Green Thumb Update: becoming increasingly more chartreuse

I thought it would be appropriate to update you all on my recent blog post on my adventures into the horticultural world. Although things were looking promising the first few weeks and even months, recent events have transpired to undermine my green thumb, and have rendered it a yellowish chartreuse.

San Diego has been hit over the past several weeks with a heat spell that has thrown us into the triple digits on multiple occasions. Needless to say, even my sun loving outdoor plants have had a hard time with this barrage of sunshine and incessant heat, my beautiful black-eyed susan was the first casualty - I have cut her back and hope that maybe she will perk up again one day. The others have all withstood fairly well, and some have even grown, so - maybe loosing one is not so bad?

On to the indoor plants, I had two lovely orchids which I purchased in July and were doing quite well until they very suddenly croaked about a week or two ago. What was I thinking trying to raise orchids in an un-air-conditioned home?

The big hit in all of this, however, has been my windowsill cactus garden, you remember - the ones I started from seed. They just so happen to love a hot house and all this San Diego sunshine. I've got over a dozen miniature cacti growing, and they are finally into the stage where they look like the real deal, little spikes and all.

The success in this department, and disappointments in others, led me to delve further into the world of succulents. I took some clippings from some of my outdoor plants (some form of a succulent but I'm not sure it's actual name) and have potted them as an addition to the windowsill garden. They seem to be very hardy little fellows and have quickly sprouted roots. I think my next purchases will definitely be more succulents - for they seem quite suited to my particular color of green thumb!