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What type of plants are you interested in growing? This poll is closed. |
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| Perennials! |
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142 | 20.91% |
| Annuals! |
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30 | 4.42% |
| Woody plants! |
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62 | 9.13% |
| Succulent plants! |
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171 | 25.18% |
| Tropical plants! |
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60 | 8.84% |
| Non-vascular plants are the best! |
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31 | 4.57% |
| Screw you, I'd rather eat them! |
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183 | 26.95% |
| Total: | 679 votes | ||
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That70sHeidi posted:I'm getting my dining room ready for seed starting too, I found a fuckton of seeds I'd bought but never used so we'll see what germinates. Not a fan of the plastic trays especially the 72 cells. Maybe I'm just uncoordinated but I damaged a lot of plants at transplant time. Much preferred peat pots and pellets. Got good results with them but they can get pricey if you have a big garden. They don't work well with drip irrigation in our soil - unless you plant them directly on a drip hose emitter they won't stay wet enough for the plant's roots to grow through them and the plant ends up pot bound and stunted. Ended up buying a set of soil blockers that have worked really well. They're not cheap ready made but they are a long term investment. For our garden I figure ours paid for themselves in two years compared to buying peat pots. There are cheap diy versions on YouTube for anyone that wants to experiment. Like peat pellets they need to be watered from the bottom. Whatever you use make sure the trays holding them are sturdy. Really annoying to have one of the crap trays split while you're trying to move a tray of seedlings.
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Feb 13, 2020 06:23
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:Commercial landscapers have dealt with way worse than some dried up cat poo, so I wouldn’t worry toooo much about it. It’s not the landscapers I’m worried about. I don’t want to be handling shovel-fuls of cat poo poo when I’m planting my trees. I went ahead and picked up a pooper scooper at PetSmart. I’m just gonna hold my breath and scoop it. I do not look forward to this. I. M. Gei fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Feb 13, 2020 |
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Feb 13, 2020 07:37
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Hexigrammus posted:Not a fan of the plastic trays especially the 72 cells. Maybe I'm just uncoordinated but I damaged a lot of plants at transplant time. What's your soil mix that you're using for your blocks? I'm intrigued by this idea.
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Feb 13, 2020 13:58
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Good luck goon
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Feb 13, 2020 14:12
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Well that was loving excruciating, but I did it. I scooped out every piece of cat poo poo I could find, and then I laid ground cover over the area to keep the cats from making GBS threads there again. Now I need to spray some herbicide there because it turns out there’s more weeds than I’d thought previously. Can any of y’all tell me what are some good grass/weed killers for a space where I want to plant stuff one week after spraying? I. M. Gei fucked around with this message at 02:24 on Feb 14, 2020 |
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Feb 14, 2020 02:18
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I. M. Gei posted:Well that was loving excruciating, but I did it. I scooped out every piece of cat poo poo I could find, and then I laid ground cover over the area to keep the cats from making GBS threads there again. Glyphosate, but do it right now.
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Feb 14, 2020 02:58
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Hexigrammus posted:Not a fan of the plastic trays especially the 72 cells. Maybe I'm just uncoordinated but I damaged a lot of plants at transplant time. Where do you get the soil for the blocking? Do you take it out of where you intend to plant the eventual plants, so you're just pulling a block out and then putting it back in with a seedling later? Native soil might be a good idea... I used the plastic cells the first year and I too just fragged up my seedlings transplanting. I didn't get good root growth either, so I'd say 80% of the soil was empty and wasted. I still have the big flat trays that I was hoping to reuse, if they're any good (I took a few years off) with their clear plastic lids. When I was hardening my little guys off I would use a big flat cookie sheet to slide under the trays and transport them onto our deck and back. Like when you make a lasagna in a foil pan! It's not that seeds don't do well directly sown where I'm putting them, but I kinda wanna play god right now and my succulents are so slow and don't need me much. At least a few little seedlings for my deck planters. I'm still going to buy a couple hundred dollars of professionally grown plants when they come out because I have impulse control issues.
