Progression Obsession-Monstera deliciosa leaf

My obsession for watching things transform has been fairly well-documented here*, but I haven't done it in a while. When I was outside the other day, taking pictures for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, I saw a new Monstera leaf preparing to unfurl, so I figured that would be a good place to pick things up. So, for anyone who has ever wondered, how a plant like this starts out, here you go!

Helping me with scale today: Mocha

March 15-Helping me with scale: a big lizard (big for a lizard, small compared to Mocha).

March 16: No lizard today, but the super-tight bundle of foliage is starting to unfurl.

March 17

March 18

March 19-Helping me with scale today: a smaller lizard (which makes the scale thing kind of confusing, but I take what I can get)...(the lizard is to the right, in the sun).

March 20-a pale, tender new leaf, ready to face the world!

 March 21-Aw, look how small it is! Well, small compared to what it will become, anyway!**

(Helping me with scale: Me. Which is why I couldn't get far enough away to get the whole leaf in the picture).

This monster of a plant, Monstera deliciosa is also called the Swiss cheese plant. It does produce a flower and fruit, but it is a slow process. We planted these plants in November, 2008, and I discovered the first flowers in October, 2012. According to my research, the fruit should be edible sometime in the next 7-13 months.

*If, like me, you like to see how plants progress (or not, in the case of the coconut tree), check out some of my other posts.
Moonflower opening
Puakenikeni-flower to fruit
Amaryllis and a purple leafy plant
Variegated hau-color change throughout day
How to disassemble a coconut tree
Bleeding heart (Clerodendrom thomsonae) imitating a corkscrew

**Edited 7/9/13 to say that I'm not actually sure if this little leaf will become a big leaf, or if it will stay a little leaf. Big leaves might unfurl as big leaves, but I can't remember ever seeing one start out quite as big as the one in the bottom picture. Each plant has several different sizes of leaves on it; the smaller ones tend to be near the bottom, closer to the ground, and the bigger ones tend to be closer to the middle and top of the plant. I'll keep an eye out for giants unfurling in the future!

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day-November 2010

I missed October GBBD, and I'm a little late getting to November's, but it is still the 15th here in my neck of the woods, so I'm counting this as a win.  I have to say, I think winter is one of my favorite times of year in my garden, and here's one of the reasons why:

This is my Euphorbia leucocephala or Mexican poinsettia, and pretty soon the entire thing will be snow white.  Lest you think I'm cheating, there are some actual blooms here.  They're just really tiny.

Aren't they cute?

Here's another white flower, my spider lily, Crinum asiaticum.  I rarely get a chance to see them from this angle as the weight of the blooms usually pulls the stem down toward the ground.  Kind of impressive from this angle, aren't they?

You can see what my lilies usually look like in the bottom left-hand corner of this picture, almost touching the ground.  Lurking in the background under my shrimp plant, is Mocha the mighty hunter.  I think she's staring at a lizard.  I don't think she's ever caught anything, but she sure likes to act like a lion stalking prey in the tall grass of the savanna.    

Speaking of tall grass, here's my red ginger, standing about six feet tall.

Here's a red ginger bloom that's done its time and now, instead of going to seed, it is doing this.  What is this you ask?  Well, I had no idea either, but back in January, I noted a similar phenomenon, and Christopher from Outside Clyde was kind enough to explain that eventually the weight of all that new growth will pull the bloom down to the ground where the keiki (baby/child) plants can put down roots and turn into new six-foot plants.  Cool, huh?

I have a bird of paradise that is a little past its prime but still interesting.  

My last vacation saw the demise of my red miniature roses, but I did what any good gardener would do and went shopping for more plants.  In the tradition of this pot, which has housed nothing but miniature roses, I am happy to have this pretty little bloom to show you this month.  

I didn't manage to show you any blooms from Tillandsia cyanea (Pink Quill) last year, but we'll see what happens this year.  

See the little purple blooms preparing to emerge?  Yay!

