Plenty potted plants :))

I challenge you to say the title of this post 3 times fast :-D.

I've been meaning to put up the pics of my plants for days now. Don't know where the time is going (I know where it goes, but just saying :-p). The plant saga in going on in our lives as usual - I tried out a couple of new ones which were big hits, some which were miserable failures, yet others which overgrew and made me tear my hair out with frustration. But thats what gardening is all about..

Last year October I was a happy woman. I had pestered Sri into buying about 60 tulip bulbs, all of which I planted in my rectangle shaped-pots (or maybe they are containers) and was really anticipating a wonderful tulip show come spring (as you should know by now, I have this hugggggge tulips huchchu :-p). But I was in for a major disappointment. Tulip bulbs usually love cold temperatures, but hate too much wetness. Thanks to the crazy winter storm we had and the ice that deposited on my containers, the tulip bulbs rotted away. Imagine my dismay when not even a single sapling showed up in spring :(.

Anyways a disappointment is no reason to give up ;-). I bought gladioli bulbs and petunia plants and planted them in the containers. And boy, did they succeed (totally opposite to the tulip disaster ;-) :-D). But lets not rush, first, presenting the regulars - 4 jasmine pots that I have (bought 2 years back, so yes they have survived 2 winters :-D)...

This is the common jasmine (it looks a little similar to our Kakada mallige and I bought it in Florida)..




Next is Arabian Jasmine or our dundu mallige (albeit single layer). This too was bought in Florida. The flowers aren't that big or that impressive, but hey I'm growing dundu mallige in the US :-D!!




This is Star jasmine which is American and looks like our paarijaatha (have had this one for more than 4 years now :-D).




This next one's interesting though it hasn't flowered yet. I bought this pink jasmine or our jaaji mallige last year through Ebay. Last year it was too young, so lets see how it does this year (its supposed to flower in winter)..




Other than these I have my roses (I lost my red rose in the winter, but have double pots of these orange ones now)..




..., Gerberas..




.., Chrysanthemums..




And (this is new) Kanakambra!! I saw it in a friend's house and was told that its called Crossandra and is available in one of the stores here :-D. So guess what I did ;-).




I have also have my Tulasi plant (they somehow die on me each winter and I get a new one from the Indian temple in Louisville)..




.., Mint plant (a regular plant, comes back each year), 2 Karibevu plants (again got through ebay :-D) and BasaLe soppu (don't even know the English name. Got it from Indian store and then planted the stems).




Now comes the best part - the Gladioli :). They were a pleasure to grow :)).




Peach coloured ones and purple ones..




Yellow ones (which also decorated our dining table for quite a few days)...




And the best, red ones...




*Whistles :)).



I hope they come back next year (don't know whether they are hardy). Now that winter's almost here, we have to start moving atleast some of the containers inside, which is a problem since I don't have the tile space that I used to have in our earlier house. I have to keep them on the carpet, so we are looking for huge lid-kind-of-things to place them in. I do have the bottom plates for all the pots (to catch the excess drip), but I have had this problem of them overflowing and the mud wetting the carpet would be a big No-No. So there's much to do :).

Before I forget, yup the Petunias were a pleasure as well, which slowly went on to border irritation. They grew like weeds and the containers slowly got covered and then start to overflow with them. Well, the irritation is the reason there aren't any pictures of those ;-).

Other than that, I'm not really giving up on the Tulips. Plan to buy another set of bulbs and this time cover the containers with tarpaulin so that there is no excess moisture getting to them. So you can look forward to more set of adventures with plants as they happen ;-).