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What type of plants are you interested in growing?
This poll is closed.
Perennials! 142 20.91%
Annuals! 30 4.42%
Woody plants! 62 9.13%
Succulent plants! 171 25.18%
Tropical plants! 60 8.84%
Non-vascular plants are the best! 31 4.57%
Screw you, I'd rather eat them! 183 26.95%
Total: 679 votes
[Edit Poll (moderators only)]

 
Platystemon
Feb 13, 2012

as a person who never leaves my house i've done pretty well for myself.

Nosre posted:

That's a fun idea, I haven't done any grafting myself but I'll definitely experiment at some point.

But, if you drunkenly buried a seed (similar story to me heh), isn't yours (and mine) a full plant of the scion variant, not the rootstock variant?

Suspect Bucket posted:

But wont the scion be a rootstock variety?

poo poo now i gotta look this up

They're never gonna let me be a master gardener at this rate.

The seeds will have the genetics of whatever part of the plant fruited them. That’s the scion variety.

They may have been pollinated by another variety of citrus, or have rescrambled genetics from the variety fertilising itself, or be an outright clone of the parent. The latter is possible because citrus seeds can be polyembryonic. Some of the multiple embryos in a seed maybe be fertilised. The ones that aren’t are clones.

Sweet oranges are considered to come pretty true to type from seed, so have at it.

When citrus rootstocks are purposefully grown from seed, the seeds are commonly from the trifoliate orange (arguably not even in the citrus genus) or its hybrids.

Meyer lemon may be grown on its own roots. It readily takes from cuttings.

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Platystemon
Feb 13, 2012

as a person who never leaves my house i've done pretty well for myself.

Suspect Bucket posted:

edit: Well it turns out I misunderstood how citrus propagates. I thought the seeds were going to contain only the rootstock's genetics. Which on reflection... doesn't make sense? Who told me this?

Pretend that you were talking about the Bizzarria graft chimera the whole time.

I. M. Gei
Jun 26, 2005

CHIEFS

BITCH



Platystemon posted:

I think it’s just transplant shock. Cherry trees are particularly slow at getting over it. Pear, too. Don’t fertilise it. Mulch it, then water it maybe two or three times a week, dependent on soil and weather conditions. When it gets its roots in order, the top will take off.

I don’t know, I feel like if the problem is transplant shock then some of the other trees I planted would have it now too, since I planted them all the same way. As it is, this is the only tree of the bunch that’s suffering from something, other than possibly my Elberta peach, which gets tons of light and hasn’t leafed at all yet.

Oil of Paris
Feb 13, 2004

100% DIRTY

Nap Ghost

I. M. Gei posted:

My Balaton Pie cherry tree isn’t doing so hot. :(

Yeah man... that doesn't look great. I mean the new buds don't even look like they're *trying* to pop and we're in May. I don't think that it's the cause of its demise but why no mulch? Ground looks dry as a bone. I've had plants come back from more dire straits but I feel grim on that boy :stare:

I. M. Gei
Jun 26, 2005

CHIEFS

BITCH



Oil of Paris posted:

Yeah man... that doesn't look great. I mean the new buds don't even look like they're *trying* to pop and we're in May. I don't think that it's the cause of its demise but why no mulch? Ground looks dry as a bone.

Again, caring for orphaned kittens is the only thing I’ve been doing or thinking about for the last 3 weeks. I have gotten zero gardening work done in that time. I was JUST ABOUT TO mulch all of my trees when I found those kittens, and caring for them has completely hosed up my sleep and my focus on anything else.

We’ve been getting off-and-on rain, too, so I haven’t really needed to water anything in awhile. All of my other trees are doing great water-wise.

Oil of Paris posted:

I've had plants come back from more dire straits but I feel grim on that boy :stare:

:(

My Elberta peach isn’t leafing at all either, although the last time I scratch-tested it it was still pretty green. That was several weeks ago though (and also several weeks after planting it).

I. M. Gei fucked around with this message at 02:56 on May 15, 2020

Suspect Bucket
Jan 15, 2012

SHRIMPDOR WAS A MAN
I mean, HE WAS A SHRIMP MAN
er, maybe also A DRAGON
or possibly
A MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAM
BUT HE WAS STILL
SHRIMPDOR

Platystemon posted:

Pretend that you were talking about the Bizzarria graft chimera the whole time.

