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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)]

 
Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


Any advice on propogating old fashioned roses from cuttings? I stuck like 70 cuttings last December from my plants and have two living roses to show for it (Duchesse de Brabant and a Reve d'Or-both very tough, hardy varieties in my experience). I'm in south Alabama where our seasons are completely wrong from the rest of the country, but a few folks told me that was about the right time to take cuttings for roses here. Stuck them in a sand/compost mix in the open air but protected them from freezing, and kept them watered etc. and put rooting hormone on a about half of them. I had a ton of them leaf out in the spring, but then they just died. Pulling them up showed they hadn't actually grown any roots over the winter, just leafed out with whatever energy was in the cutting.

I can root easy stuff like herbs, but haven't tried much with woody plants before.

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Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

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They look like zinnias to me, but I’ve never seen zinnias with dark leaves like that. Butterflies and bees do love zinnias though, and they’re easy easy to grow. I planted some a few years ago and they’ve seeded themselves back in every year.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

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Jealous of those delphiniums. We can grow them and foxgloves for a few months in the spring but then it gets too hot and they fry.

I have zinnias randomly popping up in all kinds of places because I put them in my compost pile one year and so anywhere I used compost I've got zinnias. Not complaining about too many zinnias.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


Looks like a tree root? You can chop it off and dig it up if it’s in your way.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


there wolf posted:

I don't know whether to ask this here or the food gardening thread, but does anybody have any recommended resources on landscaping? Just bought a new place and want to make the backyard something other than thicket and ivy.
Like designwise? Michael Pollan's book "Second Nature" is in general a great book, but he touches on that in some good ways I think. Go to the library and get some big glossy landscape/garden design books and just look at what you like and what you don't like. Let what's already in the yard be the framework and flesh things out from there. "Consult the genius of the place," as he says. Make beds around big trees- easier to mow and better for the tree. You might start with a circle around each tree, and then you might realize they'd look better if you connect a few of them together. That will help define your space some-what do you want to be grass? What do you want to be a bed? Want to hide your neighbors house or your own ugly shed? Plant an evergreen hedge. Whether you've got sun or shade and where you live is going to determine what you actually put in those beds and what kind of hedge you plant. You might let the beds be ivy for a year while you figure things out, and then you might kill the ivy and put down mulch and put some nice perennials in or leave something open for different annuals every year. There's no rules, there's no schedule. If you put a bush somewhere and realize its not the best place for it, you can usually just dig it up and move it. If you're in the south, the "Southern Living Garden Book" is the best book ever.

If you just want to know how to kill ivy, like 3oz of 41% glyphosate (Round Up-its available as a generic now, just read the label) with a few tablespoons of dish soap per gallon of water in a pump sprayer should kill it pretty dead. That mix will also kill anything green it touches, so be careful. Spray it now, wait a week or two, then cut it down. Whatever comes back in the spring you can spray again.

Johnny Truant posted:

Quick question! I bought some English Ivy a couple months ago, and I've noticed it's not looking too hot.

I currently have it hanging in front of my bay windows, and the top part of the plant(the part that is actually in the pot/coming out of the soil) has been withering and shedding leaves, and it appears to be creeping down part of the vines, as well.

I was told to keep its soil damp, so watering it about once a week, and spray its vines and leaves like every other day.

Help! I really like this plant and wanna keep her alive. :ohdear: I can take a few photos, if that would help. I'm in Boston, too, if that makes a difference?
Spraying the vines/leaves is probably your problem. Most plants (and especially ones with glossy leaves like ivy) don't absorb much water through the leaves. Spraying them just makes it nice and wet and humid for all kinds of fungus, and those water droplets bouncing around are a great way for all kinds of diseases and fungi to spread. Just water the soil-stick your finger in every few days and if it feels dry, give it a good soaking. Could well be something else, but I'd try that first.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


Fitzy Fitz posted:

Apparently Michael Pollan has recently turned his focus toward LSD..? Was not expecting that.
He’s sort of gone of the rails lately, but I like his first few books when he wasn’t quite so sure of himself.


