One last thing... I cleaned up the balcony yesterday, which means I had to disassemble my little garden. The outcome:
The Winners
Newton Pulsifier the 6th - the little ivy that double its size over the course of the summer. His tendrils are long, and there are a few more.
Spyder - the spider plant is growing a spider, or one of those shoots with a bunch of leaves on it. He's much healthier than when I bought him at the market.
The Lavender Ladies - they've bloomed once, and they're starting to go through a second growth spurt.
The Roses - I am beyond shocked that I didn't kill them. Not only are they not dead, right now they're going through a third flowering cycle (there were flowers and buds when I got the plant, which died off a few weeks later; two weeks later there were new buds, two weeks of flowers, then two weeks dormant. Now there are buds again.) I'm bringing this plant with me on the weekend, only because I don't want to miss the flowers again.
The Jade plant - Once I took it inside because it was starting to look sunburned outside, it popped out a whole bunch of buds. It's doing quite well.
The Orchid Cactus - Last count, there were six little stubby nubs on the ends of the "branches" (what do you call those on cacti?)
The Losers
The Herb Tarleks - Sadly, none of them made it. The basil never did as well as it had the previous year, nor did the mint. The sage never really took off, and the rosemary always looked pissed. When I got back from my last road trip, which was only a few days, they'd all given up the ghost, despite having been watered before I left. Alas.
The Kramers - Also sadly, the cosmos never really took off. They flourished briefly, threw out a few flowers, and then withered and died. I like to blame it on the fact they flourished during the Inco shutdown, when they do repairs on the smokestack (which I can clearly see from my balcony), and died when they started up again, pumping soot and dust into the atmosphere again.
The Also-Rans
The Chives - Still kicking. Nothing really new there.
The Aloe - One branch fell off - I was moving it, and it got knocked askew. It didn't fall off right away, but it started turning brown, so out it went. Other than that, it's doing fairly well.
The Portulaca Twins - Lovely. They pumped out flowers all summer, mostly scarlet ones, but occasionally orange, fucia or pink. However, it was starting to look like a tanned-and-leathery old woman who wears velour jumpsuits, gaudy jewelry and too much makeup: once they were beautiful, but now they're compensating for something. In this case, it was the colourless leaves and wilting. So even though I ended up throwing them out, I'm happy they did so well over the duration of the summer.
