Happy blooming day!

It has been a rainy week here in my little garden in japan, but this weekend we finally got some sun and the flowers are really grateful. Almost all of the plants are flowering, the only one left is the calla lily and the dahlia, but I am sure they will have a couple blooms soon.

Happy blooming day!

The osteospermum hasn't stopped blooming at all

The anemones finally recovered completely from the drought and are showing a very nice display. The chocolate cosmos, which I had already tossed away until I noticed new growth from the roots, resurged and have kept on growing.

The dill is flowering like crazy

The kalanchoe is all out too

Even some of the herbs are flowering, the thyme, the dill and rosemary have little flowers and the lavender is starting to form flower buds.

The mini rose is blooming already and the red rose will be very soon

The geraniums look great

As the summer approaches some of the annuals are starting slow down and start to fade. I will probably have to do a renewal of some of the flower boxes next month, but for now they all get to give a last bloom.

summer will be here soon

Enjoy many other bloggers showing their blooms at blooming day from May Dreams Gardens!

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The geranium is turning white again

Last summer I had a problem with my geraniums turning white all of the sudden. The leafs lose its green lush and after a while they dropped completely. It was a very surprising thing, since geraniums usually are very sturdy plants. I struggled to keep the plants alive and at the end only one of them survived.

The new leafs are all white

Although I never really knew what caused the disease, I thought I had learned my lesson. The surviving geranium plus a new one that I got didn't show any more problems and they even put a beautiful display all the rest of the year.

That was until now. Mid January the white and red geranium started to grow new leafs, but they all come out being white. The plant seems to be a little frail, but it is still growing, so I think it still has a chance of surviving. The funny thing is that, in contrast, the red geranium could not be more happy, It has thick big leafs and it is even starting to grow a new flower button, probably to bloom when spring comes.

The last geranium flowers of winter

I think the difference is based on the flowers. The white and red geranium still had flowers now, while the red one stopped blooming some time ago. The stress of having to survive in the cold plus showing that nice display of flowers is what made the white and red geranium more susceptible to getting sick.

I hope it can survive, it still has strength

Last summer doing some research didn’t get me anywhere. More likely the leafs turning white is a problem coming from the roots, but I am not sure. I repotted it, cut away the fading flowers and gave it a bit of new soil. Hopefully that will give it a chance. Anyone have any idea what it can be?

My little garden in japan December 2010

Hello everybody!
I am sorry for my little absence this past week. I suddenly got very busy with school and other things and I had to concentrate all my effort on it. It got me in the middle of the carnival, so I did not had a chance to finish seeing all the great favorite plants you input. The good news is that I am free now and I will get to see all the great post that joined. Thank you!


I am very happy! The carnival was a complete success. I did not expected more than 20 submissions , but we got almost 50. Thank you very much to everyone that participated and also to those who came for a visit to see all the great posts. I appreciate the effort, the time and the encouragement. It was great hosting and having everybody drop by here.

I think after this it would be great to have more, but first we have to come up with a new theme and date, preferably next year to have some time for the holidays and to freshen up. Maybe a new year gardening resolutions post carnival would be nice? What do you guys think, any ideas?

Thank you again, I have been enjoying blogging and meeting everybody. It has been really a blast.

My little garden in december

Ok, now for the status of my little garden lately.

• The cold frame V2.0 is working, The sprouts are big and healthy, they will need to be taken outside soon.


• There have been some really strong winds lately, so my flowers are a bit bald, but I am sure they will recover soon.

Winter cosmos is a bit fragile, and always get very hurt by the wind but it recovers quickly and nicely

• The strawberries seem to have caught some strength, because all of them are developing new leaves, even the one in quarantine.


• The globe amaranth started to dry, but it was to be expected of the annual, I am surprised it lasted so long. Other flowers are also starting to get to the end of their season, but I think they will still last a bit more.


• The geranium are still blooming, but they don't seem to have any new buttons, so I am guessing those are their last flowers for the season.