Johnny Truant posted:

Thanks for the input! I've thought we've keep the soil pretty damp, but we may move up to watering like 3 times a week.

Could lack of sunlight to those upper vines be doing it, as well? I have it handing relatively close to the ceiling due to cats being very interested in it, but I could certainly lower it down a bit.

Is there any kind of plant food that could help, as well? When we watered her this morning she was looking very sad :smith:
It is always better to not water enough rather than water too much. If your plant starts looking dry and wrinkly or the soil it’s in is really bone dry, it’s time to water. Too much water leads to roots that can’t breathe and root death, as well as creating an environment more hospitable to disease and fungi. Unless your plant has a serious nutrient deficiency (unlikely) fertilizer is only going to make things worse. Fleshy new growth is just what most plant nasties want to eat, and you’re stressing the plant by making it grow when it really needs to chill out and save its strength. Cut back your watering and wait and see. It’ll probably be a few weeks before you notice any real improvement anyway.

You can take some cuttings from the ends of the vines about 6” long and strip off the lower leaves and stick them in a glass of water in bright light indoors and they’ll probably root in a few weeks and give you more ivy plants in case this one does die.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


enraged_camel posted:

Well, since posting that, the plant in the picture got ALL of its leaves eaten. I'm gonna have to rip it out and plant a new one.

I did buy some neem oil and sprayed that though, and that seemed to help. We'll see.
Bt is a bacteria that kills the gently caress out of caterpillars but is harmless to most everything else and is organic etc. should be available as a spray at a garden center. It smells like poo poo but it works. I’ve never really had much luck with neem oil as a preventative, but it will kill things if you spray it on them.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

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Probably some sort of leaf scale-weird bugs that cover themselves in a hard coating and don’t move and suck juice out of your plant. If you’ve noticed any sticky spots around the plant it’s almost certainly scale (and you just touched some bug poop) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_insect?wprov=sfti1

Kaiser Schnitzel fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Oct 15, 2018

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


Johnny Truant posted:

Oh, gently caress. The instructions on the bottle didn't say anything about that, only that you should use at absolute max a 2% solution of it. We approximated, and I'd say it wasn't more than that, but this is good to know, thanks!

Would some kind of fertilizer help get the English ivy healthier faster, or should I just wait until after we're done treating her with the neem oil and go from there?
Unless a plant is suffering from a nutrient deficiency (which is fairly uncommon) its almost always a bad idea to fertilize a sick/stressed plant. Give the neem oil a week or so and see if things improve. Once it is looking a little better, it might not be a bad idea to cut it back if it is getting leggy. Ivy is generally tough as poo poo so I wouldn't worry too much or do to much to it-it should come through on its own. I think too much love has killed more plants than neglect.

Fitzy Fitz posted:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the oil itself is harmful to leaves. It's the interaction with sunlight that causes damage. I've definitely burned plants with it in the past, but I've also had good luck with spraying in the evening, moving the plant to shade, and then rinsing thoroughly with water before returning to the light.

e: Maybe also overapplication clogs stomata??
This is what I've always read too-the oil droplets can focus sunlight like a magnifying glass and burn foliage. As long as you shake it up before each use, I think you can use mixed up Neem oil for forever.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

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It’s an organic pesticide that kills the gently caress out of caterpillars of all types.


TheMightyHandful posted:

There’s a lemon tree out the front so I’d be surprised if there was a second, I guess I’ll have to wait and see?
It’s defintely some kind of citrus. Sometimes a freeze will make them drop all their leaves without killing the twigs/branches and they’ll still flower.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


When I had a grapefruit tree I would cover it with a blanket and plastic sheet and hang a 100w incandescent light bulb or two in the branches as an easy heater, and I’ve built a little tent on the same principle to cover some little baby gingers so they could get established. Without something to contain the heat and keep the wind away, a heat lamp is going to be heating the entire neighborhood and not do any good.

