Black Fungus Gnats and Orchids

My family and I have been having some trouble with some little gnats. We never gave it much thought other then thinking that they were fruit flies because they showed up in the summer when we had fruit and veggies out.

Well apparently they originated from my orchids. specifically one that had very very bad drainage. Bad to the point of being full of water even thought there was a hole in the pot. One night I happened to re-decorate my room and had moved all the pot up but this one because I wanted to put it in a bigger pot.

Now, a little info on this gnat. Apparently they eat the roots of orchids and live in decaying plant matter. They can quickly spread to other orchids and plants that you have.  The larva are clear or white-ish and hide in day light and they hatch in three or so weeks. Because they damage the roots orchids can drop their blooms and possibly die if it gets really bad.

This is important because the pot I now held in my hands was heavy from all the water and hundreds of the little suckers were squiggling around in front of my nose. I am not good with bug. I find them insanely interesting but if they surprise me I will scream and freak out like a little girl. So while I did not throw the pot across the room I did flip out a bit and was swearing like a sailor.

This Particular orchid had bee doing very well but all of it's buds had died that week. I had just assumed that re-potting it would fix it. Because there wee so many bugs in it and the roots looked so bad I decided to toss it. It was a clearance plant that I got for maybe $3 bucks so no big loss.

Worried about my other cheap orchids I searched online for what the bugs were and how to kill them. I didn't want to deal with hunter bugs, poison or glue traps and fortunately someone said that you could wash the roots off and re-pot them. Which is what I ended up doing.

I took all my surviving orchids, including the ones in bloom, and took them out of their pots and washed the roots with warm-ish water. NO SOAP!! then i cleaned the pots out with near boiling water and still no soap. I then filled the pots half way with non-biodegradable packing peanuts and sphagnum moss. This keeps the pots insanely dry so I have to play around with the watering.

We haven't had a gnat since.

Now, I manhandle my orchids a lot. This does not make them happy. two of the ones in bloom dropped their flowers because I know i smacked the blooms on the cabinets while working and not because of the root trimming. The cheap orchids that I got happen to be a hardy variety. The beginner variety as it happens to be.

Regardless, unless you have an orchid that dies at the thought of being unhappy, I highly recommend washing roots and getting new potting mix to get rid of the black fungus gnats.

Ficus update

So... I forgot the stupid thing in a glass of water and it grew roots.

I had meant to put it in rooting hormone and starter soil... and I totally forgot about it. but this seems to have don it good and it is now in a pot of bonsai soil. so i don't know how much to water it nor when i should let it start to dry up. It is now hit or miss time again!

I also did an early re-potting of the larger ficus because I suspected the root were dead. It turned out that most of them were. Fortunately there looked to be a few living roots. At the end of an insanely long larger root that is. I had to coil it in the bottom of the pot. If I can't get more roots growing up higher then I will probably make this into a root over rock bonsai.

This is such a love hate hobby.

Spring Bonsai Care

 Basic advice? Watch your watering, check for swelling or blooming buds and start planing how you are going to wire last years growth and what you might want to do with this years new growth potential.

So, this will be my second spring with trees in the works. This does not necessarily bode well for the trees.

I have gone through them and removed some of the obviously dead branches. I also trimmed back my mulberry bush a little. I also cut back the grapevine.I checked everything for swelling buds and they seem to be ready to put out leafs.

I had a good amount of frost damage. By keeping things in my Florida room I had hopped to avoid this, but because of the "freeze, thaw and oh look it's below zero again" weather we had I am not surprised. What did surprise me was how many things I didn't get to prepare that survived.

The junipers I'm not too sure about because they can be dead/dieing and not show it. Two look purple so they are the ones i think might have died. the third is a different variety and looks like it is alive. so it's a toss up with them.

I have a few seedlings that look like they survived the winter. Some are the last ones I have of one plant variety.... I might try looking in Lowes for another one because they look nice and grow fast. but I don't want to spend a lot, or any, money.

Ficus pt2

So the little ficus that I was afraid of loosing... is doing better-ish. I say ish because I am not sure if it will continue to do so.

