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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:Even a light frost will kill the foliage. Mine come back from the ground every year, but it rarely gets below 22F here. Obviously in a pot it is more vulnerable too. Oh yeah, he's staying in the house until its nice out again. I'm in the midwest and the snow will 100% eat him alive.
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Nov 3, 2022 02:37
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Just planted a couple pecan and paw paw trees. Man, are bare root trees ever an expression in consumer confidence. "We have sold you this this bare stick. You must now trust it will turn into a plant eventually, long after your window to review this transaction or dispute it with your credit card company." e: They also came with a fern as a throw-in. What kind of fern? IDK, just fern. Good luck with it! Chad Sexington fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Nov 3, 2022 |
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Nov 3, 2022 20:20
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I want paw paw trees so badly, but I have too many trees, its already causing huge problems with trying to find any kind of area in the yard that actually gets full sun. I like hostas and all, but if I've bought a house I can't grow tomatoes in someone's getting pruned next year.
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Nov 7, 2022 01:00
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Guildenstern Mother posted:I want paw paw trees so badly, but I have too many trees, its already causing huge problems with trying to find any kind of area in the yard that actually gets full sun. I like hostas and all, but if I've bought a house I can't grow tomatoes in someone's getting pruned next year. time for grow lights and tents
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Nov 7, 2022 01:20
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Those will immediately be commandeered for weed growing now the the Mr has medical. It'll happen so fast it'll have already happened a week before I got the gear, and we'll have been arguing about grow light possession for years.
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Nov 7, 2022 01:33
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gently caress it- it’s your house and you have to live with the yard for however many decades, get to the chainsaw and make it into what you want now instead of in 5 years after disappointing harvests.
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Nov 7, 2022 01:40
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I'm still convinced that I'll find a 3x6 patch in the front yard but its hard to say yes, we live in a place with bullshit hot summers, let's make sure the backyard is no longer constantly shaded after like 11 am. Edit: also if God forbid it gets too sunny I'm out of reasons to not built a pergola
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Nov 7, 2022 02:24
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Guildenstern Mother posted:Those will immediately be commandeered for weed growing now the the Mr has medical. It'll happen so fast it'll have already happened a week before I got the gear, and we'll have been arguing about grow light possession for years. just have more grow tents and lights. It’s all LED now anyway, so your power bill shouldn’t be getting hammered
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Nov 7, 2022 02:59
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Guildenstern Mother posted:I want paw paw trees so badly, but I have too many trees, its already causing huge problems with trying to find any kind of area in the yard that actually gets full sun. I like hostas and all, but if I've bought a house I can't grow tomatoes in someone's getting pruned next year. In the specific case of paw paws, they do quite well in partial sun or shade, so you could stick some under trees you already have? All the ones I've found in fruiting season in and around D.C. have been firmly in the understory of forested areas right by the Potomac. I think water is the limiting factor more than space or sunshine.
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Nov 7, 2022 15:05
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I posted here about a month ago asking for peoples' opinions on some small cylindrical grey-black eggs. I removed them with a paper towel soaked in isopropanol, and ended up being harmless, because I haven't seen anything pest-related due to them. Unfortunately, what I should have been paying attention to was the small patch of webbing I found under another leaf! God drat it, I even took pictures at the time! But I thought it might be remnants of a spiders' nest. I did clean it off with isopropanol as well, so at least I did that, and it turned out it was even the right thing to do, because that's how you kill these assholes. The source of the threat:  Anyway, now I have a mild, and at the moment contained, infestation of mealybugs. I at least remembered to keep a close eye on the plant after it came out of quarantine, and a week ago, found an adult mealybug slowly on his way up the main stalk of my plant. Dabbed a Q-tip in iso, dabbed it onto the mealybug, and just as detailed online, it turned brown and died. I found two more adults at the time and killed them, and just applied Bonide imidacloprid granules to the soil yesterday. I'm hopeful that they didn't spread to my other plants, and that this treatment works. You'd think growing indoors would result in fewer infestations! And you'd be wrong! I'm inspecting it twice a day and haven't seen anything further, but then these things have a one-month life cycle. Going to keep it in quarantine for at least twice that long. On the plus side, this little as-yet-unidentified tree we got on clearance at the nursery where I've gotten thrips and now mealybugs from is putting out fantastic new growth since repotting it. I think it's a ficus, the rate of growth of new leaves is incredible to see and super rewarding. There's even new little nubs of green sprouting up the footlong trunks of the plant where previously there were just empty spots where leaves used to be (but which I assume were knocked off over time as it was manhandled around the store). Really excited to beat these mealybugs and grow a big full plant. It's the one with the broad leaves in the foreground here, since moved to the bathroom after finding the pests. 
