I can’t say no to a Gazania. Also, I cannot turn my back on an orange osteopernum....with the purple center.

Many trays of them begin life in our greenhouse, then go out later. The last few trays will go out this weekend. She still plants every seed in the packet, then regrets having so many to divide & repot.

I put a lot of my precious Hoya plants on a sheltered deck for the summer, and had to bring them all back inside a day ago. Crossing my fingers it warms up and stays near “normal”.
Is that Gazania foliage silvery? They are lovely.

The other I bought, that hasn't bloomed yet, should be a white petal with a reddish center.

I'm thinning out a BUMPER crop of grape hyacinth in a couple of my flower beds to make room for these. I might try putting a few in hanging baskets, too.

We have tried to get them in the ground only to throw up our hands because it rained enough each day to mud things up. This last batch was bought nearly a month ago. We got half of them planted, but the rest sit with good intentions of making it into a hole. At least they are still growing.

As it turns out, that was a good thing, since our temp was in the 30's, last night, and will be, again, tonight.

I just did a whole lot of flower bed weeding, made much easier to do because of the rain. I'm calling it a day, early, so I can save my energy, and my back, for tomorrow's veg planting. THEN I can go back to laboring in the flower beds.

Time for a glass of Chardonnay, and to give some thought to food.

...as a "pepper head," I gotta ask: is there a specific chili pepper plant you were seeking?

Eight years ago, my local nursery offered "Hawaiian Peppers" so I bought a couple of starters. Hawaiians -- or Capsicum fruitescens – have a unique combination of heat and sweetness. On the Scoville Heat Unit scale, they clock in at 50,000 – 70,000 SHU. By comparison, Jalapeños are rated at 5,000, and Habaneros top off at 150,000. They seem to do very well in this Northeast Florida climate.



And each and every generation is hotter than the one before. Plant evolution, where the strongest survive and adapt to produce seeds? Maybe, but they're my favorite, and Generation-8 plants should be producing very soon.

I make a lot of curries during the Winter so I dry the chilis. I am also planting some Red Scotch Bonnets, along with sweet banana, sweet red and orange, and green bell. The Scotch Bonnets are for my 'nephew in law' who LOVES really hot peppers.

One year I planted ghost peppers but I haven't had much luck in finding them, lately.