Feline Felon leaves traces of the crime 

Feline Felon

Patch the cat has been getting into a LOT of trouble while I'm at work every day. Some dirt can be found on the ground beside the planters.  Every day I find a little more damage than the day before.  I was wondering why some of my herb seeds that I did a direct sow on weren't coming up.  Today, I found that the planter I sowed the chives in was Patch's new litter box.  If I had been able to catch her, I might have thrown her onto the sidewalk with a sign "Looking for a new home."  I also found three of the bean seedlings all bent over and crushed.  Half of the parsley seedlings are MIA.  I don't know if she trampled them away or ate them.  They are just gone into thin air.  Every day it was a little something, each day adding up and adding up until now I'm fed up.  I replanted a couple of the extra bean seedlings I had to replace some of the broken ones.  I used a couple of tomato cages to protect a few of the bean plants.  We go through this every year and I forgot how irritated I get with the cat.  She is not very kind to my tender little plants as they just start out.  

Tillandsia

I collected a few air plants (tillandsia) for a friend who lives up north a few days ago.  The flowers had already faded and the seed pods were maturing when I collected them.  Today, I noticed the pods had opened on many of them and there were wispy, white, feathery downs floating around the lanai.  I clipped the spent pods off and discarded them.  I clipped and saved some of the feathery seeds and saved some of the unopened pods for her and put them into a glassine envelope.  I labeled it with the type of seed and date on a sticky label and used that to seal it closed.   Growing air plants by seed is not the easiest way, but when you are up north and the conditions are not right and the plant is not plentiful it is really the only way.  So.... sprinkle the seeds your friend sends you from Florida onto peat moss and use a spray bottle of water and mist daily to keep moist. The seeds are only viable for a few weeks after the pods split.  Here is an excellent source to help you grow them from seed: Air plants from Seed