Hoyas

My hoya plant is currently flowering, and I thought I would share. This is one of the most rewarding house plants I've grown over the years. It has bloomed several times, and this is the first time where the three clusters have bloomed at the same time.



These are really easy to care for. They have lovely glossy green leaves (some varieties have two-tone leaves or curly leaves), and they tend to like small pots. Once they flower from a special stem, they will flower again (later) from that same stem. The flowers vary in colour depending on the variety, but most have fuzzy petals with smooth centres. The flowers have a wonderful and strong scent, but only in the evenings. During the day they have no fragrance. The scent is strong enough to smell them from one or two rooms away.



Once the flowers are spent, they dry out, brown, and just fall off the stem.



They are easy to propagate from cuttings (they form roots on the stems) and they have a nice tendency to "fill out" bare spots when they grow. They can also be trained up a form (trellis) or left to hang down like a vine.

Exhausted

As I mentioned earlier, I'm having a Christmas party for the very first time at the house. This isn't the first party I host here, but it's the first time I'll be having a more traditional sit-down meal type party.

That said, I've been cleaning the house from top to bottom for the past 2 days (mainly today). I'm nearly done, and some of the food for tomorrow is ready to go. I have a last minute shopping trip tomorrow morning, and cookies to bake, but everything should work out alright.

Here's the long list of what I did/cleaned so far:

- Dusting everything (yes, everything, piece by piece)
- WASHING all the painted floors (by hand, with a rag and pail, on my hands and knees)
- Washing/cleaning all the mouldings, baseboards, and windows sills (you wouldn't believe how much dust had settled over the doors and windows - no one would see this, but I wanted a THOROUGH cleaning)
- Washing the tub/shower
- Washing the bathroom tile floor
- Washing the sink in the "guest bedroom" upstairs (lots of scrubbing with Comet & Bar Keeper's Friend)
- Passing the vacuum in the guest bedroom and "L room" (unpainted floors)
- Washing the main staircase (OMG it was atrocious)
- Vacuuming the living room and dining room
- Washing everything in the kitchen (including the mouldings, cabinets, and the blue cupboard with everything on it), stove, fridge, etc.
- Washing the PC, keyboard, mouse, speakers, tower, monitor, and desk

I also re-potted and did "maintenance" on the bulk of my house plants yesterday. That was a huge job in itself (I have roughly 2 dozen), which took probably over 2 hours. This included replanting several of them, trimming-back roots, and planting a whole bunch of new cuttings that have been in water for months. I also took the time to WASH all the plants. The leaves on most of them were coated in dust.

This has been on my to-do list for probably around a year. Many of them were pot-bound, or getting straggly.

Left to do in the next hour (I'm on a break):

- Wash all the tile floors on the main floor (rag and pail)
- Wash the basement staircase (it's filthy)

So pretty much the entire house is now dust free (as much as it can be), and I'm 80% ready for my party. I still have the cookies to bake (as mentioned), and the serving dishes to wash (dinner plates, bowls, glasses, utensils).

That said, since the house will be so nice, and all the junk is put away, I'll probably be making a "walking house tour video". I've wanted to do one for a while. It's always much better to sense the scale and feel of a house through a video than through photos, and I won't be too ashamed of all the mess since it's all clean. You'll also be able to see the Christmas decorations since they're hard to photograph (because of the angles and where they are).

Nature Shots

Alright, sadly, still no progress on the house. I've either been too busy on weekends, or the heat has been insufferable.

To pass the time, I thought I would share some recent photos I took while at work. As most of you know, I work at a high-end custom kitchen/cabinetry shop. The shop is on the same property as my boss' home, and the property is several acres. He keeps the vast majority of it in very good shape, and I decided to walk down to the woods the other day on my lunch break (since the heat was not too bad that afternoon).

I purposefully avoided photos that included the shop or house.


The main "lawn" closer to the back of the property:





The first little section of trees are all trimmed low, then there's a stream with a metal bridge to cross it.







Past the bridge, the small shrubbery is all trimmed (quite far in), but the ground has full coverage in low plants, mostly ferns, and a ton of spotted jewelweed (see lower).



Jewelweed (not yet in flower). The juice from these can be used to counteract poison ivy/poison oak.





My favourite shot. It looks like light is shining up onto the branches (like with a mirror or something reflective), but it's coming from the top, and through the leaves.







I have Monday off (for Canada Day), so hopefully I'll do something productive.