I’ve finished bidding on the cymbidium orchids on ebay.com.au. I won the 4 I had set my eyes on and now I’m very eager to get my hands on them.

They’re being sent bare rooted and so my research began on how to pot them up. I figured they’ll be a little dry when I receive them and if they’re anything like bare rooted roses, I’ll have to soak them overnight before I planted them.

Based on a good article on how to pot up bare rooted orchids from Vivi’s orchid corner, my plan of action will be:

1. Prepare some soaking solution by adding a few added drops of rooting hormone and dilute orchid fertiliser to water.
2. Soak the orchids roots in the soaking solution for a few minutes, then dunk the leaves in it too.
3. Wet some sphagnum moss with the wetting solution and place in a plastic zip lock bag and put one of the orchids in them. Repeat this step for each bare rooted orchid.
4. Sit the zip lock bag upright in a position with bright light with protection from wind (the greenhouse).
5. Once new growth appears, pot up in orchid potting mix (which I’ll have to buy).

I’ve read that one can soak in a soaking solution of sugar and fertiliser, but I’m not so convinced of this, I would think the incidence of fungus would be greatly increased.

I’ve decided to give up my Asiatic lilies. Yup, that’s right, the Enchantment variety is going to be donated to someone, but I just don’t know who yet!

In it’s place, I’m going to have the America variety, it’s the darkest maroon Asiatic lily on the market. I’ve placed an order with Garden Express to get 3 America Asiatic lilies as well as 3 Hot Chocolate Calla lilies. This way, I will have a lovely border of dark green and white gardenias and pots of dark purple and maroon bulbs of lilies, callas and tulips. Oh yeah, and a dark red frangipani, if it ever grows!

I also got another light, pH and water meter from Garden Express, and some pot holders to lift the bulb pots off the ground.

I spent last night making the tomato stake lattice. It’s looking ok, a little strange with bright red string, but it’s working as I hoped it would. Here’s what the north wall looks like:

Nice and neat. I’m going to have to find a way of securing down the lattice before there are any significant winds. I also should design a way to protect the tomatoes from strong winds should it come up again.

I got mystery plants! When my grandmother passed away and we had her funeral, part of the ceremony involved her offspring receiving little packets of rice and beans that we were to scatter in our garden. Since I don’t really have a garden, I scattered them in my indoors and outdoor pots and the beans from the indoor pots have sprouted into some sort of plant. I have no idea what it is, but I potted them up into their own pot and fetched one more seed from another pot so I’d have 3 of these mystery plants.

Another beautiful sunny winter’s day. I managed to spend an hour or so outside on the balcony finishing up some of the jobs I desperately wanted to do.

I went back to the store to get another 2 glazed pots in the same style and colour of the one I bought yesterday. As they say, everything looks better in uneven numbers.

So with the new glazed pots, I potted up the tulip bulbs and the lilium bulbs. Finally! They really should have been done a couple of months ago, but oh well, everything rarely goes according to plan with me.

The rest of the plants and their soil have also been treated with pyrethrum, so I hope this will bring down the numbers of fungus gnats quite drastically. I had also bought a big plastic tub to store all the spare soil, mulch and fertilisers as a quarantine method. This is really a temporary solution as I’m still looking to purchase a mini-shed or storage locker to properly store these things. Eventually, I’d like to control the fungus gnat population with some of those parasitic nematodes, so I better start looking for them soon.

The last of the capsules of the frangipani seedlings have been removed. Out of 20 seeds, 12 have germinated. How many will ultimately survive is anyone’s guess at the moment. The biggest downer is that I only have one Firestorm seedling, so I’m going to baby that one. The other varieties (Brittany, Lurline and some mystery frangis) have 3-4 seedlings so you could say I have “spares”.

Yay, managed to get a bit of gardening done in today’s gorgeous winter sunshine.

I bought some more potting mix, a couple of indoor plastic pots, a glazed pot for the tulips, some longer garden stakes for the tomatoes and some pyrethrum concentrate. Yup, decided I couldn’t wait any longer while trying to find more organic means of controlling those pesky fungus gnats.

I managed to treat the indoor plants and seedlings with the pyrethrum, but spent a little too much time at work (yes, I work on the weekends too, such is life) so didn’t get a chance to do the outdoor plants as well.

I plan to make a lattice out of the bamboo stakes I bought today and have it up against the north facing wall on the balcony for the current and future tomato plants.

I started the process of planting the tulip bulbs I received recently. I managed to get the soil mixed and into the pot then decided to treat the soil with pyrethrum before planting the bulbs in it. Tomorrow’s going to be a lovely, sunny day again, so I’m going to spend a bit more time on the balcony finishing these jobs.

Just a quick couple of notes. Firstly, the asiatic lilies are finally fading, which means I can finally re-pot them in the next couple of weeks (I think).

And here’s an updated photo of the tomato plant size. If you look closely, you can see lots of flowers and quite a few green round blobs of tomato fruits.

Now that I’m back for a little while, I can do a little planning on what to do next in my garden.

First thing would be to re-pot the Asiatic lilies so they’re clumped together in one pot. I managed to secure one more plant just before I left, so I have 3 lilies now. I wanted to plant the Asiatic lilies with perennial candytuft, so I’ll need to germinate a few seeds of those as well.

I also want to get a compact garden shed to store spare pots, tools, potting mix and all the other gardening bits and pieces. There were 2 different ones I was interested in, one was a Keter Compact Shed and the other is a Spanbilt Storage Cabinet with doors. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to find compact garden sheds for a balcony! I was ideally looking for a 100 x 60 x 180 cm shed, and these two are the closest thing to it. I have no clue where to buy the Keter Compact Shed, but I found that Bunnings hve the Spanbilt shed, so I may just go for that.

The outdoor dining set I bought on eBay.com.au didn’t arrive before I left. I still have to organise for delivery of the table and chairs. It’s such a neat little set; it’s wicker and there are 4 chairs and 4 stools (8 seating places) that tucks neatly into each other and under the table so it forms a sort of cube. Pictures will be coming soon.