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Feb 14, 2020 04:51
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Idk if any of you are in or around NC but big plant nerd event is happening next weekend: https://indyweek.com/news/wake/Juniper-level-botanic-garden-open/ Incredible collection of rare and unusual perennials, place is often closed to the public. The retail store Plant Delights is also open to public on these days too so you can pick up some truly insane poo poo without refinancing the mortgage to pay for shipping https://www.plantdelights.com
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Feb 14, 2020 11:43
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Goons I need some help with bug control in my potted herbs garden. 2019 was the year of the aphid which wrecked a bunch of stuff before I started fertilising more and using a better bug control. 2020 seem to be the year of the mealybug. I have just replaced my sage after it got absolutely wrecked by them and now I've just lost (dried and shrivelled up) one of my three Marigolds! I bought the Marigolds to help control the aphids....WTF  I'm fertilising around every two weeks with a fish by-products fertiliser which was recommended by my garden centre and using Aquaticus Bugtrol as my spray which is a pyrethrins based product. I spray when I see bugs and try and cover everything as much as possible, pretty tricky to get under the leaves in some cases though. My herbs are all in their own pots on my third storey apartment balcony if that's relevant. Do I need to get more predator friendly plants to attract things to eat the bugs?
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Feb 14, 2020 20:29
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Oil of Paris posted:Idk if any of you are in or around NC but big plant nerd event is happening next weekend: https://indyweek.com/news/wake/Juniper-level-botanic-garden-open/ Wow thanks for this I'm super envious
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Feb 14, 2020 20:36
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Holy poo poo, I have tomato sprouts!
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Feb 15, 2020 02:30
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Any ideas on a garden planning tool that will let me visually show what the garden would roughly look like from a normal view? I'm thinking of those garden design books where the show the top down plan of what goes where, then a sort of street view of the finished garden with plants in bloom at their correct heights and so forth. I'm helping my parents turn their suburban lawn into a CA natives meadow but I want to be able to play around with different heights and sizes of plants.
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Feb 15, 2020 06:19
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NomNomNom posted:What's your soil mix that you're using for your blocks? I'm intrigued by this idea. I use Eliot Colman's recipe. Coarse sand instead of perlite, since I have a sand pile but not a perlite pile. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYImh4tZkmg That70sHeidi posted:Where do you get the soil for the blocking? Do you take it out of where you intend to plant the eventual plants, so you're just pulling a block out and then putting it back in with a seedling later? Native soil might be a good idea... My native soil is too sandy to hold together in a block but I have heard of people using whatever they have in the garden. We need to mix our soil with other stuff or it won't hold together. The additional compost and other additives also give the seedlings a good boost. We go through enough soil blocks in the spring that I usually mix two or three batches in a small concrete mixer - the 4" blocks for late stage tomato and cucurbit transplants use a lot of soil. We keep a 50 litre plastic tub half full of working mix and add water to it to make the blocks. That stage is very tactile. Also messy.
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Feb 15, 2020 07:05
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I've been growing spinach (sambung ) to just have Leafy greens available at all times, Here is the end of a year or so long project from one plant ( over on the right there) 
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Feb 16, 2020 04:14
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Hexigrammus posted:I use Eliot Colman's recipe. Coarse sand instead of perlite, since I have a sand pile but not a perlite pile. Around how many blocks did you end up making in preparation for spring, and did you find it to be a pain in the rear end? I was looking at a tool like this and I wasn't sure.
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Feb 16, 2020 05:58
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Solkanar512 posted:Glyphosate, but do it right now. Done. Thanks! Some of it got on the side of my house though, and it left behind some white stuff that smells nasty. How do I get rid of that?
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Feb 16, 2020 17:15
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I. M. Gei posted:Done. Thanks! Wash it off with water once the weeds are dead.
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Feb 16, 2020 17:43
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I still haven't found a way to start seeds that I actually like.
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Feb 16, 2020 18:12
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What happens to the seeds that you do like?
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Feb 16, 2020 18:36
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Solkanar512 posted:Wash it off with water once the weeds are dead. Isn’t it rain-resistant by now, though?
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Feb 16, 2020 22:44
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I. M. Gei posted:Isn’t it rain-resistant by now, though? My understanding is that it becomes “rain resistant” because after an hour or so (maybe even as soon as ten minutes) plants have already absorbed a lethal dose.
