Plant propagation part XXIII based on my own experience

Glad you are all here and doing well. It is raining and cold, but they say it will be dry and in high 50's for the kids on Sunday. Here most of the adults go through the "haunt" with the kids and seem to enjoy it as much as they do. The Little ones usually are carried, and I don't make as much of a deal about it (I control the animated ones) if they seem scared. Some stay with me outside of the main "haunt" while the parents go into it. Love it!!!!!!!
We have been pretty busy clearing out flower beds, and etc, so I guess we are as ready as we will ever be for the snow, not that I am looking forward to it.
Does anyone cut back clematis vines. I know some only bloom on old wood, but which ones? I have a couple this year that the leaves turned yellow with green veins through-out. Some say it is an iron defiency, but I don't know. I used miracid on them, didn't do anything. Later, Lee

crap I did it.... blank posting....
Lee here is a link on cutting back clematis
http://gardening.about.com/od/perennials/a/PruningClematis.htm
its pretty interesting how some take it differently than others in the same genis.

Sharon: I really need to buy a ton of DG but then I wopuld have to get the 2 guys and several wheelbarrows to go with it to move the pile in back.

Mary I have you down for the hydrangea and the phlox. I am not sure how soon the hydrangea will be ready as I will be doing dormant hardwood cuttings on them.

I know I will be selling off 1/2 of what i bought in and once I get them potted up for spring sales I should have nice evergreen for the spring. I hope they root out and grow through the winter. I realize they will grow the question is how much will they grow. I am thinking $20.00 on the 3 gallon plants. any suggestions on my pricing structure? I am thinking I should have bought in more than what i did but i will use this as a trial run.
well its off to transplant liners to 3.5" and some of my Chamaecyparis into 3 gallons.
Have a great day
Dave

Dave, I am getting ready to send your brugs but you never sent me the address to make sure I have it right. Guess if I don't hear from you in the next half hour I will just take my chances with the one I have.

Jeanette

howdy:
well I spent the afternoon planting up my cells that have taken root into 3.5" pots. I had my niece pull out all the excess crap on the bottom 2 shelves in the GH. it was mostly weeds and old soil. I did find I have several nice Japanese maples That I am planning to pot up once i get more containers in. I really hate to buy containers especially 3 gallon ones. too much money.
Ohwell its time for me to go laydown as I think I over did it today.
dave

Dawn and Dave, your brugs are on the way and I have tracking numbers so will let you know when to expect them if they post it.

Good morning everyone:
how are we this beautiful fall day???? not much going on today. cool weather is still kind of wearing on the ole bod.
Had my niece pull out all the stuff from the greenhouse yesterday. I was amazed at how things looked and that I had so many Japanese maples growing in a seed flat. I got the planted and se aside the other JM's I've grown the past few years. I am trying to get ready for the big freeze coming up. I have to bring in so many plants that i don't know where to start.
I really hope the bananna's take and end up coming back next year. I think one of the 2 i planted was a hardy bananna. once I get the hardy ones going I can quit hauling the big ones inside. they are huge, over 6ft tall and loaded with pups. I might just narrow down the group by splitting them all up.
I am going to try to winter over my Parots beak/lotus vine. I would really like to have one in bloom next year. see the attached pic. The plumeria is really fun also. I had gotten a pack of seeds and did not know what i had untill mid summer where the seedlings started forming a cane and leaves. I ended up with 3 in one pot.
I accidently got crepe myrtle seedlings that way too. when I have seeds to sew and not enough room I will plant a group together like that and see what happens. I had a buddy that sent me a couple of white crepe myrtles that are more horizontal than other CM'z.
well the back yard looks like a bomb went off as i have all these trays with soil in them and nothing growing in them. I am trying to get them all cleaned out so i can spray them down with bleach and sun dry them.
well thats about it for now
Dave

Hi Dave, glad you are doing better and the weather is not too bad. Our weather turned warm again. No wonder so many people have colds.
I wanted to tell you that I took three seed pods from the hosta you sent me. How should I keep them to dry properly. I would love to send you back the seeds. I know if I plant them I will kill them. LOL. Let me know when you have time. JB

Dave, you have a lotus vine blooming. What is wrong with the one in the picture? Isn't that yours?

