Growing Ensete Ventricosum Maurelii by the window

I decided to get a jump start on my Ensete Maurelii so that I can have bigger plants to bring outside by the spring time. I purchased these guys 3 weeks ago, and they have since put out a couple of leaves. The only thing I hope for is that their pseudo-stems stay healthy and strong, and giving them light from a south facing window will hopefully be enough.

There are 3 plants total.

November 13th 2012: They looked kind of skinny when they came out of the box.

Growth of the Musa basjoo throughout 2012

My musa basjoos were successfully over-wintered to about 2ft last year, and they ended up close to 14ft at the peak, but frost is imminent within the next few weeks so they will be going dormant pretty soon. Here's the documentation of the growth all throughout the year.

21 April 2012: I successfully protected them up to around 2ft, and they are already getting up to 4ft within a week.

Left plant

1 year old tree peonies have arrived

2 1/2 weeks ago on May 24th, I have received my order of 42 (1 year old) grafted Japanese tree peonies. I decided to start them all in 2-5 gallon pots depending on their size so I can get them well established on their own root systems before getting them in the ground.

Here's the 1st out of 2 boxes that came on May 24th.

Thornless raspberry growth progression

2 months ago, I purchased 5 bare root thornless raspberry plants, and they have really taken off over a 2 month span. Since they are starting to fill out their pots, I have had to start planting them in the ground. This blog shows their growth progression over about 2 months. The sprouts that emerge this year should bear fruit the following year so I need to get them in the ground to make sure they have plenty of room to spread and make new shoots.

10 April

Update on the itoh peonies

It has been 2 weeks since I received my 5 large itoh peony tubers which can be found on this link. http://stevespeonygarden.blogspot.com/2012/05/unpacking-new-itoh-peonies.html#more

After dividing all of these guys into several pieces, they have since started to sprout leaves. It's not shown in these pictures, but after inspecting one of these pieces, they definitely have root growth starting as I've been watering them with clonex, willow tea, and really pampering them. They should start producing their own tuberous roots once the leaves are done growing.

One thing that I've noticed is that the larger pieces tend to be producing larger shoots which means that the size of the tuber matters a lot. They all still have plenty of growth left in them. These plants were recently watered with worm tea so the residue is still left on them.

Scarlet Heaven

Update on the Garlic, Soft neck and hardneck

There are two primary types of garlic. Hard neck, and soft neck. The hard neck types usually have larger cloves, but fewer cloves in each bulb with a stronger flavor. The soft neck types can have a huge cluster of smaller cloves depending on the species, and it is the type they usually sell at stores since they store longer than hardnecks, but they generally have less spice than the hardnecks. I either buy them from bulbils which are kind of like seeds which take another year to reach full size, or I buy the cloves which cost more, but produce full sized bulbs when they are planted in the fall. The thing I love about garlic is that they really take no effort to grow as all I need to do is drop the cloves in the ground during the fall, and harvest them the following summer.

I grow both kinds and many species of them.

Starting with the hardnecks, here's Selvitta sunset started from bulbils