hokkaido squash or pumpkin

order: cucurbitales
family: cucurbitaceae
genus: cucurbita
species: maxima

A squash or a pumpkin is very easy to grow. Save some of the seeds from the pumpkin you get from the supermarket and just sow them where you want. You should start them in Spring indoor or in a cold frame. Move them out when the temperature is constantly above 10°C during the day and after the danger of late frost is over. Transplant them into bigger pots with organic potting soil, if you want to have an organic fruit at the end of the season. Otherwise just plant it into the ground in the garden.

I have a Hokkaido squash here that I started in April. The seeds germinated within the first week itself. Although, only three out of seven seeds did germinate. You want to keep more than just one plant because, in order for an individual plant to bear fruits and keep them till ripe, it needs a partner plant. In order to avoid self-pollination, the plant produces male flowers and female flowers alternately, and not at the same time. To coincide the flower of a gender on a plant with the flower of the other gender on another plant, I kept all of the three plants that germinated.

The first pair of leaves are the cotyledons. Afterwards, huge rounded true leaves emerge. Only after a week, the plants have become too big for me to keep in my studies. So they had to move out earlier than planned.

Yesterday we finally harvested a first pumpkin. Each of the three plants has managed to keep one pumpkin. The rest were dropped. So there was delicious pumpkin curry for dinner yesterday and for lunch today. The pumpkin was more delicious than ever!

For this year, there are two more pumpkins. So we'll need to learn more recipes. This whole thing is so fun I think I'll do it again next year.

avocado

order: laurales
family: lauraceae
genus: persea
species: americana
cultivar: 'Hass'

Avocado is a subtropical evergreen tree belonging to the laurel family and growing to about 30m at maturity. Besides its delicious and nutritious fruits, the trees are appreciated for its admirable foliage in different shades of green and red. Its colour keeps on changing throughout the growing season, and is thus never boring to look at.

I started two plants in late winter this year from stones that I obtained from avocado fruits. Although both fruits had been labeled as 'Hass' cultivar, one stone is significantly bigger than the other. For experiment purpose, I peeled the bigger stone completely naked and left the smaller one intact. Both seeds were allowed to sit halfway in a glass of water, supported by light pumice granules. Subsequently I placed the glasses on top of the heating unit.

The smaller stone managed to strike within the first week itself whereas the big fat one only started to show sign of growing in spring. They have been transplanted into pots with compost. Although the first one was 5 leaves ahead of the second in terms of initial growth, the fat one managed to take over to become taller. The smaller one has a more compact growth with shorter internodes. Although smaller, it has more leaves. I love them both. I'm anticipating their first branches.

smooth japanese maple

order: sapindales
family: sapindaceae
genus: acer
species: palmatum
*compare downy japanese maple (acer japonicum), fullmoon maple (acer shirasawanum) and siebold's maple (acer sieboldianum).

seedling with cotyledons and first pair of true leaves.

We gathered some seeds from some beautiful maple trees last autumn. Those trees have tiny leaves of not more than 10cm across. Back home I did scarification on some of the collected seeds and kept the rest in my seed collection. Those that have been scarified were subsequently kept in the refrigerator, sealed up in a transparent zippy bag filled with moist soil. They didn't sprout as soon as I expected. By March I thought it wasn't going to be anything, so I removed the bag from the fridge and placed it outdoor. A few weeks later, to my amazement, those seeds sprouted! I can't tell for sure how many percent sprouted, but in the end I could only find two surviving sprouts in the mass of soggy soil with the help of my tweezers. The rest was a mess.

Meanwhile I've also sown the remainder of seed stock directly into the ground. From this batch, I've got four surviving seedlings. Though they have been severely munched by insects and prolly other animals. My original plan was to leave them where they are to grow on their own for the first year, so I know if they can survive in the wild without human intervention. I gave up on this after my friend, with whom I collected the seeds had been nagging me to dig them out. I suppose this species, which is native to Japan does need protection from cold winter for their first few years, since it has a weaker growth than those that are native here. Now dug out, let's hope they survive the shock.

more leaves.

beauty bush

order: dipsacales
family: caprifoliaceae
genus: kolkwitzia
species: amabilis

Beauty bush is the only species in the genus. It's a deciduous, hardy suckering shrub with very long shoots. Stems and branches peel as they age. Flowers appear in late spring or early summer. Flowers are bell-shaped with five pink petals and throat flushed yellow. The flowers remind me of pleiones. But actually they are almost identical with the flowers of Abelia schumannii, also a member of the honeysuckle family.

I separated a sucker from the parent tree this spring to grow in a pot. It's an old sucker that had been pruned back to the base previously. In spring shoots appeared on the short stump. I miscalculated the necessary depth to dig in the soil and ended up digging out a stick with hardly any root on it. I planted it in a pot and moved it to a shady corner of the garden where it doesn't get direct sunlight. After a month, new shoots have extended to form long arches. Meanwhile I can be sure that it has developed enough roots in the ground.

I'll move it to a slightly brighter place so that it produces more energy. That's all there is to do this year. Pruning will be carried out next year after flowering, that is, if there is any flower.

new plant with its wonderful autumn colour.

common juniper or temple juniper?

order: pinales
family: cupressaceae
genus: juniperus
species: communis? rigida?

I acquired this plant at the end of last year. Since the tag was gone I had to go with the assumption that it was the most common juniper. After I brought it home I almost directly placed it in a cold frame. Having not experienced overwintering plants outdoor at minus degrees before, I wasn't sure if my plants were going to make it. As it seems my juniper tree came out from the cold frame in March without any damage visible to the eyes. Shortly afterwards it resumed growth by first throwing out cones. My plant happened to be a male plant. So there was a lot of yellowish pollen cloud to be seen when I disturbed the plant. The needles are sharp enough to puncture through my fingers, so I don't do that often. As you can see in the picture above, it's in a bonsai pot now. After repotting I cut it back to two third of its original height.

I'm wondering if this could be a juniperus rigida since the branches are kind of pendulous. I pinch off new growth once it reaches the length of half of my thumb (that's about 2.5cm) so that the tree has a more compact look. When pinched it gives off sweet scent. Juniper is used to distill gin. And gin and tonic is one of my favorite drinks. Therefore I enjoy the scent very much. Instead of thinning out the tree manually I intend to just let some of the branches in the middle die off naturally first, so that its structure becomes more visible. I'm confident that with time, it's going to turn into an admirable specimen.

When it comes to the cultivation, I'm still not sure as to whether it's better to keep the soil it's growing in basic or acidic. Some people suggest adding bitter salt to it, others recommend infrequent dosage of acidic fertiliser. This is rather confusing for me. The same holds for rhododendrons. Well, we know that rhododendrons are acid loving plants. Somehow my rhododendron fertiliser has a pH of more than 8. Either the manufacturer of the fertiliser is trying to fool people, or there's something more complicated that I still don't understand.