I brought indoors all of my potted tender plants Thursday night in advance of the cold front that hit us. The big potted ginger lilies didn’t join the others in converted bathroom greenhouse, since I had taken up all of the available counter space. For about next 4-5 months, these plants will be hanging out here in relative safety.
I really need to snip off that chili pepper bloom head. But then again, I think all the young pepper plants could use a trim to encourage more foliage. Not so with the new hostas leafing out.
I took a cutting of the groundcover salvia sinaloensis, or more commonly known as bicolor or Sinaloa sage, when I trimmed them back earlier in the week. This salvia is unusual in that it hasn’t turned woody and that it spreads via runners. It competed against an aggressive yarrow and has managed to hold its own, with a little intervention. The electric blue blooms have been disappointingly sparse and sporadic in its current part-sun location. It’s better valued for its foliage though; it has distinctive purple-tipped leaves on new and fall growth.
I do need to move some of the pots into the bathtub, to make room for seed starting flats. Saturday morning, I collected 3 sandwich baggies of seeds from the Cosmic Yellow Cosmos, Durango Marigold Red and Durango Marigold Bolero.
The Durango Marigold Boleros tend to bloom on the smaller side compared to the standard marigold colors.
Sadly, I didn’t collect any Cosmic Red cosmos seeds or Lady in Red salvia coccinea. The red cosmos was nowhere in sight, while I didn’t have much luck finding seeds of Lady in Red still on the plants.
Turns out those 99 cent hosta bulbs the man picked up from Calloway’s a few weeks ago were viable. What I originally thought were calla lily shoots were actually the Francee hostas coming up in one of my planter boxes. It’s only been 3 weeks and they are leafing out like gang busters.