The New Years Cactus

I opened the curtains in my kitchen today and found this:

My Christmas cactus is blooming. Again. In January. Again. Six years after the first time it bloomed.

I haven’t done anything differently this year. But it has.

There is a bud in addition to the flower. Two flowers this year!

Does that mean that it will have three flowers the next time it blooms six years from now?

I came, I Saw, I Bought

I skipped my annual tradition this year of buying something at the NJ flower show that had nothing to do with gardening. I did this for two reasons. First, because I was eager to get home and watch the Olympics, I had very little time to spend in the vendor area. More importantly, I had fallen in love with the African violet with the variegated foliage and I knew that there is always a vendor at the Philly show who sells African violets.

A and I were too exhausted after touring the Philly show to tour the entire vendor area, so we confined ourselves to seeking out that African violet vendor and A’s favorite seed source, Landreth Seeds.

I am deeply ignorant when it comes to African violets and so had no idea that there were several kinds with variegated foliage. A helped me choose one. When it grows up, it will have white flowers with yellow around the center. So much prettier than the plain purple one I saw at the NJ flower show.

Park Seed

Normally, I only order a few things from Park Seed. They don’t carry many heirlooms and the modern varieties that they do carry aren’t all that attractive to me. This year, I don’t know if I just read the catalog more closely or that they had some rather unique seeds, but I really went overboard with my order.

Who knew that you could grow astilbe, coleus and Coral Bells from seed? Or hardy Cyclamen and daylilies? Ditto Stokes’ aster and Toad lilies.

And then there were the houseplants.

I have had astounding success with African violets so it was only natural that I ordered seeds for Fantasy Hybrids mix African Violets consisting of “doubles, semidoubles and singles in all colors, patterns and even speckled bicolors.”



And Ponytail Palm that Park assures its customers “grows in a flash from seed”.




Just for fun, I ordered Blue Himalayan Poppy (Meconopsis betonicfolia). Our New Jersey summers are probably too hot for them but they prefer partial shade and shade is something that I have in abundance.

The bonus pack of seed Park sent me left me scratching my head. I have never ordered anything but flower seeds from them and yet they chose to send me a packet of Sweet Banana pepper seeds. I’m not sure what exactly I will do with them.