Accessible Gardening: Practical Matters for Physically Challenged Gardeners #10, 1 by Sansai87

Sansai87 wrote:
Everyone of us PJ taught to drive has a little visor clip for our cars that says, "Never drive faster than your gardian angel can fly." lol
I miss CT today. Froggie thermometer said it got up to 100 degrees and he lives in the shade of the porch.
Wow, Debra, do you have any idea how many different kinds of daylilies you have now? Do you use your Gardener's Journal in "My Tools" to keep up with them all? Each of us here were trying to keep our own Journals, but have now decided that is a waste of valuable time. Our journal listings were virtually identical anyway. We are putting everything into MK's Journal since she is a little more consistent about keeping it current. It will be easier to enter info once in one location. PJ said it was like being in the AF again. Everything in triplicates. :-)
I based my propagation method for the “black” lily on techniques I’ve seen MK use. What I did varied only in detail. I’ve seen MK form small cones she wraps around the stems of plants from any material that will contain soil and hold up to the weather for a few months.
She carefully damages the stem at a point she thinks has potential in order to allow rooting hormone access to the inner layer of the stem, dabs on rooting hormone, wraps the cone around the stem and fills it with a light potting soil. She usually has a rooted cutting in a month or so. My propagation technique might look a little more punky, but it is basically the same idea. The lily was very tall. There was the bottom portion of an old wrought iron chair sitting around. (The legs and seat were intact. MK used the arms and back in another project.) The seat grid was wide enough to allow the flowers and stem of the lily to pass through. I expanded the hole in the bottom of a 1-gal nursery pot enough to let the lily pass through it undamaged, sat the nursery pot on the chair seat with the lily stem threaded through it. I thought removing the leaves that were inside the pot was enough damage for the rooting hormone to do its thing. I dabbed hormone where I wanted the roots to emerge and filled the pot with a good soil. If this works, it should develop roots halfway up the stem where the stem goes through the pot of soil. I’ll snip it off below the pot in a month or two. I should have a well rooted lily by then without damaging the one in the ground. It needed to be shorter anyway. It was looking leggy.
This is a lot prettier than my propagation experiment. It was another accidental acquisition much like the pink glads. It was mixed in with some ditch lilies I dug up for more color in the Children's Garden. I chose ditch lilies for bordering that garden because the color worked well and any plant in the Children's Garden needs to be tough. Also, it needed to be a plant no one would get too upset about if it were damaged. I will move this cutie to the west border of the CanDo Container Garden. That is lean sandy soil we are still in the process of amending, but I think Pinkie can handle it. She may look delicate because of the color, but she held her own among ditch lilies for years.
MK took a prescription muscle relaxer after she over did yesterday. She slept to 1-o-clock today. One of her daughters may come and stay with us while she gets back on her feet.. She fell off the wagon HARD after she found out her husband cheated, but she checked herself in for detox and has been sober for a month now. She says she is ready to pick up the pieces and put together a new life for herself. That is MK’s and PJ’s rule. They will do what they can to help you as long as you are doing whatever you can to help yourself. She’s very pretty and extremely intelligent.
No guy is worth self-destructing over. ! I hope she makes it. We are shuffling things around to create room for her. ~Nadine~