At some point I got tired of it and decided if a plant I didn’t just adore couldn’t take a little freeze it didn’t have a place in my yard, and now I don’t have a grapefruit tree. So, you probably can save it but it might also be a huge pain in the butt that isn’t really worth it.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


McSlaughter posted:

Any good recommendations or suggested reading for plants, botany, etc.? Technical books, interesting reads, histories; I am interested in a lot of different types of texts on the various innumerable forms of gardening, plant biology, and that sort of thing. So if you've got anything you've read personally that enlightened you or that you thoroughly enjoyed or learned from, let me know.
Very interested to see what other folks post-I love books in this category as well.

"The Forest Unseen" by David George Haskell-University biology professor tells you everything you never knew about that happens in a square meter of Appalachian cove forest. Not just about plants, but it has a whole lot about plants and is an excellent excellent book. There's a cool chapter about how fungi mate that blew my mind. His other book, "The Songs of the Trees" is good too, but more specifically about trees and a bit preachy at times.

"The Tree" by Colin Tudge-Pretty exhaustive look at the trees of the world (and you had no idea how many wildly different types of trees there are in tropical forests) but also great stuff on tree biology. Some of it gets a bit technical, and he describes about every major family of trees which can get a bit exhausting, but also very fascinating.

"Dirt" by William Bryant Logan-Its a book about dirt, and some of the different things that happen in dirt. Not very technical, very enjoyable to read. His book "Air" is also great. He wrote a book "Oak" which I wouldn't really recommend.

"Second Nature" by Michael Pollan-His first book, and one of my favorites. More a philosophical musing about gardens and gardening and funny stories than a technical or how to book, but it's always an enjoyable read to me. "Botany of Desire" is good too if you haven't read that.

"Native Trees for North American Landscapes" by Guy Sternberg and James Wilson-Sort of a tour of native North American trees with their culture requirements and use in the landscape, as well as a bit about propagation and uses/cultural facts about trees. More a guide for a gardener, and kind of an expensive book, but beautifully photographed and it will make you want to go plant some trees (which you should do!). A good one to borrow from the library.

Gardening in the Humid South" by Edmund O'Rourke and Leon Standifer -Two very folksy retired LSU Horticulture professors talk about gardening in the unique climate of the hot, wet, humid Gulf Coast of the US. Very useful for me personally because that's where I live, but more broadly it is a superb book. I've learned more practical stuff about fertilizer and plant nutrient requirements from this book than anywhere else. They've taught farmers and nurserymen and county extension agents, and are very good at explaining complex, technical stuff about plant biology in layman's terms, and they've got a good sense of humor. They're scientists that know their stuff and have done the research to back it up but still can explain it to folks with a high school education. They have a great explanation of the air-soil-root continuum that I've never seen anywhere else. I can't recommend this book highly enough, especially if you live in the Southeast. You can get it used on Amazon for like $4 so there's no reason not to own it.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


That reminds me of this book https://www.amazon.com/Natural-Hist...+american+trees

It can be exhausting in its detail, but it's fascinating to me. Much better on western and northern trees than southern-I think all the southern pines combined get about a paragraph and each species of western tree gets pages. It was written in the early 1950s in the real golden age of much of American lumbering, and he has lots of statistics about timber reserves and harvest rates. I come from a long line of foresters and its incredible to read about virgin redwoods/sequoia with hundreds of thousands of board feet of lumber in a single tree. There's lots about the industrial uses of different tree species at that time which is neat to me. A better reference book than one you want to read straight through.

elgarbo posted:

The most interesting book about plants I've read is 'The Hidden Life of Trees' by Peter Wohlleben. It's just an absolute joy to read - exploring all the unexpected processes that happen in forests.
My cousin is a wood scientist and this book drives all his wood/tree scientist friends crazy because he says it is unsupported by much decent research, but I keep meaning to read it anyway because it sounds neat and like just the sort of book I want to read and believe.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

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Fitzy Fitz posted:


seed bomb full of wisteria: what the gently caress
But it’s so pretty and it smells so gooooood.

