Horticulture: Vista la hosta

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Hobbies, Crafts, & Houses > Horticulture: Vista la hosta

Bad Munki: Nov 4, 2008; We're all mad here.

Cross-posting this here I guess? Not sure how much crossover there is between here and the gardening thread but they told me this thread existed too. Okay here we go!

Bad Munki posted:

We've been living at our current place for about 7 years now, we have a very ample garden that just gets better every year as we figure out what works, what doesn't, ways to streamline, etc. Always a learning process. The garden is two 11x30 plots off the end of my barn.

_{Sometimes, plants can thrive TOO well. The tomatoes at the back right were borderline non-navigable.}

It's enough space that we can grow all of the things we know we want, with lots of room for experimenting and making mistakes without feeling like we wasted opportunities. Pretty ideal. More recently, we've started to devote a fair chunk to flowers. Dahlias are always a favorite, but we do a bit of everything. Marigolds of all sorts, zinnias, astilbe, celosia, all kinds of stuff. Turned the whole place into a butterfly garden once we started doing that.

_{Local garden friend helping us out}

Anyhow, one aspect of this forever-project is getting started before spring. I like to grow as many plants as I can from seeds, feels real good. But I'm also impatient, and like to start earlier than I probably should. So, for a couple years, we had 4-tier plastic utility shelves in the guest bathroom shower with grow lights and such all over, it was a hot mess and super duper overkill. Also, since I had no idea how much of anything I wanted, much less what I wanted, I tended to start seeds excessively, and then lose my mind when I only needed 10% of my starts. A few years of that and I started to figure out an actual game plan.

At some point, we picked up a little seed starting greenhouse. A real piece of junk, like $20 on amazon or whatever. 1/2" tube steel, and a clear vinyl cover that slips on. I mean, it was okay for the price, we absolutely got our money's worth out of it, but it was not great. It lived out on the deck for a couple years, got thoroughly worked over by UV, and then one year I realized it was actually all the space I needed to start my seeds, and I could use the lights I already had, just way more dense, which was good, because the plants were a little starved as it was.

So that thing moved right into the living room, condition be damned. It was supposed to be temporary, we'd just leave it there for the spring, and then clear it out once everything was planted.

_{I absolutely grew to love this sexy pink light.}

And then we planted all the starts, and realized we had space to grow more things, and my elderly parents were bringing over half-dead plants from their place, so we started nursing those back to health, and so on. THREE YEARS LATER, it dawned on me that the indoor greenhouse might be a permanent fixture. So I started googling.

_{The picture that started it all.}

The fabled IKEA MILSBO. I didn't realize quite how trendy it was to convert this to a greenhouse/botanical display until much further into the project, but honestly, I don't care, it works so well. Of course, no IKEA where I'm at, but my wife was driving up to Minneapolis in just a couple weeks and we determined we could fit two in the car. Heck yeah. And while I waited, I could start planning. Lots of examples to consider.

_{Not bad, not crazy about the lighting. Nice flexible shelving.}

_{Clean look, less flexible, similar lighting issue.}

Lots of things I liked and disliked about the various examples. The original pic, for instance, has gridwall in the back, which is great, but man they hacked the attachment. Just some fender washers and screws. Gross. If I was going to do this, I was gonna go hard. The other major factor in all these examples I didn't like was the lights. Wires everywhere, under-lit, side-lit, thick lights overly visible. The big gotcha here: I want to avoid permanent, visible alterations to the cabinet itself if at all possible. Ended up really, really close to that goal.

_{Once the tomatoes moved out, the cats moved in. Wiring hell, to boot.}

I figured the first step would be to figure out how to attach the gridwall panel. I didn't want to use the provided glass shelves, as they'd prevent airflow, had more limited positioning, would catch water, and would show dirt/dust more. So I devised a clip that would install the same as the original shelf supports, right down to making use of two very subtle ridges on the spine of the whole thing to lock into place on the cabinet and gridwall. Just install the clip at a 45, set the panel in it, and twist it to lock it into place.

_{The prototype in grey for visibility.}

_{Once locked into place, it's practically invisible.}

That just keeps it from tipping or shifting, we still need some feetsies at the bottom.

_{Not truly necessary, but it seems more finished this way.}

And, lastly, we want to brace the rack from the sides as well, so we make a third part that grabs onto the edge.

