creative jewish mom

Bougainvillea In Bloom Once Again In My Northern Israel Container Garden

Yippee, my stunning magenta Bougainvillea is back in bloom after loosing all its leaves and sleeping during the coldest winter months. While Bougainvillea is a tropical plant it does do well in climates that have cool nights, like even San Francisco and my Northern Israel mountain location that is colder than San Francisco by quite a bit but somewhat similar. It turns out, that the only color of Bougainvillea that actually can live in pots generally around here, is this color, but not complaining! I have seen white and orange thrive as trees in the ground however, but that is not the general rule. So if you are planning to give bougainvillea a try, and you absolutely should, do ask which color is the hardiest in your location. And for those of you with snowy winters, you can grow bougainvillea as a houseplant, or get yourself a little greenhouse, my dream actually!

The great thing about Bougainvillea is that it literally blooms for months and months. Right now the entire plant are the blooms, or bracts, so the color is especially dense. At some point these blooms will fall off and the plant will then grow green leaves and another cycle of blooms. I think I'll just have to keep track this year!

Cyclamen Re-Blooms Yet Again In Northern Israel

The sweet cyclamen plant I've had for a good five years is blooming once again! While last year's bloom was truly spectacular, I'll take this one as well, as it wasn't looking great a few months ago, when there were only a few straggly leaves! So my faithful plant pulled it off once again, which means I will nurse him throughout the year to show my appreciation. I have another cyclamen that is scale ridden and not looking great, and I think it is time to toss that one, as I already have enough plants in the rehabilitation ward, mostly orchids, but enough is enough? So friends, be patient with any pots of cyclamens you may have as they will reward you, truly! Check out my post last year about how to get a cyclamen to rebloom and while I didn't really follow my own advice, you might want to!

The Confused Cyclamen That Is Blooming In September (In 86 F/30C Heat!)

I'm really not sure how I got so lucky with this cyclamen which I was gifted at Chanukah time, bloomed for 3 1/2 months indoors in a range from bright pink to light pink at the end, and after putting it outdoors in the Spring, now at the end of the summer when temps are still quite high, it decided to bloom! Cyclamens bloom in nature in the late winter on rocky cliffs not far from our home, and the nurseries start selling the in November, so what is going on here? My past experience has been that the plant looses its leaves at the end of the summer, rests and then regrows and blooms......so blooms now, I'm not complaining but wondering aloud. Maybe because husband claimed there was not enough color in the container garden and the plant heard him? Or maybe because husband has been watering this plant and it is a pot within a pot with no hole, so the plant sat in water and therefore thought it was winter? Who knows, just happy that I went outside and started to feel breeze and cooler weather on its way, phew, together with a blooming cyclamen, what a pleasure! So friends, since cyclamen season is coming, do treat yourself to some, but buy plants that are grown from bulbs, (generally the larger ones, just ask) not seeds, so you can enjoy for years to come!

How To Prune A Yucca And Encourage New Growth

Drum roll please......the Yucca tree that I pruned roughly 11 months ago, right before Succot, has finally finally sprouted some tiny new growth on the pruned stump. The piece that we cut off that was too tall for our Succah and taller than the one we left, has long since rooted and is a nice sized Yucca plant in itself. I was expecting that the stump would produce babies in the spring, at the latest, and yet nothing happened. I started to doubt the success of the idea and thought that maybe I left the stump too high and it should really be shorter and closer to the soil for success, which might be the case, but for now I'll watch the tiny new babies grow and keep track of just how long it takes. Can't wait for this to fill out and for this lovely Yucca in our courtyard to really look amazing. As far as the uncut stalk, it may have to be pruned in the future as well. This Yucca started as a tiny baby 23 years ago, and my look how it has grown! Totally recommend Yucca, just keep them groomed so that you see the stalk, please! Keep on reading to see the tiny new shoots!

Getting Lucky With A Blooming Sanseveria!

Yes indeed, my Sanseveria (snake plant or mother in law's tongue) is blooming yet again, and it is so very wonderful as the fragrance is truly unique and lovely, experienced mostly at night when the plant breathes. This year I've had more blooms than ever, with the total right now I think at 5 flower stalks, though when I took these photos I spotted another tiny stalk on the way! Funny enough, I grew up with a large and tall pot of Sanseveria and it never, ever bloomed, such that I didn't even know that the plant could bloom! Imagine my surprise one summer after coming home from a month's vacation to see a bare stalk and tiny shriveled flowers on the floor. This happened a few years in a row, but this year the plant started blooming in the late spring, and has continued until now, so wonderful!