Excellent, now I have a correction and a brand new fact. I may rest easy knowing my day was not a complete waste.

Platystemon
Feb 13, 2012

as a person who never leaves my house i've done pretty well for myself.

I. M. Gei posted:

I don’t know, I feel like if the problem is transplant shock then some of the other trees I planted would have it now too, since I planted them all the same way. As it is, this is the only tree of the bunch that’s suffering from something, other than possibly my Elberta peach, which gets tons of light and hasn’t leafed at all yet.

My tree isn’t your tree, but I have a cherry I planted over two months ago that put out little leaves and then didn’t do anything. It’s doing better than yours in that it’s not losing leaves, but it’s also not growing any. Another cherry I planted at the same time, from the same grower and retailer, took off quickly.

Neither of our trees are healthy, but I don’t think there’s anything to be done for them besides water and wait. They may have been nearly dead from dehydration before they went in the ground, and it’s going to take them some time to recover.

Yours never had more leaves than that, right? Was it breaking bud when you got it or only after planting? Whatever the case, the leaf drop is concerning, and I would e‐mail the nursery photos. I think it was unhealthy when you received it, and I think it will ultimately recover, but it’s good to get a paper trail going.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


I. M. Gei posted:

Again, caring for orphaned kittens is the only thing I’ve been doing or thinking about for the last 3 weeks. I have gotten zero gardening work done in that time. I was JUST ABOUT TO mulch all of my trees when I found those kittens, and caring for them has completely hosed up my sleep and my focus on anything else.

We’ve been getting off-and-on rain, too, so I haven’t really needed to water anything in awhile. All of my other trees are doing great water-wise.


:(

My Elberta peach isn’t leafing at all either, although the last time I scratch-tested it it was still pretty green. That was several weeks ago though (and also several weeks after planting it).

Are these the same trees that sat bareroot and unplanted in Texas in April for 2 weeks? Because that, uh, might be part of the problem. They are probably beyond help, the nursery might send you new trees (tell them you want them next December, and plant them next December), but I’d agree with everyone that your best and only hope is to water them deeply and regularly. Mulching will help, but probably not going to be a lifesaving thing at this point.

I’m tempted to suggest cutting off most of the top. It miiiight help it focus on just growing one good branch instead of 5 failbranches it can’t support, but also there’s nutrients up there and it seems like the roots are tapped out, so maybe don’t do that. Water water water is your best bet.

I remember you’re in E Texas, but idk what part. If you’re south of like Shreveport/I-20 this definitely applies, maybe not if you are further north, but the best time to plant bareroot stuff in the Deep South is actually early winter, not spring. Dec-Feb. is good, March is late, April is very late and you’re gonna need to water like crazy until the following fall. You can plant container grown stuff anytime, but winter is still usually best. The plants will grow roots all winter and then really take off come spring. Sometimes nurseries (esp. outside the south) don’t ship on that schedule, but if you call and ask they may dig stuff and ship it for you when you want.

Oil of Paris
Feb 13, 2004

100% DIRTY

Nap Ghost
It's a big plant weekend ahead lads.

Already got two in:

Fagus sylvatica 'Tortuosa Purpurea'

Enkianthus campanulatus White Ishi

Looking to score:

Asarum nobilissimum

Baptisia 'Ivory Towers'

Epimedium x perralchicum 'Frohnleiten'

Arisaema sikokianum

Baptisia arachnifera

Cyclamen purpurascens

Platystemon
Feb 13, 2012

as a person who never leaves my house i've done pretty well for myself.
From the website of a tuber breeder:



How times change.

Oil of Paris
Feb 13, 2004

100% DIRTY

Nap Ghost

Platystemon posted:

How times change.

Hah, had no idea those were edible. When we bought the place pretty much the entire front of the deck was just a titanic mass of canna. Looked like pure poo poo, completely overgrown. We tore out nearly a truckload of bulbs out of the ground which I then just took to the dump. I probably would've tried eating some

Platystemon
Feb 13, 2012

as a person who never leaves my house i've done pretty well for myself.
Me neither. The seeds have always been fun.

I’ve gotten lost on the site for the last few hours.

The page for yacon alone runs over ten thousand words.

Hopniss is an interesting American native tuberous crop.

Tuberous mints!