Got a question for all of you. I put my helebores, little plants from a coop last spring, in 8 inch pots, 3 to a pot, and now they are going great guns of course. They are fall and winter growing plants and bloom thru the snow. That is when they are in the ground.

What do I do with them this winter to keep the roots from freezing? I don't have any place to bury them (plant them, pot and all) in the ground. I am putting all the rest of the plants that go dormant in the winter, to bed, but helebores don't go dormant. Now what?

Jeanette:
when you say "putting them to bed" how exactly are you doing that? How many are there?

What I do with all my containers is pack them pot to pot and the cover with leaves (this year I am useing a frost blanket 1st). when it warms up to where & I start getting concerned about rot coming in I pull off the leaves and inspect the plants. The nice thing about my set up now is I have the 2 5 x 10 raised veggie beds to use as a buffer along one side and a bed with landscape timbers 2 high on the back so I expect I will have a better year this year with the buffers.

No that was a lotus vine my inlaws have in oregon. I took the pic when I was visiting them on a quick weekend. never doing a 4 day travel plan again.

Ok now some thoughts that might help. do you have a southern exposed wall on the house you can put the pots against? One of the biggest problems with growing in pots in the winter is drying out and then hitting a cold blast with lots of wind. could you build a miny cold frame to put your wintering pots in?

www.Territorialseed.com

they havewire suports and also clips to hold poly onto pvc for a winter greenhouse of sorts. I am going to try a pvc one on the south side of my GH. I haven't decided if I am going to do pvc or 2x4 lumber. There is a web strip that can be bought from www.amleo.com . its used to hold the poly down on hoop houses and as an extra suport for the endcaps.

The territorial seed catalog I am looking at is winter 2010. Item #ZRC35 - ZRC38
territorial also offers a poly for smaller greenhouses

if you would like I can look up the webstap from AM Leonard for you so you can have an item #

The cheapest way to go would be to group them all together and give them a little mulch on top and either leaves piled up around the pots or maybe some bags of topsoil to fool the plants into thinking its a mound they are planted in.

now for my sillyness.... sorry gotta do it..... be carefull not to scare the plants when you do this they have feeling too.

I did find out that the lotus vine can tolerate cooler temps just not freezing so I am going to try to keep my plants going untill next spring. I am thinking that if I pack a bunch of plants into a hanging basket and keep pinching them through the winter that I will get a nice basket. I do know they need full sun to bloom. I am getting ready to start my cool season crops from seed. its an experiment I am trying. its where I put my heat mats in the greenhouse and plant dianthus and other cool season plants in cells. I know we will have at least 14 days of good weather if not more. typically we get a hard freeze around thanksgiving so its time to bring in the merry wandering band.

well thats about it on my banter have a great afternoon. I will check back to see if I need to add to my thoughts on the Helebores.
Dave

Jeanette ... this is just a thought

Why not group all the pots of helebores togetherband surround them with rocks, stones, or bricks?

Then you could enjoy their beauty all winter.

MARY

good idea

Dave, I am trying something new this year. I bought a deck box, 5 feet long and double walled so it is really tight. Bob had a bale of cedar shavings, so I am puting a layer of the shavings down and then placing the plants in pots in there and then pouring more shavings round and on top of all of those. Then, on top of that, I am putting my dahlia tubers, begonia tubers, etc.c All the lighter stuff and then I will pour some more of the shavings over the whole lot. I have the box on the deck that is on the north side of the house where it is protected from the Southern weather. Also, the house eaves cover about 18 inches so only about 6 inches get wet when it rains and so far it looks pretty much rain proof.

Dave what is a frost blanket?

I can't use the south side because the snow comes down from 2 roofs. Sometimes we have had the snow and ice almost 5 feet deep out there.

