Summer is winding down.

The nights are now in the 60s and the days are cooler (only reaching the mid 80s), and summer is obviously winding down. Leaves are starting to fall and a second rush of seed collection is happening.

I wasn't sure whether I was going to list seeds from my Northern Sea Oats plant this year or not, but I decided to go ahead and go for it. It's a fantastic plant, but I don't know how well ornamental grasses go over on etsy. You can see the listing here. It's one of the more attractive grasses I own, and I have plans for expanding it's growing area next year.

I also spent some time today breaking up another one of my monster lemongrass plants that was trying to anchor itself to the ground through its pot. People seem to find them appealing, which I think is fantastic. Not only are they attractive, but they're a joy to cook with. I'd love to know how people use them! :)

My kava got split up, but I don't know if it'll be listed this year. I'm trying to make up my mind, but that's sometimes difficult.

Tomorrow is my dreaded follow up appointment with a doctor that I've never met, so keep your fingers crossed that things aren't as bad as I fear! :) Hopefully, I won't have any blip in my online time.

Lemongrass divisions!

My father-in-law expressed interest at having some lemongrass divisions, so I was only too happy to send him some. I divided up one of my plants for the year a couple of weeks ago, and set them out to recover in cups. Well, I pulled two out of their cups to send to him and this is what was in the cups:

I love these plants! They're impossible to kill, resilient, and amazingly tasty. What more could you want??

The hacking of the lemongrass

Today was a very happy day for one of my lemongrass plants.

I love lemongrass, I really, really, really do, but it's a weed! Like any grass, it grows as much as it can and that can is quite a lot. I've got two monsters in 15 gallon pots that I divide down to 1/4 of the original size each autumn, and they've filled the pots again by the end of the summer.

I usually start a bunch of divisions for trades and plant sales, and I ended up with an extra two or three this year. Instead of throwing them out, of course, I kept them. One is in a 5 gallon pot and the other has been trapped in it's one gallon pot since February.

It's only grown 5 growths because of it's captivity, but they're nice, fat, healthy stalks with a handful of leaves each. Today, I took it out, attacked it with pruners, and divided it up into single stalk divisions, pruned the roots and foliage.

I swear, I think that the divisions have already started growing and have halfway filled up their 12 oz cups with roots. I expect that, by next week, I'll see the roots punching out braille 'LET ME OUT!!' in the styrofoam.

I wish that the beasties would live outside and survive the winters because I'd have some honkin' specimens after a year or two. These divisions are located in my etsy shop here.

Up-potting and new bloomers.

I got this Althea Lavender Chiffon about a year ago as a single stick and it's decided to bloom for the first time this year. If it weren't patented, I'd be all over sharing it, but alas... It's a lovely double and very unique looking. It's now a y-shaped stick with a handful of branches, but it's absolutely covered in buds! The flowers are about 1/3 of the height of the plant, so it's very impressive.

It looks a lot like the single Rose of Sharon I've also got. The petals are more ruffledy and the flower is a bit wider, but it's otherwise identical. Except for those little fingers in the center! ;)

I hate patented plant material and would never have bought it on my own. However, it will have a home in my garden for quite awhile.



It also appears that I waited waaaay too long to up-pot my lemon grass plants! I'm ashamed to say that they were pretty root bound and more than ready for new pots. I up-potted two for myself into 10 gallon pots and will be dividing the other plants up to offer in trades and on etsy, so keep an eye open, all of you who like Thai cooking!