Begonia

This Rex Begonia is one that I originally got from my grandmother. In the 40 years since, I have propagated it many times.The typical propagation method is by cutting a leaf in sections and sitting them point down into a moist but well draining soil medium. I use straight pearlite. New plantlets form from the cut ends of the larger leaf veins.It takes several months to produce a good size plant. A faster way of propagation is to place a horizontal stem portion of a Rex in a small pot with well draining media. Do not completely bury the stem, although the end point can be stuck in the soil enough to stabilize the cutting. This method will produce a larger plant quicker. Rex come is such an array of colors and leaf shapes and forms that you are sure to find one (or more-watch out-they are habit forming). It nearly always blooms beautifully in the early spring, and the one pictured is a particularly large full pot. Cooler weather agrees with Rex more than the suffocating heat of an Alabama summer, but they still soldier on. Be careful not to bury the horizontal stems in the planting media, or they may rot .Remember the stems grow on top of the ground; they are not roots or rhizomes. Keep moist, but not wet, and enjoy the beautiful foliage long after the blooms have faded.

Cactus Know It's Spring

To the best of my knowledge, these are Mammillaria cactus , but online I cannot find any with orange flowers. They all seem to be pink. I have had this slowly expanding group for years and with almost no care they grow, bloom in spring , and multiply. If anyone can tell me more about what cactus this is, I would appreciate it.

Buckeyes headed into Spring

 These pictures reveal the opening of red buckeye flowers (Aesculus pavia). They are beautiful at all stages. This year the progression has been slower than usual, I suppose because of the cool wet weather this spring. I look forward to a bumper crop of buckeyes. The wildlife around here are looking forward to that event also.  Unless I check the bush every day when the seed pods begin to open in the fall, I won't harvest any. The seed must be very nutritious as they are relished by squirrels, chipmunks, and rats and mice. (They are reputed to be poisonous to humans, but we know rodents can eat almost anything.) I have found several apparent seedlings near and under my bushes and I guess they were missed in the harvest, or hidden and forgotten by squirrels.
 The red flowers make a beautiful splash in the landscape and woods in spring, and I am usually surprised to see them in the woods in places I had not noticed before. Keep your eyes peeled on woodlots as you drive along and you are likely to see their bright flowers. The flowers provide a nectar source for eastern swallowtail butterflies, as well as bumble bees and carpenter bees.
  Red buckeyes bloom in both shade and sun but white or bottlebrush buckeyes (Aesculus parviflora) do best in shade. Altho bottlebrush buckeyes bloom in sun, their leaves get a washed out cast that makes me wish I had been more thoughtful of their wishes. Both red and white buckeyes are said to be native to the southeast, but I have never seen a white one in the wild. That could be because they are less spectacular in bloom and not at all spectacular when not in bloom, but they have the same big brown shiny seed. The seed make great worry "stones' and some people still use them as good luck charms.
 If you want to transplant one, get your back ready to dig. They have deep roots (this makes them drought tolerant), and they suffer for 2 or 3 years after transplant from the ground. If you want to grow them from seed, plant the seed right after it ripens. They will not germinate after they dry out. Plant them where you want them to grow and let nature do the rest, but do keep in mind that the resulting bush will be quite large in a few years.

Sloe Plum

This is my sloe plum, probably Allegheny plum. I collected it as a seed . Every year it produces glorious bloom. One year I decorated it with Christmas balls, which I subsequently added to. I think the decorations look even better with the spring bloom. The balls are too hazardous to remove because of the thorny fruit spurs.  I had always called this a sloe plum, mistakenly thinking the name was slow plum because it does not ripen till about August. A little internet search showed that sloe plum originated in Europe where the fruits were used to make jelly, preserves, and wine. There it was harvested after frost, like persimmons are here, to reduce the astringent flavor. This could be the English plum, but I rather think because of  where I found the parent growing, that it is our native Allegheny plum. I have never tried to make jelly from it, but that might be a good project for this year.

Nun Orchid (Phaius grandiflorius)

 I purchased this red Nun Orchid a few weeks ago, and it has endured the conditions of sitting on the porch in hot and chilly without much fussing. When the temperature dropped into the 30's I brought it into the house for the night or til it warmed a bit. I had a couple buds drop from the shorter bloom stalk, but I think that may have been in part because this plant produced 2 stalks from the same pseudobulb which may have been a bit too taxing. Before I saw this one (red) I thought Nun Orchids (Phaius grandifolius) only came in the colors shown below- brown petals with white backs and maroon throats.

I have been growing this Nun Orchid for several years and find it easy cared for and blooming without fuss every spring. It is a terrestrial orchid which means you can grow it in regular potting soil, although like most orchids it needs good drainage. This translates to good potting soil-not that cheap stuff that packs down and becomes like a rock in the pot. But I digress.

 Since it is a tall plant , bloom stalks can be three feet tall, you need about a 2 gallon pot if the plant is very big at all. Otherwise the bloom stalk will cause the pot to tip over. Someone in Auburn told me they grew this plant outside, but the range as listed online suggest Zone 9 is as cold as it can take.
This is a stately plant, reliable and easy to care for. If you think you can't grow orchids, you should give this one a try.

Kudzu Bugs (Megacopta cribraria)

I made a disturbing discovery . Those kudzu bugs that were first seen in Georgia in 2009, are now here, in my yard, in Gold Hill, Alabama. Which is not that far away from Georgia. For a week or so before I spied these clusters on my Buckeye bushes, I had seen single ones flying around and perched . I had read about these new invasives and I got a positive identification from my favorite entomologist.. It would seem that any bug that eats Kudzu would be good to have. And well it would be, if that's all it ate. Unfortunately, it also likes soybeans and other members of the legume family. In farming country this could be a disaster. The entomologist told me the bugs probably would not bother my buckeye that much, but suggested I keep an eye out if I planted any garden beans.

Bauhinia

Bauhinia is sometimes called orchid tree. I saw it first in early spring at Disney World, then later I saw it growing in Hawaii., where it was a much larger and more magnificent tree. I grew two plants from seed that I got from the AHS seed exchange many years ago. I keep them in pots and through the years have been forced to prune them to keep them to a size I can manage. but because of this, they are only a shadow of what they might be if they were growing in the ground.
Bahinia is a member of the Fabaceae (Bean family) and my plants usually make a  few beans every year,
which seems remarkable under the circumstances.

This is just a limb of the Bauhinia In Hawaii.