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gently caress rabbits. And deer. And groundhogs. And squirrels. And voles. Goddamn rascals!!
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Jun 12, 2021 00:44
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I’ve been a real terror to the wildlife lately, running out whenever I see them and screaming like a banshee as I charge toward the herd. I think it’s working and now they think the gardens are cursed?? Have only had to put up some fences around a couple lone plantings that were getting hosed with by groundhog, but the gardens have been left more or less alone. even the day lily has bloomed and wilted unscathed thus far
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Jun 12, 2021 01:01
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oh yeah, I forgot to mention my variegated swirly echinopsis which had spent the last like month pushing forth a single impressive-looking flower bud. And then some lapine motherfucker came and just clipped the bud right in half all surgical-like. I mean, at least the plant was undisturbed, but drat. I hope that tiny-rear end bud was worth the effort
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Jun 12, 2021 02:04
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Oil of Paris posted:gently caress rabbits. And deer. And groundhogs. And squirrels. And voles. Goddamn rascals!! Don’t forget the moles! Also, my mystery shrub from months ago has an ID. It’s a smoke bush and it still looks like an angry drunk Sasquatch pruned it, so I don’t know if it will stay or go.  We do have this burgundy red peony that put out three of these pretty flowers. It doesn’t get enough light really. But the yard is an assortment of things that were pruned poorly and neglected, or generic stuff from a big box garden center. But there are a enough things that are nice and will stay. Or will stay until I can do something else with the space that looks cool. We have some really great trees at least. There’s a great paper birch in the front. And we have a 60’ tall spruce that you could plant when you’re born and maybe see before you die. It dwarfs the Japanese maple that needed to be pruned properly 4 years ago and wasn’t. The spruce you can sit under when it’s pouring rain and you get only a drop or two. It’s magnificent.
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Jun 12, 2021 03:18
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I. M. Gei posted:Any good wasp/hornet traps y’all recommend? Mostly for paper wasps and the like. I just busted a few trying to build a nest in one of my tree trunk covers. welp after consulting this and two other HCH threads, including the Pest Control thread, I haven’t gotten a single reply from anybody except Kaiser Schnitzel suggesting I ask the aforementioned Pest Control thread. so unless y’all happen to have any suggestions, I’ll just grab something with good reviews and hope to god it works. I assume most of y’all loving hate wasps and hornets too, so I’ll report back here on if whatever I end up buying sucks or not.
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Jun 12, 2021 05:49
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I. M. Gei posted:I assume most of y’all loving hate wasps and hornets too, so I’ll report back here on if whatever I end up buying sucks or not. nah I think all Hymenopterans are actually pretty brilliant representations of His majesty upon the earth
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Jun 12, 2021 05:55
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Most wasps leave me alone, pollinate plants, and keep worse critters down. Look at this magnificent beast (Tachypompilus unicolor) taking time out of its busy schedule of spider murder to pollinate the jujubes.  (not my photo)
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Jun 12, 2021 06:25
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Parasitic wasps good, normal wasps bad. Parasitic wasps are awesome, for pretty much every insect and beetle out there, a parasitic wasp has evolved to just gently caress it up. I almost shat myself when I took down a ceiling and found a nest. Luckily it was abandoned. Tbh if I actually had to get rid of a nest I would call a pro, gently caress that.
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Jun 12, 2021 11:40
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Voles started when I put a bird feeder out. They destroyed a few things. I got a havahart trap and am hoping for the best, but haven't put it out yet since I haven't seen any lately, mainly because I stopped putting seed in the feeder. I assume that the trap is probably the best way to get rid of them? Did someone say that the solar powered vibration things worked? they're surrounded on nearly all sides by concrete and street so I assume the deterrents may just push them into other parts of my yard and the trap is my best bet
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Jun 12, 2021 11:41
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Planet X posted:Voles started when I put a bird feeder out. They destroyed a few things. I had vole issues last year—I think I'm the person you're thinking of with the solar vibrating things (the ones on stakes that get pushed into the ground), which did seem to make them less inclined to hang around in the area near them. I live next to the woods so trapping them seemed like a losing strategy. Voles are also pretty cowardly so if you can cut off the areas they use for cover that seems to go a long way. I closed off the underside of my porch with 1/4" hardware cloth buried about 8" and bent outward at the bottom. You could also try capsaicin on the bird seed, which worked for me at getting squirrels to leave my suet feeders alone. I only used it for a couple of months and the squirrels all seem to have learned to stay away. Wallet fucked around with this message at 12:13 on Jun 12, 2021 |
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Jun 12, 2021 12:10
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Simple question here: if a soil mix calls for a 1:1 ratio of sphagnum moss to perlite, the 'one part' sphagnum assumes it's hydrated, right? This is for a Macodes petola that I keep in an open fish bowl.
