What type of plants are you interested in growing? This poll is closed. |
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Perennials! | 142 | 20.91% | |
Annuals! | 30 | 4.42% | |
Woody plants! | 62 | 9.13% | |
Succulent plants! | 171 | 25.18% | |
Tropical plants! | 60 | 8.84% | |
Non-vascular plants are the best! | 31 | 4.57% | |
Screw you, I'd rather eat them! | 183 | 26.95% | |
Total: | 679 votes |
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Hirayuki posted:We have several of these popping up in our currently-ugly perennial garden: a long stick-stalk about 18" tall with leaves at the top. Yep, those are maples, probably rubrum
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 00:31 |
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# ? May 14, 2024 12:32 |
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So I'm mostly into houseplants, but kind of just want to fill my room with vines and tack up some support for them to attach to on the walls. If I were still in the South I'd try something crazy like indoor kudzu, but we don't have it up in Canada. Are there any fast growing vines that would do well in the indirect light of a west window?
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 00:54 |
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Pothos is the usual choice.
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 00:56 |
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Pothos is the easiest for sure but vining Philodendron and Scindapsus are pretty cool.
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 01:37 |
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If you're willing to get a cheap grow light on Amazon (one of those gooseneck ones for $30 or so), your pothos will go absolutely nuts. The leaves on mine easily doubled in size and turned a real deep green.
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 02:11 |
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I mean this is an amazing opportunity and there is just an insane amount of improvement that can happen. At this point it really depends upon your taste because you basically have a blank canvas. First step I would take is to decide what areas you want to make into your first beds. Cover those areas with cardboard and then cover that with mulch/compost. That'll kill the weeds and help you visualize the shape your garden will take. If you're in a hurry to plant stuff NOW, get some soil conditioner (its just bark mulch) to mix in with new plantings. In terms of what plants to recommend, you'll have to give us a general idea of what you're looking for if the suggestions arent just going to be random "THIS poo poo OWNS" quality. Personally I'm very glad you're keeping the dogwood, which is one of the most perfect trees.
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 02:51 |
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elgarbo posted:I've been doing a lot of cactus grafts lately, and thought I'd share a pretty good success story... This is the coolest thing I've seen all day. I had no idea cacti grew that fast!
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 02:54 |
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:This is the coolest thing I've seen all day. I had no idea cacti grew that fast! Some grow insanely fast, most grow really slow. But the basic principle is if you graft a slow-grower to a fast-grower, it'll grow really fast too.
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 03:38 |
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z0331 posted:We're in 6a/6b - New Jersey suburbs, just outside NYC. If nothing else your post has made me realize that my own inherited plant issues are nowhere near as bad as they could be. The previous owners put the ugliest shrubs I've ever seen in and planted some kind of ivy but it hasn't grown in at all yet so I can tear it all out before it goes nuts. There are day lilies attempting to take over the entire property but, you know, at least it's not ivy. They did plant a standard ornamental cherry of some kind smack dab in the middle of the side yard which is going to turn the whole thing into full shade eventually if I don't move it, which I am not looking forward to, but at least it has only been in the ground for a couple of years. z0331 posted:In the future I want to pull out all of those privets and plant something. Maybe azaleas? I want a native shrub that will get roughly the same height. I really like these guys in Connecticut if you're looking for ideas. They make good plants but more importantly their website has good filters for hardiness zone, light conditions, mature height, etc. elgarbo posted:I cut it off the graft and regrafted to a more permanent rootstock (still no chlorophyll, so it can't survive on its own roots). The surgery was a success, and here it is today:
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 13:47 |