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Feb 16, 2020 23:50
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I know everyone itt has been waiting with bated breath for this post about camellias, so here is a post about camellias. I live in the heart of camellia country on the Gulf Coast, and the japonicas are at peak bloom right now, providing beautiful flowers all winter long. They’re awesome plants and you might even be drinking camellia juice right now! The genus Camellia has a few hundred species, is native to East and SE Asia, and is in the Theaceae family. Of those species, we mostly care about two, Camellia sasanqua and Camellia japonica for the garden, but the seeds of others get pressed into oil for cooking and beauty products etc.  ‘ Ville-de-Nantes’ The most commercially important member of the genus by far is Camellia sinensis, the leaves of which are made into the tea drunk by billions of people around the world every day. Some day I want my own sinensis plant-there is actually a semi-commercial tea farm near me and it would be fun to make my own tea.  ‘Alba plena’ Yeah Yeah yeah genus species whatever. Where do it grow? Anywhere with a relatively mild, moist climate! Most varieties are hardy down to 0 F (zone 7). They love acidic soil, relatively even moisture throughout the year, light shade, and high humidity. They do exceptionally well in much of the SE US, especially in the coastal plain with its milder winters, and are the state flower of Alabama. They also grow quite happily in the milder parts of California and the PNW. They are cultivated in Australia, NZ, the UK, and western Europe (not to mention their native E. Asia) that I know of, and surely more places besides.  (unidentified-I saw it in an older house’s yard on a walk) Alright, what about those two types we care about? Camellia japonica is a slower growing, more shade tolerant (and less sun tolerant) species which produces bigger blooms over a longer time period (several months for most varieties). The flowers are not usually fragrant, and they bloom in winter/spring, usually from mid-late November-mid/late March here.  Unknown japonica in my yard in mid February. This is very much the classic japonica shape-a nice column of dark evergreen leaves going all the way to the ground Camellia sasanqua is faster growing, tolerates more sun, and covers itself every fall in small, slightly fragrant flowers for about 2 weeks in the fall (early November here) It makes a good hedge, and is especially beautiful because as the flowers fade, they drop off individual petals, carpeting the ground underneath.   (I want to hang out with whoever this Old Camellia Guy is) Camellias do not usually come true from seed and tend to mutate frequently, producing a huge array of individual varieties with flowers ranging from white to red/purple, as well as big differences in form and growth rate. Some are big poofy things like this Professor Sargent I used to decorate some charlotte russe  Or this wild looking one:  ‘Sawada’s Mahogany’ Some are just plain flowers, like this exceptionally fast-growing seed grown one a friend gave me:  Some are very regular and formal like these and hide their yellow sexy parts daintily:  ‘Sawada’s Dream’  ‘Purple Dawn’ (I think)  ‘Ave Maria’ Some sit perched on their little leaves, legs akimbo, showing off what they got:  Unknown, found on an old property, maybe ‘Yuletide’  Not everyone has as much to show off  In addition to variety in form and color, japonica flowers can be wildly variegated and marbleized like the ‘Ville-de-Nantes’ up top. Sasanquas tend to be either white or pink (or both). I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a really red one.  ‘Leslie Ann’ (I think. One of my favorite sasanquas, in any case) Camellia blooms are flat bottomed and usually float, and floating some in a bowl of water is a nice, grandmotherly way to display them  Camellia breeding was kind of a popular hobby for a while in the south in the mid-late 20th C, and there’s a bazillion of them. The American Camellia Society maintains a Camellia Encyclopedia of 800+ registered varieties you can look at if you need some pretty flowers in your life: https://www.americancamellias.com/care-culture-resources/camellia-encyclopedia  I’m not sure anyone cares about ornamental gardening anymore like they used to, but camellias were wildly popular in the SE, and require such minimal care that even at the abandoned homes common in the rural South, the camellias are as happy as can be. Their handsome, glossy, dark-green foliage would make them an excellent plant for hedges even if they didn't bloom. BUT WAIT they also bloom for literally 6 months of the year here, making winter every bit as flowery as spring and summer. They're easily propagated by rooting or grafting cuttings, or probably easiest and best, by air layering in spring. The only real downside is that they are a bit slow growing, and so tend to be a bit expensive ($30-50 for a 3 gallon) to buy. They can also be grown in greenhouses and presumably indoors but ikd anything about that. So uh, go grow plant some camellias if you can I guess. Kaiser Schnitzel fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Feb 17, 2020 |
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Feb 17, 2020 02:37
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Thanks for the effortpost! I didn't realize camellias came in so many varieties; this is what I picture when I think of them: I'm grateful to camellias for what their oil does to my hair in my favorite shampoo, and it's a shame they wouldn't do well here in 6a. I did spot C. sinensis in this year's Burpee catalog, though, and was considering growing a pot of tea this summer. 