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Jun 12, 2021 13:23
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So far this summer is way better than the last one (which started with a full blown drought for like a month). I was sort of worried that some of my shade plantings were going to cook when summer really got going but they're all doing great. Last year I planted two Echinops sphaerocephalus because I like their weird globular flowers. I got them both from the same place and put them in next to each other. They did some growing, put out some flowers, all was well. Here's one of them this year:  And here's the other one:  I have no idea why one of them has lost its loving mind—they were getting the same amount of sun planted all of a foot away from each other. The place I got them from recommends 18" spacing like a normalish upright perennial, but it's now the size of a shrub. I had to move it because it was devouring a bunch of other plants and making it impossible to get to my hose without getting stabbed by it. At least it's making a ton of flowers. AfricanBootyShine posted:Simple question here: if a soil mix calls for a 1:1 ratio of sphagnum moss to perlite, the 'one part' sphagnum assumes it's hydrated, right? I would assume so? The alternative doesn't make any sense. The recipe seems kind of weird, though. Why use sphagnum (which retains a ton of moisture) with perlite (which retains very little) instead of using something that retains less moisture than sphagnum in the first place? Isn't all of the perlite going to just settle to the bottom anyway? Wallet fucked around with this message at 14:20 on Jun 12, 2021 |
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Jun 12, 2021 14:16
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Sphagnum is good for epiphytes like orchids, but it usually needs something like perlite to add drainage/aeration. I use a similar mixture for my nepenthes.
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Jun 12, 2021 14:29
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Wallet posted:Why use sphagnum (which retains a ton of moisture) with perlite (which retains very little) instead of using something that retains less moisture than sphagnum in the first place? Isn't all of the perlite going to just settle to the bottom anyway? My M. petola was in just sphagnum, but after a couple months the medium became quite packed and the drainage went to poo poo.
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Jun 12, 2021 14:41
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Perlite is an S‐tier medium. It’s cheap, it’s light, it has internal channels for air/water/root penetration, and it doesn’t degrade. Pair it with something that retains lots of water because that’s the thing perlite doesn’t do.
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Jun 12, 2021 15:03
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I mix sand with my sphagnum too. I'm not positive that it helps, but I think it does.
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Jun 12, 2021 15:16
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I got aphids on my roses, do ladybugs do anything worthwhile or do I need to bust out some chemicals? I got some ladybugs a couple years back and they were neat to have hanging around but I'm unsure if they did a drat thing.
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Jun 12, 2021 15:53
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 This is an apple tree I planted in the fall. Looks pretty diseased. Should I cut it down and burn it to protect my other trees? Or can it survive this?
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Jun 12, 2021 15:55
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Platystemon posted:Perlite is an S‐tier medium. It’s cheap, it’s light, it has internal channels for air/water/root penetration, and it doesn’t degrade. It does eventually turn into dust, unfortunately. I like it fine for reducing water retention affordably, I just don't really get why you'd start with something that has ultra high water retention and try to knock it down with perlite instead of just starting with something that doesn't hold so much water. Fitzy Fitz posted:I mix sand with my sphagnum too. I'm not positive that it helps, but I think it does. From what I've read the general recommendation is not to mix sand into stuff like this because it basically just fills what would be air pores, reducing available oxygen without (at low proportions) significantly changing water retention. AfricanBootyShine posted:My M. petola was in just sphagnum, but after a couple months the medium became quite packed and the drainage went to poo poo. Are we talking about sphagnum moss or sphagnum peat? Mixing sphagnum moss with perlite sounds bizarre to me; how would you keep it from immediately separating? Why not just use something like bark fines that doesn't compact the same way and has the airspace you'd presumably be adding the perlite to get? Wallet fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Jun 12, 2021 |
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Jun 12, 2021 20:54
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So, my parents gave Mrs. ROJO a phalaenopsis for her first mother's day. My Mom received one on her first mother's day, and has kept it going 37 years now, so *no pressure*  We've had it for a few weeks now at this point, and I have been looking at it's roots for indication that it needs water - I gave it a good watering a week after receiving it, but it the roots still seem green and moist, so I've been letting it do it's own thing. Put it by a south-west facing sliding door, because it is unfortunately really the only option for it to get moderate, but not severe and direct light. A few days ago, I noticed this brown/yellow spot on the tip of one of the leaves, and it appears to be working it's way farther back towards the rest of the plant.  I know that phalaenopsis can lose their lowest leaves, but this one is about halfway up. Is this something I should be worried about or is it indicative of something? The rest of the leaves seem perfectly fine. Thanks in advance.