PDF 1 | PDF 2 with overview of the Andean crops

I may as well mention the page that ultimately lead me down this rabbit hole. Someone mentioned Sacred Succulents as the source of a plant someone else on a garden forum wanted. The depth of their collection is impressive, dozens of edible plants I’d never heard of, all native to the west side of the Andes, very few of them succulents. Googling one of those plants brought me to the tuber site.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


Platystemon posted:

Me neither. The seeds have always been fun.

I’ve gotten lost on the site for the last few hours.

The page for yacon alone runs over ten thousand words.

Hopniss is an interesting American native tuberous crop.

Tuberous mints!

PDF 1 | PDF 2 with overview of the Andean crops

I may as well mention the page that ultimately lead me down this rabbit hole. Someone mentioned Sacred Succulents as the source of a plant someone else on a garden forum wanted. The depth of their collection is impressive, dozens of edible plants I’d never heard of, all native to the west side of the Andes, very few of them succulents. Googling one of those plants brought me to the tuber site.
That website is awesome, thanks for sharing. I love stumbling into some incredibly knowledgeable person's little plant passion project. I had no idea those common red cannas were edible either. My parents' yard is full of them so I guess they won't starve after all!

They barely even mention how incredibly beautiful and fragrant the flowers on groundnut/hopniss are! I stumbled on some in the woods one time and was amazed-they're like little pink native wisterias that smell like rosewood. Worth growing as an ornamental that has the bonus of being edible.

Falukorv
Jun 23, 2013

A funny little mouse!
Ye some plants can surprise you in consumability. Where I live, roots of Typha latifolia and T. angustifolia are immensely eatable in a pinch, a great source of starch. Wouldn’t necessarily have guessed it though.

Excuse my Latin but I forget the English common names while phoneposting.

Eeyo
Aug 29, 2004

That site is neat. I like this though

quote:

I know from experience with other plants that I seem to be unusually sensitive to some kinds of undigestible sugars.

They must really like root vegetables then. I feel like every time I read about an obscure edible root vegetable it either has inulin (one of those undigestible sugars) or a lot of oxalic acid, so I hope they're not in too much pain.

taqueso
Mar 8, 2004


:911:
:wookie: :thermidor: :wookie:
:dehumanize:

:pirate::hf::tinfoil:
citation needed

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


Eeyo posted:

That site is neat. I like this though


They must really like root vegetables then. I feel like every time I read about an obscure edible root vegetable it either has inulin (one of those undigestible sugars) or a lot of oxalic acid, so I hope they're not in too much pain.

It’s almost like most nutritious tubers have evolved defenses over time to keep from being eaten :thunk:

And that the reason we eat potatoes and carrots and not groundnuts and cannas is that the potatoes and carrots are delicious and easily digestible and the cannas and groundnuts...aren’t.

Cattail tubers (the Typha species Falukorv mentioned) are actually pretty good boiled with lots of salt and butter.

Solkanar512
Dec 28, 2006

by the sex ghost
Man, the colors on this little guy are really impressive!



Acer circinatum var “Sunny Sister” or Vine Maple. They started out really yellow, turned red and then the green veining showed up in the past few days.

Nosre
Apr 16, 2002


drat that is pretty. I wish I had the land for trees and bigger stuff

Post updates!

Fitzy Fitz
May 14, 2005




Potatoes and carrots are domesticated though, aren't they? There's at least one groundnut variety bred for eating. I can't remember if that's the one I have or not..

uranium grass
Jan 15, 2005

Between stressing about getting ill myself, the state of the world, and my elderly parents an international border and thousands of miles away, and my lovely work situation, I've been doing a lot of retail therapy since some of the local businesses opened up for delivery. If I can't disappear into the jungle I can disappear my apartment into jungle. Really curious about this creeping fig. Speaking of, can I get any tips on FLFs? Mine busted some beautiful new leaves and then the new spike has just done nothing for a while. Should I be fertilizing tropicals regularly?

Nettle Soup
Jan 30, 2010

Oh, and Jones was there too.



Nettle Soup fucked around with this message at 20:51 on May 15, 2020

there wolf
Jan 11, 2015

by Fluffdaddy

Kaiser Schnitzel posted:

It’s almost like most nutritious tubers have evolved defenses over time to keep from being eaten :thunk:

And that the reason we eat potatoes and carrots and not groundnuts and cannas is that the potatoes and carrots are delicious and easily digestible and the cannas and groundnuts...aren’t.