The beautiful last geranium flowers of the season

• The herbs are doing great too. They seem to be growing very nicely. Only the dill suffered a bit from the winds because it one of the tallest. It was swinging so hard that I thought it will get torn away, and I put it in. I think that save it and it didn't got any real damage.


• The grapevine, the maple and the blueberries started to drop the leafs, I think winter is finally coming.


• All the rest of the plants seem to be doing great.

The stock still has beautiful flowers

I have been a bit stingy on water for them because I don't want to have any powdery mildew like last year, but they seem to be happy even so.

How about you? how is your garden lately?

More flowers for blooming day!

This weekend there was a big sale at the garden center and I could not resist at all. I end up buying a second rack and planter to have even more flowers on my little balcony garden. I also got a bunch of other things, but I will introduce those later.

I set the flowers on their planter today, I hope they continue to grow and bloom even though the weather is getting a bit cold.

When I finished setting them up,
I got a nice sunset for reward

Here is a little list of the flowers I got, and also my other flowers for blooming day.

The new flower pot

I got a bit more of the same, but also some new ones.

• Stock I found another color that I really like


• Lemon marigold There was also a chocolate marigold that really smelled like chocolate, but this one is from mexico so it won my heart

The marigold has a very nice minty lemony scent

• Pansy Some more, to have flowers all winter


• Nadeshiko(fringed Pink) The season is almost over, but i really like the color


• Alyssum Can't get enough of the scent

I really like this color of alyssum,
hope I can get some seeds from it

• Blue ballon scabiosa Very puffy, and with a very nice color too.

As for my other flowers, my geranium is still blooming nicely and I have new flowers from the red geranium

I hope this one will continue blooming in December

New flowers from the red geranium

The globe amaranth, one of my favorite flowers, is also blooming. Although they are starting to dry now, I will try to get some seeds from it for next season.

Globe amaranth is definitely one of my favorites

The other flower pot is still nice. It suffered a bit from some wind last week but still have plenty of color.

The pansies keep growing too

The winter cosmos got a bit bald from the wind but a lot of new buttons are comming

Happy blooming day!

Here are the two flower pots together

My little garden in japan November 2010

We are starting the month, so here is my update on how my little balcony garden has done lately.

My little balcony is more and more crowded every day

With the arrival of November the weather has changed noticeably. The days have shortened quite a bit (the sun sets around 4:30pm). Also, the stormy days are gone, no more wind or rain for some time. And, while it feels more chilly in the morning, there is still enough sun and the average temperature remains perfect for sprouting some last minute crops, getting some nice blooms and just letting all the plants grow nicely and prepare for winter.

This is the herb corner

• One new thing I have done is I sowed a bunch of new lettuce, komatsuna and chives in starting pots. I will have them growing there for a while and then transplant them to the big vegetables planter. To help them sprout, I made an attempt of building a coldframe. I put together a tray, a fabric bag/box and some sticks. Hopefully the fabric will be enough to keep the heat inside.



• Also, like I had mentioned before, I wanted to get a red rose to have more flowers and to keep my cliché levels high enough. Well, I did. It is still a stub so no flowers until next year, but it seems pretty healthy so far. I will talk more about it on a later post.

The latest strawberries seem healthy

• The latest strawberries seem to be doing well (fingers crossed for not jinxing it). I have six varieties now, one of them must make it. For now most of them are scattered around several little planters, but I think I will eventually put some on their old one. I already wash with scalding water and scrub it well, hopefully that will be enough to keep whatever strange thing that happened to the others at bay, but i will still take precautions.

All the herbs are doing great

• The herbs are doing great! All of them are growing well. I think this is the most prolific part of the garden right now. I just love how the mix of scents gets into the room every time I water them, or also, at night if the window is open enough.

The overcrowded planter of komatsuna, lettuce and
coriander must be thined down

• The old lettuce pot is still overflowing with green, even when I have been going at them knife first every time I can. They are still more than half full and they have grown so much that they got all tangled.
  Of course I have learned my lesson, Don't overcrowd seeds. I will thin down the other planter before it gets to that level, which will be soon by how they are growing.