_{Gotta black out all the fasteners, too!}

At this point, the rack is absolutely locked in, and integrated into the cabinet, but in a way that is as good as invisible unless you're looking to see those specific parts. So far so good, and no actual modifications to the cabinet yet, everything can be undone back to stock.

Time to figure out the lights! My previous sexy-pink lights were okay, they were just what was available at Lowe's at the time. I did the math and they were putting out nowhere near enough light, which is why my seedlings were originally way too leggy, and things only really worked when I consolidated them down to just a couple shelves. This time, I actually did the math to figure out how much light I wanted based on sunlight at the equator, and so on. And then I added a very ample buffer beyond that, so I would have flexibility. Also, broader spectrum. I'll miss the pink, but ya gotta give the plants what they crave.

With the math in hand, I went shopping. Aside from the actual light output, there were two main factors: fitting it in the 12x24 space I had, and getting it absolutely as thin as possible. All the lights I found were from 1-3 inches thick. That's dumb, they're just LED panels! Buuuuut, it appears that in a lot of cases, most of the thickness is the transformer itself. We may have options here.

_{These fit the footprint, and have the light I need!}

_{So close. The actual light panel is just a circuit board on an aluminum plate, that's perfect, but then there's all this crap bolted on the back.}

So these VIPARSPECTRA look real close, are apparently a good brand, just need to see if they can be modified how I need. Namely, can I take the transformer and dimmer off, run them with longer wires, and install them elsewhere, with just the light panel inside the cabinet proper. Ordered one to see.

_{As you can see, the business end of the light is absurdly slim.}

_{The space I intend the light(s) to be in. Roughly a 1" deep recess in the top plate of the cabinet.}

So, I tear the thing apart, get a look at how it's hooked up, and put an extension on the wires from the transformer to the light panel. Also put some black mesh wrap on the wires to help hide them for the final install. Thanks to the Electronics thread for sanity checking my plans here.

_{It lives! And can now be positioned like 5' away from the supply.}

Also, as it turns out, the dimming is controlled by the transformer itself, it just has an extra connection for DIM+/DIM- that expects a 100k potentiometer. The plan was to mount the transformer and dimmer module on the underside of the cabinet, out of view. But now I see I could refigure the entire dimmer control pretty easily, too. I'm building this cabinet to take up to five of these light assemblies (don't need that many, but I like options, and that's how many I can reasonably fit on the undercarriage of the cabinet.) With that in mind, who wants five of these big dumb boxes with a single dimmer knob on each? And who wants to reach to the underside of the cabinet to adjust them?

_{Enter: slider pots, a printed housing, and magnets}

The housing itself went through a couple revisions after, but eventually it was ready to go. Again, five spots, but no plan to use them all immediately. It magnets on to the inside top right in front of the lights, no visible fasteners.

_{At some point, I grabbed a second light, since I realized this was actually going to work. Also printed knobs for the sliders.}

Oh, and those lights, they're just held up there thanks to some nice little rubberized magnetic feet. The ones I got are stupidly strong, they work great and it's even kinda difficult to detach them from the cabinet ceiling. No concerns about anything falling down, here. Later, if I decide I want lights further down, I can just repeat the process and attach that 1/8" thick light panel to the underside of a shelf.

So where did those power supplies go, anyhow? The plan was to run them on the undercarriage of the whole cabinet, outside the actual plant space. Good for cooling them, and not cooking the plants, and avoiding humidity, etc. Nicely, the way the cabinet is built, the floor is a double layer with a full 1.5" between the layers, and the underside of the bottom is also recessed behind the structure. All of that combined, I have a pocket to hide things on the bottom, and can run screws in without them actually appear inside the cabinet. This will be the one place we actually damage the cabinet, and if we undid all of it, none of this would be visible.

_{Spent a long time playing with potential layouts here.}

Conveniently, the supplies all have a short dongle that ends in a C14, like you plug into the back of a desktop computer. So I was able to pick up a power strip that provides just the right number of female C13 plugs, and then I can run a single power cord to the whole cabinet, no more extension cord/splitter hell cluttering things up. Pre-installed mounting hardware for any future additions while I was in there.

