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I had no idea that opium wasn't somehow derived from poppy seeds. Thankfully none other than the DEA web site explained the process to me 
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Jun 11, 2023 21:23
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Plants that eat wasps you say? I happen to know a place full of wasps called "my drat back yard"
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Aug 3, 2023 18:17
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Folks who put container plants on grass - what do you put under the pots to prevent plants from rooting through the drain hole while still allowing the pot to drain? My figs and rosemary are currently on my driveway/patio, but that gets stupidly hot, and they're kind of getting in the way as I up-pot them into bigger containers. Was thinking of putting a 12x12 paver down under each plant and then supporting the pot above that, but I worry a little about stability, and it doesn't really solve the drainage issue on its own. Whimsicalfuckery posted:Can really recommend sarracenia if you're looking for a low maintainence carniverous plant. They love sun and as long as they have a dish of rainwater to sit in they'll attract most flying insects. Real talk, I love pitcher plants and many of these were native in South Louisiana where I grew up. Also gently caress these wasps. But I'm trying to attract butterflies and bees, not lure them to their untimely demise in a real-life Sarlacc pit drat wasps, though. Ask me again after one eventually stings my kid.
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Aug 4, 2023 00:26
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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 
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Aug 26, 2023 02:22
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I've always kind of wanted an American Smoketree. They stay under 30ft tall. Think of it as maybe a native crape myrtle alternative? The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center also has a search feature that let's you screen native trees (and other plants) https://www.wildflower.org/plants/index.php Missouri Prairie Foundation too: https://grownative.org/native-plant-database/ I like Mexican Plum as a more compact flowering tree as well. Despite the name it is also native to a good chunk of the US. e: just noticed you want edible fruit - Mexican Plum checks this box but not the smoketree. Double check any fruit tree you get to make sure the variety is self-fertile - otherwise you will need at least two non-clone trees Discussion Quorum fucked around with this message at 13:27 on Oct 22, 2023 |
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Oct 22, 2023 13:15
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Eeyo posted:OTOH you need at least 2 genetically different varieties to bear fruit, so if you've got space for one tree only then pawpaw ain't it. Just to expand on this, since it got mentioned twice - there are trees that require cross-pollination from a genetically distinct individual* (i.e. pawpaw, hackberry, most Asian plums), and there are others that actually have male and female trees (American persimmon and some varieties of fig). In either case you need a minimum of 2 trees of the right type to get much or any fruit. I seem to recall that apple pollination is really complicated because of the need for two varieties that blossom at the same time, but other goons are way more qualified than me to comment on that. I just do figs. Most native American varieties of plum are self-fertile, as are any fig tree you're likely to find outside California. I think crabapples are, too. Also, everyone hates Bradford pears because they are invasive and stinky. Avoid. * many fruit trees are propagated via cuttings and are clones, so simply having two trees is not enough - they need to be two different trees Discussion Quorum fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Oct 22, 2023 |
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Oct 22, 2023 18:59
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How cold we talking? I don't recall seeing your USDA zone. Chicago Hardy is the standard answer and they are easy to find. Trees of Joy has a zillion choices but it's not a bad idea to start with something common. You won't feel a ton of pressure to not gently caress it up - although short of overwatering to the point of root rot it's pretty hard to irreversibly gently caress up a fig tree. I live somewhere with the opposite problem, so I am much more concerned with a fig's health at 105F than 5F. If you want a massive download of fig information, Ross Raddi is both a decent source of info (I think he lives in Zone 6) and a cautionary example of what happens when you become a Fig Person (nothing wrong with that if you want 100 fig trees in your yard, mind you). Figs are like tribbles. 5 pruned branches is 5 new trees (or 5 cuttings you can trade... for 5 new trees). It can get out of control. https://www.figboss.com/post/a-hardy-fig-tree-starts-with-the-variety Figs also do great in containers - mine are in 5G food safe buckets - so moving them into a warm garage is also an option for a big cold snap.
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Oct 23, 2023 01:35
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They're happier in the ground but take to containers just fine. Between being fast growers and having a dormancy period, they're amenable to Some people even take a hybrid approach - they plant the tree in a container but drill a bunch of holes in the sides towards the bottom (the bottom itself needs to be solid for this to work). They plant the bucket halfway in the ground and let the roots grow out. Then, once the tree goes dormant, they cut the roots with a shovel and move the bucket inside.
