New Book

I got a new gardening book today, I ordered off Amazon.com. It is called Succulent Container Gardening by Debra Lee Baldwin. It has lots of great ideas for neat containers and plant combinations using succulents. I am starting to have a passion for succulents and cacti. Hopefully I can use some of the ideas from this book come spring. I highly recommend this book.

Kitty likes her TV

My Cat Ava likes to guard the remote, lol.

Bringing in the Tropicals for the Winter, Confessions of a Plant Hoarder

So as it is getting colder and winter is fast approaching I have been trying to lug in all of the tender tropicals and houseplants after they spent their summer vacation outside. Some of the larger plants were super heavy, my house looks like a jungle now. I keep telling myself I am going to get rid of some of these plants and I do give some away, but then I buy more. I guess I am a bit of a plant hoarder but oh well there are worse things in life, lol. I enjoy my plants though.

UPDATE: Palm Seedlings

As you may recall over the winter I started some palms from seed. I planted Trachycarpus fortunei, Needle Palm, and Sabal minor(the photos are in this order top to bottom, the first photo is all the palms together.) The palms are getting very large and looking healthy now, hopefully by this coming spring they will be much larger.

Garden visitor, White-tailed deer

Had a garden visiter a few days ago a White-tailed deer.

Death of a Giant, Castor Beans

I had several large "Impala" Castor beans in front of the house. We had a storm and they fell over the ground just became too saturated and it was windy. Well they fell over, lol. I thought about staking them up but they are too heavy. I am leaving them for now on the ground so I can harvest the seeds so ill have more castors next year, soon ill probably end up cutting them down. I included a few photos of them standing as well.

Taste of the Tropics in Illinois

Took some pics of the tropical garden, Musa basjoo, various cannas, elephant ears etc.