Adenium Obesum (Desert Rose) Wedge Grafting

Because of its ease of cultivation and nice flowers, the Adenium obesum was propagated and grown as general ornamental plant all over Asia, notably in Thailand. Until in around 10 years ago, other cultivars of adenium was brought to Thailand. Then selecting and hybridizing of Adenium started.

Until now many hybrids have been produced by many breeders. The flower color and form of new hybrids are much more beautiful than original adenium. Flowering habit is also improved, many new hybrid flowers in large group of flowers and flowers all year around. There are many nice hybrid that are worth cultivating.

Garden Waste Incinerator with Grate

(This is the continuation of Part 2)

A grate is defined as "a frame of iron bars to hold a fire". In the garden and yard incinerator that I built, there was no grate. The garden waste twigs and branches held up the dried foliage that was to be burned. That is until the branches and twigs burned completely and the burning material start to fall into the incinerator bottom. I then needed to use a stick or rod to prop up the burning garden waste up so as not to suffocate the fire.

This is where an improvised grate will help hold up the burning material so it does not collapse and fall into the pit below. An improvised grate for this garden and yard waste incinerator is quite easy to do. You only need a piece of steel matting material to cut, bend and form. Actually, any scrap piece of metal that resembles some kind of a grill will do.

Tip to Pre-Label Marcots or Air-Layers

In the first part of this two-part series, I discussed a technique to identify marcots for pre-labeling them in a multi-plant garden pot. The purpose is to easily identify the marcots without relying on flowers' color come harvest time. That's because there may be no flowers when the marcots have rooted. By identifying marcots and then pre-labeling them, removes the confusion of identification in a multi-plant garden pot.

But there's more. Say you have several different bougainvilleas planted to different pots. Then you managed to cut or harvest many marcots from these different pots and then put them in a big pile or a tray of water. How will you identify the marcots when you'll be potting them? This is especially if they have no flowers, and the leaves look very similar. How will you know which bougainvillea variety is one from the others?

Identifying and Pre-Labeling Marcots

When we were still in a buying frenzy for bougainvilleas, one of the pots we bought had two bougainvillea plants in it. One had white bracts and the other, violet. The garden pot had plenty of both of these colors and was absolutely gorgeous. I decided right there that I would be marcotting these two plants in the pot.

I've been marcotting (air-layering) plants for some time now and it's nothing new to me. Immediately I started marcotting all the branches that were a bit mature and had the likelihood of successful rooting. There were I think a dozen marcots that I air-layered that day.

Yard Trash Incinerator with Air Vents

(This is the continuation of Part 1)

In every construction job, there's always some scrap left behind by workers. Such happened right after we had our garden pergola and the garden gate arch fabricated. Some of the scrap metal have been used to make a rain water barrel platform to elevate the rain barrel. But still a piece of tubular metal pipe scrap remained. This pipe was a little over 4 feet.

Rather than still keep this piece of scrap to rust and rot away somewhere outside the house, I thought of utilizing the scrap piece for raising our garden and yard waste incinerator off the ground. Doing so, will provide air vents when yard trash is being burned, thus facilitating the incineration.

Carpenter Bees Pollinating Flowers of Maiden's Jealousy

This little fella and its friends have been frequent visitors to our front garden ever since our Maiden's Jealousy vine (Tristellateia australasiae) also known as Showers of Gold, has started to flower. Every flush of blooms thereafter guaranteed the return of these carpenter bees.

Recently, with techniques to promote continuous flowering in the Maiden's Jealousy vine, these carpenter bees now visit everyday. In our front fence, there could be as many as 5 bees all pollinating the flowers of the vine at the same time. It's no wonder, most of the flowers become fruits.

Secure a Garden Pot to a Metal Post

When our garden gate arch was constructed, I thought of having plants in garden pots on top of the concrete posts. The metal posts of the arch would help stabilize the garden pots.

Actually, we used to have a hodgepodge of tiny pots, plastic and ceramic, on top of the concrete post before. But because of their small size, and since there wasn't anything to tie them down, they were vulnerable to tipping and falling.

Not a few strong winds have toppled these small pots. A few times, someone passing through the gate with an errant open umbrella would do the same thing. These have resulted in broken pots and uprooted plants.