PS if anyone knows a good way to kill wrist thick wisteria vines please let me know.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


Eat them until they are gone?

You can put a strong glyphosate solution on your (gloved) hand and grab the leaves to kill the onions and not the surrounding grass. If you don’t like chemicals for whatever reason, then just keep pulling and pulling-getting the bulb out of the ground is what counts.

They spread by seed though, so there’s a decent chance they’re in your neighbors yard and when you clear them out of yours they’ll just blow in again. Sometimes it’s easier to just pretend you want them there and be glad of the free green onions. My garlic chives have totally taken over a bed and I just pretend that’s what I wanted all along because I’m too lazy to fight them.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


Silver Nitrate posted:

I want to put in some day lillies this spring but I haven’t bought bulbs before. How much should I be paying for bulbs? The price ranges are insane.

Does anyone have recommendations for drought tolerant day lillies that do well in zone 7?

I want to put in something that will take care of itself mostly.
Deer love to eat daylilies, but other than that they are pretty indestructible in my experience. I don't know about drought tolerance specifically, but Frans Hals is a nice big orange one with lots of blooms, Stella d'Oro is quite small for a daylily and a good repeat bloomer. I think I have Joylene Nicole and it's a big huge frilly flower. There are a bazillion varieties of daylilies. All daylilies will bloom a whole lot more if you deadhead them every day-the flowers only last a day anyway, so just wander around in the evening and pick off the spent flowers, and graduate to a level 3 garden weirdo.

Some of my daylilies set seed 2 years ago and I propagated them and I think they'll finally bloom this year. Daylilies don't come true from seed so I'm super excited to see what they look like.

I've had good luck ordering all kinds of things from these folks before:
http://www.marysgardenpatch.com/
They'll sell them to you by the half bushel if you want.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

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vonnegutt posted:

Day lilies are pretty popular plants to breed and therefore come in hundreds if not thousands of variations, which is why the price ranges are so wide. The rarer ones are the expensive ones, which may or may not be less hardy.

The most hardy one I know if I really have only heard called the "ditch lily", a medium height, spindly plant with orange flowers. It is the native variety and will grow almost anywhere (especially Zone 7). Stella d'Oro are the most popular cultivated variety, a small, bushy plant with gold flowers. Buy the cheapest ones you can, they're all identical. Daylilies from Home Depot or your local grocery store are likely to grow well in your zone - Home Depot wouldn't sell many if they sold fragile ones.

However, daylilies are perennials and are divisible after 2-3 years, so if you like a more expensive variety, just buy one or two and plan to divide them. "Dividing" means to dig up the plant in either spring or fall (non-blooming times, basically) and pry the rootball into two or more pieces. Then plant the pieces individually. They will grow to dividing size again in another 2-3 years.

The best way to get any day lily is to have a friend divide/dig you up part of theirs. If you ask around at work you probably have someone who is willing to divide one. My best sources are all my mom's church friends.
There are apparently like 80,000 varieties of daylilies! To my knowledge, there are no daylilies native to the US (native to East Asia I think?) but the orange one you're talking about, Hemerocallis fulva, is pretty well naturalized here and indestructible/invasive. I actually really like the color of it and have some mixed in with the blue agapanthus that bloom about the same time/height and it's a nice contrast. They multiply rapidly, and have about taken over from the agapanthus.

They really are a great pass-along plant. A neighbor gave me some and they've been sitting in a pot with no dirt in it for a few weeks now and don't seem to mind at all.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

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I. M. Gei posted:

My dad got a gift card from a local plant nursery, and now we’re thinking about planting a fruit tree or two in our backyard.