The flowers are great! I turn the planter around every couple of days so they get even sun.

• The maple and the grape show no sign of dropping their leaves or even turning color anytime soon. I guess they still have plenty of sun and not enough cold. I shall wait a bit more.

The geranium has new blooms, I hope they will be ready for
blooming day!

• The flowers keep on growing well, and blooming nicely. I hope they make it until end of December. Oh, and even the red geranium is getting new flowers, he made a nice recovery from being so pale, I think he liked the company.

All the rest of the plants are doing pretty well. It seems like this days my little garden in japan is a very happy garden.

how is your garden doing lately?

Geraniums turning white

There is a funny problem that I encounter with geraniums in my garden here in japan. The leafs suddenly start turning white.

My geraniums with white leafs

I don’t know what causes this, but this summer I had this problem with my geraniums. It all started on the new leaf sprouts. They started to come out all white, like if they where bleached or albino. Then some of the old leafs would start turning white, until eventually the whole plant got like that and then died. I lost my white geranium and almost the red one because of this. Luckily I got it under control before that happened.

I wasn’t sure what it was, but I have seen this in other much more developed geranium plants around Tokyo, so my guess was that this was something common here.

Geraniums in a garden at Yokohama

I researched a bit on-line and found out the problem is more common than I thought. I could not pinpoint a specific cause though. The best reason I found is that they had sort of a sun overdose. From what I found If they get to much direct sunlight the chloroplasts burn and die, so the plant cannot make photosynthesis . However I find this a bit hard to believe, since I never saw this in my garden in Mexico, where the sun rays are much stronger.

Still, when I moved my geranium bucket away from direct sunlight the problem seemed to recede. Now in the red geranium there are very few white leafs and new healthy sprouts start to come out. Also the new geranium is flowering and doesn't seem to have this problem. Maybe the ones in Mexico are used to the sun and developed some resistance.

Geraniums in a garden at Yokohama

This is a sneak peek at the next post. This is the new geranium I recently bought a new batch of strawberries to replace my old ones.

My little garden in japan october 2010

A little late but here is a quick check on how my little garden in japan has done this month

• All my lettuces and kalanchoes continue to overflow their pot. I cut some away, but they are still so many.


• The old strawberry died, it didn't make it while I was in mexico, but I guess that was expected.


• I got a new geranium, and some new strawberries, I will make sure to take extra care this time, and plant them in two pots.


• I also got a crave for herbs lately. I got a lemon thyme and tomorrow I plan on buying more.


• From Mexico I got an aloe and a maguey. I don’t know if they will have enough light to grow here, but I guess is worth to try.


• I sow a new bed of lettuce, kalanchoe and one or two coriander in the pot where the strawberries used to be. They are already sprouting.


• The roses have been flowering a lot, and i am thinking if I should get a new red rose.


• I have a lot of mints growing because I separated the plant, now I dont know what to do with it.

All the other plants continue to grow happily. They are all doing great.

And for last, Here is my submission to blooming day, is a small one but I hope is good

The rose has been blooming a lot lately

My globe amaranth continues to flower

New geranium flowers

My flowers

Every garden needs flowers. They look great, smell great and help to attract many beneficial insects to the garden.  

My flowers at their best

Having a garden is a tradition that starts with my grandparents. They always had a very full of life garden. My grandpa had grapes, strawberries and even an "amaze everybody he could grew it" pineapple. My grandma on the other hand always had many beautiful flowers, she often woke up early and cut some flowers to adorn her house, filling it all with the fresh scents.

Back at my parents, we also used to have lots of flowers in the garden. Usually we grew petunias for spring, and "Nochebuenas" (Poinsettias) at winter, but we had many others as well, including a huge bugambilia that covers the whole front fence.

My Calla lily blooming this summer

Having a garden here in japan, I could not miss out on having some flowers of my own. I already had a Calla lily, and a Kalanchoe but this spring I got a bunch more.

My torenia

It just keeps on blooming

I bought this one at my favorite garden center. It was quite full of flowers when I got it, but at my garden it went crazy growing and blooming nonstop. They remind me of the full white carpet of petunias that I used to have at my parents' house.