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subpar anachronism posted:So I'm mostly into houseplants, but kind of just want to fill my room with vines and tack up some support for them to attach to on the walls. If I were still in the South I'd try something crazy like indoor kudzu, but we don't have it up in Canada. Are there any fast growing vines that would do well in the indirect light of a west window? If you want something easy and indestructible try to find a Cissus antarctica. Beyond easy and tolerant of many different light conditions (does well even a few feet away from a Canadian North facing window), has a wild look, sprawls like crazy. Scindapsus pictus is also pretty easy and has a unique coloration. Plant MONSTER. fucked around with this message at 14:01 on Apr 21, 2020 |
# ? Apr 21, 2020 13:56 |
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Ok, change of plans, possibly. We had the idea of planting Hall's Hardy almond trees after clearing out all the pine trees in the front yard, both for ornamental purposes and for eating. But after some more reading it sounds like maybe these aren't so great to eat. (Apparently they are somehow involved in the death of Steve McQueen; I'll let you go down that rabbit hole, it's fun.) So I'm either gonna learn how to make my own amaretto or just get something else. So now I'm just gonna throw it out there. Growing zone 7b, not-quite-full sun, pretty hot & humid most of the year but occasional late frost. We're wanting something that won't take more than 3-5 years to be, like, an actual tree. (Though I guess that partially depends on where we buy it.) Doesn't have to bear anything edible, but that would be nice. We don't want it to absolutely tower over everything like the old trees did, just something that will attractively "flank" the house a little. (The treeline is a good 30-40 feet in front of the house though.) Any recommendations? We were starting to like the idea of Weeping Willow, but then we read that it needs to be far from septic, and that's possibly a deal-breaker. Our septic runs from the back of the house and drains somewhere in the front yard. Of course, we'd be planting exactly where some huge trees already were. But they weren't willows... Russian Red Pomegranate also looks appealing. Sir Lemming fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Apr 21, 2020 |
# ? Apr 21, 2020 16:07 |
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Oil of Paris posted:I mean this is an amazing opportunity and there is just an insane amount of improvement that can happen. At this point it really depends upon your taste because you basically have a blank canvas. First step I would take is to decide what areas you want to make into your first beds. Cover those areas with cardboard and then cover that with mulch/compost. That'll kill the weeds and help you visualize the shape your garden will take. If you're in a hurry to plant stuff NOW, get some soil conditioner (its just bark mulch) to mix in with new plantings. In terms of where to plant, I was going to try planting immediately in the back corner of the yard that I cleared, but given the state of the uncovered ground, I think we'll try to dump a couple inches of topsoil before doing anything with it. In the meantime, I'll give the remaining ivy roots some time to reveal themselves so I can pull more out. I was planning on doing native plants like foamflowers, baptisia, wild ginger, some lady ferns, maybe red beebalm? From looking around those seem like decent shade plants that also have color. I want to get a few more things in the ground on the side plot. So far not a lot has thrived there, but this year I have several things coming back so I'm hopeful. It doesn't get a lot of sun, especially in the summer when foliage blocks any direct sunlight. Right now I have a couple Japanese silver ferns, a couple hostas, and some other random things. I love mountain laurels, so was thinking of maybe trying one of those. My parents have two big ones next to their house and when they're in bloom they're stunning. I don't want to put too many big items in that space but I think that would look really nice if it can thrive. And yeah, definitely keeping the dogwood. I love it when it blooms, and it's just overall a really attractive tree. Someday maybe we'll convert the lawn around it to gardening space. (You can also see the ivy I tore up in the background.)
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 17:01 |
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Any suggestions for indoor plants that are super easy to take care of? I have two sansevierias and a zanzibar. they don't require any direct sunlight and only need to be watered once a month, which is why they are still alive!
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 17:32 |
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Sir Lemming posted:Ok, change of plans, possibly. We had the idea of planting Hall's Hardy almond trees after clearing out all the pine trees in the front yard, both for ornamental purposes and for eating. But after some more reading it sounds like maybe these aren't so great to eat. (Apparently they are somehow involved in the death of Steve McQueen; I'll let you go down that rabbit hole, it's fun.) So I'm either gonna learn how to make my own amaretto or just get something else. Peach trees?
