Class is over for me.........
I have had some large flowered, and largely ignored, Euphorbia millii for years and finally started to plant some seeds that developed. My own attempts at pollinating failed, but after watching for a while I found that hornets (that I used to kill) were pollinating them. So now I have arranged a grouping of different stock plants for the bees to work while I drink my coffee. My brilliant stratedgy is to only plant seeds from certain mother plants (with top secret traits) that are placed throughout the mix.
Some of the seeds from earlier collections have germinated and are flowering below. Several hybrids are larger than these but have not flowered so they will be dumped. The best hybrids will be placed in my euphorbia bordello for future seed production. I prefer to call this "smart work" rather than "lazy breeding". At my age the is no other choice.
In Thailand this is how one breeder does it (he used bees too). Americans come and pay him big money for hybrids. So far, there appears to be good diversity in flower color and size. Even more important is how the flowers are held on the plant which can make a drammatic difference in appearance. My theory is "if you want good plants for Florida - breed and select them in Florida". We shall see what happens. I am going for more coffee now. Tomorrow is the last day of class for this year..........except I get to deal with a second one come the fall. That will be a team effort and time will tell how it goes. The students were very good this time and it was actually fun. Still it takes a lot of time and disrupts my tidy little schedule.
Anyway, since I like the students they are going to get a plant after the last class. It is a very fragrant species of Tabernaemontana.
Here is a photo of some Aglaonema hybrids. It s time to refocus on the Araceae family. Will be putting a couple into a production test later today.
Outside the west window of my office at work was a 20 foot tall oleander. It made nice shade and provided a perch for various birds including cardinals. Now it has been butchered just as the brightest days of the year approach. I give up. It will be a year until it fills in. Now I am having flashbacks to when the power company murdered all the trees along the front of our property at home last year.
I like the desert rose (Adenium sp.) because they can take abuse. These plants in the research house at home have not been watered in over 4 months.
Give them some water, fertilizer and fresh potting soil and you get this in about 6-8 weeks.
Here are a few Mosaic Mom's plants in the greenhouse. The ficus and ponytail palm in the background are especially nice.
The Jade plants are cool too. Oh my...... some of the pots are mosaiced ....
Since I am short on words but long on photos we are going to be posting larger photos. See below....
It has been a great year for lettuce.......Cool and very few bugs........It even tastes better due to the high costs in the stores these days.........Of course it is all organic - ZERO chemicals.....
"Organic Lettuce" thriving in the reserch greenhouse at home..........
Last grad student exam was yesterday and Monday's annual evaluation is history.
