new sarra seeds!

So today I went pick up a letter that I had received from frangelo (cpuk). I got the leuco seeds (LL 51 Leuco Russel Road x L9mk ALBA ) from him 3 years ago and those babies have grown very nicely! I think I have around 5-6 plants from the batch of 25 seeds. None of the m have flowered so far but maybe next year?

I was delighted to hear that frangelo had some last year's seeds though he didn't make any this season. I've grown well sorta old seeds from Tricky Utrici and I'm not worried at all to start growing 1 year old seeds.




I'm about to put the seeds in stratification tomorrow but to remind me in the future here's what I got:
I do not own the following photos!

XSL ..25  -  SXM61 S.x Moorei  “Timothy King   x    H 113 mk S.x Moorei 'Adrian Slack


LE.33  -   H 112 mk S.x Moorei 'Leah Wilkerson' Walton Co, FL   x   SL61 (Cedric)


WK..39 -  Wilkerson White  Knight   x    H 157 mk Wilkerson Red


XM..57 -  H45 Red Sumatra   x   F 174mk

 

XM..59 -  L 69 mk   x   H 157 mk Wilkerson Red

XM ..62 - S.x Moorei "Pinkish top" H87 MK   x   SL61 (Cedric)

our cats

I still do miss our oldest cat Ninni who passed away in March this year.. her body was failing and we unfortunaly had to put her down because se had problems with breathing and so on :'(( She'd been around even since we moved here in 1999 but I guess you can't help when its about 21-year-old cat. But I bet she had the greatest time of the life <3

While I was away in the USA my family had gotten a new family member in June, 4  months old kitten named Nisse.  He's a totally a charmer and very bold whereas our second oldest can Nikke (3 years) is quite reserved compared to him. We also have about 14-16 years old calico Nuppu that has to be taken to vet today because.. just to check her overall health.






Nikke


Nuppu and Nisse


A photo of me and Ninni taken a month before her passing in March.... :'(

Bogging at Nuuksio National Park 25.9.2015

Nuuksio National Park (Nuuksion kansallispuisto in Finnish, Noux nationalpark in Swedish) is in Southern Finland, 35 km from Helsinki on the outskirts of Espoo and the neighboring counties of Kirkkonummi and Vihti.

Established only in 1994, Nuuksio is one of Finland's newest national parks, set up to ensure that a piece of pristine wilderness is kept within striking distance of the capital. Its location so close to a major city is unusual, and due mostly to the fact that the rocky and wet terrain was unsuitable for farming or other development.

Nuuksio's landscape is archetypically Finnish: conifer and birch forests, forty-three lakes, small swamps between them and gentle rolling hills, sometimes covered in moss, sometimes with the granite bedrock exposed where the vast ice sheets of the last ice age scraped them clean. There are plenty of quiet spots of beauty, but don't expect jaw-dropping gorges or soaring mountains (good advice for traveling anywhere in Finland, that).

source: https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Nuuksio_National_Park

So. We decided to visit Nuuksio for the first time ever and we surely found some very good bogs there! Unfortunaly the season is so far that all the sun´dews were dormant and I could only spot their flower stalks. 

I saw many floating peat islands so there must be carnivores out there! I've never seen peat island like those in Finland (but in Virginia!) so I became super excited!!

I can't wait to be there the summer season is at our hands! :-)

Nepenthes lowii joined the gang!

I'm super excited to tell you that I finally got my hands on one of the most iconic Nepenthes species- THE Nepenthes lowii. And didn't get 1 but 4 little babies grown by seed by wonderful vincent from cpuk.

I'm totally loking forward growing there (toilet)plants haha! :)) Well I need to wait for like 10 years before I can see the uppers but its never too late to get the plants"!

Plant package from Christian Klein

  I went to pick my first plant package of this year. It was actually sopposed to arrive a week ago, but Christian was busy and it was delayed because of that.  Fortunately he included a few bonus plants to compensate time that I had to wait.

So I ordered these:

S. purpurea ssp. purpurea "Schweiz"
S. purpurea ssp. purpurea f. heterophylla
S. purpurea ssp. venosa "Wavy Lid"
N. gracilis
N. N ampullaria "Green Giant Pitchers", Tayve, Irian Jaya Lowland
+
bonus plants were
N. rafflesiana
S. purpurea ssp purpurea "Maine"

   Kävin eilen hakemassa postissa vuoden ensimmäåisen kasvitilauksen joka tuli Saksasta. Sen piti tulla jo viikko sitten, mutta myyjällä oli kiirettä ja se lähtikin viikko myöhästä (jonka takia sainkin bonuskasveja). En ollu koskaan tilannu heiltä joten oli kiva yllätys kun kaikki kasvit oli hyväkuntoisia ja isoja.


purpureas


Nepenthes

Bogging at Lapakisto Nature Reserve 31.7.2016

Species spotted:


Drosera rotundifolia



Drosera anglica



Drosera x obovata (rotundifolia x anglica)

back in Finland

Oh jeez I can't believe how fast time has passed since I came back in Finland! Its been over a week! My flight went ok and it was honestly a bit smoother since Rich was wise when he pointed out that I should print my boarding passes. We left Meadowview at noon and my flight was about to departure 5:15 PM. I left the place with sorrow in my heart thinking that boys are now by themselves. Well I have to finish my uni studies. There is now way to prolong it.

