February - The Month of Hearts

One cannot start the month of February without thinking about Hearts and Love! :)

and chocolate and love and warm puppies and love and red and love and flowers and love and kisses and love and pink and love. . . and love.

So what's love got to do with it?  Bring the chocolates.   And love! 

Is that not beautiful? Lifts the spirits.

Do you love me?  Do you love me?

Ah, Do you love me?  Do you love me?

Now that I can dance.

I can mash potatoe. (Obviously British).

And I can do the twist.

Now tell me baby

Mmm.  Do you like it like this?

Tell me.  Tell me.  Tell me. Aaa!

Or on a more serious note:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A2MBneb7lc

from "Fiddler On The Roof".  Now that's love married style.

February also brings thoughts of gardening.  Real love.  I can't wait to get my hands in the soil.  So, do it!  

February is the month to repot your houseplants.  Give them time to make new roots and look beautiful this summer. I give large pots a couple of years before repotting, but smaller post usually grow out of their soil in a year.  Also, it's time to check out evidence of insect infestations.  Winter is hard on plants, heated rooms, cold windows at night, lighting issues.  They are very vunerable to red spider mites, scale and white flies, and it spreads fast.

This week I replanted my little lemon trees.  I saw a great pin on planting lemon seeds.  (The pin says suspicious link.  Sorry.) I tried it and got this:

Several little trees germinated.  They grew very well through the summer. See the roots coming out of the bottom of the pot. Time to repot.

The leaves were sticky indicating an insect problem.  I can't see any bug, but washed the whole plant with a gentle detergent like  you would wash fresh veges with.  I will need to keep an eye on it until Spring.

Choose a pot that is about 1-2 inches larger than the original. This pot has its limitations.  Because it is curved it could be more difficult to pot on later.  The root mass will not pull straight out of the pot as it did in the last pot.  I like the pot so will have to deal with it later.

The trees have not developed woody stems yet so I had to prop them up for a while.  

They do smell wonderful.


I have another amaryllis bulb that did not grow this year.  It was in a pot without a drain hole.  It is still green and alive, so I gave it new soil.  There was a little bulb in the pot, too, that I potted separately, but it will take years to grow big enough to bloom.  A third amaryllis has decided to send out a new leaf so I put it under the grow light.  The way to tell if it is blooming is when it sends up a leaf with a little dent in it.  This one develops into a blossom. Don't worry if  your bulb does not bloom at Christmas time.  It may just do it two months later when the light is the same intensity as it was in December.

It is time to begin fertilizing all the house plants.  Choose one for blooming plants for those that bloom and one for non-blooming plants like Miracle Grow.  I use one that dissolves in water and just water it in once a month.  I also use half-strength fertilizer in the winter.  

Happy Planting!