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Nov 10, 2022 05:32
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There was a frost advisory last night and I missed it. Hopefully nothing dies...
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Nov 10, 2022 17:15
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Man, what in the hell. I made a small succulent arrangement in a couple 3" pots earlier this year, and two months ago I took one to work where it sits under a desk light for 8 hours a day. It wasn't quite enough light, so today, I brought them home to transplant into a larger succulent pot here. And then I noticed some weird scabbing on a stem, looked closer and saw a little crawling bug, and then saw webbing. Looked closer, and it was on all of them. Spider mites. I don't know how that happened in an office cubicle environment (my remaining collection at home has been pest-free for months). Seriously in awe of the fact that they somehow got infested sitting on my desk for two months, and I hope to god they haven't spread, I've heard how much of a pain they are to eradicate.
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Nov 11, 2022 02:58
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Samsquamsch posted:Anyway, now I have a mild, and at the moment contained, infestation of mealybugs. I at least remembered to keep a close eye on the plant after it came out of quarantine, and a week ago, found an adult mealybug slowly on his way up the main stalk of my plant. Dabbed a Q-tip in iso, dabbed it onto the mealybug, and just as detailed online, it turned brown and died. I found two more adults at the time and killed them, and just applied Bonide imidacloprid granules to the soil yesterday. I'm hopeful that they didn't spread to my other plants, and that this treatment works. You'd think growing indoors would result in fewer infestations! And you'd be wrong! I'm inspecting it twice a day and haven't seen anything further, but then these things have a one-month life cycle. Going to keep it in quarantine for at least twice that long. Mealybugs actually do better inside than out, I managed to deal with quite a large infestation on a large jade plant through a combination of isopropanol, pesticide and leaving it outside all summer. Just the isopropanol and pesticide struggled to completely get rid of them.
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Nov 11, 2022 10:43
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Samsquamsch posted:Man, what in the hell. I made a small succulent arrangement in a couple 3" pots earlier this year, and two months ago I took one to work where it sits under a desk light for 8 hours a day. It wasn't quite enough light, so today, I brought them home to transplant into a larger succulent pot here. And then I noticed some weird scabbing on a stem, looked closer and saw a little crawling bug, and then saw webbing. Looked closer, and it was on all of them. Spider mites. I don't know how that happened in an office cubicle environment (my remaining collection at home has been pest-free for months). Seriously in awe of the fact that they somehow got infested sitting on my desk for two months, and I hope to god they haven't spread, I've heard how much of a pain they are to eradicate. Spider mites will find a way, they also love dry environments without lots of airflow. Try using a spray bottle of water occasionally for general health and upkeep, but if you're dealing with an infestation, try either an insecticidal soap or spinosad. Neeksy fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Nov 11, 2022 |
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Nov 11, 2022 21:52
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Neeksy posted:Spider mites will find a way, they also love dry environments without lots of airflow. I just ditched the plant in the trash. Took two leaves off the only one I was going to bother with propagating, and cleaned out the pot. I had put part of a stem from the infested pot into some soil in another plant; got rid of the soil surrounding that area and am watching the pot closely. It's far away from all of my other plants, so maybe it's morbid curiosity seeing if I actually succeeded in getting them all. That pot also has disposable plants in it. This stuff is so stressful, but still ultimately worth it. Thanks for the advice, I have spinosad and castile soap and isopropanol for future treatment. edit: looool I won the bad luck lottery this week. Or at least had the bad luck to find these existing infestations this week, anyway. Just discovered a thrips infestation still in its early stages on my monstera I got from Costco about a month ago. Treated with spinosad spray/soil drench, this is my third time having them and I hope that this is as effective as it was the other two times. This makes a trifecta of a thrips, mealybug, and spider mite infestation in one week (although the spider mites came from a plant brought back home, and are hopefully isolated and gone). I'd probably be a lot more stressed than I admittedly already am if I'd caught these things later, it never hurts to do a thorough inspection. Check your plants, guys! gently caress! Samsquamsch fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Nov 12, 2022 |
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Nov 11, 2022 23:17
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How do I get soil to take up water better? I have a lipstick plant that seems happy in its nursery container, which I've tucked into a cachepot. But the soil moves around in its container in one solid mass--the container + soil + plant is light as air--and any water goes straight through. For a really thorough soaking (which lasts the plant a good while), I have to wedge the pot into another cup filled with water past the bottom of the pot and rely on both bottom and top watering. I had similar problems with fresh cactus mix this week, when my kalanchoe cuttings were supposed to be put into damp soil. Any water seems to sit on top of cactus mix for a long time before draining; I stirred the mix with a chopstick as I watered and kept turning up pockets of completely dry medium. Is there a trick to this?