I can tell you how to get those Lotus vines blooming. And huge.

First of all, they like sun. Next, get some of the Spray and Grow and spray the plant every week. I did that and I had never gotten one to bloom before. When I did that, mine was bright red with blooms and my sister who had had them in California blooming every year couldn't get hers to bloom here and nobody else in the area had them blooming either.

Ok, you and Merry just solved my problem. Here's what I am going to do. Bob emptied the pond on the deck, 2 whiskey barrels, one runs into the other. So, I am going to put the 3 pots of helebores in one of them and pour the cedar shavings all around them and pack them good without pouring it on top of them. How does that sound? I will put pots in the bottom turned upside down and set the plants on those so it boosts them up for light.

Thanks guys, gotta get to work.

Dave, remember the coop for Japanese Maples on Marketplace last spring? Here is a picture of the one (Viridis) a green one, that I got but didn't think to take a picture until after a lot of leaves had already fallen.

Also, you asked about the other Maples I have. Just the 2 little Bloodgoods, and the tall one that you gave me. The little BGs didn't grow much this year.

Also, Evelyn here is a picture of my Center Glow Ninebark. I really need to prune it don't you think? What do I do, just cut the ends of the branches off? About 10 inches?

Ninebark:

I messed up the Maple's picture. Here it is.

Jeanette: sounds like you have it figuired out. I would keep an eye on the plants though. decomposeing wood ties up nitrogen. due to the short term use I don't see an issue but I thought I should mention it. maple looks great.

Frost blanket is a white sheet of cloth thats thin and allows moisture to go through but it also increases the temp so that tender plants are not hit as hard as they would normailly. The strawberry growers use them a lot. I will try and find a site tomorrow so you can see exactly what it is and what it does. I love mine I just need to get more. the unfortunate thing is they come in 250 ft long pieces and can't really use that much. I will do some looking to see if I can find it smaller.
Have a great evening
Dave

Jeanette ~ You could just plant the hellebores in the whiskey barrels; wouldn't that be more protection than leaving them in the smaller pots?

Dave ~ We can get Remay at our local nursery. They have them on large bolts and we can just tell them how much we want. I put mine in the washer last year; they did not get much cleaner, but able to use it for another season. I have three sections of it. I used it over the lettuce during the summer. I originally bought it to protect some trees before we planted them out a year ago last January. Earlier in the season I used it to protect the tomato plants. I think I will wait until it gets warm to plant them out as the ones that were planted first did poorly compared to the ones planted out later. I still may W/S just a few for fun, as I have heard of it being done. And start some of the big ones much earlier indoors. Are you growing tomatoes this coming year?

Sharon ~ How is Vern doing? Have you started on that large landscape project yet? I started to clean up the front by the road today. I put down organic compost and then topped it off with shredded bark. I also planted some colchicum up front. They were already beginning to bloom. Even though it was cold and windy (45°) today, I had more energy than when it is hot. I just wore a lot of clothes. This is the first time I have worked in the garden since I got back as we had lots of rain and wind. Yesterday was too muddy to work outside. More bulbs to plant tomorrow as well as more cleaning and mulching.

Acer japonicum - Full Moon Maple... I could not get a really good picture of this as all of them seemed a bit out of focus. I will have to try again tomorrow in a different light.

That's a beautiful maple Evelyn.

If I did that I would have to dig the mud out of the pond. Plus I would have to put some kind of drainage in it and it would ruin it for a pond.

But, you have given me the idea of maybe just planting them in a bigger planter. I will have to think about it. Thanks.

