Welcome to Saturday Morning Garden Blogging
I hope you enjoy the yellow tulips that I received this past Sunday as they were very much needed this week. As you are aware, many of us saw Blizzard Stella come and go on Tuesday. My area in central Connecticut received 16 inches of snow. It was the most snow recorded during a March storm since records were started. And this happened just after we had enjoyed an early taste of spring with 70+ degree weather. More snow is arriving late this afternoon, possibly up to 5”.
my side porch
My SMGB diary last week was about forcing bulbs and here is a white hyacinth that opened this week. I take it as a sure sign that spring will arrive this week although with snow in the background!
Okay so now to the “don’t fix what ain’t broken”. Over four years ago (January 26, 2013), I posted a SMGB diary on making terrariums.
I went step by step in creating the four shown below.
One of them was this terrarium. The glass jar had originally been filled with gourmet jelly beans for a work fund raiser, with the person guessing closest to the number of beans in the jar winning it. A coworker in my unit won. When the beans were gone, I asked what she was going to do with the glass jar and she said please take it. I knew I would make a terrarium. I put in three plants ….
… plus this small replica statue of Manneken Pis in Brussels
(the male nudity warning in the title was for click bait)
So for over four years, this terrarium has sat on a bookcase next to my computer. The tall Arabica "Coffee" plant had grown to the top of the glass stopper. The lower growing “Baby Tears” had also done quite well but the middle size plant Peperomia "Bianco Verde” had passed on over three years ago. I never once watered the plants in all these years.
For around a year, I thought the terrarium glass jar and the sphagnum moss were beginning to look a bit ragged and dirty, although the plants appeared perfectly healthy. So one recent day while enjoying the internal benefits of organic lemon oil, I decided to rescue the two plants and let them live out the rest of their lives in the real world. So I dug them out of the terrarium and placed them in a pot with fresh soil.
I thought I could hear a happy sigh coming from them both
I gave Mr. Manneken Pis a good bath. He also appeared in good shape acquiring a nice patina although the bottom of his base had somewhat deteriorated.
I went to bed that night thinking I had done a good deed. Yet coming downstairs the next morning, I soon spotted a horror on my dining room table. The coffee plant had turned completely brown and appeared dead. I immediately put both of the plants back into the terrarium but I believe it’s too late. I still cannot believe how quickly it happened. The baby tears are still green but the coffee plant has shown no sign of life now in two weeks.
What did I do wrong? I believe removing the plants immediately from the terrarium to the outside was too much of a shock, especially for the coffee plant’s system. I should have removed the glass lid each day with increasingly more time to accustom the plants. Eventually leaving the top completely off for a few days or weeks. Then finally moving the plants to an outside pot. Although, I really should have left good enough alone and not fixed what wasn’t broken. Live and learn.
So what’s going on in your garden world today?
(This diary has been set to automatically post at 9:00 a.m. I am a couple of roads over at a local estate sale and should be back very shortly)
