I was afraid to buy an orchid. Now I have two, one of which (the Vanda) is on the difficult side. God I'm such a plant glutton. I now have well over eighty plants living indoors with me. Remember when I had sixty plants and said there was no way I could possibly find room for one more? You'd think with the 80 plus plants we's have excellent indoor airquality. Yet we don't. Mind you I don't expect that the stone plants and succulents are contributing all that much to the overall quality of the place. But I wonder, if I didn't have plants, just how poor would the air quality in here be? Scary.

Oh and one more thing. The famous Somona^TM crown of thorns plant is flowering!