Reading Blogs is Dangerous - New Additions

When one reads a lot of plant blogs, (s)he learns about a lot of cool plants that other gardeners rave about.  These four new plants were all ones that I most likely wouldn't have given a second thought if not for reading about them on a garden blog so I lay the blame for these plant acquisitions on the following bloggers:

Hoya lauterbachii came in the mail from Logee's as a result of my reading about Evan's (The Practical Plant Geek) hoyas here.  Evan didn't talk about this one but the fuzzy leaves are quite different from the thick waxy-leaved ones that I'd grown successfully before.  Since it arrived, I've been reading stories saying that unless you live in Hawaii, this plant probably won't bloom for you.  Oh well, the foliage is sweet and I can always pick up a more easily-blooming hoya some other time.




I'm not a fan of orchids.  There are many temperate terrestrial orchids which folks grow beautifully and are a joy to behold in their gardens.   They carry with them all sorts of mystery about how to keep them happy and alive.  They want water but not too much; ditto with light, they want you to feed them once a month but only with very dilute orchid fertilizer, they want to grow in bark and in pots with holes in the sides,  the plants aren't particularly good looking, and they lurk around the house taking up precious plant real estate and looking dull for months on end.  Like hybrid tea roses, orchids are all about the flowers.  When Jean, Dotty Plants Greenhouse Journal,  shared that she successfully grows orchids in her home here, it got me to thinking about phalanopsis orchids which are supposed to be fairly easy to grow.  I had to go to Lowe's to get some electrical conduit - quick in and out- when this caught my eye. The tropical sunset colors seduced my winter weary (already) soul and somehow it ended up in my cart.