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 21:06 |
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actionjackson posted:Any suggestions for indoor plants that are super easy to take care of? I have two sansevierias and a zanzibar. they don't require any direct sunlight and only need to be watered once a month, which is why they are still alive! Are you looking for plants you can forget exist for a month or just ones that are easy to keep happy in not-ideal conditions? E.g. Peace lily is pretty hard to gently caress up and they don't need a boatload of light, but mine wants water twice a week. It wilts dramatically when it's thirsty which is pretty hard to miss even from two rooms away (it bounces back almost immediately when you give it a drink). Wallet fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Apr 21, 2020 |
# ? Apr 21, 2020 21:28 |
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Sir Lemming posted:So now I'm just gonna throw it out there. Growing zone 7b, not-quite-full sun, pretty hot & humid most of the year but occasional late frost. We're wanting something that won't take more than 3-5 years to be, like, an actual tree. (Though I guess that partially depends on where we buy it.) Doesn't have to bear anything edible, but that would be nice. We don't want it to absolutely tower over everything like the old trees did, just something that will attractively "flank" the house a little. (The treeline is a good 30-40 feet in front of the house though.) Any recommendations? White or red mulberry Pear Cherry Dogwood Hazelnut Walnut and persimmon make nice trees but they’re kind of slow to grow. Pomegranates never get large.
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 23:20 |
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Wallet posted:Out of interest, what kind of medium are you using for your cactus farm? I've been replanting some things in a gritty mix after getting uncomfortable with how long some of them were maintaining moisture. My mix is unnecessarily complex, I just like how it looks and it gives me good results. It's approx 3 parts pumice, 3 parts sifted cactus mix, 1 part zeolite, 1 part akadama and a handful of slow release fertiliser. If I replaced the zeolite and akadama with pumice it would be just as good, but they give the soil a bit of a rainbow look.
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 23:21 |
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elgarbo posted:My mix is unnecessarily complex, I just like how it looks and it gives me good results. It's approx 3 parts pumice, 3 parts sifted cactus mix, 1 part zeolite, 1 part akadama and a handful of slow release fertiliser. If I replaced the zeolite and akadama with pumice it would be just as good, but they give the soil a bit of a rainbow look. With that many plants a little complication seems reasonable—it's not like top dressing is a sane option. It looks like a pretty normal gritty mix but then there's extra color in there that made me wonder. Not to play 20 questions but is there any particular slow release fertilizer brand you've found particularly suitable? Some of the specialized ones seem to get super expensive.
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 23:45 |
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Wallet posted:With that many plants a little complication seems reasonable—it's not like top dressing is a sane option. It looks like a pretty normal gritty mix but then there's extra color in there that made me wonder. I'm currently using an Australian brand called Troforte that has fertiliser and some sort of microbial action. It's been pretty good so far, especially for my seedlings. That said, I can't speak to how it compares against other brands.
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# ? Apr 21, 2020 23:52 |
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Wallet posted:Are you looking for plants you can forget exist for a month or just ones that are easy to keep happy in not-ideal conditions? E.g. Peace lily is pretty hard to gently caress up and they don't need a boatload of light, but mine wants water twice a week. It wilts dramatically when it's thirsty which is pretty hard to miss even from two rooms away (it bounces back almost immediately when you give it a drink). The first I think. Other plants with no need for direct sunlight and don't have to be watered too often.
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# ? Apr 22, 2020 03:46 |
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Platystemon posted:White or red mulberry A note about cherry trees: Sweet cherries take a longass time to bear fruit, normally between 4 and 7 years after planting. Tart cherries take 3 to 5 years, I think. Also note that this is for standard-size trees. I’ve heard that dwarf and semi-dwarf trees fruit earlier than that, but I don’t know how much earlier.
