Gardening in Southeast Wichita has proved a true challenge. Although Wichita, Kansas is considered the Midwest, it is extremely hot in the Summers here. The weather is incredibly windy and dry. There are actually tumbleweeds here, folks. I have seen them.
I have planted many kinds of vegetation on a trial and error basis. It has been very hard to keep a blooming verdant garden, even with so-called "drought tolerant" "full sun" plants. Until I start seeing plant tags that say "Kansas sun tolerant" at the gardening center, I will not trust any plant tags!
My neighbor gave me some nice wire baskets that you line with coconut husk liners. Since I wanted to attach them on my car port, which has a lot of harsh sun during the hottest time of the day, I chose Petunias to fill the baskets. I know from experience that Petunias have been fairly hardy at withstanding the ridiculous heat here in Kansas.
This petunia is très patriotique!
What I did not account for was the quick drying-out of the soil that would occur through the coconut husk liner baskets being exposed to the hot sun. They don't work like a pot. There is not much protection from the penetration of the Kansas sun's mighty rays. My petunias gave it their best college try for a good month or so before they were overtaken and baked to a crisp.
Disgusted, I went to the gardening center with cacti on my mind. I did not want to put freaking cacti in my hanging baskets, but I could not think of any other plants that would survive that environment. I was going to fill those baskets with something, darn it! What I didn't account for was how quickly the price would go up while buying multiple cacti plants. I also learned from reading the gardening instructions on these cacti plants, that some of the prettier ones needed more water or shade than you might think! Crestfallen and stressed (I had a very unenthused child with me walking around in the 95° heat), I scanned over all the "full sun" plants looking for something decent to fill the basket planters. I happened upon Purslane.
Disgusted, I went to the gardening center with cacti on my mind. I did not want to put freaking cacti in my hanging baskets, but I could not think of any other plants that would survive that environment. I was going to fill those baskets with something, darn it! What I didn't account for was how quickly the price would go up while buying multiple cacti plants. I also learned from reading the gardening instructions on these cacti plants, that some of the prettier ones needed more water or shade than you might think! Crestfallen and stressed (I had a very unenthused child with me walking around in the 95° heat), I scanned over all the "full sun" plants looking for something decent to fill the basket planters. I happened upon Purslane.
Khaleesi would approve.
I bought the Purslane, even though I found it uninteresting and scaly-looking, in hopes that it would beat the heat and grow dangling leaves to make up for its reptilian appearance.
As for those coconut husk baskets that offered no protection for the soil, I decided to line them with simple plastic bags to seal some moisture in, so that the watering of the soil would not simply evaporate through the basket! I pat myself on the back for that idea! If you do this, make sure you leave part of the bottom of the basket free from plastic bag lining, because your containers should always have drainage. If your plants are not properly drained, their roots can rot.
The next day I went outside to check my plants, and was rewarded with this unexpected beauty.
Ta-da!
Hours later I walked out again, and discovered many more blooms! I was surprised by the amount of flowers I was being blessed with on the first day. I thought the gardening gods had finally smiled down on me. That night the flowers fell off of the plant. I thought the sun had killed them good and dead, but actually these exotic beauties lose their flowers after a singular bloom, only to push out as many blooms the next day.
In action
Dead buds that gently came off of the plant. No reason to despair! They make new flowers!
Every morning for a month I have glanced out at my hanging baskets. Purslane has quickly become one of my favorites plants in my garden. It is one of the prettiest and definitely the most interesting! It proves to be an avid champion against this Kansas heat!
When I decided to do some digging into these plants, I discovered that there are types of Purslane that are eaten, and that it is actually a weed (Mason online). No wonder it has been kicking butt in this heat! It is native to India and Persia, and can grow in all kinds of conditions (Mason online). Flowering Purslane is sometimes called "the Dolly Parton flower" as its flowers are open from around 9am to 5pm (Aggie Horticulture online).
I hope that my Purslane flowers well into the Fall. I am ecstatic to have serendipitously happened upon this little jewel of a succulent!
Cited
Aggie Horticulture, Texas A&M: http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/archives/parsons/98promotions/april/april.html
Mason, Sandra, University of Illinois: https://web.extension.illinois.edu/cfiv/homeowners/030726.html
I kid you not, I just bought the same type of plant (different variety; I got sundial moss roses) yesterday, because I have a hanging birdbath which.. well.. rusts whenever it's wet.. yay.. so mine doesn't have any drainage, but it's also pretty shallow, and I find that succulents don't seem to need it as much, because they just grow like mad when they get too much water. My aloe and kanna also don't have drainage, and they seem OK, but I'm really negligent of them, so they do tend to dry out completely now and then :p Root rot is a result of standing water, which causes lack of oxygen in the root system, for long periods of time, but I don't think that would be a problem you would have if you lined them completely, just due to the nature of the hanging basket in direct sun.