A couple other extra touches: we'll put in some disconnects for the actual power leads to the lights, for easier future alterations. And we'll use that space between the two bottom plates to run some wires for the dimmer controls so they can all be consolidated to one spot without a bunch of exposed wiring. For the non-existent supplies, we'll just leave the wires pre-abandoned to be hooked up later as needed, since this particular cavity will be inaccessible.

_{2-conductor lever nuts, one per light, with a custom clip to hold them (made both 2x and 3x variants)}

_{Dimmer control wires for current use and future expansion}

Lastly, we run power from the supplies to those banks of wire nuts, which are positioned near the two back corners. And from the light panels, down along the back corners, attached to the gridwall itself and wrapped in black nylon mesh, down through the floor of the cabinet, and into the corresponding hookup.

_{This is it, the one visible permanent modification: a 1/2" hole in each of the two back corners at the floor.}

The bundle of wires from the dimmer bank also runs down through one of these holes, and hooks up to the consolidated dimmer wires we hid earlier, those tie in with a bunch of 2-pin JST connectors.

So at long last, we can turn this drat thing on, it's ready for plants.

_{Nevermind the hyacinth. The old folks at the home don't understand how bulbs work, it's here to humor them, they expect it to perk up again. We'll plant it in the dirt after it finishes.}

_{I couldn't be happier with how invisible all the electrical nonsense is. Nothing there but the single power cord.}

The shelves themselves were leftover gridwall. Since I'm doing two of these cabinets, I bought a 3-pack of grid, which gave me plenty to chop up for shelves. The supports are actually shirt hanger rods for the gridwall, I opted for these because they're so minimal, and were the perfect length.

With everything in place and working at last, it was time to start pirating plants. Picked up a box of apothecary jars for ~*~style~*~, I think they look rad.

_{A bunch of random stuff from various places around the house. Experimenting to see what will and won't clone this way.}

Within about a day, I realized those jars were going to take up a ton of space on shelves that could be used for bigger plants, or rearranged in any number of ways. What they really needed was a way to hang directly on the rack at the back.

_{EZPZ, problem solved. The support rod gets painted black eventually.}

_{The water-filled bottles act as a magnifier, which is nice for displaying the roots.}

So that's where it's at today. Can't wait to get some more plants going in here, fill it up with lush green. Since I'm actually doing two of these, I should have plenty of space for permanent residents, as well as seasonal stuff. For the other one, I'm considering skipping the dimmer bank, and controlling the lights with a raspi or similar. We'll see about that, though. A simple outlet timer is working pretty well, it'd just be nice to have it dim itself down a bit in the evening, or to kick itself into different lighting regimens for mimicking certain seasons.

e: Almost forgot, all the custom parts are freely available here: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/13c9ff02c77ee9d47ae6a6f5/w/a8ae32e6d4755905bcd024e0/e/171fcae021226c0af1bc410b

And the addendum from the gardening thread:

Bad Munki posted:

Which brings me to my whole point for tracking down this thread: I need some food in those cloning jars. Any recommendations for what I should start with, and how much? They're about 150ml each.

Bad Munki fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Aug 6, 2023

# ? Aug 6, 2023 19:15

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# ? May 14, 2024 02:40

Arsenic Lupin: Apr 12, 2012; This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.

*drat*, that's nice. Well done.

# ? Aug 6, 2023 19:46

Hirayuki: Mar 28, 2010

That setup was inspirational until I saw how great yours turned out and felt preemptive inadequacy that made me abandon the idea outright. But seriously, amazing work! I'd hire you to build one for me, if you're willing to come out to metro Detroit.

I had written here several months back about my late aunt's houseplants and the feasibility of bringing them back from Oregon. I finally flew out there to settle some estate stuff a couple weeks back. She had a few hefty succulent bois in her bay window, nothing remarkable or appealing (or very portable). But there were also a bunch of plants on the back deck, including a big spider plant with a handful of runners. There was also a container kind of like a tall shotglass with four pups nestled inside and growing in apparently no medium, just each others' roots (?). I found a pair of Japanese-style flower scissors, snipped off the dead leaves from the rooted pups, snipped runners off the mama plant with four or five pups ready to go, tucked those into the shotglass, and brought that and the scissors home. Somehow I had not yet grown spider plants, and I'd wanted to; this worked in a lot of ways. I like the idea that the plants can ostensibly go on forever. :unsmith:

I rooted the pups in water when I got home just to buy time till I bought a container; I have one now and am ready to pot them up. What should I do about the four in the shotglass? I kind of dig the container, but can spider plants go for any significant length of time without a real potting medium? I'm wondering if I should just bung them in with the others. I can send photos if necessary.