Now it continue to give flowers, but it is not as full after the vacation drought.

My Blue Salvia

I love this purple color

I had seen a lot of this flowers around since last year, but I didn't know much about them. Silly me at first I used to believe this was lavender. I think it's an honest mistake, the flowers do look alike a bit. However when I visited Hokkaido last year and I saw the lavender farms, I realize it’s a different plant.

This spring I spot some at the garden center, and I had to buy them. This deep purple color is one of my favorites of all my flowers.

Sadly this plant got a lot of damage on the week of the drought, and it never fully recovered. Now it still have some green and some tinny flowers but I think it's best to take it out. Next year however, it will sure be on my list of flowers to get for spring.

My Marigold

The flower basquet

This is another flower I got because it reminds me of the flowers back in my country. I wanted to have it because I know it attracts a lot of beneficial insects and because I really like the scent. Sadly I lost it because of vacation drought, maybe next year I can get some more.

My Mini Rose

It finally started blooming again

I love roses. It might seem as a cliché but I think they are the most romantic of all flowers. In my garden I have a tinny yellow mini rose. Well, it started as tiny, the pot it came in was barely half a cup. When it started growing I changed it to a bigger pot but then problems started.

At the beginning it was full of flowers, but after a while it stopped. I assume it wanted some food so I prepared some banana milkshake fertilizer and it started blooming again.
Now it continues to live very happily and it already grew five times its initial size.

My Geraniums

Geraniums for my mom

I got this plants because they remind me of my mom. She loves geranium. I remember once we bought a bunch from a plant nursery and then we felt bad because they where only stems (back then we didn’t know that’s how geraniums reproduce).

In my garden I have a red and a white one. They seem to be ok, but they are growing slow because they got a little hurt from lack of water on vacations. The only problem is that white one seems to be growing albino leafs, I think it got too much sun, I hope it recovers soon.

My Globe Amaranth

Butterflies love Globe Amaranth

I didn't knew this flower before, and so far I had only seen it in japan, but it's definitely one of my favorites. I had seen it growing in many gardens here but strangely I didn't found it for sale last year.

I wanted to have one on my garden because with that shape it looks like it’s the kind of flower butterflies go crazy about. Luckily this week because of a post at tokyodiygardening.org and thanks to @a_small_lab I was reminded of them, so I went to my favorite garden center and I found them there. Of all the displays it was the one with the most butterflies, it think I counted around 14.
So that’s how it become the new acquisition for my garden. I got the one with more buttons, so I can be sure to have butterflies at my garden.

Oh and turns out this flower is native back in my country.


So those are my flowers.
Besides from all of these ones, when they were on season, the tomato, the strawberry, the peppers and specially the mints were full of flowers and add to the flower collection.

Strawberry flowers

My plants

Here is a small ever-changing list of the plants on my garden.
I will try to update this page accordingly to my current garden status. All my plants are now on the "my garden" page

 

• Mint: One apple mint and one peppermint
• Beans: No idea what kind I just try to sow some I didn’t eat
• Grape: It's a Pione, I just got it this month 
• Cilantro: Now on the second sow, I hope they are still on season
• Basil: Sweet basil, I want to try to cook with it
• Japanese maple tree (紅葉): The pot actually has four different kinds I'm waiting for autumn to see which one I keep
• Kalanchoe: Pink, donated by a shop
• Strawberry (苺): In memory of my grandfather 
• Tomato: On the end of season
• Pepper: Rescued form a garden shop trash
• Torenia: White, so many flowers
• Blue Salvia: Beautiful purple flowers
• Zantedeschia: My first plant in japan
• Rose: A little yellow mini rose
• Geranium: White and red for my mom
• Globe amaranth*: For the butterflies  

 

All of my plants have been an adventure on its own, some have worked some have not. Also besides from this I hope to acquire some tulips and maybe some other plants along the road.

*Updated 27 Aug 2010: A brand new globe amaranth