What's Looking Good In March 2022

Thanks, I will persevere....

 

Our old Azalea is looking good just now. Must be 40 years old.

 

Right now it is bitter cold and we are in the midst of a howling snowstorm, but indoor growing is going good. My toms are developing true leaves and look very promising. Around the the first of December I decided to try to grow Gerbera, or Transvaal daisies from seed for the first time. To my surprise the seeds sprouted in 24 hours. That said, I have never seen such a slow growing variety. Almost three and a half months later the plants are just now beginning to look like I thought they should after a few weeks. I have been growing them under intense LED grow lights in a controlled environment and feeding them regularly. At this point I have no idea of how long it will be before they flower. They are attractive plants though.

 

Sophora microphylla




Coronilla valentina.


Daphne odora aureomarginata.


Trachy waggy, Cordlines Dazzler and Sunrise.

 

I've grown them on to flowering several times! I had a plant, when I lived in Spain, (no, nowhere near the coastal resorts cites but almost as far as it is possible to get from the seas!) that I got to flower successfully for several years in a row!

Back here in the UK I managed to get one plant to flower at least once more but as the plants look terrible & the "flowers" are hardly worth the effort, I've not bothered any more.

Yet a few years ago one of my sons bought me a magnificent plant for Christmas yet - sad to say - within a month or so I killed it! (What's the commonest form of killing house plants? Well mine succumbed to that! ) When he bought the plant for me he also bought a 3/4 dead Poinsettia that was reduced. He was at the time, 5 or 6 years ago, a totally novice gardener who had never managed to grow anything other than a variegated Pothos that was his pride & joy for many years. Would you believe he not only saved it from dying but, with my instructions & advice, got it to grow the following year & even produce a few scraggly "flowers"!

So much for the "novice" gardener & the "expert" gardener!

 

First of the potted daffs

 

Yeah I'm very much a novice and thought it would die but it's starting to do very well now. Not that I do any work to make it do any better haha.

 

@shiney, the Coronilla is a three year old seedling replacing it's parent which split in half and was removed, they grow very fast.

 

Strelitzia regina still going strong ...


Hibbertia scandens ...


Jatropha podagrica ...


Lamrpranthus aurantiacus ...


Salvia coccinea ...


Cercis silaquastrum ...

 

My Daffodils are pretty much the only thing that is looking good on the balcony so far this month! Mind you the Violas are starting to look up as well. If we get a few warm days again they will begin to take off! I had a few Crocuses on the balcony table but they have more or less finished now.
Perhaps the brightest flower on the balcony is a Calendula that, as its name indicates, has at least a few flowers during all the months on the calendar!

 

This is a most unusual looking plant, I must say!

 

I, too, have one of these plants! But mine is only a 3-year-old- seedling at present! My son brought me back a packet of seeds about 4 years ago from a visit he made to Spain. It was a couple of months till I got around to sowing them & eventually I got one seedling from a pack of 4-5 seeds. I later potted it up & it has been steadily growing ever since in our kitchen.