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# ? Apr 22, 2020 06:27 |
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Speaking of fruit trees, all of mine are either leafing or budding except for my Elberta peach. How long should I give that one to show some life before I call it a loss and order another one?
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# ? Apr 22, 2020 06:51 |
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actionjackson posted:Any suggestions for indoor plants that are super easy to take care of? I have two sansevierias and a zanzibar. they don't require any direct sunlight and only need to be watered once a month, which is why they are still alive!
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# ? Apr 22, 2020 07:04 |
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Sir Lemming posted:So now I'm just gonna throw it out there. Growing zone 7b, not-quite-full sun, pretty hot & humid most of the year but occasional late frost. We're wanting something that won't take more than 3-5 years to be, like, an actual tree. (Though I guess that partially depends on where we buy it.) Doesn't have to bear anything edible, but that would be nice. We don't want it to absolutely tower over everything like the old trees did, just something that will attractively "flank" the house a little. (The treeline is a good 30-40 feet in front of the house though.) Any recommendations? Platystemon posted:White or red mulberry Dogwoods are also very slow growing. You should plant them no matter what, don't get me wrong, but you shouldn't expect them be your main big trees any time soon. However they will be able to thrive and flower well in those conditions, even when the bigger trees you plant begin to shade them down the road Any of the "little girl" magnolias would be a nice choice, especially "Jane," but a star magnolia (Magnolia stellata) would also be great. These grow pretty quickly and will reach a nice height in five years. You could also get weird with it and find a Magnolia ashei (more of like a strange, big rear end shrub that reaches medium tree heights) which will probably flower the first year or two you put it in the ground! Redbuds (Cercis canadensis) have roughly one million cultivars at this point and are gorgeous in flower and throughout the season. Grow rapidly as well Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) would be a nice native fruiting tree, and you would need to get at least two of them. They would work well for your framing idea as they have a relatively columnar growth habit and only get about 30 ft tall max. Persimmons are very cool, but they also get insanely tall left to their own devices which sounds like you want to avoid. I have some wild mulberries and I don't exactly love their growth habit, kinda raggedy for me if it was *the* tree people were going to be looking at. Maybe with serious pruning they would be cool
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# ? Apr 22, 2020 11:28 |
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I. M. Gei posted:Speaking of fruit trees, all of mine are either leafing or budding except for my Elberta peach. How long should I give that one to show some life before I call it a loss and order another one? I’m having the same issue with a reliance peach tree and after slightly nicking the bark and seeing that it’s still bright green underneath one just decided to wait it out and see what happens.
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# ? Apr 22, 2020 11:39 |
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z0331 posted:In terms of where to plant, I was going to try planting immediately in the back corner of the yard that I cleared, but given the state of the uncovered ground, I think we'll try to dump a couple inches of topsoil before doing anything with it. In the meantime, I'll give the remaining ivy roots some time to reveal themselves so I can pull more out. I was planning on doing native plants like foamflowers, baptisia, wild ginger, some lady ferns, maybe red beebalm? From looking around those seem like decent shade plants that also have color. Loving that native plant list. Put the baptisia in the sunniest spot for max flowers and best growth but it will be fine in shade. I'd also recommend Fothergilla gardenii (a witch hazel relative, best if it gets some sun to help with fall color) and pretty much any Epimedium that you can find, both incredible plants that will flower intensely in deep shade. You could also throw in some hellebores which would thrive in any particularly deep shade spots and spread very well. Native deciduous azaleas are very cool and worth a look into if you like them You could also look into rhododendrons for the other spot, and they would compliment the mountain laurel well. It's actually been a plan of mine for awhile to get some mountain laurel but they keep selling out before I make it to the garden center. FUCKERS! Also killer dogwood color, that tree is going to be stunning one day. We just planted a similar cultivar, Cherokee Brave, like two or three weeks ago. Of course the deer hosed it up on Sunday so now I'll probably have to cage it because it's too far away from the house for me to regularly protect. Never in my life have I hated an animal as much as I hate deer
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# ? Apr 22, 2020 11:41 |
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I’ve had like two full months variation in budding time between trees of the same species. Your climate may vary, but I would wait at least that long before giving up trees as dead sticks, unless the nursery you bought from has a guarantee that encourages you to contact them earlier.