# ? Aug 6, 2023 20:43

Mad Hamish: Jun 15, 2008; WILL AMOUNT TO NOTHING IN LIFE.

In my experience they'll be ok in water for a while, and that's how I've had good success rooting pups, but you do want to put them in some dirt eventually.

# ? Aug 7, 2023 03:03

Neeksy: Mar 29, 2007; Hej min vän, hur står det till?

Once they start shooting out some white roots, I tend to pot them in some coir/pearlite/vermiculite mix since they're going to have to get used to non aqueous life.
Also that beautiful setup puts mine to shame.

Neeksy fucked around with this message at 03:39 on Aug 7, 2023

# ? Aug 7, 2023 03:34

Chad Sexington: May 26, 2005; I think he made a beautiful post and did a great job and he is good.

kafkasgoldfish posted:

Wait, what?

Oh yeah man.

They're the larvae of fruit flies. I couldn't find any cherries in the tree near my old community garden that DIDN'T have at least one it. A fact of life unless you spray pesticides I think.

There were some viral videos on Tiktok this year of spotted wing Drospohila larvae coming out of strawberries too.

I've come around to the idea that they're just extra protein. Otherwise you're just not going to eat much fresh fruit.

# ? Aug 7, 2023 13:48

trilobite terror: Oct 20, 2007; BUT MY LIVELIHOOD DEPENDS ON THE FORUMS!

Chad Sexington posted:

I've come around to the idea that they're just extra protein. Otherwise you're just not going to eat much fresh fruit.

embrace your inner ape

# ? Aug 7, 2023 22:11

dew worm: Apr 20, 2019

One of my houseplants has gnats in the soil. Is re-potting an option or will they survive that?

# ? Aug 8, 2023 15:24

trilobite terror: Oct 20, 2007; BUT MY LIVELIHOOD DEPENDS ON THE FORUMS!

dew worm posted:

One of my houseplants has gnats in the soil. Is re-potting an option or will they survive that?

50/50 water + 3% peroxide (ie pharmacy poo poo) wash

if they're still there you can do a full 3% peroxide wash

you can also get mosquito dunks and make a soil rinse solution with that

trilobite terror fucked around with this message at 02:36 on Aug 9, 2023

# ? Aug 9, 2023 02:33

Ebola Dog: Apr 3, 2011; Dinosaurs are directly related to turtles!

I want to repot a cactus I recently bought (Myrtillocactus geometrizans Fukurokuryuzinboku), what's a recommended soil mix? I have to hand small grain pumice, perlite, coco coir, composted pine bark, garden soil, compost.

# ? Aug 9, 2023 11:56

dew worm: Apr 20, 2019

Ok Comboomer posted:

50/50 water + 3% peroxide (ie pharmacy poo poo) wash

if they're still there you can do a full 3% peroxide wash

you can also get mosquito dunks and make a soil rinse solution with that

I�ll try that, thanks

# ? Aug 9, 2023 18:00

trilobite terror: Oct 20, 2007; BUT MY LIVELIHOOD DEPENDS ON THE FORUMS!

Ebola Dog posted:

I want to repot a cactus I recently bought (Myrtillocactus geometrizans Fukurokuryuzinboku), what's a recommended soil mix? I have to hand small grain pumice, perlite, coco coir, composted pine bark, garden soil, compost.

you could improv a decent gritty mix with 33/33/33 pumice, perlite, and whichever organic you think fits your watering schedule best.

Pumice and perlite are both quite porous so it might be best to pick one (pumice is heavier and gets my vote, but it's also way pricier) and go 33% pumice or perlite 33% organic and 33% something inorganic that doesn't retain water like sand or gravel/pebbles if you can.

Alternatively, you might just do a 50/50, or better, a 66/33 or 75/25 pumice or perlite and organic.

# ? Aug 9, 2023 19:18

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Anyone here grow pawpaws?

