My cactus arrangement is showing signs of returning from dormancy.
And if we look closer we can see a fruit has emerged!
Seedling update. I left my house for a week and a half. As you can see I forgot to put them outside so they could get water naturally. Fortunately 2 of them may survive although I will have to plant more seeds to fill the void left from the guilt of not taking care of them properly.
My Mother of Thousands babies are thriving so well that they are overpopulating my windowsills.
My orchid opened another bloom. This one is larger and more vibrant when in comparison to the previous blooms.
Easter lilies are a commercial creation. Like engagement rings. In nature they bloom in late spring and even in summer, not at Easter. The ones you buy are forced in a greenhouse. "They" say that forced lilies will never again bloom indoors. You have to plant them outside to get blooms. This was a Home Depot plant that I planted last fall, and here it is.
This is my only current success story. Everything on the front porch is currently covered in white flies. I've sprayed everything with a neem oil solution twice now. It's an ugly battlefield out there right now.
But here's the healthy lilies. The dead stalks next to it are what is left of the Tulipzillas.
Dianthus - Focused on some of the bizarre color expressions - I am not sure if they should be called crosses or hybrids or mutants or what. I don't have the biology knowledge enough. The pure white are set for harvest, they really are that white/bright.
Wow Dandain. So impressive. Really beautiful, healthy plants. You make me feel like a bumbling buffoon.
How do you deal with whiteflies or aphids or thrips? I discovered yesterday that I have all three. Whiteflies in a hedge, tens of thousands of them. Aphids on my easter lilies, and now today I found thrips on my sunflower seedling.
I've tried low concentrate neem oil solution with unimpressive results. Today I covered everything I could find with high concentrate neem. I also ordered a canister, packed in ice, that contains 25,000 of these things: PREDATORY MITES
I believe this first picture is whitefly larva and the second is of an adult thrip and maybe a thrip egg.
AngryGerbil
that infestation looks bad, like defcon level 5 bad. I see you want to use beneficial predators, good man. I respect that you didn't go total pesticide crazy right off the bat. However if they do not massacre the pests you may have to turn to a chemical alternative. If you want to stay the natural route I would check these guys out.