I'd like to share a couple surprises in my garden. The first is an Achachairu, thin leaf, from a friend here on the forum. I kept a bag over the plant in order to trap moisture, and kept it watered this past Winter, but sometime around December the plant turned completely brown and looked dead. I kept watering it anyway, and In April, brought it out and put it in my plastic greenhouse. It still looked dead, but I kept watering it periodically, mostly thinking it was a goner, but I was digging around one day looking for a label, and this pot had been lying nearly on the ground for a while, and I picked it up to see if the label was in the pot. Lo and behold, a little sprout came from the base. As you can see from the pictures, it has really come back. Can anyone tell me if I should prune the smaller shoot to encourage a base trunk?
This is the plant when moved into the greenhouse. Looks dead, haven't removed the bag yet.
This is the plant after discovering the new shoot.
This is how the plant looks now. Any advice on whether to pinch the small shoot off?
Next, my broad leaf Achachairu. This plant was a beautiful 3ft tall plant that I was given a 6inch seedling off back in 2011 from another friend on here, and it had made it through our Winters(in Maryland) like a champ in the den, but this past Winter, it just kept declining. The scale were pretty bad this past Winter.
It saddened me that I thought it may have died, but I kept it in the back of my greenhouse, and hoped it would put new leaves out. It seemed like it didn't, until I was cleaning out dead plants this past weekend. I will also not use the altered gritty mix, that I used, which was a gritty mix but with more peat, because I knew it would not work in the Winter. Well, I need even more peat and organic material, because my Winters dry my potted plants out like crazy. My new mix has plenty of peat and worm castings, but perlite too, for drainage.
My Jaboticaba Grimal from Adam was a small plant when I got it last Spring, but it has really loved my care. I planted it in my old mix, which was mostly peat and bark, and never replanted into my gritty mix. It loves the water. Anyway, in the Winter I kept it in the bay window and kept a bag over it. It grew even in December-January. It has since exploded. I need advice on how to prune it. I hope you Jabo experts can tell me.
Here's the progression from out of the house to now.
My White Jade pineapple was doing pretty well too, but when it was knocked over in a storm, via my entire greenhouse knocking over. I then overwatered it this past Winter, and noticed in the Spring that the center was rotted. I hoped it would grow a new shoot from the middle and it did. I wasn't sure if it would, but now I know.
So I suppose what I'd like to say is, it feels good to find our plants have bounced back and are troopers. Tropical plants can be fragile, but can be tough too.
I'll end this with a few more pictures.
My seedling Pulasan. Made it through the Winter. Growing new leaves.
A few of my plants ...
A new Lychee from Adam.
and a couple pictures from my favorite place in DC, the USBG(botanical garden)