Another Week In The Books ..

And another day closer to the Independence Day holiday week .. 4th of July is right around the corner now. We've been making preparations for guests who were coming stay with us for a few days. We still have to get to the grocery store and pick up a bunch of things we will make for a family barbecue on 4th of July. We are just hoping the weather is not as unbearable as it has been lately. It's been hot. Hot hot hot. And dry. Dry dry dry. They've gotten some rain north of us and south of us but we have been spared any sort of wet stuff. I've been doing a lot of hand watering outdoors, but refused to water my lawn because It's never kept all that green in this type of weather anyhow. It's a waste of water and a waste of money .. at least in my opinion.

And here is the dry front lawn, Almost in complete dormancy

You are correct.. If you notice that the ground appears a little wet in that picture above. That is because it's raining today!!! I feel like it's our first real soaking rain that we've had in quite some time. Today is June 30th and it's raining and I believe that we haven't had any real measurable rainfall (that would do anything for plants) since April 3. March was a wet month for us and that was the end of it. The city had enacted restrictions a while ago. Probably a good idea since they can't quite keep up with the water demand.

But It is raining now

Orchid Update

I Figured I would throw a quick orchid update in here… I don't have a lot to report, but I did move our Vanda orchids back indoors. The extreme heat of over 100° and the lack of rain starting to worry me. I don't think they had enough shade where they were and I don't have the time to build a shade house right now. Maybe when we get back from our trip to St. John I will build something more substantial and protective. For now I brought them back in to ease my mind.

Back on the rack for now

Other Plant Stuff

Let's talk about my cover photo, and our plumeria plant .. This gal has been with us for a several years now. We got the cutting from our friend Denise who had passed away just a couple of years ago. It's a little piece of her that will always remind us of the good times we shared before her passing. The plant does well and has thrived here except it's just getting taller and taller and taller. The dang thing is just about as tall as me now. [As you can see at the beginning of this post].

Lately it's been getting top-heavy so I repotted it a little bit deeper and into a bigger pot, and also strengthened it by adding a protective support system. They went to the local hardware store and bought several wooden stakes, I rounded up some string and some rubber tubing to protect the plant. I think this will give it enough strength to survive the occasional summer wind event or severe thunderstorm. Otherwise it would be on the ground. The trunk of this plant is quite pliable and I've seen it on more than one occasion touching the ground like the arch of a rainbow. Like I said very pliable, elastic like or rubber like.

Anyhow here Is what I came up with...*

It works good .. And The best part is that it's all easily adjustable. We've gotten some pretty brutal winds the last few weeks and it's held up just fine. I did load that pot base with about 20 pounds of stone as well. That should help keep it upright unless we get some really bad gusts of wind. I decided to put it back in the corner by one of the larger Crepe Myrtle bushes for added protection from the wind if it comes from the direction of the ocean. It doesn't work I'll come up with something else. I don't think anything I can do to support this plant is going to be aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Overall I don't think this looks too terrible. Plant is doing Great as well, it really really loves the outdoors in this heat and humidity that we're having right now. It's got a ton of new growth tips of the one branch and the main branch.

On another note… The Montbretia, Or otherwise called Lucifer's tongue, is now blooming. They are very cool colored orange red. They're going to add a nice touch of red to the landscape. We chose these plants to put in between our grasses we have planted along one of the walkways. Once they fill in and spread I think they look even better! Looking forward to the next couple of years see how things fill in on this side of the house.

The rosebush is going crazy .. This Thing is loaded with new buds! I gave it a light trim About three weeks ago, After the two or three flowers that were on it had begin to drop off. Just a tiny haircut and then the new growth came on and now all of these flower buds are starting to open. We've never had luck with roses so this is pretty exciting for us.

I also took the time to give it a little bit of fertilizer and I also treated the entire bush for aphids. I noticed a couple on one of the buds and I wanted to get ahead of the problem. This is typical for rosebushes I just didn't want them to harm the ability of the plant to produce a nice set of buds.

Inside .. I did end up finding my missing Amarilis bulb in with a bunch of other gardening stuff in the garage. I peeled back the many layers of dead material revealing about A golf ball sized bulb. I was going to keep it a little longer before planning it but I figured I better plant this now before it uses all of it stored energy just to try and survive. We need to grow some leaves in order to reproduce energy and in the bulb. I hope that makes sense, lol. I Risk it consuming itself if I leave it any longer. So in a pot it went and we gave it some water, and it wasn't more than a week and the leaves are starting to emerge.

That's about it

And just like that we're at 1000 words .. It's not hard to write and come up with over 1000 words when you only are able to jump on and write something once a week. Got way too much to fill you in on, so this could easily go to 5000 words if I would let it.

So in order to alleviate the risk of boredom (for my readers), I'll end it here. I've got a room full of paintings and frames my wife moved upstairs, back into my art room/painting studio [Aka Spare bedroom]. I really should get to work on putting them back into the closet and arranging the rest so I can move my painting easel back into the room. That might be a good project for a rainy day… Oh Wait!! It is raining :)

I guess I know what I'm doing.

Enjoy Your Sunday!

Thank you for swinging by my blog and checking out the post. Have a great day!

All words, pictures and art pieces are the sole property of B D Miller Gallery, unless otherwise noted and credited, and are not to be reproduced or copied without the prior written consent of B D Miller Gallery.