Right now I want to plant a gala apple tree on the north side of our yard, in an area that I THINK is technically full sun but has a little bit of tree branch cover overhead, and some sort of Georgia peach tree on the southwest corner, which gets a lot more sunlight and has virtually no tree branch cover. I also want to plant some grape soda trees along the west edge of the yard, for which father will surely thank me when they bloom next year (although it sucks major rear end that they only bloom for about 2 or 3 weeks out of the year).

Questions:
1. Is a north-side-of-the-yard spot with slight tree branch cover an okay spot for an apple tree? I can take a photo of the tree cover if I need to to show what I’m working with.
2. The spot I want to plant the apple tree in has a random tree growing in it already. How long should I wait after removing that tree before planting the apple tree? I’m assuming the soil needs time to resupply nutrients?
3. Do Georgia peach trees need a second tree to pollenate with?
4. The area I want to plant the peach tree in has a bradford pear tree growing nearby. How far from the bradford pear should I plant the peach tree?
What zone/area are you in? Chill hours are important to a lot of fruit trees (especially apples) so make sure your area usually gets enough chill hours for the varieties you're looking at planting. Full sun is usually better for fruit trees, but some light shade probably won't hurt it. If you're marginal with regards to chill hours or in an area where late frosts will freeze flowers, location/facing can become more important to help find a colder/warmer spot.

You should be able to plant where the old tree was immediately if it is small. If it's a stump that has to be ground, it's going to take a few years for all that to rot down. For your new tree, dig a big wide hole 3x as wide as the root ball and add some compost to your native dirt.

IIRC, most peaches are self-fertile and don't need a pollinator, but a different variety will usually increase yields. I'd ask at the nursery to make sure whatever you are picking is self-pollinating. I think apples are not usually self pollinating, so it is best to have two compatible varieties.

You should just cut down the bradford pear. Otherwise, make sure it is outside the furthest branches of the tree.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


https://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/peach/fig1.html

It looks like Gala's only need 500ish hours. Apples in the south like to get fire blight, so watch out for it.

This might help you too:
https://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/homefruit/apple/apple.html

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


I. M. Gei posted:

I have other tree questions.

About 3 years ago, my parents planted two trees in out front yard, a tulip tree and a dogwood tree. The tulip tree is in the middle of the lawn and has hella leaves and flowers. The dogwood tree is in a patch of jasmine, has never bloomed once, is currently a short bare stick with maybe five tiny leaves on it total, and for all I know might be dead now, and I’m trying to figure out why.

Location is not the problem. It’s in the exact same spot where there used to be a much bigger dogwood that may have predated us at this house and bloomed like crazy every year, but was sadly killed by ants (btw gently caress all ants, everywhere on earth, forever) and cut down about a decade ago. However, that older dogwood was planted long before the jasmine surrounding it was, whereas this current one went in the ground long after the jasmine had established itself.

I’m wondering if the jasmine is keeping the dogwood tree from growing by hogging nutrients and/or taking up all the space in the soil. Could this be what’s happening?



I’d also like some tips for pruning the tulip tree, because right now it’s more like a short little tulip bush.
Dogwoods are very difficult and temperamental, especially to get started. The jasmine probably isn’t helping, but it could be that when the old dogwood started growing it was much shadier, and the new one burned up. Older, established dogwoods can take a lot more sun than young ones. There’s all kinds of diseases that attack dogwoods, and probably the ants were a symptom of a weak, stressed tree rather than the cause of death. Some of whatever killed the old one could be hanging around there too. Dogwoods are also very particular about drainage and won’t tolerate being planted too deep or wet feet.

Post a picture of your poplar. Generally, prune off branches with narrow, V shaped crotches (u shaped ones are good) if two branches cross/rub, cut the lower one. Open grown tulip poplars will be bushier/more conical than the big tall straight ones you see in the woods, but by limbing them up you can force them to grow up more than out. Tulip trees usually have good natural branch structure and shouldn’t need much pruning for structure, unlike your Bradford pear. It’s waaaau easier and better for the tree to prune with clippers while they’re young than prune with a chainsaw when they’re old.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

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It’s usually safe to cut 1/3 of the canopy out of a tree per year. I would either do it now before it leafs out or wait until late summer. If you prune right after it leafs out, the tree has just spent a ton of energy making all those leaves but can’t use them to recover that energy-if you wait until later in the summer the tree will have stored more energy and will put out lots of new growth the following spring.