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Feb 17, 2020 02:47
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Thanks so much for that! You inspired me to check out a few an apparently C. sinensis would grow just fine in my zone!
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Feb 17, 2020 02:55
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Solkanar512 posted:Thanks so much for that! You inspired me to check out a few an apparently C. sinensis would grow just fine in my zone! IMO camellias can make a great backdrop to Japanese maples too. When the maples are being pretty the camellias are just a nice dark background, and then when the maples are dormant the camellias do their thing. It's a combination I've seen done really well in a few Japanese-style botanic gardens (No idea if they actually do it in Japan!) and I'm trying it out in my yard too, except I think I planted the maple and camellia too close together  .
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Feb 17, 2020 03:03
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Solkanar512 posted:Around how many blocks did you end up making in preparation for spring, and did you find it to be a pain in the rear end? I was looking at a tool like this and I wasn't sure. I went went back through my notes and have concluded that I need to take better notes in future. Several hundred maybe? Typically 48 tomatoes, 24 peppers, 50-100 corn, 12-24 melons, 12 celery, 36 brassica, a couple of trays of onions, and multiple half dozen sets of misc. veges and herbs. Small seeds [tomatoes, etc.} start out germinating in 3/4" blocks. Once the roots start showing the entire cube is placed in a 3/4" dimple in the 2" block, then if needed later moved to a 4" block. Depending on timing some plants may be transplanted out while still in 3/4" blocks. The 2" blocks are the workhorses though - if you only want one this is the size to get. Large seeds like squash are germinated in them instead of the smaller blocks and most things get potted up to them from the 3/4" before moving outside. Last year we had an unusually warm April/May so the tomatoes were still in 2" blocks when we transplanted them out early and were never moved to 4" blocks. Last year we made 160 litres of mix, the year before 240. That would be in the neighbourhood of 380 - 720 3" peat pots filled with mix or enough to make 160/240 of 4" blocks at about a litre of soil each. There's 7.5 2" blocks per litre but I have no idea how many of each size we ended up using during repotting. A bunch. We have a good workflow for preparing the mix and banging out trays of cubes. The mix is prepared in 2 or 3 batches over the growing season and it's just matter of grabbing a Tupperware tote and adding water when it's time to make more cubes. It probably helps that the work is spread out over several months so we don't usually need to do more than 3 or 4 trays at a time and only start with a single germination tray containing a couple of hundred 3/4" cubes. I don't find the process annoying even though it must take more time overall than scooping, filling and tamping peat pots or tray inserts. Now that we've moved into serious winter vegetable gardening things are spread out more than they used to be. From now until May the summer vegetables are started indoors to get a head start before planting out. From June to August the winter vegetables are started indoors and grow while the summer vegetables are harvested to make room for them outside. We even start lettuce indoors during the summer because we get better results planting out transplants every two weeks than we do with direct seeding. No idea why, maybe moisture?  The cubes are surprisingly tough once they've been through a few wet/dry cycles but there was a bit of a learning curve with handling them. A trip to the dollar store yielded a cake server, spatula, and a set of sugar tongs that work really well to pick up 3/4" cubes once the gripping teeth were hammered flat. Helps too to keep a bucket of water handy to regularly clean your tools. Only serious pain in the arse is trying to keep things organized while potting up. Unlike peat pots there's no convenient place to poke in a label so I keep finding celeriac in with the celery and paste tomatoes in with the slicers.
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Feb 17, 2020 05:38
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:-snip- Awesome post. One of my favorite plants, have four varieties in the ground now as strictly ornamental/feature plants and hoping to add more as time goes on to replace the front hedge which is currently a lovely privet, wild holly, and poison ivy bramble
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Feb 17, 2020 12:04
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I’ve seen Camellia sinensis for sale, but I figure I could never do better than commercial growers. My caffeinated garden plant of choice is yaupon holly. It’s a relative of yerba mate.
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Feb 17, 2020 13:32
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Platystemon posted:My caffeinated garden plant of choice is yaupon holly. It’s a relative of yerba mate.
