Damn! Started a great blog, did a couple of paragraphs and then realized I had not let one of our dogs out for midday potty break and when I got back the blog had gone.
Its been raining lightly since last Saturday afternoon. Had a couple of 1/2 hour breaks here and there but mostly rain. Thick high cloud is coming up from the tropics blocking our the sun. But it is warm between mid 70s and 80s. With heat and rain everything is growing, even the weeds. The trails in the forest are getting difficult to walk on with the mud so instead of taking the Max for two walks a day we hardly get out there once a day, Nothing worse than a muddy wet dog and disgruntled owner so we stay dry and close to home. Max has a nice 50 x 50 ft chain link run and his "kennel" is a concrete floor room under the house so he is ok.
The three evergreen trees are now in the ground is a new forest clearing. They look good with new growth. The two evergreens that were in small seedling plugs and now in pots and about twice the size they were.
The bromeliad project at the zoo was a big success. The zoo reopened this past Monday with the Parks and Recreation boss from the County taking full credit for everything and not once mentioning the volunteer organisation. Friends of the Zoo raised $200,000 to build the new aviary for the Hawaiian Crow and then donated the aviary to the County. Not one mention of that. Local politics.
I did find a nice clump of low growing Heliconia at the zoo that needed downsizing a little so a took a small root off the back and I hope it will thrive in my new Shady Glen garden.
I got to know the young lady at the Bromeliad Nursery and she gave me a really good deal on 20 bromeliad plants for my yard. They are still in pots but once the rain stops they will be nice additions in various locations.
The Nipanthes are doing really well this year. I think thats the fancy name for pitcher plants
I must try and find some new varieties. I have one large one growing in the forest and will try to get a cutting going. I have a couple of the marsh varieties that grow the upright pitchers and that one bloomed for me this year.
Bamboos are doing well. New canes coming many of the clumpers. The running bamboo is slowing down. So far I have knocked over more than 900 new shoots this year.
Forest trail maintenance if foremost on my to do list at the moment. I should get 3 tons of gravel delivered next week. Then it go hard at it with loppers for the overhanging branches, weedwacker for the the grass and weeds alongside the trails and then its a wheelbarrow to patch up the muddy areas. Its a long push over the bridge and faraway but its patching not regravelling the whole trail so one or two barrows a day for a few weeks should see it done.
No more pigs in the garden so far. Oh they are around along the outside of the fence pigging out on new bamboo shoots but not nearly the numbers as in past years.
Water lilies are doing well. Blooms on three plants. Still waiting for the night blooming lilies to make a show. I think they usually come on later in the year.
Purchased potting soil last week for the job of repotting the Amaryllis bulbs and the Amorphophallus bulbs. Probably 140 pots to be weeded and repotted. A couple of the Amorphophallus are blooming including the one with thorns on the stem that I rescued from the local botanical gardens about three years ago.
Just waiting for the rain to stop so I have an excuse not to wash windows.
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