Morning People, Hope all is well with you. Some nasty weather came East from out your way actually from the mid west and it is pounding us today with rain squawls and tropical weather. Crazy for October. I love walking in this kind of warm rain. Took a long walk and had to strip and put everything in dryer when I came home. LOL
Barney loves it too. Many dogs do not like walking in the rain but the warm rain was so refreshing.
Have you heard of a site called SeedLiving. I got an email from a girl names Anna Monique West. She said she saw my listings on DG and wanted me to know about their site . http://www.seedliving.com. I have not checked it out yet but I am wondering if anyone else was contacted. Please let me know your thoughts. I am afraid I am going to have to go back to eBay in a few days to move some of these Christmas Cactus. They look great and yet, they are not moving on DG the way I was hoping they would.
Must go for my adjustment. LOL see you all later. JB

BTW, if any of you are on Facebook, please look me up and be my friend. I have noticed many of my bird friends are gathering on there as well. Having said that, I wonder if DavesGarden is on there. It would certainly be a good way to attract more people. I wonderif they thought of it. There are other plant sites on and several people from other forums also. Just thought I would mention it tp you guys.

JB, you should check it out. It may be another outlet for you to sell your CC etc. on. I didn't go into it real thoroughly, but it looks good from just my scanning it.

Might be something Dave would be interested in too.

Look what is growing in our yard. Think I will try and sell this on eBay. LOL I was considering putting a sign at the end of the lane and charging 25 cents a person to look at my brains. LOL I am a nut case.

morning ooops afternoon:
yea I know what you are talking about we had it roll through earlier this week. another one is headed your way that just pressue no rain.... horrid pressure change.... and yea you guessed it I am barely moving. oh well this too shall pass.
Great site I think if it gets going it will be a good thing. I do like the feature that DG has where they bill you quarterly so you don't have to keep track. but a voluntary fee? I hope everyone does better than my faith in human nature.

well I am headed back to get horizontal have a great day
Dave

JB what is it? from the size of the leaf in the grass that is huge

I think it is from outer space..............it just popped up. I think it is some sort of mushroom.
Never saw one like it before.

Am I correct the double quotes " designate Common names and single ' are cultivars?
I do not know why I always get confused with that. I hate getting old. LOL I am pretty sure that is correct.
Get some rest...the weather is sucky here now we are under a Tornado Watch until tonight.
Go figure.
Dave, I just sent you an Dmail about eBay. JB

Jb: I can't really say for common names but the single quote is for 'cultivar'. At least thats how my plant id course did it and we got counted off for missing the single quote.
Dave

JB, I was watching one site where this guy/gal, can't remember which, had this thing kinda like that growing in their yard an I think it was the extension office said it was growing from the rotting roots of a tree that had been taken out once. It was growing in their vegetable garden I think. There was no way they could get rid of it. Pulled it out and it just came up somewhere else. etc.

i will see if I can find the site for you. Think it was a form of toadstool/mushroom. not edible.

JB ~ I really like that SeedLiving website. How do I look you up on facebook? (I don't go there often...) I have to agree with Dave on the single quotes for cultivar or named variety, but I have never known any quotes being used for common names.

Evelyn, look up Jacquie F. Berger or Jacquie Beyer Berger or Jberger431@aol. com. I use the old lady with the dog as my picture.or avitar.

I have already found a problem for me on the Seedling website. They have no place for houseplants or tropicals. They want it all to go under Live plants. I told them for the sake of shoppers and to make it easier to shop, they need to break if down so people do not have to sift through hundreds of outside plants or annuals or whatever to find a tropical or houseplant. They agreed and said they would talk to their programmer. That impressed me. It is true.....the less time people have to spend hunting, the more time they spend shopping and actually buying. I try and make it as easy to find as possible when I advertise something. It is difficult on some sites because they are not that aware of those problems.
Yes, I forget who told me that the " quotes are for common names. I am pretty sure that is correct. JB

JB, I think that strange growth is Pisolithus tinctorius.

http://www.bukisa.com/articles/234523_20-extremely-bizarre-uniquely-shaped-and-cmmerciallly-useful-mushrooms

and

http://www.mushroomexpert.com/pisolithus_tinctorius.html

I think they have been popping up at the edge of my front lawn near the driveway.