# ? Aug 13, 2023 16:04

Eeyo: Aug 29, 2004

No but I've been considering it. As far as I've read they tend to acclimate better if they start out the first few years in part shade, which I'm not sure I want to deal with. You also need at least 2 varieties with similar pollen producing seasons to set fruit properly.

I'm going to add a bunch of edible landscaping plants in the near future. Going to grow a hedgerow of american hazelnut (tiny nuts, but it's native and has nice fall colors), some hardy kiwis on the West side of my house, and then either pawpaw, or honeyberry/some kind of native berry on my south lawn.

I thought about apples but dealing with all the diseases and stuff kinda put me off it.

# ? Aug 14, 2023 21:40

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Yeah, I've been looking into that and reading some books. I don't know how to think about the acetogenins; that's the main thing holding me back (that and I haven't tried any yet, which is on the calendar for the fall).

I've planted some arguta and [/i]kolomikta[/i] kiwi up here in zone 5/6. No fruit yet because the males didn't bloom, though the females did in year two.

I have a bunch of container fruit that I've had some success with, but haven't tried in-ground planting beyond the kiwi. My dad cleared some land though, so we want to do some apples and peaches and maybe pawpaws.

# ? Aug 14, 2023 22:13

Eeyo: Aug 29, 2004

For my future kiwi planting I was thinking of trying some raised beds. That side of my house is a bunch of rocks and then a steep hill down to the next house, so I'm not sure if I can get a very good planting without doing beds of some sort.

I'm not sure if they'd do so well long term like that though. They'd only get half a day's sun too.

# ? Aug 14, 2023 22:47

the milk machine: Jul 23, 2002; lick my keys

is this the right thread to ask about keeping succulents indoors?

i'm pretty new to it and just set up a shelf with some led lights from amazon. ppfd readings seem to have it around the level of daylight broken up by clouds/trees/etc so i think they're good in that respect. right now it's just a few jade stems , a chenille, and an african bonsai

is there a good basic intro to succulents somewhere? how much to water, what/how often to feed, stuff like that. i'm comfortable growing veggies and such but i feel like succulents have very different requirements

# ? Aug 15, 2023 00:36

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Eeyo posted:

For my future kiwi planting I was thinking of trying some raised beds. That side of my house is a bunch of rocks and then a steep hill down to the next house, so I'm not sure if I can get a very good planting without doing beds of some sort.

I'm not sure if they'd do so well long term like that though. They'd only get half a day's sun too.

Kolomikta *require* partial shade, AFAIK, and the ones I�m growing at my GF�s I planted in lovely soil adjacent to asphalt growing up a chain link fence that only gets 2-3 hours of sun. Female bloomed in year two and now is four feet high and three feet wide.

I planted Arguta at my parents place, since that�s what UNH was researching as their primary crop, but I think kolomikta is the way to go if you don�t want to deal with orchard conditions.

# ? Aug 15, 2023 01:38

Chad Sexington: May 26, 2005; I think he made a beautiful post and did a great job and he is good.

Petey posted:

Anyone here grow pawpaws?

I planted two bare-root trees in my yard but they didn't take.

In my experience with them in the wild they prefer shady, wet conditions. As in, I've never seen them outside of a 2 minutes walk from a river or creek.

# ? Aug 15, 2023 16:26

Wallet: Jun 19, 2006

the milk machine posted:

is this the right thread to ask about keeping succulents indoors?

It is.

the milk machine posted:

is there a good basic intro to succulents somewhere? how much to water, what/how often to feed, stuff like that. i'm comfortable growing veggies and such but i feel like succulents have very different requirements

Anyone who is willing to give you specific watering advice is someone you shouldn't really listen to, but there's some general stuff half way down the second post of the thread about what to grow succulents in and how to water them.

For fertilizing any general purpose fertilizer will probably be fine (I use Osmocote because I don't like having to reapply often) but some succulents are sensitive little babies so the standard advice is to apply at half the rate the manufacturer reccomends.

Wallet fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Aug 15, 2023

# ? Aug 15, 2023 21:10

Hirayuki: Mar 28, 2010

Bleh, I know my potted Key lime needs some TLC--a good hosing down and maybe a spray of spider-mite treatment--but is there a specific ailment that would be responsible for all the bluebottle/house flies that can't get enough of the thing?? Gross. My Googling turns up people dealing with fruit flies, not the big 'uns.

