Plant Life in the Patio

The hollyhock is still flowering after several months.  It continues to bud deep wine colored flowers. The white petunias are still flowering and the purple petunia my neighbor gifted me is also in bloom.  We trashed the basil after it spread from the garden to the sidewalk.  What you see above and below is the NEW basil that has grown up in its place.  It smells delicious from inside the swimming pool.  It's almost time to collect a new large ziplock bag full of seeds.  Anyone needing basil, I have lots of seeds to spare.

Then there are the confused poinsettias.  Here they are called Noche Buena, or Christmas Eve (flowers), because that is when they usually bloom.  I remember lots of poinsettia in Hawaii.  Their leaves turn red in November and they flower around Christmas. The season is the same here, except for this year.  We never really had our rainy season last summer, and by the time rains came they were accompanying cold fronts.  This semi-wet weather pattern started in October and has been hanging on ever since.  The result is our three poinsettia bushes are all abloom and happy in February.  I remember that poinsettia should be pruned in the "A" months...April and August.  But since this is blooming in February, I guess I'll have to rethink the cutbacks for maybe June and Oct. 

One of the plants is dwarfed because for the longest time we had a giant ugly flower taking up its earth and its air space...so it is a bonsai poinsettia this year.  These two were planted from the same size little plant a year ago Christmas.

Cilantro seeds are now planted once a month in a different pot, sharing the atmosphere with another plant.  It is great to pick fresh cilantro as needed, but the plants don't live too long so it's good to keep young ones coming up.  The jalapeños are not pictured here, but they are keeping us in hot chiles.

This is diffenbachia, or dumb cane.  Have you ever seen it flower like this before?  This was a tall plant in the zen garden so I cut and moved most of it out back.  Now it is thriving in both areas.  But isn't this flower reminiscent of a spathiphilium?  The plant has had a couple of these appear already.