Plant Notes

Amophorphallus bulbifer had finished rotting out its leaves, so it was time to move the pot out of the fernery. One nice little corm of good health in the palm of the compound leaf. These corms drop to the ground when the leaves die out over the dormancy, and go on to make new tubers. I don't know if this one is big enough to do so, but I popped it down on the pot anyway. Pot has been moved beneath a table, outside. There it will be protected from the frost and getting too much rain, but still get some good cold temperatures.

Pulled out the Ginkgo biloba. Roots were just starting to peek out the drainage hole. It's fully dormant at the moment, so a good time for it to move house. I'm a little concerned about the roots. They're marvellously healthy, but will of course go woody, and I couldn't help thinking about the issue of root girdling which occurs with woody plants. The roots grow around the circle of a pot because there's no where else to go, and with age they thicken and end up strangling the plant. An airpruning pot could help this...except that Ginkgo really wants to keep its feet wet. I'm not sure how it would like all that drying out. Possibly, I may just have to accept that this particular Ginkgo will not be a giant in the ground, but stay wee in a wee pot for its life. Hmm. When I potted it up last time, I put a chux in the bottom of the pot, specifically to retain water down there. That does strike me as a rather daft move, but the plant apparently loved it and had no problem just busting through it. So. No harm done? Not a move I repeated this time, but the roots were so knit through the chux I didn't take it out.

For the time being, it's now in a bigger pot. Gave it a small prune, watered it in, and have put it back in its place to be ignored until it wakes up again in spring. I'm trying again to root the cuttings. They didn't take last year. We'll see.

Finally remembered to bring nail scissors into the greenhouse, and gave a lot of plants a nice tidying. Lots of dead inflorescences that needed snipping. Amazing how removing the scruff makes a plant look so much perkier.

I've learned so much about plants, but I still don't feel like I know what I'm doing.

Green Sticks I Have Known and Loved

There's no accounting for taste. Why we prefer one type of book but not another. Why we keep falling for the same type of person at the expense of so many other types. Why I'm drawn to these odd plants but not those odd plants.

These three stalks belong to the Euphorbia genus, and none of them do much other than be green stalks. I love them.

On the left is what I have hesitantly IDed as  Euphorbia alluaudii. Hesitantly because I bought it as a small cutting at the Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show back in March, and it came with no tag. It was just a funny green stick. In the intervening eight months it has continued to just be a funny green stick. It never puckered for want of water, never shrivelled from too much water, never changed colour with changing light conditions or the shifting seasons. It has seriously done sweet f-all. In fact, it was only in repotting it into the above container that I had any proof it was alive.

Look! It has roots! It was doing something after all!

Plants find their own way to communicate their needs. Well. What they're doing is reacting to their environment and altering their structure to best protect themselves, but it can be a form of communication for the gardener. This plant apparently wants for nothing because it doesn't communicate anything. It's a native of Madagascar (maybe), and I can't imagine Melbourne providing the same climate and soil as Madagascar, but hey, it's happy. So, having transplanted it, I'm going to continue ignoring it.

The middle is Euphorbia debilispina, which did come with a tag, purchased at the yard sale of an award-winning plant grower. A native of southern central Africa, I haven't had it long enough for it to start complaining about the conditions I'm providing. My goal is only ever to not kill my plants.

On the right is Euphorbia antisyphilitica, (ANTI-SYPHILIS?!) which was purchased from the same sale and thankfully tagged. Despite being another nondescript green stick of the Euphorbia, this hails from southern USA to Mexico. I'm expecting it to do not much at all.

They should all do well going in to summer. I intend to leave the pot where it can get full sun and pretty much cook them alive. Hopefully this will get them nicely established before the cold soggy seasons roll around again. 

Why am I drawn to these seriously undramatic plants? I have no idea. They're ridiculous. They're just sticks. Frustratingly vague sticks. Still, I love them, I go stand in front of them with my hands on my hips and purse my lips and curse them for being ridiculously low maintenance and entirely happy.