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Feb 17, 2020 14:59
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:Camellia post Wonderful post! Unfortunately in Ottawa, we can only grow Camellias under glass and even then, unless it's humid enough, they'll suffer. But we did have a few of unknown parentage at the college. I love the varieties that have that satisfying geometric perfection.
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Feb 17, 2020 15:09
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:What do you do with it? The scientific name is Ilex vomitoria so I’ve always been a bit wary. I took a nibble of a berry once just for kicks and it was the bitterest thing I have ever tasted. Steep the leaves in water, same as yerba mate. It and yerba mate taste more alike than their sibling Ilex guayusa, which is fruitier. The scientific name might be a legitimate misunderstanding of how native people used the drink cassina, but it makes a better story to accuse the botanist who named it, who had never set foot in North America, of putting his thumb on the scale to protect the tea trade.
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Feb 17, 2020 15:21
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Platystemon posted:Steep the leaves in water, same as yerba mate. It and yerba mate taste more alike than their sibling Ilex guayusa, which is fruitier. I'll have to investigate-it grows like a weed around here. I really love the weeping yaupons, and it makes a nice dense hedge plant with all the advantages of privet and none of the horrible nightmare disadvantages.
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Feb 17, 2020 15:28
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Platystemon posted:My caffeinated garden plant of choice is yaupon holly. It’s a relative of yerba mate. drat I want a caffeine producing plant!
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Feb 17, 2020 18:01
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Managed to harvest alot of milkweed seeds from my one plant I had. I've kept them in the freezer until I get the ground ready for them and my wildflower bag I got online. Tiller should be here next week so I can get the dirt ready for planting. Hopefully I didnt kill the seeds outright by leaving them in the freezer so long. I've read conflicting info on whether that's harmful or not.
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Feb 17, 2020 18:53
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Me: Spring, are you ready to be loving? Spring: <Unzips and whips out flowery gonads> Awww yeah!    Spring: Gettin' ready to spray my gametes all up in your airways and give you all those seasonal allergies you never knew you had before moving to the Pacific Northwest! Me: Oh. Oh yeah. poo poo. Spring isn't quite loving yet, but things are looking promising!
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Feb 18, 2020 04:49
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Me: Spring, are you ready to be loving? 365 tablets of generic claritin is like $12 at costco. Changed my life! What are all those purple things-crocuses or violets or something? They look gorgeous.
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Feb 18, 2020 04:56
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:365 tablets of generic claritin is like $12 at costco. Changed my life! Thanks, that's a good reminder. The light purple are crocuses, but I also have some new deep purple ones (half-open in second picture), and some yellow/purple (around and about). The mid-purple things are primulas -- the local hardware store had a batch of especially vibrant ones, so I bought 30. The pinkish stuff in the last picture is heather. There's also some hellebore in photo 1, and some kinnikinnick (ground cover stuff with red berries -- it's indigenous here) in photo 3. Last fall I bought about 150 snow drop and crocus bulbs, lifted a whole lot of 8x8" squares of sod, and put half a dozen under each. You can see a few at the bottom of the last photo. They're mostly on the edge of opening but not quite there. I'm excited for when they do come in fully, though. I want all of this to be my legacy when I move out of this place and the garden goes to poo poo again because the landlord can't find someone to take proper care of it. Most of that stuff is perennial and pretty good at holding its own against weeds and grass.
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Feb 18, 2020 05:08
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I am trying to resist spending a shameful amount on bulbs right now. I don't even have anywhere to plant them, but god drat I want some red spider lilies. I can't imagine they would do well inside, and I don't have anywhere to plant them outside. My stupid apartment doesn't even have a patio.. 
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Feb 18, 2020 06:00
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Last fall I bought about 150 snow drop and crocus bulbs, lifted a whole lot of 8x8" squares of sod, and put half a dozen under each. You can see a few at the bottom of the last photo. They're mostly on the edge of opening but not quite there. I'm excited for when they do come in fully, though. This is such a cool idea, someday I'll do something like this
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Feb 18, 2020 16:41
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Bees on Wheat posted:I am trying to resist spending a shameful amount on bulbs right now. I don't even have anywhere to plant them, but god drat I want some red spider lilies. I can't imagine they would do well inside, and I don't have anywhere to plant them outside. My stupid apartment doesn't even have a patio.. LOL you stopped by Costco, didn't you?
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Feb 18, 2020 18:12
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