That being said, the best time to prune a tree is usually just whenever you have the time to do it. You might lose a season’s fruit or slow the tree down a little bit you’re not going to kill it.

If you’re pruning them for fruit production, look around at extension service publications etc. It’s a bit different from just pruning for size and you can do some things to help increase yield/accessibility.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

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Fitzy Fitz posted:

Be careful learning proper pruning. Once you've learned it, you can't unsee all the lovely rear end trees that are basically everywhere. Every parking lot is full of lion-tailed, mulch volcanoed, topped, codominant garbage trees.

:nws:

Just a little good old fashioned crepe-murder.

It is amazing how few people prune their trees. I’ve never seen a landscape installer prune a tree after planting and it shows 10 years later (assuming the landscaper hasn’t killed the tree with a string trimmer or mulch volcano). In 10 minutes with hand pruners on a 6 foot tall tree you can pretty much get it sorted out for life and save someone thousands of dollars of very disruptive tree work in 50 years.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


What can I do with leftover fertilizer? I always have some leftover after I fertilize my grass and it's so humid here it turns into a giant sticky mess in about an hour. Dump it in my compost pile or on an old tree stump to rot it down or something? This is like 30-0-0 or something.

Also here's some roses.

Two of the late David Austen's:
The pretty much perfect 'Graham Thomas.' Nice, subtle scent like fresh rain or something.

'Windermere' I've only had this in the ground a year or two and it hasn't quite thrived, but it's doing okay. Nice lemony sort of scent.


And one of my favorite old fashioned climbing roses, 'Clotilde Soupert,' first grown in 1896. Its always crazy to me that this plant I am growing is actually the same plant and it's almost 125 yrs old. Plants are amazing-it's like you could cut off a person's arm and stick them in a pile of rotten people and they would grow a whole new identical person that could be basically immortal. This rose is totally bulletproof, and super vigorous. It' was grown from a cutting by a friend and has been in the ground 5 years and its 20' wide at least? It needs a serious haircut.


If it has a flaw, it's that the flowers dont always open in humid weather, but this year it's doing fine. It basically blooms sporadically year round here, but puts on its big show in the spring and early fall. Very strong, wonderful rose scent.


Grow old roses! They're incredible and nothing ever happens to them, unlike tea roses. They get black spot and all their leaves fall off and they just don't care and grow new leaves where a tea rose would give up the ghost. They're just as tough and good of repeat bloomers as nasty old Knockouts, but they smell incredible and have some neat history to them!


I. M. Gei posted:

No, it was just sitting there in a hole with no dirt along its sides.
Don't ever let landscapers plant things. They never dig big enough holes or break up the root ball of potbound stuff and so three years later you basically have a plant that doesn't grow strangling itself with its own roots sitting in a hole full of water that doesn't drain and in 4 years you have a dead plant.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


Southern Heel posted:

Hi guys, the kooky-but-untamed 1930's garden we moved into has stayed untamed for the last 18mo and now it's just about to be summer. I was wondering if anyone had any advice on some affordable, low maintenance options to keep it looking neat and nice?


the front garden is tiny and steep, and every square inch of "grass" is actually just dandelions:




the back lawn is slightly better but the 'rockery' and planters have just looked like poo poo forever:



For the back garden, it seems relatively simple to just black out the garden beds with weed barrier and put woodchips ontop - any opinions on that? For the front garden however, I am completely unsure - I don't see any feasible way to make that lawn look like anything other than a complete trainwreck, and I don't have the budget to landscape it.
That's a really neat site-you could have alot of fun with it. In the front, definitely get rid of the grass and replace with perennials/groundcovers. Depending on what grows where you are, agapanthus or some ferns or daylillies would be nice, or just cover it all in that juniper. I can't tell exactly what they are, but you should be able to divide most of what is already there and quadruple your plants instantly. Buying stuff as bulbs/seeds instead of already grown plants in containers saves alot of money too, but you're going to have to wait a little while to get big plants.

