The BIC Plant and Gardening Thread

[sister13]

Hello BIC friends and fellow gardeners! Whether you have a container on your balcony, some indoor plants, a whole garden, or even if you just happen to visit a botanical garden or see a lovely space or plant in your neighborhood you want to share, this is the place! Please share pics, tips, plans and tricks about all things gardening!  

For many years I had a container balcony garden with mostly flowers and herbs (when travel allowed), and I am now embarking on my first backyard landscaping and gardening journey. 

I am often taking inspiration from the natural world around me and have recently had some spring inspiration for the Makeup Challenge of the Week and have loved chatting about gardening in our other threads, so I thought a new thread would be nice. 

It’s always so interesting to me to see plants and gardens from different regions and countries, so I hope you’ll join the conversation!  

PS: if you create a makeup look based on some plant or garden inspiration, please feel free to post your look or flat-lay here, too! 

Here are a few pics of my spring bulbs to start and I’ll share more soon (kindly ignore the weeds)! 

 

 

My old balcony (from the outside) - I’ll try to find an internal pic too:

[Saradestin]

Yes @JoSometimes ! so resilient!! 

This was last summer 

This was after the freeze, with two leaves still resisting strong!

And this was yesterday

[JoSometimes]

@Saradestin Yes! You go palm tree! 🌴

[Titian06]

Sure they count, @Saradestin !  I love peonies!  We had them at the house we lived in before we moved.  I had a secretary who always brought in peonies from her garden to sit on her desk.  They grow in zones 3-8.

[Saradestin]

Thank you for the confirmation @Titian06 , that way I don’t fall into the temptation of buying them to try to grow them here. They are nowhere for a reason ☹️

[blackkitty2014]

Oh wow @Saradestin 🤩 Post away post away. These are too beautiful to miss 🌹

[Saradestin]

I am amazed at the size and beauty of the flowers @blackkitty2014 ! 🩷🩷🩷

[Saradestin]

You have heard me talking about the terrible and unusual freeze we had last December. These pictures are from the garden of a property we have very close by that is a vacation rental so we don’t live there but I take care of the garden weekly. 
Everything was looking so spectacular because of the mild winters we had for the previous 6 years. But a huge freeze killed it all (or almost)

My ferns and ti plants 

Before

After 

Before (my bananas)

After

Before (banana tree and giant flower of paradise)

After 

Before (my gorgeous ferns and ti plants)

After

Before (grapefruit on the right and tangerines on the back left)

After

Before (my bromeliads)

After (a different angle but you get it…)

This is right after we left for our Christmas holidays

And this right after them 😭.

And there was much more, but you can understand how devastated I felt. The citrus trees are totally dead so I will have to take them out (including roots) and plant new ones. 
The bromeliads died as well. The rest is slowly coming back to life. It will take long for everything to look as beautiful as it was but it will get there eventually.

[sister13]

Oh no, the devastation is heartbreaking! Mother Nature can be so tough sometimes! @Saradestin 

[Saradestin]

Yes, it was @sister13 , but Mother Nature gives us more than what she takes away 🥰

[blackkitty2014]

Oh no this is heartbreaking ❤️‍🩹 @Saradestin. Hopefully some of the trees will make a comeback 

[Saradestin]

Yes @blackkitty2014 , some will but the fruit trees are not (other than the banana tree) 😓 At least is something that happens (or it should) once every several decades

[JoSometimes]

Oh no! I’m sorry for your loss @Saradestin. That looked so green and lush before the big freeze.

[Saradestin]

It was @JoSometimes 😭, but there is nothing we can do other than keep going, let nature take care of it and help a little by planting new stuff where needed. 😊

[Titian06]

@Saradestin - I am soooo sad for you! 😭  Your plants and trees were so beautiful! 🪴🌻🍌🍊

[Saradestin]

I have never seen anything like that since I moved here @Titian06 ! We occasionally have freezing days here but just a day or two and a light freeze that stresses the plants and trees but doesn’t kill them. But this one was a lot of days and so hard! 🥶🥶🥶

[Ispend2much6]

My heart is breaking for you. @Saradestin. There's nothing quite like fruit right off of a tree.

[Saradestin]

 

😭I had just purchased a tool to be able to harvest the highest tangerines that I couldn’t reach any other way and I only could use it once @Ispend2much6 . The tangerines were not edible, tbh, but they made delicious bitter tangerine jam. I am glad I made so many bottles with the last harvest that I will have jelly for years!

 

[sister13]

So beautiful! Glad you had the backups! @Saradestin 

[Saradestin]

Me too @sister13  because I don’t want anything else for breakfast now! 😅

[Ispend2much6]

@Saradestin  Thank you for sharing these! I had no idea tangerines grow at the tip of a branch.

Citrus jam is the best!

[Saradestin]

You’re re welcome @Ispend2much6 !! Being in the tips made it easier to harvest. I took a small bottle of the jam to Spain to share with my family and it was so funny to see their faces 😖😖😖😂🤣😂🤣 I understand that you need to love bitter/sour stuff and they clearly were not into it. But I am completely addicted. I am eating it every morning on a toast for breakfast 😋😋😋😋 Now I find other jellies overly sweet 😅