Cattail tubers (the Typha species Falukorv mentioned) are actually pretty good boiled with lots of salt and butter.

It's more like we've spent millennia breeding potatoes, carrots, turnips, yams, etc. to be easier to breakdown and digest than other types of tubers. What plants got domesticated where is actually a really cool subject in anthropology. What was it that made people cultivate nightshade so much, while other edible stuff remained wild?


So I asked about a replacement for a dead tree a while back, and then the fucker started putting out leaves after all...



Or at least it sort of did. Is this at all salvageable, or is it time to put it out of it's misery? (yes, we poisoned the gently caress out of that ivy for the millionth time and it's dying away.)

Suspect Bucket
Jan 15, 2012

SHRIMPDOR WAS A MAN
I mean, HE WAS A SHRIMP MAN
er, maybe also A DRAGON
or possibly
A MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAM
BUT HE WAS STILL
SHRIMPDOR


I'd get a tree surgeon to look at it and see what can be salvaged.

Falukorv
Jun 23, 2013

A funny little mouse!
any of you encountered any parasitic plants out there?

Always a joy to find. Subverting trophic expectations to the point of foregoing chlorophylls for the holoparasitic ones.

I'll share a couple ive encountered:




Afaik all orchids start life with mychorrizal associations, but some like this one (Neottia nidus-avis) continue throughout their life history parasitising fungi as mykoheterotrophs.




Monotropa hypopitys, belonging to the heather family, also exploit fungal associations for a living.

Falukorv fucked around with this message at 22:07 on May 15, 2020

Fitzy Fitz
May 14, 2005




I usually find a lot of M. uniflora when I'm hiking around North Georgia.

Oil of Paris
Feb 13, 2004

100% DIRTY

Nap Ghost

Solkanar512 posted:

Man, the colors on this little guy are really impressive!



Acer circinatum var “Sunny Sister” or Vine Maple. They started out really yellow, turned red and then the green veining showed up in the past few days.

Ah I like that quite a bit! Might have to keep an eye out for one

Eeyo
Aug 29, 2004

The real weird one is Parasitaxus ustus, which is a holoparasitic conifer.

I don't think I've ever personally seen a real parasitic plant, but when I was in New Mexico I saw a lot of Indian paintbrush which is apparently hemiparasitic.




Edit: I also recently came across this blog post which was pretty neat. Some researchers looked at radioisotope concentration in parasitic orchids to try and figure out if they had a mycoheterotrophic relationship with wood-decaying fungi or fungi decomposing more recently dead things (leaves/roots/whatever). Since Carbon-14 in the atmosphere had a very large peak around the time we were testing nuclear weapons, you could guess that higher concentrations would be correlated with wood-eating fungi. There was a fairly large difference, so they think they could tell which species used which strategy for parasitism. http://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2020/1/27/how-radioactive-carbon-from-nuclear-bomb-tests-can-tell-us-what-parasitic-orchids-are-eating https://www.kobe-u.ac.jp/research_at_kobe_en/NEWS/news/2020_01_24_02.html

Eeyo fucked around with this message at 03:51 on May 16, 2020

fralbjabar
Jan 26, 2007
I am a meat popscicle.
Hey, I have a bush question and hope this is the right place to ask: I've got this incredibly overgrown Forsythia right next to the back corner of my house which I want to do...something with. It's been basically just an overgrown misshapen lump since I moved in, and has resisted any of my previous attempts at pruning. Today I cut out probably 2/3 of the entire bush, back down to the ground, and also ripped out any of the branches that had rooted around the perimeter of where the bush used to be. I guess the next question is should I go further to try to rejuvenate the bush? I've seen Forsythia before which actually had a pretty nice tulip shape to it and if I could get this to do something like that I'd probably be happy with it. Also how should I be cutting runaway branches? It'll throw up new shoots taller than the house if I let them go for the season, but it seems cutting these short over time is what's led to it getting so overgrown and tangled.

Pics:

Bi-la kaifa
Feb 4, 2011

Space maggots.

I'd cut it back down to the ground. It'll come back with a vengeance so just stay on top of it to shape it how you like.