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Oct 23, 2023 03:01
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Good point although potato/potahto, in that any given cultivar is a giant clone army So if you buy two different Granny Smith trees from two different sources, you still have two copies of the same tree
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Oct 26, 2023 12:57
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plants are just fuckin' weird
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Oct 26, 2023 14:18
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Any milkweed goons here? We went to our local native plant sale and picked up a small butterfly milkweed (A. tuberosa), which I promptly put on our heavily shaded patio and forgot for about a week. By the time I remembered, it had turned yellow and even putting it in full sun couldn't revive it. I wrote it off as dead and ignored it, but 2 weeks later I can see that the roots still look alive. A little research has revealed that these things can go dormant if the photoperiod is too short and that only a chill period will revive it. So the question is - what do I do with this until spring? Go ahead and plant it in the ground? Should I put in the the fridge until it actually gets cold out? Things are just starting to cool off for us, but it could be another month before we see any truly sustained "cold." Last year we saw temps of 80+F until Christmas (at which point we plunged overnight into a weeklong hard freeze, all the plants really loved that).
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Nov 19, 2023 14:43
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Since there's no bug thread as far as I can tell, and I was just posting about milkweed, y'all get to hear about my pollinators. I've started working this fall towards what I hope will be a ton of native wildflowers in various corners of the property next year. Included in that is going to be a bunch of milkweeds (A. incarnata and viridis mostly). In addition to the little baby tuberosa that I posted about earlier, I also picked up a larger one from Lowes back in September. Since I'm starting everything from seed, I wanted to make sure I had at least one large growing plant as early as possible next year. We see monarchs in March/April and again in the fall, with this year's southward migration probably close to wrapping up by now -- we were at the arboretum a few weeks ago and they were all over the place. However, the migratory monarchs only reproduce in the spring, and it's a bit of a challenge because you need enough milkweed very early in the year to sustain them. Meanwhile, after our insanely hot and dry summer followed by fall rain that has been coming as 2-4 inch deluges with long dry spells in between, my wife and I were discussing how other than the trip to the arboretum, we have not seen pollinators on our flowers at all in months. No bees, no butterflies, not even wasps. We saw a lone hummingbird at my Turk's cap maybe 6 weeks ago and that was it for them, too. All that is to provide some context as to why, as I was putting up lights yesterday, I was extremely surprised to find these:   According to the local butterfly center, we have a small population of year-round monarchs, and that must be what's going on here. Took my kid out for a bike ride and noticed someone down the block has a patch of tropical milkweed, although no caterpillars as far as I could tell. Seems like finally seeing some genuinely cool weather is bringing things back out, because within an hour of finding these I saw a honeybee (first one in months) and red admiral on the same milkweed. And this little hairstreak paid a visit to my native salvias! 
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Nov 25, 2023 16:37
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Eeyo posted:For monarchs make sure you’re cultivating plenty of food for the southward migration. Some monarch scientists think fall nectar sources are as important as milkweed during their breeding season. I am aw aware, and I have a number of things that should bloom into late fall - Mexican hat and prairie coneflowers, prairie verbena, mistflower, black-eyed Susan. The mistflower was covered in monarchs when we visited the arboretum in early November. My Henry Duelberg (Salvia farinacea) is still blooming today, and my Turk's cap was until just recently.  Looks like I am a bit southwest of shrubby St Johns Wort's native range. Goldenrod is big here for pollen, but I don't have the space. Common sunflower is another one (good for fall nectar too) and I'm trying to decide if I want to plant it. Space will be an issue, and it will need management if it reseeds itself aggressively.
