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I am happy to report that several of the cuttings that I took last fall are doing well! I took cuttings of holly, stonecrop, my rose bush, hardy begonias, dahlias, mums, and oleander.

I thought for sure that my holly cuttings had failed after 2 months of tending to them. I was about to give up and throw them out, and then realized that new leaves were growing. I was overjoyed to see that all of my hard work had paid off!

I took 2 cuttings of stonecrop from my family's house in Chicago when we were there visiting in late fall last year. One of them survived, and it's doing pretty good! It formed a couple new leaves and I'm hoping that the roots are getting stronger.

From what I've read, rose cuttings take 3 years to mature into normal bushes, so I've got a long way to go. The cuttings need to be put into their own pots since they are getting so big!

The begonia cuttings that I took last year seemed to have taken immediately. I can't think of an easier plant to propagate from cuttings! I just threw it in the soil and they just started growing like crazy.

I know that the fall is probably the worst time to take dahlia cuttings, but I gave it a shot anyways. I potted up about 25 cuttings, and only 2 survived. I'm happy that I got the experience though. Apparently dahlia cuttings taken in the spring are extremely easy to root!

Last year in the fall, I was at Home Depot. There were random mum stems all over the ground, unattached from the plant. I decided to pick them up and stick them in a pot. I have no idea what color I'll get, but I hope it's a color that I don't have! Mums are extremely easy to do cuttings with. They are almost as effortless as begonia cuttings!

The oleander cuttings haven't done anything yet. I am waiting until it warms up outside to see if I can get them to take. All of the leaves have fallen off and I'm afraid to take them out of the dirt in case they are forming some roots. I'm crossing my fingers though! The cuttings were from my family's house in Chicago so it would be hard for me to get more anytime soon.

This year, I hope to write up some blog posts on how to propagate several different plants from cuttings, so I hope you'll enjoy them! I also have several cuttings up for sale in my shop - but they won't be ready until Mid-April. Pre-ordering is always welcome though!

I bought this Voodoo Lily at Meijer 2 weeks ago. I tried growing one last year, but did it totally wrong! I placed it in soil and watered it. Apparently, that is really bad and I rotted a lot of the bulb. I still believe last year's bulb is still viable, so I will bring it out of the basement in a few weeks to try again.

I researched how to grow voodoo lilies more this year. Apparently, you are just supposed to put it on a saucer and it will grow and bloom by itself. No water or dirt required. Also, it's supposed to smell like rotting flesh when it blooms. Hooray! :)

I threw it in a random vase (which looks horrible, I know) and just let it sit with all of my other plants that I was over-wintering. I figured it wouldn't bloom for a while, so I could pretty up its presentation later.

I was going into our Florida room this morning to check on all of my seedlings like I do every day. As I was recording how many new seeds germinated, I glanced over at my voodoo lily. I literally JUMPED when I saw its new progress. It didn't look like this yesterday at all! It was a scary, yet very awesome surprise. Since having a really bad cold right now, I can't smell anything, so I'm not sure if it's bloomed or not. However, I don't think it's supposed to bloom for another couple months. I will have to ask Christian (my husband) to go sniff the room to see if he notices a rotting flesh smell :)

I am hoping to be able to collect seeds from this guy! I'll let you know when and if I do!

I originally posted about my emerging plants last week. I went outside today and saw a lot of new growth and several new plants emerging. Yay!!! Pretty excited! It's supposed to be cold during the next two weeks, so I plan on winter sowing some Columbine and Milkweed seeds while I still can!

Why? Because they dig up my bulbs, plant corn in the yard, and are all-around mischievous!

I caught my cat, Tobor, concentrating on something outside this morning. I looked outside to see what it was, and behold, the black squirrel of death!

The corn cob count is now at 3. Someone has got to be feeding them the cobs - as they end up all over my yard and corn seedlings start to grow everywhere! Originally last year, my husband and I thought it was a hobo using our grill to cook corn. Later that year, we saw a squirrel carrying a corn cob in his mouth, so we disregarded the hobo theory.

I went outside to investigate to see if there was any damage. Sure enough, he dug up a few daffodil bulbs that I just planted along with some hens and chicks. What a jerk-face!

Guess I'm going to go back outside and re-bury everything. In the fall, they go crazy with my iris bulbs. I had to bury them up every day for a month!

My friend, Randi, suggested dumping chili peppers on the bulbs to keep them away, so I will have to try that method. I'll let everyone know if it works!

This squirrely needs a name - I have a feeling he'll be showing up quite frequently this year!

I am BEYOND excited about the weather warming up. I hate, hate, HATE the winter here in Michigan! I decided to brace the 37 degree weather and take some photos of a few of my plants that are emerging. I mulched with leaves in the fall - looks like I have a lot of cleaning up to do! I will mix the leaves in with the soil when it gets warmer. Feel free to click the images to see them larger. :)

I uploaded a few photos of my 2010 garden flowers & plants on my Facebook page. I tried to make the photo comments fun - so check 'em out!

These plants are just a very, very small percentage of what I have to offer. This hardly even shows any of the flowers and plants that I have!!!

Aside from my personal home gardens, where most of these photos were taken, I have a few plots of land, 2 cottages, and my parent's house where I grow many more plants.

I work on all of my gardens for near 60 hours a week. I'm going crazy not being able to go outside because of this snow! Glad I have down-time though so I can update my site as well as posting fun photos like these!

I didn't take photos of my fruits and vegetables which I am regretting. I can't wait for my 2011 Garden - I am going to be taking photos like crazy so I can update my site with them!

Garden Hoard is launched today! I am very excited to start my blog as well as updating information on the many seeds I have to offer.