# ? Aug 19, 2023 15:16

you ate my cat: Jul 1, 2007

Does anyone have experience buying pots in bulk, or suggestions of retailers that may be set up to sell large quantities? My fiance wants to pot succulents as centerpieces/favors for our wedding next year, and buying ~150 4" pots at retail, even just plain terracotta, is real expensive. There have been some options on Amazon, eBay, etc, but if we can deal with an actual company instead that would be preferable.

# ? Aug 20, 2023 22:27

the milk machine: Jul 23, 2002; lick my keys

Wallet posted:

It is.

Anyone who is willing to give you specific watering advice is someone you shouldn't really listen to, but there's some general stuff half way down the second post of the thread about what to grow succulents in and how to water them.

For fertilizing any general purpose fertilizer will probably be fine (I use Osmocote because I don't like having to reapply often) but some succulents are sensitive little babies so the standard advice is to apply at half the rate the manufacturer reccomends.

great info, thanks very much

# ? Aug 20, 2023 23:21

BigFactory: Sep 17, 2002

you ate my cat posted:

Does anyone have experience buying pots in bulk, or suggestions of retailers that may be set up to sell large quantities? My fiance wants to pot succulents as centerpieces/favors for our wedding next year, and buying ~150 4" pots at retail, even just plain terracotta, is real expensive. There have been some options on Amazon, eBay, etc, but if we can deal with an actual company instead that would be preferable.

Start eating the yogurt that comes in the little glass jars.

# ? Aug 21, 2023 14:43

MasterBuilder: Sep 30, 2008; Oven Wrangler

Went to a wedding that did succulents in mason jars. They looked fine but without a drain hole it's very easy for excess damp to kill them off.

# ? Aug 21, 2023 19:08

you ate my cat: Jul 1, 2007

Thanks, we're doing some testing on drilling coffee mugs and other assorted items that might be fun or look nicer also. Just trying to explore our options.

# ? Aug 21, 2023 19:53

Arsenic Lupin: Apr 12, 2012; This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.

you ate my cat posted:

Thanks, we're doing some testing on drilling coffee mugs and other assorted items that might be fun or look nicer also. Just trying to explore our options.

You may already know this, but buy a specialized masonry bit and cover the place you're drilling through with painter's tape so you don't get hit in the face by shards.

# ? Aug 21, 2023 20:24

bagmonkey: May 13, 2003; Grimey Drawer

Arsenic Lupin posted:

You may already know this, but buy a specialized masonry bit and cover the place you're drilling through with painter's tape so you don't get hit in the face by shards.

That + make sure to keep the area you're drilling wet and you'll be golden. I generally drill my pots outside with the garden hose or in my stationary tub in the basement.

# ? Aug 21, 2023 20:47

Nosre: Apr 16, 2002

I saw a cool tree at my sister's (formerly my grandparents') place in Mass:

This is a Dawn Redwood, Metasequoia glyptostroboides, which was apparently almost extinct by the 1940s. In July 1947, the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University provided $250 to fund an expedition to go get seeds and spread them around to arboreums worldwide.

My grandfather worked at a nursery for 40 years in Mass after WWII, and probably heard about the project and got one. We had no idea growing up, just thought it was a cool tree. And apparently, unlike a lot of these types of stories, it's not horribly invasive?

quote:

The dawn redwood was once one of the most widespread tree species in the Northern Hemisphere (during the Tertiary period). Scientists had identified fossil remains of this redwood in North America, Asia and Greenland and had concluded that it must have been extinct for millions of years. However, in 1944, a Chinese forester found an enormous dawn redwood in the Sichuan province of China. In 1948, a small group�partially financed by Save the Redwoods League and including future League President Ralph Chaney�traveled to south-central China and found a few thousand of the trees growing in lowland canyons. Villagers in the Sichuan region were using the foliage for cattle fodder and the wood for bridges and other construction. The dawn redwood tree, thought to have been extinct for 20 million years, now had living representatives known to the world.

Gonna see if we can get some seedlings from it.

Nosre fucked around with this message at 21:59 on Aug 21, 2023

# ? Aug 21, 2023 21:04

Fitzy Fitz: May 14, 2005

I recently learned that there are a bunch of those planted for the campus arboretum here. I've been wondering how old they are. I wonder if they're from that project.

