Hello. I am back from an arduous journey from Collegeland to Homeland. Haha. Probably arduous for my plants, really. They went from Mobile, Alabama winter to winter in the Appalachian foothills. I know I can't complain like some of you can about the cold weather, so I'll keep my fingers from doing so. My poor plants aren't so happy, I'll just leave it at that! haha. I keep them as warm as I can though. The thermometer in my room says my room ranges from about 69 to 72, so I think they'll survive. Outside, well, that says 34 currently... Ugh. Like my plants, I'd rather be more South for winter!

The Red Lion I got during Thanksgiving has tried to bloom. It was awful! The scape opened with 4 flowers. One opened pitifully and one was hardly formed. I came to the conclusion that root issues - with the stress of trying to grow out of a box for a couple weeks - had taken their toll. So I chopped off the stalk. So I didn't want all the energy going to the flowers which just looked awful. Next year right? You can see in the picture the little bit of red between two flowers. That was the poor little bitty flower. Now I have a question about stalk cutting, but I shall save it for the end.

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Let's see... don't have pictures, but the phal is still doing well *knock on wood*. Still has a little bloom on it and seems the stalk is growing still. I have a yellow/orange/pink guzmania bromeliad. It has 6 pups, so I'm excited about that. I have Paperwhites too. They are nowhere near pretty yet. haha. I found "Carpet of Snow" - Alyssum, I believe - seeds for $1 at Target with Spruce seeds so I'm trying those out. Alyssum grows like crazy apparently... oops. I have a spruce seeds peeping so that's fun. I'll have a Christmas tree eventually! haha.

Picture time. This is of the bulb I saved from Home Depot. It had a little red bruise from the "spikey thing" but it didn't pierce through any layers. You can see it has most of its basal plate.

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A couple of days later it had roots growing. Haven't named him yet. Haha.

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What to do with the vase?! Well, go to Hobby Lobby, pick up some more black rocks and flower stems - both 50% off! Ta-da! Eternal orange-y yellow roses! My favorites!

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A seed. I have a question about that too, that I'll save for the end. I have quite a few others and haven't found the answer yet.

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This is a story (I always seem to have stories, huh?). I bought a bulb, again. haha. This one was boxed up and growing all curled. It was an Apple Blossom, which I hadn't seen in HD before. So naturally, I saved it. Well, I was cleaning it up - brown crispy layers just needing to be peeled off, roots everywhere. Well, I noticed a slight bulge on one side of the bulb. I was like, great, it has a tumor or something weird. I was getting freaked out. So I peeled the stretched layer off, and found this.

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I was like.. what a funny looking offshoot thing. On the left, you can kind of see a little leaf (maybe??) trying to grow out of the bulge? ha, so weird! As I'm holding this side, I can't help but feel a bulge on the other side and notice the outer layer of the bulb is still stretchy. I flip the bulb over and notice, in fact, it has another bulge thing. Only this one has a traceable line of something. So I'm really freaking out!!! I keep thinking "AH! There's a giant worm or something awful in here!" I was still curious, though, and I readied my "peeling back layers" fingers (while reminding myself not to scream and wake up the household, and readying to throw the bulb out the window). This is what I found!

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I was so confused! I have never seen an offset in my LIFE like this (of course, my hippi "LIFE" has been about 6 months, so take it for what it's worth, haha)! So I finished peeling it down:

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That was my adventure for the night! Whew. All I have to say is GOOD THING it wasn't a worm! (No more sci-fi tv for me for a while!)

Feel free to elaborate on my ridiculous story. I knew that bulb looked awful funny!!!

This post does slightly have a purpose other than an update and 3 AM absurdness.

One: What do I do with the big, gaping hole left by cutting a stalk off? Surely something like a fungicide? It just seems a little dangerous to put something straight into the bulb like that. But teach me your ways! I would run around Gigage singing "Jailhouse Rock" if you told me it would help, haha.

Two: In the seed picture, you'll notice the big white bulge at the end... does this part go down more into the soil than the top? It hasn't grown leaves yet, so I have no clue!

Oh, there's probably some page you can link on the forum about question one. I'm just too tired to research much at the moment. I'll probably click "submit post" and start snoring. That would be as good an answer as any. I hate repeating stuff... But that's me. If you want, by all means, repeat!

Thanks guys! For reading and for any future help for this goofy mind of mine. I'm never this flighty I promise. It's 3 AM. I get some leniency right?

Goodnight! Morning? Hmm...

Kate

The Eternally Optimistic (even at 3 AM!)