Wordless Wednesday

Happy Valentine's Day!

I did not have any recent pictures of roses or any other traditional plant paraphernalia of romance...

... but I thought the passionate red of the flowers of this coral tree (Erythrina sp.) was rather appropriate to the occasion.

Winter Travels - Part 5: Sidewalk Garden, Singapore

I got to visit a number of interesting parks and gardens while in Singapore - more on those at a later  date - but there was also the occasional planting by the wayside that caught my eye. There were lots of potted plants in many places but I my favorite collection by far was the down-to-earth arrangement below:

Whoever assembled these plants and tends to them is definitely very good at creating something lovely with simple means.

(Very) Tentative Signs of Spring

Largely as a sort of experiment, I planted a few small spring-flowering bulbs - a mixture of Crocus species, glory-of-the-snow (Chionodoxa siehei), and Dutch iris (Iris sp.) - in the pots of the small collection of Sempervivum and Sedum cultivars I accumulated on my outside window sill during the late summer and fall. In recent days, the first sprouts have begun to emerge.

The first sprouts of Dutch iris and glory-of-the-snow

There are a few bulbs in every pot, so if they all come through - fingers crossed - I should have speckling of early-spring blue, purple, and yellow all along the window sill.

Houseplant Update

My houseplants here in my apartment have largely been humming along for the past two months without doing anything too exciting, not surprising perhaps considering the less-than-ideal conditions of low light and rather too high temperatures produced by an overly effective and impossible to regulate heating system. However, some of my coleus plants (Solenostemon scutellarioides) have grown considerably and I also recently picked up two Rieger begonias (Begonia x hiemalis) at Trader Joe's, so I thought it might be time to post a few pictures again.

One of my bedroom window, overtaken by plants

 Orange-flowered Rieger begonia (Begonia x hiemalis)

Young cutting of a coleus variety with chartreuse, heavily serrated leaves; they are normally speckled crimson but in the low light of winter that patterning has largely disappeared

Since the begonias in particular prefer somewhat cooler temperatures I am keeping them in the bedroom, which only has a small radiator and is therefore not quite as warm, although that window sill is already quite crowded. So far they seem to be doing well.