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Nov 28, 2023 18:07
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I know next to nothing about succulents and am trying to save and/or propagate a sedum that I rescued from a neglected arrangement. Disclaimer: this is a lovely Lowes plant, I just think it would be a good learning exercise I cleaned up all of the obviously dead stuff and bottom watered, then let it sit a couple days. Yesterday, I took all of the plants out to check their roots and let them dry as the mix they were in from the store was still soaking wet.  Should I just repot these directly and see what happens? I haven't found any gritty mix locally yet, but I was able to find crushed lava rock and pea gravel (both perhaps on the chunky size though) at my local fertilizer store. I also have on hand a little bit of Miracle Gro cactus potting mix and the very dregs of a perlite bag (which is mostly dust). They lost a bunch of leaves as I was working with them; most of them started to rot immediately, but one seems like it may have some hope. It's shriveling a bit at the base - is it still viable?  (This is not the leaf in the first pic)
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Dec 2, 2023 22:48
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Woodpile posted:Right? 300 years isn't permanent so how can this be permaculture? Better make it 36 inches. Lord help this woman when she finds the pee fertilizer people (if she hasn't already) Bi-la kaifa posted:plunging (taking small plugs and inserting them into larger cavities). rude
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Mar 22, 2024 01:18
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One of my haworthias sent up a flower stalk and after the flowers died a tiny haworthia started growing on the end of the stalk, just hangin' out in mid-air. Weirdest looking thing but apparently not super rare either.
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Mar 25, 2024 15:59
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sexy tiger boobs posted:Ooof. I'd probably make my family buy me a new tree. I'm sure you can turn that into a productive fig tree but it will probably always look crazy. Not much of a centerpiece of a patio type of thing ... That sucks. Nah figs can handle this kind of thing. Two years of smart pruning and you won't know this tree was all hosed up. I would largely follow the advice above: keep the largest 2-4 as new trunks, head them off at the desired height, and grow out the scaffolds. Figs fruit on new growth (not the previous year's growth, like apples and peaches/plums), so before the tree wakes up every spring, prune the hell out of it back to those scaffolds. Arsenic Lupin posted:it were me, I'd take out all the stuff that is growing sideways at the bottom; I strongly suspect they're growing from the rootstock rather than from above the graft. If you look at the bottom of the stem and see a bulge a few inches above the ground, that's the graft. Anything sprouting below there is trash, and risks the rootstock taking over from the plant you actually want. I would take them out because they're useless for fruiting and look really freaky (none of my figs have ever run along the ground like that, wtf) but figs are usually on their own roots. Most figs just sucker like crazy.
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Apr 8, 2024 04:16
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Also, that looks like it might actually be three trees given how far apart those old trunks are. Did you plant it yourself, or did it come with the house?
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Apr 8, 2024 04:24
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The scaffolds are the permanent parts of the tree's structure. The fruiting wood grows from the scaffolds and gets pruned off as it is spent, so that the tree can keep regenerating fruiting growth without getting too tall or shading out the interior. Here is a graphic that is reasonably representative of how fig trees often look (as opposed to a nice neat apple tree with a central leader): https://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/pub/pnw400
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Apr 9, 2024 03:19
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Fringe tree? Take a close up of a flower using a plant ID app or Google Lens, it will usually be more definitive than a leaf ID.
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Apr 25, 2024 23:12
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Beautyberry is self-fertile. Also, seconding:Fitzy Fitz posted:Beauty berry leaves are serrated. You got a mystery shrub on your hands.
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Apr 26, 2024 18:10
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Sir Lemming posted:I planted this peach tree not too long ago, purchased online. It was already pretty nicely grown, it's gotten a few more leaves at this point. It also has a pretty significant shoot coming from the bottom. I'm trying not to do too much pruning since this is the first year, but I definitely won't want this little guy to grow long-term. Should I do anything about it or just let it do whatever it wants until winter? I would nip that sucker coming from the bottom, especially if it is coming from the rootstock (hard to see the graft union in your pic). Personally I would leave the other lower branches for now to encourage the trunk to thicken up a bit. My little milkweed patch has been too successful for its own good. I have one large butterfly weed that I planted last fall, three swamp milkweed seedlings that I started indoors over the winter, and a second year butterfly weed that seems to be doing very poorly. The struggling butterfly weed is from a native plant sale whereas the big one is from Lowe's - I've heard there is a cultivar that does well in our heavy clay soil whereas the wild type does not, so maybe that's the issue. My bigger problem is that the monarchs are keeping them pretty much entirely defoliated, to the point where they're stripping the outer layers of the stems. Hopefully, pressure will taper off as the last migratory monarchs have probably moved on. We have a year-round population but the butterfly weed was able to outgrow them last fall. I know we've made at least 3 adults this spring and have 2 more that should make it if they're ready in the next day or two. After that, vaya con Dios little buddies because the food will be gone...
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May 7, 2024 01:47
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I thought you talked her down to 4 inches. Or did she push them all into a pile to make up 18 inches?
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May 8, 2024 00:23
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