Hirayuki
Mar 28, 2010


actionjackson posted:

Hello, I just got my first outdoor flowers after having a bare patio for nine years. Two geraniums, and the container they came in drains on the bottom. I was told to water every other day, remove the dead buds, and to use miracle-gro once a week. If I do MWF watering is that fine? That's much easier to remember. Also this area gets tons of direct sun as you can see.
Geraniums are wonderful! So easy and dependable, available in so many varieties, and long-lasting (just past frost here in 6A). I think you'll like yours.

The stems start to dry up a bit as their flowers fade, allowing you to gently snap them (the stems) off the plant at the base. Easy as pie.

Here's my favorite geranium, Appleblossom Maverick:

actionjackson
Jan 12, 2003

Hirayuki posted:

Geraniums are wonderful! So easy and dependable, available in so many varieties, and long-lasting (just past frost here in 6A). I think you'll like yours.

The stems start to dry up a bit as their flowers fade, allowing you to gently snap them (the stems) off the plant at the base. Easy as pie.

Here's my favorite geranium, Appleblossom Maverick:



So for deadheading, my understanding is that if any of the buds are kind of wilting, I remove them down to just above the first leaves that look healthy, correct?

Hirayuki
Mar 28, 2010


actionjackson posted:

So for deadheading, my understanding is that if any of the buds are kind of wilting, I remove them down to just above the first leaves that look healthy, correct?
You can wait until that particular bunch of blooms looks really spent with most flowers wilted, then snap the entire stem off where it attaches to the plant, as shown in the red circle:



It should come right off.

z0331
Oct 2, 2003

Holtby thy name
Finally got my mountain laurels. :getin:

Got two, a peppermint that is mostly white, and a dark pink, almost purple. The white is at the far end, pink in the foreground next to my neighbors rhododendron. I also got a couple bee balm plants. Man they smell good.



You can also see a somewhat sad assortment of stuff that has come up pretty stumpy. I had envisioned two areas with cascading Hakone grass and sedge, with big painted ferns and hostas for texture. And welp things didn’t work out too well. I’m just happy anything came back this year. I’m also terrified with my track record with this plot that the laurels will die.

Oh and I also did something on the other side of the house that I really like. Foam flowers with some lady in red ferns.

GrandpaPants
Feb 13, 2006


Free to roam the heavens in man's noble quest to investigate the weirdness of the universe!



I take it that it's not a good thing that my new calathea growth is coming in yellow? :ohdear: Any tips would be very useful.

actionjackson
Jan 12, 2003

It's a very rainy weekend here. Once it's done raining, should I wait until the soil is completely dry (I was told to put my finger in a couple inches ;)) before watering my geraniums?

Annath
Jan 11, 2009

Batatouille is a great and funny play on words for a video game creature and I love silly words like these
Clever Betty
I just bought some pepper plants; cayennetta and tabasco peppers.

I got some potting soil and some compost, and a couple of 16in pots, one for each plant.

I know they need plenty of sun and plenty of water, but I'm curious if there's any other tips or tricks I might benefit from.

I grew some Thai bird's eye chilis a few years ago, and got a decent yield with just potting soil and throwing water at it when I remembered, so I'm hopeful that I get even better results from this attempt.

MisterBibs
Jul 17, 2010

dolla dolla
bill y'all
Fun Shoe
I've tried to do some research into this, but it feels like I've wound up with more answers than sources, somehow.

I'd love to use rainwater to water my succulents, but sadly it's just not feasible (aka I'm irrationally worried someone will steal my bottle if I just leave it out). If I use tap water, should I filter it or not, as a rule of thumb? I personally dislike the taste of my local water, but for all I know (see the aforementioned issue above), it's either perfectly good, fine, or secretly terrible.

anatomi
Jan 31, 2015

Generally speaking, tap water is not gonna kill your succulent. If you're very worried, TDS meters are cheap for the peace of mind they bring.

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Wallet
Jun 19, 2006

MisterBibs posted:

If I use tap water, should I filter it or not, as a rule of thumb?

If you're worried about it or you have particularly awful water, filter it. Otherwise don't. My succulents are perfectly happy with tap water but we have pretty good water here. I mostly hear people with hard water worried about mineral buildup, and I guess some people are concerned about water loving up the PH of their medium though it's very inexpensive to test the PH of your tap water.

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