Depending on sunlight etc. some old roses would look great in the back growing up the wall, but that might need to wait a little while. Just weeding and pruning a bit will instantly make it all look a whole lot better.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


I would plant in mostly native dirt. Dig a hole a good 3’ wide, break up the edges of the hole a little so they aren’t smooth if it’s heavy clay soil. You want roots to go out. Add a bag of black cow or some other compost if you want, but don’t overdo it. If your soil is heavy and has poor drainage, add some rotted pine bark (sold as soil conditioner at big box places) and mix it in with the native dirt at the bottom of the hole.

If you’re getting a tree in a pot, make sure you break up the root ball so that there aren’t any encircling roots. You want to cut a bunch of those roots so they make new growth going out into the hole. Most importantly, make sure the tree is not planted too deep. The root collar should be level with or slightly above the level of the surrounding soil.

You can add some lime now when you dig the hole, but you’re going to have to add lime over the next few years to try and get the soil more neutral. Some plants are super sensitive about pH (azaleas, camellias) but most can tolerate a pretty wide range-they just will grow best at pH X.Y so I wouldn’t obsess about that too much. There are lots of flowering cherries here growing in very acidic soil and they do fine.

The first year or two after you plant a tree, it probably won’t grow much and you’ll think it’s not happy. Don’t gently caress with it-it’s just growing roots. Usually in the third year they will really take off. It’s a bit late to be planting (I think you said your in the south on the Gulf Coast-ish?) so its probably going to need a good, deep soaking every week or two if the weather gets dry.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

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Solkanar512 posted:

I took a small workshop on Japanese maples this weekend,
Please do tell. I halfway went down that rabbit hole a few years ago but they're just so heinously expensive. An old gardener lady I know had a pretty decent collection and she sometimes had success air layering them and would sell them pretty cheap. It seems like ordering scions and learning to graft your own from seed grown rootstock is the cheapest way to go.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

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It’s maybe planted a little high, but that’s way better than planted too deep. Put and inch of compost over the roots if you’re really worried, but probably with mulch it will be fine.

I’ll be pretty amazed if you actually get cherries in east Texas. I always thought they just grew in Michigan or somewhere much colder, but I would love to be surprised.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

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Those pretty much look like normal buds to me, but being transplanted is very stressful for trees, especially bareroot. Don’t be surprised of it drops/aborts some buds this spring, and there’s a decent chance it won’t look super healthy this year. If it starts looking real rough, cutting it back a bit may be necessary, but that looks it was pruned pretty heavily when it left the nursery so it should be good.

Don’t fertilize it-that will only stress the tree more. You want to let it grow roots at its own pace, not force it to grow a bunch of leaves it can’t support yet.

Keep it well mulched and make sure it doesn’t dry out, but don’t overwater. Water it deeply (leave the hose running a 1/4” diameter stream of water, put it by the base of the tree and let the hose run for 30 minutes) every week or two. Waaaay more plants have been killed by excess care than by being ignored. If you dug it a nice deep, wide hole and it isn’t planted too deep, you’ve done all you can do and it should be fine.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

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In my experience blueberries are pretty easy, especially in rich, wet soil. They like plenty of water, but they also like good drainage. If you've got good black dirt they'll be fine. They like acidic soil. And yeah, in the deep south pretty much anything will happily trade full blazing sun for some light shade (especially afternoon shade). A good thick layer of pine bark mulch is great for blueberries-acidic and keeps their roots cool and moist.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