# ? Aug 21, 2023 21:11

trilobite terror: Oct 20, 2007; BUT MY LIVELIHOOD DEPENDS ON THE FORUMS!

Nosre posted:

I saw a cool tree at my sister's (formerly my grandparents') place in Mass:

This is a Dawn Redwood, Metasequoia glyptostroboides, which was apparently almost extinct by the 1940s. In July 1947, the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University provided $250 to fund an expedition to go get seeds and spread them around to arboreums worldwide.

My grandfather worked at a nursery for 40 years in Mass after WWII, and probably heard about the project and got one. We had no idea growing up, just thought it was a cool tree. And apparently, unlike a lot of these types of stories, it's not horribly invasive?

Gonna see if we can get some seedlings from it.

you can get 'em pretty easily in cultivation

I almost bought some at home despot this year to train into bonsai, but they look pretty scruffy as young trees, I much prefer cypresses as subjects for bonsai

# ? Aug 21, 2023 22:35

Lakitu7: Jul 10, 2001; Watch for spinys

you ate my cat posted:

Thanks, we're doing some testing on drilling coffee mugs and other assorted items that might be fun or look nicer also. Just trying to explore our options.

Find a source of cheap or free (reused) plastic nursery pots and cover them in nice gold/silver foil? People sell plants that way all the time and it looks nice enough for a wedding favor.

# ? Aug 22, 2023 04:13

trilobite terror: Oct 20, 2007; BUT MY LIVELIHOOD DEPENDS ON THE FORUMS!

Or even compostable paper pots

I�m curious tho�how expensive are you finding terra cotta? You should be able to buy them in bulk for $0.25-0.50 a pop.

Even retail they�re like a $1-1.50 each. Michaels and Amazon will sell you 48 or 26 count multipacks for way less than the $2.99 you�d pay at like Lowe�s

# ? Aug 22, 2023 04:28

Lakitu7: Jul 10, 2001; Watch for spinys

I don't have anything to contribute about it, but thanks for these Dawn Redwood posts. It's the first I've read about them.

# ? Aug 22, 2023 12:09

Nosre: Apr 16, 2002

It really is an impressive tree for the age, as the oldest any of these can be is late 1940s. From light reading it seems like it's fairly sturdy, too, unlike many fast-growing trees that start to fall apart and die quite soon.

# ? Aug 22, 2023 15:35

Eeyo: Aug 29, 2004

Yeah they're a neat looking tree imo. Pretty hardy too, there's a park here in suburban chicago with a lot of them, probably planted in the 50s or 60s.

They're actually deciduous so they drop their needles in the fall.

Here's a shot of one of the ones at the park with browned out needles, and some of their pinecones.

# ? Aug 22, 2023 20:55

Whimsicalfuckery: Sep 6, 2011

Behold my mighty harvest! One of them went a bit wonky becuse there were stones in the soil but hey, they tasted good.

# ? Aug 22, 2023 21:24

Bad Munki: Nov 4, 2008; We're all mad here.

Added my first carnivore to the collection today! Itty bitty for now. We�ll work on that.

# ? Aug 26, 2023 01:11

Discussion Quorum: Dec 5, 2002; Armchair Philistine

I think I've managed to kill an autumn sage (salvia greggii). I originally potted it in an ad-hoc potting mix that seems to hold too much water. It was already not doing great from the nursery - their mix was a really spongy thing that stayed soggy forever. All of the foliage has died, and so have most of the branches except for the bottom inch or so.

I dumped all the soil and removed as much of the peaty nursery mix as I could from the roots. I had enough cactus and citrus mix on hand to fill about half the pot and topped off with my old mix supplemented with extra perlite.

The central roots seem like they are probably still alive, so never say never, I guess? It's supposed to hit 110 Sunday, which probably won't help, though :shepface:

# ? Aug 26, 2023 02:22

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# ? May 14, 2024 02:40

Nosre: Apr 16, 2002

Enjoying the landscaping at my sister's a bit more. Like I mentioned, this was my grandparents' house for 50 years and he worked at a nursery so it's always been a plant paradise, and it's lovely to see her continue.

# ? Aug 27, 2023 04:21

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Hobbies, Crafts, & Houses > Horticulture: Vista la hosta

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