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Nov 17, 2022 17:55
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I guess either use a soil mix that has more fine, absorbent organic matter or keep soaking and watering thoroughly like you have been. It sounds like you're using mixes that are meant to repel water or drain quickly, which is good for those plants. It's not going to behave like normal potting soil though, and that's fine. I bottom water a lot of my plants because they have slow-absorbing soil, and I have others that I need to put in the shower to water properly. Just how it is.
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Nov 17, 2022 18:16
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Using a spray bottle can help. The smaller droplets adhere to the soil particles better.
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Nov 17, 2022 18:45
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Hirayuki posted:How do I get soil to take up water better? I have a lipstick plant that seems happy in its nursery container, which I've tucked into a cachepot. But the soil moves around in its container in one solid mass--the container + soil + plant is light as air--and any water goes straight through. For a really thorough soaking (which lasts the plant a good while), I have to wedge the pot into another cup filled with water past the bottom of the pot and rely on both bottom and top watering. Plant substrate can get rather complicated, but if your substrate rejects water that's probably because it's high in peat; when peat dries out it behaves that way, which is why most commercial potting mixes with significant peat content include a wetting agent. If you have a soil behaving like that and you want it to hold more water, I'd suggest just replacing it with a better quality potting soil that isn't so heavy on the peat. Peat is also one of the common culprits when an entire pot worth of soil sticks together like a lump, in my experience (with the caveat that a plant's root network will get extensive enough to hold a pot of basically anything in one solid lump given enough time). I think most lipstick plants (assuming we're talking about Aeschynanthus and not something else people are calling lipstick plants to confuse me) are epiphytic; generally for epiphytes you're going to want a coarser substrate because that will give you a high air capacity (and epiphytes are used to their roots being able to breathe). A high air capacity can be paired with a low water capacity for something like a gritty mix intended for succulents and cacti, but it can also be paired with higher water capacity for something like an orchid mix. What your plant is going to prefer will depend on the specific plant and where it's from. For established cacti/succulents I'd always recommend going with a full gritty mix, though that will mean watering more often (in general all of mine in pots <8" in diameter get watered twice a week). For rooting cuttings I have better success with something that has a bit more water retention, and whatever cactus mix they have at your big box store of choice seems to do fine for that purpose, though if it's actually rejecting water I'd say it's got too much peat in it or they cheaped out on the wetting agent. Wallet fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Nov 18, 2022 |
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Nov 17, 2022 19:03
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Question about Japanese maples. I know that there's a variety called Bloodgood that takes full sun instead of partial shade, but are there others besides that one that also take full sun? And do they all need partial shade during their first year after planting like the Bloodgood does?
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Nov 17, 2022 21:02
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I'll be heading through parts of Pennsylvania and West Virginia in the next week to go visit my girlfriend's family. Anyone have any cool nursery recommendations I should check out on the way?
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Nov 18, 2022 06:55
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Thanks for the soil advice. Both my cactus mix (Miracle-Gro) and regular potting mix (Happy Frog) contain some amount of peat, so that may be the culprit, though the Miracle-Gro does have a wetting agent. Nothing like trying to soak a parched pot and watching horrified as the entire mass of soil floats. Or watching the water bead up on the surface of the soil like it's been waterproofed.
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Nov 19, 2022 19:28
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The other reason to move away from peat is environmental, peat moss bogs are not easily replenished. I use mixes that use coconut coir. If you want to try and get it wet, add the tiniest bit of dishsoap to the water which will help break down the surface tension and make it easier to wet the first time. The same can sometimes help with seed starting too.
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Nov 19, 2022 21:11
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Any recommendations on how to make a good mix with coconut coir? I find that it... Doesn't hold moisture in quite the same way as a commercial soil mix (even the peat free ones). Tbf, I'm mostly mixing it with bark, perlite, and worm castings.