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Your tree is either going to be fine or it isn't, and at this point there isn't really much you can do either way. The bark you're worried about now is probably just the tree shedding a bit as it grows. Staking trees (especially small trees) is generally unnecessary unless it's very tall with a small root ball and usually does more harm than good long-term.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

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It's just usually better to let a tree bounce around a bit as that helps make the trunk and roots smaller.

https://www.finegardening.com/article/to-stake-or-not-to-stake

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

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Hubis posted:

loving Casuals: Oh no, I've got MINT in my garden and it's impossible to get rid of!!! :saddowns:

Me: That is not dead which may eternal life, and with strange aeons even death may die :unsmigghh:

I love wisteria so much and I hate wisteria so much (assuming that is is wisteria)

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

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Hubis posted:

A pretty beautiful Japanese (I believe) Wisteria that was twined together and trained up into kind of a tree form, but which had seemingly not been well pruned since the previous owners has it put in and so they decided to support it with a few extra nails in the fence. It became massively overgrown and got blown off the supports during a wind storm, and became a horrible bramble instead.

Anyways, I pruned it back hard hoping to retrain it last year but didn't no where to start, so I just said screw it and lopped it back to what you see here (knowing it would rebud). It was gorgeous when in good form (beautiful Cascades of purple flowers) but it's invasive as hell, a pain to maintain, and I'd basically be starting from scratch trying to retrain it into a manageable form.

So for now I'm just letting it lurk there, and I'm planning on harvesting those shoots to try and propagate them into cute little potted plants. Kind or like keeping a xenomorph as pet.
It has such a wonderful scent when it blooms too. Here it’s randomly scattered out in the woods next to chinaberry and black locust and maybe a spider lily or two as all that remains of long abandoned home sites.

I’ve never tried to propagate it, but there’s some in my yard where the vines are running along the ground and it roots itself every so often-maybe just stake it down in a few places and then cut it up in a few months?

Kaiser Schnitzel fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Apr 29, 2019

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

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Hubis posted:

Well depending on the variety they take 10-15 years from sprouting to start flowering. Interestingly, propagates cutting from a mature parent will apparently flower the next year if they become established.
A lot of plants are like this actually. Camellias take 5+ years to flower from seed, and probably still a year or three if you root cuttings, but if you air layer a branch or graft onto rootstock, they will flower immediately.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

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You can eat the roots of some of them I think. They’re fairly closely related to sweet potatoes.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

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What are these tiny black bugs in my gardenia flowers? Thrips? I think they are making the flowers turn brown much faster than they should which hurts my feelings because gardenias are the best loving smell in the world. It’s a huge bush, but I did treat it a month or so ago with some Bayer systemic fungicide/insecticide stuff that I thought would help. What else could I try? They’re just now blooming and already covered-I’d hoped the systemic would prevent this.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

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I. M. Gei posted:

I loving love the smell of gardenias. It reminds me of my grandma’s house in Alabama.
Growing up we had one by the back door and it always bloomed in early June right around my birthday, and whenever I smell one I think it’s my birthday because smell memories are pooowerful. This one blooms earlier (sometimes as early as April). They’re supposed to be super easy to root so I should go root a cutting off my parents’ for a longer bloom season. At some point when I moved back south I decided I didn’t want to live anywhere that I couldn’t grow gardenias. It’s also a plant that just suits its cultural climate-old southern people draw it out into a wonderful word almost devoid of hard consonants-“Gawd-EEn-ya”

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

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I would murder untold thousands of bees for a month of perfect gardenias, but it looks like most systemics aren’t very effective against thrips anyway. The stuff I had used didn’t have acephate in it-I’ll give it a spinosad bath if it ever quits raining and try more drastic measures if that doesn’t work.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

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Possibly some escaped lantana? Pictures of leaves/stems and the whole plant would help.

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Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

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Cogon grass is our local nemesis, and apparently some kind of taro in swamps. The cogon grass is pretty killable with roundup, but hand weeding is completely useless and it always seems to pop up in the middle of something where you can't really spray it.

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