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Jun 13, 2021 00:15
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ROJO posted:So, my parents gave Mrs. ROJO a phalaenopsis for her first mother's day. My Mom received one on her first mother's day, and has kept it going 37 years now, so *no pressure* What is this potted in/where was it purchased? Can you see the roots inside the pot? Store bought orchids are often potted terribly and the roots rot. This looks like dehydration which is either from root problems or not watering frequently enough.
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Jun 13, 2021 01:08
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ROJO posted:So, my parents gave Mrs. ROJO a phalaenopsis for her first mother's day. My Mom received one on her first mother's day, and has kept it going 37 years now, so *no pressure* Get it out of that pot and into some real orchid media right now. You can make orchid pots easily with an appropriately-sized plastic container and a hole-cutting tool or pocketknife or drill or even an old soldering iron. Or you can go to Lowe’s and get a real terra cotta orchid pot for like $4 (or just use any appropriately sized terra cotta pot, the special holes aren’t essential and terra cotta breathes). Personally I prefer plastic to terra cotta, you can see the roots and it’s easier to repot without tearing any of the roots that try to attach to the sides (terra cotta’s porous so roots will try to stick to it hard), but both are good. Just definitely get it out of that sale pot because you are 100% killing your plant in it. They use those to keep orchids wet and alive during the 1-4 weeks it takes to sell them, but they’re totally inappropriate for long term living. Orchids want moist but also dry and aerated roots that breathe. When you repot you’re gonna want to remove any dead and rotting root sections with some very sharp and clean cutting tools. You want your cuts to be very clean, and orchids have surprisingly tough fibers so take my word for it. https://youtu.be/RhnajiGkkbY https://youtu.be/cWFyQzJbGDg https://youtu.be/8rAR-cAcnGE Ignore all the junk about fancy potting media, special companies, chemicals and lemon and all that. You can get a bag of Miracle Gro orchid bark for $4 at any big box hardware store or order it from the Evil Spaceman Jeff. Pots I mentioned earlier, but I just diy all mine using dollar store Tupperware (my favorite) or old supermarket deli cups. You can reuse the old sphagnum moss that the plant came in but I advise going with new stuff. If you insist on reuse (probably fine, I’ve certainly done it before), 10-20 sec in the microwave to kill pathogens and fungus or pour boiling water on it (obvi cool it off before reapplying to the plant).
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Jun 13, 2021 01:34
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Bloody Cat Farm posted:What is this potted in/where was it purchased? Can you see the roots inside the pot? Store bought orchids are often potted terribly and the roots rot. This looks like dehydration which is either from root problems or not watering frequently enough. From some bougie nursery place, not that that means anything. I pulled it out of the outer pot and took some photos of the roots and media it is in. The media (not really sure what it is) definitely seems a little dense/compacted for what I would have expected compared to a bark or something.    The plastic pot has a hole in the center bottom, and sits in the larger pot which has holes in it's bottom into the tray. I got rid of the crappy cellophane/whatever they had between the two pots, and replaced it with clean, small riverrock I had around (the plastic pot is small enough compared to the outer one it won't sit upright due to the weight of the flowers). Ok Comboomer posted:snip Thanks for the links. If I repot it now, I assume there is no great way to save the flowers and will likely lose them all due to shock? I had been reading about repotting already, because the pot seemed small for the roots, but was going to wait till the flowers were gone.
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Jun 13, 2021 03:07
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That's the sphagnum moss everyone keep talking about. Everything looks healthy, you could probably wait until after the flowers fall off to repot.
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Jun 13, 2021 03:29
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ROJO posted:From some bougie nursery place, not that that means anything. I pulled it out of the outer pot and took some photos of the roots and media it is in. The media (not really sure what it is) definitely seems a little dense/compacted for what I would have expected compared to a bark or something. nope! I did it with all of my phals right when I bought them and it was fine. They're only now losing their winter flowers, and one of them has a few more buds popping. Be gentle with the plant and don't be rough with the flowers, of course, but otherwise you can repot it sooner rather than later. It will be much better for the plant in the long run. Healthy phals really are bulletproof and will hold onto their flowers for like six months or more.
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Jun 13, 2021 03:35
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It definitely needs a new pot and medium. Get an orchid pot. Use an orchid medium with bark. Repotme has some good mixes. Basically, those roots need to breathe and the water needs to drain better. You’re correct, though, that you may lose the flowers.