Dulles was ok airport. A BIT big. Security inspections went well and I had extra time to do some last minute souvenier shopping haha. Our flight was on time and that looong flight over the Atlantic was ok before we hit 5 hours of journey. After that I coudn't sleep and I had lost my free SAS headphones so I couldn't watch any movies.. We arrived at Copenhagen 10 minutes earlier than planned so I got more time to explore than last time when going other direction. That flight to Finland was AGAIN 15 minutes late! And they didn't serve you nothing but water unless you paid.
When stepping out to the airport it was soo weird to hear Finnish language after 3 months. Like I could understand everything people were talking around me haha. The first week after I arrived went by in haze. I thiunk I was having a mental jetlag or well I just needed time to recover.

Did I tell you that I landed on a job on Monday, 3 days after I arrived? HAhah I though I could handle that journey fatigue easily so I told 'em I can start right away! Its the same greenspace maintaining work. Like weeding, cleaning up city parks etc. Sorta same I've been doing for 2 summers already.

I should make a decent plant update soon.. I did lose some plants because aphids and scales had damaged some so badly. I didn't even know I had 'em..

-
Ei jösses mites tää aika on pyrähtänyt niin nopeasti sitten tänne Suomeen tulon jälkeen!!

Lento meni hyvin Washingtonista Köpikseen ja oli jopa 10 minsaa ajoissa. Lennettiin yön yli Atlantin ja koneessa oli sisällä hämärää tunnelmavaloa ym ja porukka nukku aika hyvin. Ei kitiseviä lapsia tai mitään kohtauksia. Käpiksen kentällä oli vähän enemmän aikaa kuin mitä mennessä. Lento Suomeen oli 15 minuuttia myöhässä (kuten mennessä). Kaiken kaikkiaan reissu meni hyvin. Kentillä oikeisiin paikkoihin suunnistus sujui hyvin ja matkalaukkukin tuli takaisin. Oli jännää kuulla suomenkieltä 3 kuukaudee jälkeen. Ei sitä missään kentilläkään kuullut.

Eli tulin perjantaina 1.7. tänne ja mulla alko työt jo 3 päivän päästä maanantaina viherpalvelufirmassa. Ajattelin että aikaeroväsymys olis helpp selättää, mutta pakko myöntää että toi eka viikko meni aika pöllyssä. Luulen että mun sisäinen kello vähän jäkätti. Niin jä meille oli ilmaantunut kolmas kissakin kun kotiin palasin, 4- kuukautta vanha Nisse-poika :-))

Kasveja kuoli pikkasen ollessani poissa, mutta se jotkuu enimmäkseen terraariossa pyörineisiin kirvoihin/kilpikirvoihin joita en tiennyt olevan. Pitäisi tehdä kunnollinen päivitys kasvien saralta. Ihan oikeasti .

time to leave usa

My flight departures on afternoon and Arrives in Copenhagen. There I will switch flight and take direction to our capital of Helsinki.

I had amazing time here and met wonderful people!! Richard,  Tyson, Phil, Mike, Graham, Konrad plus plus many others I will never forget you! :')

More updates once I get back in Finland (tomorrow)!

last workday

gardening with animals

tomatoes and fish -only few days remaining here!

Seriously. I'm leaving in 3 days on Thursday. Why time has to fly so fast? I donät get it :( Since we didn't have proper supervisor here today we just did main cleaning work. I worked at ceggie patch and removed all thieves and later the day Graham joined us and we went fishing by the pond :) I soo want to fish when I head back home in Finland. Seems my flame towards that activity starte burning again.

Kolmen päivän päästä torstaina odottaa lähtö klo 17:15 paikallista aikaa. Miten tää kevält ja alkukesä onkin menny niin nopeasti! Vastahan mä tulin tänne huhtikuussa. Tänään päivä kulu niin kasvimaalla tomaatin varkaita poistellessa että rikkoja poistaessa. Iltapäivästäö lähdettiin kalaan ja kaikkea kivaahan sieltä tuli!