I looked up some tips for how to get Sanseveria to bloom, and most of them do not apply to my plant interestingly enough. I once read the one can bury an apple in the pot and the ethanol from the rotting fruit helps spur blooming, gotta try that! Keep on reading to see how my plant compares with the recommendations.

June Blooms In My Northern Israel Container Garden

A few weeks ago I photographed some of the flowers in bloom in my Northern Israel container garden, which is filled mostly with drought resistant perennials, and other trees and bushes that can withstand both hot summers and coldish winters that sometimes approach freezing. Right now some of the plants, like my huge rose standards are suffering from the heat, and even the bougainvillia is taking its time to re-bloom, but the non-flowering plants like Yucca and a large collection of foxtail ferns and asparagus ferns are just fine, and so it goes! It is hot for me too, so I can imagine the plants feel it as well! Okay, lets take a look at some of my flowering plants, pots that I've had for years and years actually, so highly recommended!

The Haworth's Aeonium Succulent Blooms In Northern Israel

One of my prized succulents is in bloom and it is so wonderful! Ten years or so ago a dear friend passed away unexpectedly, and alone, leaving the community to go through her things. I decided to make sure that her plants didn't end up in the dumpster, so I took both plants and cuttings from her succulents, and gave plants to neighbors. I'll admit, one of the philodendron houseplants was just not worth caring for anymore, which is sometimes the case with houseplants, but the succulents that I've cared for over the years are thriving. One such case is this pot of aeonium haworthii that is now gorgeous and densely packed, despite being quite unattractive and woody when I first brought it home. And to boot, I've now moved my succulents to an interior porch rather than on the exterior of our home, so I have much more opportunity to actually enjoy them, and these blooms, wow! So friends, if you live somewhere where succulents can survive year round, or you don't mind taking them indoors or into a green house come winter, they are truly amazing, and when they flower it is such a delight!

Sedum Adolphi Succulent Blooms In Northern Israel

We've just done some much needed painting and re-plastering on some of the exterior property walls of our home, which involved me moving a collection of succulents in window box planters. And since those said planters actually made a huge mess on the wall where they were perched I will not be returning them to that spot, rather they have moved to my upstairs porch, where truthfully I'll get to enjoy them so much more, as they are just outside my bedroom window, and on the porch where we sit to enjoy the view, have an occassional barbeque and hang laundry.

In previous years when the succulents bloomed I did notice, but didn't really get to enjoy the process as the plants were in an area that is a set up stairs up from the rest of my container garden, meaning I only see it when I leave the house and go in that direction by foot.  Truthfully I was trying to beautify that area, but now I'll be doing it with several large pots of Yucca and Oleander instead which won't harm the newly painted walls, and actually looks even better. So that said, now that the succulents are close by, I'm enjoying their spring flowering, and especially the lovely white flowers of my Sedum Adolphi plant. There is just something so wonderful about blooming succulents (and cacti, of course) so enjoy my photos and think about including some succulents in your life, they are so easy to care for, and can be started from cuttings from friends and family, and with some patience they can grow to be quite large! This sedum adolphi is actually the result of cuttings I took from the garden of a dear friend who passed away about ten years ago, and look at it now!

Great Looking Copper Colored Succulent Called Sedum Adolphi

While I just love this succulent pot of mine, I'll admit until just now I did not know what it was called! And friends, simply upload a photo of a plant to google images, which then finds similar images enabling you to identify the plant, so simple and such a time saver! Okay, now that i know that this beauty of a succulent is called Sedum Adolphi, I can sing its praises! What do I love about it? First of all the unique color and second of all because its growth, at least in my case is very compact and stays looking amazing with virtually no care!

Bougainvillea Now In Bloom In My Northern Israel Container Garden

One of my favorite plants, and one that makes a huge statement in my Northern Israel container garden is the Bougainvillea vine, which always pleases! Because we can get quite cold winters, the only Bougainvillea that really is hardy, especially in a container, without a doubt, is the magenta pink one, and that is just fine, because it is truly gorgeous! Here I've photographed for you the very first bloom of the year, which happens after a leafless winter of dormancy, and while these flowers will just keep on blooming for the next 6 months or so it is exciting to see them come back to life.

For those who live in snowy locations, Bougainvillea can be grown as a houseplant, or wintered in a greenhouse, or maybe just plan lots of trips to the Mediterranean, or Northern California (funny enough, where I'm from.....) where bougainvillea also does quite well. Ah yes, and Southern California as well and I'm guessing Arizona and New Mexico. What ever you decide to do, I do recommend including some Bougainvillea in your life, maybe in the form of a future painting of mine, hmmm?