In my mad dash to try and save the tree I cut it back. Trimmed the hell out of the leafs and stuck it in water until I could get the supplies to root it. Cue a visit from my sister, family stuff and work stress... And it was still in the glass of water.

Upon checking it last night it has some roots starting to grow.

All of the new roots are on only one side of the tree. Which I'm not worried about. I just want the thing to live. I am going to wait until the roots actually look like roots before I put it into real soil. No it won't be the right soil. Yes, I'm a sinner.

So, providing it lives I at least know I can root branches I trim and maybe sell the babies later on.

My Stupid Beech Bonsai

And it really is stupid. We had on day last week of 50 degree weather and The tree opened up the a few buds. Then we were back down to 22 degrees and the newly opened buds look bad.

The good news is I know it survived the winter.
The bad news is the tree is stupid.

Over all this shouldn't do anything harmful to the tree. Beeches are very strong growers and it should bounce back. I was constantly cutting back new growth that was longer then what I was looking for. Plus I defoliated the hell out of it and it was still growing fine.

If I was smart I would try and make this into a large bonsai. However I attempting to make this into a small to medium sized bonsai in the root over rock style.

I think If I happen to find another beech that I can easily pull out of the ground then I will try for a large bonsai. But for now I wait for spring.

Spiky Palm Type Plant & Suff

"I really do not know what it is called. so far it is doing ok here in the office... the one of the pair started doing very bad. most of it's frond/leafs died so I trimmed it way back. Then I found the top had mold growing on the new bits so I cut that out.

Today I found that the middle was squishy and looked rotted so I chopped it. With luck it's will grow back new tips. I also put the top part in water to grow roots. then I can stick it in the pot with the living one.

Also my vine-thing might have died... and my spider plant is doing good. So far... "

I wrote that back in January. Let's just say that the palm-thingy I chopped was not the same kind as what my parent have and I think it's dead. Also the larger of the little vine things definatly looks dead.

on the plus side, the spider plant is fine and the other little vine thing seems to be growing buds. which makes me happy.

I have added a few more plants, 2 poinsettias and some leafy things. they are so far still doing good. I need to water everything before I leave for the weekend.

Weird Vine & Gourd

So I 'saved' a weird vine at work a few weeks ago and no it has thrown out roots. So far they seem to just be on one side of the plant. I think they are starting to show on the other but I won't hold my breath. I am going to keep it small. with luck more branches will pop out this spring/summer. that would be very nice


Now.. the gourd... is dead.

And by dead I mean almost rotten to the point of my nose running away. I think tonight I'll hit a craft store and get the right powder to dry it out. the only problem I foresee is cleaning them out so nothing rots again.

Traumatized Gourd

I am in the proses of traumatizing a hapless gourd.

Why?

My computer at work has been down for over a week. Monday was the last straw for my ADD and I started to poke one of my decorative gourds with a needle. I had wanted to take it home to hollow and dry but kept forgetting it.

Now it has salt and tissues in it. I blame my limited resources at work.

So... If this works I might be doing the same to the other five gourds on my desk. The office is very dry so the mold has been kept at bay. So I can wait to see what happens before I have to worry about the others.

Butterfly Bush & Mums

The butterfly bush was put into the ground this weekend. It is now a very happy butterfly bush that has put out new growth. Hopefully this will not harm it and it will come back next year.

My mums... or mum... whatever, it is doing very well. Unfortunately after my mom complemented it she said that they have had bad luck planting them and getting them to live. I was not a happy camper when I heard this. I need to do some research to see if there is any way to try and coax it into living through the winter.

Other then that we had a rather large wind storm last night. The wind was stronger near the tops of the trees so all the leafs are still in the back yard. All the warm weather that we had been having seems to have left with the storm. my co-workers were joking about the snow coming soon. :-(

Wild Grape as Bonsai pt2

I tried popping onto Google for trimming advice. A lot of what I found was for killing wild grape vines and people saying that they were invasive. This boggles me to no end because they are a natrual species.

Oi.

So I'm getting around in the same circle. I don't want it to louse its shape. I also don't want it to try putting out fruit before I really know what I'm doing. What I want it to do is put out a few more suckers lower down the mail trunk to bulk it up. But what I want is not necessarily what will happen.