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# ? Apr 22, 2020 11:58 |
I. M. Gei posted:A note about cherry trees: Sweet cherries take a longass time to bear fruit, normally between 4 and 7 years after planting. Tart cherries take 3 to 5 years, I think. Yeah, and even if they say "this will be a small orchard tree!" expect it to grow 20ft high when you neglect it and don't chop it back. This one is about 6-8 years old and produced more than 3 cherries for the first time last year. Which the birds then ate. (There's a massive wild rose in front of it, which I've spent the last week hacking away at because it's blocking all the light, I'm not a good gardener)
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# ? Apr 22, 2020 13:08 |
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You can't actually get rid of wild roses. I saw someone take a back hoe to a Rosa rugosa bush only for it to respawn it what felt like overnight.
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# ? Apr 22, 2020 13:21 |
Yep, it's not the first time this thing has been 20ft high, I cut it back to the roots a few years ago and thought I'd managed to kill it, but nope. It just made it stronger!
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# ? Apr 22, 2020 13:25 |
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Sir Lemming posted:Ok, change of plans, possibly. We had the idea of planting Hall's Hardy almond trees after clearing out all the pine trees in the front yard, both for ornamental purposes and for eating. But after some more reading it sounds like maybe these aren't so great to eat. (Apparently they are somehow involved in the death of Steve McQueen; I'll let you go down that rabbit hole, it's fun.) So I'm either gonna learn how to make my own amaretto or just get something else. At least in the swamp I live in, mulberries can get kind of weedy. If you have a fruiting mulberry, you are going to have mulberries coming up everywhere as the birds scatter them liberally. Walnuts can actually grow quite quickly in good soil in full sun, but they are kind of picky about their soil. They will also get huge, but probably not in your lifetime. Bigleaf magnolias (Magnolia macrophylla) have huuuge cool leaves and flowers, and grow fairly quickly (mine I planted 4 yrs ago is like 12' tall now, but it is in fairly ideal conditions). The ashe/pyramid/frasier/japanese magnolias are good too. Plain, old fashioned, unimproved evergreen southern magnolia also has to be one of our handsomest native trees, though the leaves can be a bit messy. Gorgeous huge flowers that smell amazing. Crepe myrtles grow reasonably quickly and won't get too big, and are completely bulletproof. 'Natchez' is a great variety. Catalpa has pretty flowers and cool bean things and grows fairly quickly. Sassafras has gorgeous fall color and grows quickly in decent soil and you can make root beer with it. It will get big though. Sourwood can be tricky to grow, but it's a gorgeous and interesting tree with great fall color and nice flowers in summer. Not a tree, but blueberries are great as a hedge and have all season interest. Nice fall color, berries in summer, pretty flowers in late winter. Grancy graybeard/american fringe tree is a very handsome small native tree/shrub, but a bit slow growing. The chinese fringe tree is also very pretty.