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Jun 13, 2021 10:05
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Wallet posted:Are we talking about sphagnum moss or sphagnum peat? Mixing sphagnum moss with perlite sounds bizarre to me; how would you keep it from immediately separating? Why not just use something like bark fines that doesn't compact the same way and has the airspace you'd presumably be adding the perlite to get? Moss. I threw in some bark for fun as well, winds up looking like this: https://www.bybrittanygoldwyn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Rooting-plants-in-sphagnum-moss-5.jpg It's certainly not homogeneous, but it's enough to provide some aeration and reduce compacting. I'm finding jewel orchids to be a bit of a challenge in that they want high humidity and a moist medium, but are pretty susceptible to root rot. AfricanBootyShine fucked around with this message at 11:29 on Jun 13, 2021 |
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Jun 13, 2021 11:26
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Bloody Cat Farm posted:It definitely needs a new pot and medium. Get an orchid pot. Use an orchid medium with bark. Repotme has some good mixes. It’s a white phal. OP won’t lose any flowers, unless the whole thing topples off the workbench mid-repot and lands on its head (I’ve done this to an orchid—and also not lost any flowers). Those things are hybridized to hell and back to be nigh-indestructible. Honestly in my experience the flowers will last much longer with a repot and healthy medium than they will if the plant is kept with wet/cramped feet
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Jun 13, 2021 16:36
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Ok Comboomer posted:....to be nigh-indestructible. Challenge accepted. Thanks everyone! Have some new media coming tomorrow and some slotted pots, I'll give the repotting a shot tomorrow - and report back on how hosed up the roots were once it comes out.
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Jun 13, 2021 17:47
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ROJO posted:Challenge accepted. watch the vids. Be gentle. Make sure the old sphagnum is wet when you try to remove it. Especially get the stuff in the center at the base/“butt” of the plant where the roots join the trunk, don’t leave a clump of that stuff “to be gentle” and then plop the whole thing into a new pot with fresh new media around it. Like with a human baby you REALLY want that area to breathe and to not have any old decomposing moss and gunk there breeding poo poo. It’s like changing into clean clothes but leaving on filthy underwear, except in this case the filthy underwear grows necrotizing germs and fungus that kill you. And also you are a plant.
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Jun 13, 2021 18:43
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CommonShore posted:
I’m not an expert but none of my espalier apples have ever looked anywhere close to that. At all. They look like normal rear end trees with leaves and sometimes flowers on them.
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Jun 14, 2021 01:57
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I. M. Gei posted:I’m not an expert but none of my espalier apples have ever looked anywhere close to that. At all. They look like normal rear end trees with leaves and sometimes flowers on them. According to the label from the greenhouse, it's a "red gemini apple". It was really slow to put those weird leaves out, and it has some branches that are dead/dying. I'm just not sure if I can save it, if it might recover if given a chance, or if it's a good idea to just get it out of there asap so it doesn't mess up the two other apple trees nearby.
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Jun 14, 2021 04:53
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OK, got the new media and pots today, so I took a stab at re-potting that phalaenopsis. HOLY gently caress was there a ton of sphagnum moss crammed in that little thing, along with a wicked twisted up rootball. Took me about 30 minutes to finally get all the moss out, and it expanded to at least two times the volume of the original pot, not even accounting for the orchid itself. There is no way that things had anywhere near the right airflow, it was basically a solid brick of moss. Original container in the top left for scale:  In general, most of the roots were OK, I probably trimmed ~5-10% of the total root mass to get rid of all the dead/soft roots. I know you aren't supposed to go crazy with upsizing the pots for an orchid, but holy hell there was no way I was getting that thing back in the same size pot, or the even the next size larger without utterly forcing the roots into weird contortions and risking breakage. This thing expanded out like a spring once it was out of it's original pot. The one I threw it in may be a tad on the big side, but I can at least see a good number of the roots through the side after repotting. Still just seems to be that one leaf that is turning yellow - hopefully the rest stay healthy. Here's hoping   If the one leaf fully makes it yellow all the way back to the crown, I assume I should I go ahead and trim it off? Also, there is a bit of a black spot you can see in that second photo where one of the flower shoots leaves the crown - is that crown rot(or something else to be worried about)? Should I treat it? Sorry for the 50 questions and thanks again for all your help goons. ROJO fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Jun 15, 2021 |
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Jun 15, 2021 01:36
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ROJO posted:If the one leaf fully makes it yellow all the way back to the crown, I assume I should I go ahead and trim it off? Also, there is a bit of a black spot you can see in that second photo where one of the flower shoots leaves the crown - is that crown rot(or something else to be worried about)? Should I treat it? Sorry for the 50 questions and thanks again for all your help goons. Unless a leaf on a plant has pests on it or is actually rotting, it's usually better for the plant to leave it alone until it's fully dead/dessicated. Plants discard leaves for a lot of reasons and they usually suck the good poo poo out of them before they go. The bottom one does look like it may be rot from the photo (though it's hard to tell for sure—is it mushy there?). I'd probably remove as much of the black as you can and treat the area with 3% hydrogen peroxide but I am not an orchid expert.