AfricanBootyShine fucked around with this message at 01:40 on Nov 20, 2022 |
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Nov 20, 2022 01:38
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AfricanBootyShine posted:Any recommendations on how to make a good mix with coconut coir? I find that it... Doesn't hold moisture in quite the same way as a commercial soil mix (even the peat free ones). Tbf, I'm mostly mixing it with bark, perlite, and worm castings. have you tried adding vermiculite?
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Nov 20, 2022 22:25
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I've never kept orchids before, but I *do* have other epiphytes, so I'm going to try and treat it like I'd treat one of them and see how it goes. Experiment! 
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Dec 13, 2022 05:33
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Love the wall mount!
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Dec 13, 2022 15:49
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i had some fantastic luck with my chocolate habaneros continuing to fruit, so i set aside about 150 snack pepper seeds to propagate in the hopes of getting really really lucky and being able to enjoy some homegrown snack peppers before spring hits next year. i wasn't expecting it to work but all of them sprouted!! now i've got two trays full of snack pepper shoots sitting on my windowsill. obviously i have more than i know what to do with, so maybe i'll give some out as christmas presents, but i'm gonna keep experimenting with them on behalf of all the britgoons out there who miss their outdoor edible gardens
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Dec 16, 2022 21:28
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Ok here’s a question. I bought a bunch of discount bulbs a few weeks ago. I’m in Zone 6. Can I just leave these things in the garage over winter or should I try to plant them now
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Dec 16, 2022 21:52
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Try to plant them. They need a period of cold weather in order to flower.
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Dec 16, 2022 23:42
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If the ground is too frozen, you can leave them in the garage if they'll still get cold, just make sure they're clean and dry in a bunch of wood chips or shredded paper so they don't mold. If it's a heated garage store them somewhere where they'll still get the temp cycle.
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Dec 16, 2022 23:48
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Unheated garage but no frost quite yet. I’ll try to plant them this weekend. I don’t quite know where I want them but I’ll figure it out.
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Dec 17, 2022 00:46
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BigFactory posted:Ok here’s a question. I bought a bunch of discount bulbs a few weeks ago. I’m in Zone 6. Can I just leave these things in the garage over winter or should I try to plant them now If you ordered them do you mind sharing where you got them? I’ll take any recommendations to shop bulbs for zone 5b. Places I’ve checked online are just shipping in spring.
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Dec 17, 2022 04:17
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My aunt, who lives across the country, is in sudden hospice care and fading fast. Her will invites us immediate family members to take whatever mementos we'd like from her home. I'd like very much to adopt her house plants; I recall there being quite a few--nothing too fancy, but pretty and green. (She'd inherited my grandma's green thumb before it zagged over to me.) Is there a way to do this that doesn't involve sticking everything in a U-Haul and hitting the open road for several days of driving? I know some people in this thread have taken their plant collections with them on moves, but maybe in this case there's a way to bare-root the things and ship them FedEx or something. I've never transported a plant further than an hour by car to my dorm room and back.
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Dec 17, 2022 16:34
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My condolences for your aunt. Renting a minivan and driving them ended up being the most cost effective way for me to do it. Moving plants is a special mover, and they’re more expensive because you can’t just stack them on top of each other. With FedEx shipping prices and depending on how many plants the driving yourself may also still be cheaper. Depends how many and what size.
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Dec 17, 2022 16:52
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Jhet posted:My condolences for your aunt. I rented a couple of Home Despot vans to move my plants between states
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Dec 17, 2022 16:58
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Hmm. It'd be a 36-hour drive without stops, but not impossible... First I have to get out there and see what she has. Maybe I'll end up choosing one favorite and flying home with it in my carry-on. Thanks for the tips.
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Dec 17, 2022 17:40
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Ghost Cactus posted:If you ordered them do you mind sharing where you got them? I got them at Job Lot
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Dec 17, 2022 18:05
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Hirayuki posted:Hmm. It'd be a 36-hour drive without stops, but not impossible... First I have to get out there and see what she has. Maybe I'll end up choosing one favorite and flying home with it in my carry-on. Thanks for the tips. is there a way to get a sense of what’s there before you go? Worst case Ontario it sounds like you’re in a position where you could figure that out once you’re actually there and then decide on what to do
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Dec 17, 2022 18:16
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Hirayuki posted:Hmm. It'd be a 36-hour drive without stops, but not impossible... First I have to get out there and see what she has. Maybe I'll end up choosing one favorite and flying home with it in my carry-on. Thanks for the tips.
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Dec 17, 2022 18:23
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