Friday, September 10, 2010

Orchids

Matt had a unexpected day off of work today so I was super excited to get a lot of work done. Unfortunately Gabe had other plans so I spent the whole morning trying to keep him from screaming. I had received a call from a lady I used to go to church with saying that she had just received two orchids from someone and that she already had a ton so she wanted to give them to me. So finally at 2:00 I abandoned my efforts to get Gabe to have a nap and I left him with Matt while I went to visit this lady. She had rows of orchids in her window and other ones set up around the house. I explained to her how I thought my orchid at home had died but then it started growing back and she gave me some tips and told me about an Orchid show that Grant MacEwan puts on every February. The two she gave me were the same variety as mine at home but better established and larger. I'm excited to see what the blooms look like!
When I got home I was all revved up for gardening so I went to peek at my phlox that had been growing in a front flower bed that was in close proximity to one of the stumps that we just had ground out. Unfortunately, my phlox didn't survive the encounter. However, I was able to salvage a sprig and I figured I'd see if I couldn't coax any roots out of it. When I went to check on my other beds I decided that some of my annuals were too pretty to let die so I dug them up and potted them and am going to winter them and make them into containers next spring. I also noticed that my lilies were branching out so I took off the new branches and am soaking those as well to try and get them established. I also reseeded some of my perennials that I hadn't been deadheading. There were some empty spaces in my front flower bed so I planted in some of the seed pods and for my annuals that went to seed I'm going to refrigerate the seeds and start them next spring. Overall I'm quite happy with my indoor collection of flowers right now and in a few weeks I will be ordering a Mariken variety of Ginkgo Biloba. This is a dwarf variety of the ancient tree (which, incidentally, can survive nuclear blasts so I'm sure I can manage to keep it alive) and the Mariken variety only grows to 6"-12". I never used to be interested in dwarf varieties and bonsais, but then I saw some in Martha Stewart Living, like her Japanese Red Maple, and now I want them :) The maple will require a bit more money and finding effort from me than the ginkgo so I'll start with dwarves and work my way up to bonsais.
It's been a long time since I've given a guppy update on here! We have tonnes of fish. Lots and lots of babies and some of our babies are now beautiful adults. Ther are a couple in particular that I am quite proud of. My pride and joy is our green bodied, yellow finned, leopard spotted male. A green guppy happens when blues and yellows mix and the resulting sheen is green. This particular guppy must have come from our blue male and one of our yellow spotted females. At first we were convinced the spots were from the mother's side until we more closely examined our male and saw that he does in fact have tone on tone spots. We actually thought this baby was from the red leopard spotted male we bought for Gabe, wewll, for me really, but when we saw the green body we knew it had to come from the blue male. The best part about it having come from the blue male is that the blue is the only male we have with a particularly splendid tail. We also have a little male whose tail looks like it's on fire. It's tail is mostly red except for a little circle of blue right where his tail and his body meet.
Oh, and I'm no longer roasting chicken for dinner tonight. It's still frozen :). So instead we accepted a dinner invitation to the in-laws' place! I love to cook, but sometimes it's nice to have a day off!

Mrs. Vander Leek ;)

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