ReplyDeleteI'll save you some seeds! They are beautiful, pink, peach, purple, yellow, red and white on one set of plants, and stripey pink and white, some solid red, on the other set.
Also, I would kill for a tumbleweed, so if you ever catch one, let me know ^_^
If you'd like some cacti, try growing your own from seed. They are surprisingly easy, and you can get a much more interesting variety (super-cheap, just make sure you get 20+ seeds of each variety, they have low germ rates. ebay, maybe amazon, various garden supply websites have them). I find they handle a lot of water better than you'd think, so you can get them fairly large decently quickly, and if you want to make sure they don't dry out too much, put them in a pot without drainage and give them a halfhearted soak every 4-12 weeks, depending on the weather. Like succulents, it seems to just stimulate growth to saturate them. They don't have a deep root system for a while, and when they get bigger, you can wean them off large amounts of water, if you like. I have mine in citrus soil, so it doesn't wick too much water to the root systems
This might make a difference; I lace all of my potting soil with mycorrhizae because it helps prevent root rot and helps with nutrient/water uptake. you can get a decent supply of a powder of spores and the like from planetnatural.com (you can also get insect eggs, stuff like ladybugs, fly parasites, other beneficial insects) under the soil innoculants.
I will look for the mycorrhizae. I want to have really healthy soil, especially with the dryness and heat here. I will gladly mix that in with my soil!
ReplyDeleteI bet I would not do a very good job at growing cacti from seeds. I cannot even imagine! I would surely try it just out of curiosity, but I bet nothing would happen for me. I try to take gardening as a learning experience. Every time a plant sprouts, grows, rusts, or dies in my care I consider it a learning experience!
That's a really great way to look at it, and I do much the same. You have no idea how many times I've watched my plants do strange things and immediately hit the net, resulting in "well.... I guess now we know what happens..." I just wish the learning experience didn't take so long :D
ReplyDeleteMy first few runs with cactus seeds went poorly, as well (I was trying to grow living rocks, when I was like 12 or something), but my current batch have done amazingly, and are now almost golf-ball size... with a nice heaping dose of neglect... They are, after all, evolved to live in the shittiest of environments :p My success came with mixing 20 seeds into citrus soil with mycorrhizae, in a non-draining sour cream container, wet to dripping then carefully poured off about once a month. I put them on top of my computer tower (in winter) to heat the soil from below to help germinate them. Took 2 months to germinate the first seed, a full 4 for the last. After about 9 months, I transferred them to a larger, also non-draining container (a sharps -used needles- container I got free online several years ago) with 2 inches of sand, then the rest of citrus soil. At about golfball size, their roots are about 1/4 inch long, at best, so keeping them very moist is still pretty important.
It may help that my cacti are supposed to grow to around 20 feet tall ^_^ They (San Pedros) are the fastest growing cactus in the Andes. Very cool little buggers. If you'd ever like a cutting when they get big enough, I'd be more than happy to share. They have to be about 2-foot before they can be cut, which will be another... IDK.. two or three years, maybe :D
Cacti, like succulents, are stupid-easy to clone; just cut, and bury the end, and leave it for 3-10 months without water. So really, you just need one seed to sprout, and then you just have to wait a long time without killing it :p
I know this seems an absolutely bizarre suggestion, but if you have problems with your plants, such as leaves getting discolored or odd growth patterns, and you can't find anything about your specific plant, pot-growing forums are an amazing resource.. Since a lot of growers of that stuff completely contain their plants' environment, you can find a lot of info on specific symptoms and how to correct them without throwing the entire soil system out of whack. I think those resources are easily the most comprehensive in regards to nutrient imbalances, being written, as they are, for beginners without gardening experience of any kind. Since pot is also a fairly lucrative crop, the growers take special care to monitor for even slight symptoms, so you can usually see the problem from start to resolution, so you know just how bad yours is, comparatively. Those folks also tend to know how to resolve the problems for consumable plants (although they tend to rely too much on chemicals for my tastes; I like using bugs to prevent some problems) so it's all safe to use on tomatoes and whatever else, as well.
Unrelatedly, I scavenged my moss roses for seeds, and I'll be collecting more periodically, even though just a few buds gave hundreds of seeds. I didn't manage to get many of my pink peppermint sundial's seeds yet, but whatever you get is going to be a nice mix of colors, since I have no clue which buds made which color, anymore :D I should have some for you when you come up for a visit. I think you'll fall as in love with them as with your purslane.
If my huge-ass lillies go to seed (I have red and yellow, so far this year, about 4-5 feet tall) would you like some of those seeds? IDK if they will do well where you are, but mine don't get watered (just rain) and seem to do fine, so worth a go :p