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Jun 15, 2021 14:04
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Cinnamon, too, after the peroxide dries
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Jun 15, 2021 14:50
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My big white phal had a big spot of black rot on one of its center leaves from the store that spread to one of the lower ones. I ended up cutting the diseased part of the leaf off (just a straight cut, nothing circular or surgical or fancy) and then the plant shortly killed off the remainder of the leaf and dropped it like a week later A big mistake that plant owners often do is that they’ll remove a sick/dead/damaged leaf that still has a healthy live petiole, and so they’ll rip the petiole off of the stem like they were flaying the poor plant alive. Don’t do this. Use a sharp clean knife and make cuts only where necessary (definitely remove black rot and fungus from an orchid or it will spread) but let the plant kill off remaining tissue and drop it on its own. In outdoor rabbit news, the furry fuckers decided to pay me back for replacing their azalea entertainment with some asiatic lilies by biting off all of the lilies’ leaves and ripping off the flowers. At least this time they appear to have actually eaten most of the leaves.
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Jun 15, 2021 16:45
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Ok Comboomer posted:In outdoor rabbit news, the furry fuckers decided to pay me back for replacing their azalea entertainment with some asiatic lilies by biting off all of the lilies’ leaves and ripping off the flowers. At least this time they appear to have actually eaten most of the leaves. They really seem to like true lilies. They bit every single tip off the first two layers of leaves on my lancifolium earlier this year and now they all look weird. They hosed off from that part of the garden before any of my asiatic lilies started coming up, at least, though for some reason they've decided that they like the two Little Dart Hosta I got at a plant sale in the spring enough to bite almost all of the leaves off of them even though they've shown zero interest in the 12 other varieties right next to them. Some little rear end in a top hat also bit half of the flowers off of the Allium amethystinum I planted last fall and didn't even have the decency to eat the loving things. Plus a bear cub showed up and bent two of the poles I had bird feeders on and left a massive steaming poo poo in the middle of my yard. At least it left my plants alone. If it will eat the loving rabbits I'm happy to clean up after it.
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Jun 16, 2021 00:46
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Wallet posted:They really seem to like true lilies. They bit every single tip off the first two layers of leaves on my lancifolium earlier this year and now they all look weird. They hosed off from that part of the garden before any of my asiatic lilies started coming up, at least, though for some reason they've decided that they like the two Little Dart Hosta I got at a plant sale in the spring enough to bite almost all of the leaves off of them even though they've shown zero interest in the 12 other varieties right next to them. Some little rear end in a top hat also bit half of the flowers off of the Allium amethystinum I planted last fall and didn't even have the decency to eat the loving things. yeah, the rabs 100% do it for fun. If it makes a cool sound or is texturally interesting or it drops in an entertaining way they’ll bite it just because they can, even if they can’t/won’t eat it. They’re smart enough not to touch the euphorbias, I imagine they can smell the latex, also it makes sense that the plants bleed on themselves a little bit. As detailed in PI, I adopted four very young, currently unspayed females last week. I’m using some cheap towels to line their cage at the moment. Earlier today I laundered some of them in the backyard and left them to sit, and also tossed out several days’ worth of litter pan waste. I’m almost curious enough to set up critter cams to see who starts showing up in my yard looking for a good time/meal. I imagine that a lot of the wild rabbit bucks in the neighborhood are gonna start going crazy for my trash.
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Jun 16, 2021 01:25
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Ok Comboomer posted:yeah, the rabs 100% do it for fun. If it makes a cool sound or is texturally interesting or it drops in an entertaining way they’ll bite it just because they can, even if they can’t/won’t eat it. They’re smart enough not to touch the euphorbias, I imagine they can smell the latex, also it makes sense that the plants bleed on themselves a little bit. I hope you're right because even if I hate the little fuckers I will feel really bad if the baby rabbits in my garden emerge, eat the Euphorbia their mother left them under, and immediately die. They look like actual rabbits with fur and stuff now. They're pretty cute for future monsters that will destroy my garden 
Wallet fucked around with this message at 13:25 on Jun 16, 2021 |
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Jun 16, 2021 12:56
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I want a Florida jujube. Floridaman drat near killed them all. They’re reportedly tasteless, sadly. Interesting links: 1, 2, 3
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Jun 16, 2021 16:01
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