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# ? Apr 22, 2020 14:04 |
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Oil of Paris posted:Loving that native plant list. Put the baptisia in the sunniest spot for max flowers and best growth but it will be fine in shade. I'd also recommend Fothergilla gardenii (a witch hazel relative, best if it gets some sun to help with fall color) and pretty much any Epimedium that you can find, both incredible plants that will flower intensely in deep shade. You could also throw in some hellebores which would thrive in any particularly deep shade spots and spread very well. Native deciduous azaleas are very cool and worth a look into if you like them Thanks for the ideas! Everything you mentioned is beautiful. Epimediums would probably go really well in the back corner. The Fothergilla looks like it has some amazing fall color. I like azaleas a lot. Eventually I'd like to replace the privets with something like azalea shrubs. All it takes is time and money. Speaking of magnolias, a few people in our neighborhood have massive ones that are amazing in the early spring, but given how the petals basically will carpet their property for a couple months, I'm kind of glad I can just enjoy them from a distance. z0331 fucked around with this message at 14:22 on Apr 22, 2020 |
# ? Apr 22, 2020 14:18 |
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If you want azaleas, get a soil test done, or at least test the pH. Azaleas/rhododendrons have to have fairly acid soil, and it's harder/takes longer to acidify your soil than it does to add lime and make it more basic. Lots of ground pine bark and peat moss will help. All rhodozaleas like to be planted a little high too, at least ime. Native azaleas can be finicky and difficult to grow, as well as slow growing, but they are definitely worth the effort in spring. Hydrangeas would be nice back there too. Oakleaf hydrangeas don't mind shade and are native and very pretty and can get small tree sized. I really like limelights as well.
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# ? Apr 22, 2020 14:56 |
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Thanks for all the recs, that helps narrow it down. I'm sure I'll be back with more questions about whatever we get. Probably gonna buy something real soon, especially since some places are doing Earth Day sales. Speaking of which, anyone ever used fast-growing-trees.com? I only know them through Google ads, so I have no real idea how reputable they are. They seem to promise a lot, which makes me suspicious. I sense we're probably still gonna try for something that bears fruit, just to be different. Plenty of dogwoods and magnolias in the area. We also already plan for a row of blueberry bushes in between. (They should do better up front than the ones in our backyard which can't seem to avoid shade.) Unfortunately any nuts other than almonds are out of the question, due to my son's allergies. That was why we originally planned for almond trees, but getting ones he couldn't actually eat just feels cruel.
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# ? Apr 22, 2020 16:04 |
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:If you want azaleas, get a soil test done, or at least test the pH. Azaleas/rhododendrons have to have fairly acid soil, and it's harder/takes longer to acidify your soil than it does to add lime and make it more basic. Lots of ground pine bark and peat moss will help. All rhodozaleas like to be planted a little high too, at least ime. Native azaleas can be finicky and difficult to grow, as well as slow growing, but they are definitely worth the effort in spring. This is the Rhododendron I planted in early March and it's already added about 8 inches of growth. Gets all the morning sun and a good chunk of afternoon sun in the east facing flowerbed. I'm hoping as summer approaches, it will get less sun total, as the afternoon will get pretty warm here in OK. I added acidic , organic fertilizer around it, since the PH was 6.5 to begin with.
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# ? Apr 22, 2020 18:10 |
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Also Costco tends to have Azeleas and rhodies in the spring, at least here in the PNW. If you're a member and they offer them, it's a great deal.
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# ? Apr 22, 2020 23:23 |
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Oil of Paris posted:It's actually been a plan of mine for awhile to get some mountain laurel but they keep selling out before I make it to the garden center. FUCKERS! edit: Also, look into zelkovas for good-looking, fast-growing, low-maintenance trees.
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 01:30 |
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I think this might be the right thread for this question. Is there anything I can do to encourage this tree to grow up instead of out and down? Are some of the limbs just too long? I’m not sure what it is, we’ve only lived here a year. Please ignore the dead stuff in the background 😐
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 02:22 |
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Faustian Bargain posted:I think this might be the right thread for this question. Is there anything I can do to encourage this tree to grow up instead of out and down? Are some of the limbs just too long? I’m not sure what it is, we’ve only lived here a year. Please ignore the dead stuff in the background 😐 Trim all those nerdy flaccid branches and keep the virile, powerfully erect ones. There’s lots of pruning guides out there if you want some helpful diagrams, but I think your path is clear
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 02:46 |
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# ? May 14, 2024 12:32 |
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That tree looks like poo poo! Did all of those branches have leaves on them last year?
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# ? Apr 23, 2020 04:03 |