And, finally, my Evolvus glomeratus, or Blue Daze.  I love the pretty blue with the bright white center.  

That's all for today, but please be sure to visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens to see what else is blooming this month.

Nature: Striking down smugness one tomato grower at a time

Remember how I was all proud of myself yesterday because I'd found what seemed to be a pretty effective way of guarding my tomatoes against theiving birds?  Well, it still seems to work against birds, but look what I found when I came around the corner today:

Uh oh.  

Hey, Mom, look what I found.  I was just going to bring it to you.

Can I have it pleeeeease?  I don't know what it is, but I want it SO. BAD.  

It took her a while to decide if she liked it or not and what, exactly, she was supposed to do with it, hence my ability to get the pictures.  I was going to take it away from her, but she'd already slimed all over it, so I decided she could have it.  That was probably a big mistake, but she did manage to get it without tearing up my entire tomato plant, and for her that has to count for something.  Now that I think about it, I suppose it could have fallen off the plant and she was just checking it out when I caught her. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's going to be her story when I ask her about it later.  

So, in case you're keeping track, ti leaves:  good protection against birds, not so much against dogs.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day-December 2009

Well, it has been one year since I first participated in Carol's beloved Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day! I figured this would be a good time to do a "Then and Now" post. You can go back and see what my Euphorbia Leucocephala looked like one year ago today, or you can just wait because you know I'll post it for you here now, right?

December 15, 2008

December 15, 2009

For one thing, they appear to have become much brighter and clearer. This could be because I was actually outside today and not shooting through my dirty window on a rainy day. Also, last year they were collapsing under the weight of all the rain that we'd had. This year hasn't been quite as monsoon-y yet, so they are holding up a little better.

Oaky, so that wasn't very exciting, but now I will show you our front yard last year:

December 8, 2008

And this year:

December 15, 2009

That's much more exciting, no? No? OK, how about more dramatic? And didn't Mocha do a good job of helping me stage today's picture to try to match last year's picture? See those little plants that are just nubbins on top of our wall in last year's picture? I told you a little bit more about them back in June. Here is a closer view from today. They are all about 6-8 feet tall now.

OK, that's really all I have for "then" and "now" pictures, so I guess I will resume my normal GBBD activities and just show you what's blooming in my yard.

This is a closer-up picture of my white bushes from the very beginning of this post. The north side is completely white like you see here, but the south side still has a lot of green left on it. Since we had had some light rain earlier this morning, I was having fun playing with all the water droplets that were left in the garden.

When I was taking this picture of my Thai basil, I noticed my Sweet Alyssum in the background all decorated with dew drops, like a little Christmas tree .

Potted miniature rose.

Red ginger (Alpinia purpurata). You can see some good pictures of other members of the Zingiberaceae family here. Click on the thumbnails to enlarge. If you click on the red ginger picture, you will see that the actual flower is a delicate little white thing that pokes its head up out of the red bracts, similar to the way the white flowers pop out of my orange shrimp plant (Pachystachys lutea), below.

Another flower with similar blooming habits is this Pink Quill (Tillandsia cyanea). In October, it was all pink, but now you can just see the tips of the purple flowers starting to form in between each of the pink sections. Hopefully by next month I'll have a more impressive display!

My cousin received this mum as a potted plant, and she passed it along to me when she went on vacation. I repotted it, and after a couple of worrisome months, it has made a nice recovery.

And, finally, on to my trusted and true orchids:

Here are some buds on Den. Pam Tajima (atroviolaceum 'Pygmy' x eximium) (a.k.a. "Pam") preparing to take over for some of the older blooms that are beginning to fade.


Inside, are some blooms that I cut off of Nameless Bob, Pam's outdoor companion.

Since my last post in October,Dgmra. Memoria Jay Yamada 'Hawaii' has bloomed, dropped its flowers and put on a new set of blooms, which you see here.

That's all for today, folks! As always, thanks for visiting, and please visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens to see what other blooms can be found outside today.