MARY

Good morning all ... ooops its afternoon again ...lol
mushrooms are generally spread by lawnmower blades. of course I am talking about Fairy rings. you know the mushrooms that form a circular pattern in the grass. I am so ready to get to a regular temp so I can just concentrate on me intead of how cold it is outside.

well its going to be a short day today as I am resting today except for a few things that came in yesterday and have to go into pots right after I end this dmail.
have a great day
Dave

Short day in the garden for me too Dave. I spent the morning vacuuming the dog to keep her from spreading hair all over the house and then cleaning up the house after that. I have to get out there and finish pulling the tomato plants and peppers etc. yet. I worked out there for a couple of hours yesterday but needed the trailer onto the lawn mower to haul all the plants.

Do you all put the tomato plants on the compost pile? Along with your old tomatoes? I wonder if that is going to give me a lot of volunteers in the compost next year. LOL, it should be interesting.

i did a few last year and I have 2 healthy volunteers. I would think it shouldn't be too bad. I planted my burgs thats it. you know its bad when I have 2 bags of soil and wont go out and play... well back to bed
D

Hi Everyone:
I just read the Craft Your Own Leaf-Shaped Birdbath article and fell in love with it. I am going to try to do this one this winter. Anyone like to join me in a long distance birdbath/hypertufa project??? Please let me know as I will be doing this in the next couple of weeks as leaves are fadeing fast and I want to GET-ER-Done ...lol

Thought I'd share
Dave

LOL, no, think I will pass. You need a Geberra isn't it? Or a rhubarb to make nice big ones. I have seen them and thought they were really cool. What kind of leaves do you have for a birdbath Dave?

Be sure to take pictures. Would love to watch.

well I have a huge Alocasia or Colocasia
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/53227/

pics later in the week. my mom called me to put me into panic mode. 34 degrees tonight. got all I wanted to save either in the GH or garage. gives me some time to sort through the plants and decide who makes the cut and who doesn't. Its like do I cut back the 10" mum pan of lantana or pitch it and lean on the tray of cuttings fro the spring?
I now have 3 bamboo's, some coperleaf, 4 kinds of ginger my EE and a bunch of misc. others.
well I have to relenquish the computer.
see ya in the am
Dave

I think castor bean leaves would be perfect. Some are even larger than rhubarb. I saw this type of article a couple of years ago, was going to try, but then things happened and it got put on hold.
Sometimes, the volunteer plants are better than the hand sowed ones. My neighbor has volunteer petunias every year, they come up in the most unusual places, this year all along a chain link fence, where there is less than 2 inches of soil, and that soil is mostly windblown sand. I couldn't believe how well the darn things did, so pretty. and so unexpected. about 3 ft in front of the fence is a half oak barrel he plants with petunias every year, and every year more and more seeds are blown around. This year it really went above and beyond. You couldn't plant them like that, they just wouldn't grow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dave, maybe you should take it a little easier, but believe me, I do understand.
ttyal Lee

Yes, I know the leaves both on the one Dave has and the caster beans get huge. LOL, I happened to fertilize my EE this summer and all of a sudden it's leaves got huge. 'course it was the first one to freeze. And my caster bean leaves don't get that big but I know they do in some areas. One of the fellas I exchange caster bean seeds with in Iowa has huge plants. But my season is so short I don't even get beans.

And Dave you asked for the brugs. LOL, you have to keep them in the house if you want them to live there.

Lee, that is amazing about the petunias and so many people have trouble growing them.

Where is everybody tonight? Where is Sharon? Linda, I know JB is watching a series game or something. Probably getting her toenails painted.

Dave went to bed. Let's see who else is out there and not talking to us?

Jeanette, have you tried to start them in the house, then transplant outside? That is what I do every year and give away some of them. Actually, my neighbor's plants do better than mine and he neglects them. Maybe thats the key, neglect , WOW, never thought of that. Anyway his got huge this year, mine were just average. Maybe a micro-climate??? His had no protection, mine were by a fence. Who Knows.
Lee