We got away from the construction noise yesterday for a few hours, and my knitting of a sock for an itty bitty foot is now back on track. One of the members of the Ceramics Club is a tiny gal with an itty bitty foot! So, she obligingly let me measure her heel height, draw around her wee foot, and measure from the base of her big toe joint to the tip. Yay!
Now there are some real measurements to go on! I'll take these measurements and work out a pattern for my friend who has very kindly sent me a couple of treasure troves of straight needles in recent months. Yay!
When Sis, DH and I last went to the club, we stopped at the library to return a book for her. I found the most amazing book on how to identify and to propagate cacti and succulents. Someone, who had it before me, was careless because the pages were gritty. As I read it, I realized that what they had done was taken the book to their garden potting bench and used it as a reference for re-potting some of their plants! This books can drive you mad with pent up spring fever if you are already half gone over succulents and cacti, I presume.
I've read it through twice since and found that this amazing book was one I really did need for my own. DH reluctantly found it on the web, used, for me, and if all goes well, I will be grafting and propagating my own lovely specimens of succulents and cacti this summer. I say DH did it reluctantly because he is sure that there are far too many plants around here already. I figure, since I really cannot afford the water bills for a rose garden, I can afford these plants as landscape, and want them with a passion that has never abated since I was a child.
You see, when I was a pre-schooler my family lived across from a huge nursery for cacti and succulents called Cactus Pete's. My dad worked part time there, and I was able to wander amongst the plants for as long as I liked. I fell in love with these amazing little plants because I was shown how to make a new plant from just one fat little piece of donkey tail sedum. or how to get the "baby" plants off of an Echeveria, or Hen and Chicks.
The only reference I can now find is to a place called, "Cactus Petes", which is a huge gambling casino somewhere in Nevada. Casinos seem to be cropping up in my life lately!
I'm off to knit a swatch of "Tosh" for the socks on "0" needles, and read a little more of the mystery series I'm hiding from you until I get more books out of the library. There aren't very many copies! A new program called "Link" can now suck local books right out of California to, presumably, anywhere on the planet. Anyway, it made me paranoid!
Here is a picture of one of our cacti- blooming yesterday-and called an Echinopsis. Enjoy!
Now there are some real measurements to go on! I'll take these measurements and work out a pattern for my friend who has very kindly sent me a couple of treasure troves of straight needles in recent months. Yay!
When Sis, DH and I last went to the club, we stopped at the library to return a book for her. I found the most amazing book on how to identify and to propagate cacti and succulents. Someone, who had it before me, was careless because the pages were gritty. As I read it, I realized that what they had done was taken the book to their garden potting bench and used it as a reference for re-potting some of their plants! This books can drive you mad with pent up spring fever if you are already half gone over succulents and cacti, I presume.
I've read it through twice since and found that this amazing book was one I really did need for my own. DH reluctantly found it on the web, used, for me, and if all goes well, I will be grafting and propagating my own lovely specimens of succulents and cacti this summer. I say DH did it reluctantly because he is sure that there are far too many plants around here already. I figure, since I really cannot afford the water bills for a rose garden, I can afford these plants as landscape, and want them with a passion that has never abated since I was a child.
You see, when I was a pre-schooler my family lived across from a huge nursery for cacti and succulents called Cactus Pete's. My dad worked part time there, and I was able to wander amongst the plants for as long as I liked. I fell in love with these amazing little plants because I was shown how to make a new plant from just one fat little piece of donkey tail sedum. or how to get the "baby" plants off of an Echeveria, or Hen and Chicks.
The only reference I can now find is to a place called, "Cactus Petes", which is a huge gambling casino somewhere in Nevada. Casinos seem to be cropping up in my life lately!
I'm off to knit a swatch of "Tosh" for the socks on "0" needles, and read a little more of the mystery series I'm hiding from you until I get more books out of the library. There aren't very many copies! A new program called "Link" can now suck local books right out of California to, presumably, anywhere on the planet. Anyway, it made me paranoid!
Here is a picture of one of our cacti- blooming yesterday-and called an Echinopsis. Enjoy!
i had a neighbor who had a sunny south facing front yarn, and she had a huge collecion of succulents--many native to NY area
ReplyDeleteNYC has a version of prickly pear that survives our winters, and a other varieties. (they survive cold nights in the desert, and cold months in the north east!)
the succulent room of the green house in NYBotanical gardens was always a favorite, too. I totally understand.
Gorgeous flowers!!!
ReplyDeleteYour page is beautiful.
ReplyDeleteI am remarkably bad at growing cacti. I do have a "something-or-another" growing in my kitchen window, but growing is perhaps the wrong word. Surviving might be a better term. My succulents are all suffering for want of strong light. I love this house, but growing room is in short supply.
OfTroy, I would love to see that amazing prickly pear, and the other succulents native to NY. That an opuntia could adapt to cold nights as well as cold days is amazing to me. wow!
ReplyDeleteSolaris, thank you! I love your flower snaps, too, as well as the luscious knitting you do.
K, thank you! Cacti are also lovers of heat, and the book that I put up for what I'm reading has so much information on how to grow them just about anywhere is the best book I've ever seen on propagating them as well. For light you might try a fluorescent, maybe? I know it helps other plants to survive the dark months.
I'm thinking of setting up a big table I have to propagate all sorts of plants, I can just hear DH now.....