PLANT PROPAGATION.....THE BASICS II

The only sure way to protect your plants from deer is a fence. Sometimes, even if I just sprayed they will eat some leaves and flowers off my plants.

I do have a fence for my veggies, and other garden beds in there. We cannot afford to fence the 12 acres here. So I do what I can.

Sharon, thought you meant to put the salt block in her garden. LOL Sorry.

Well Evelyn, just fence off your garden, or the area where you have planted. So, if you have that already fenced, why do you care if they come up. What are they eating on?

jen

The plants around the house, the "Peach of a garden" and in the Hot Bed, but not so much in the landscaped areas by the driveway, since I have a lot of Rosemary there.

Wouldn't it be easier to fence those off? May not look the best, but???

Steve does not want fencing there, so I just use a lot of deer repellant. It works for the most part. The driveway areas have deer-resistant plants in them as I want something besides rosemary.

Whatever works Evelyn.

The deer ate my salty plant that rabbits and gophers don't like. So I put Jalapenos all around it and juice all over them, for repayment.

LOL, keep us posted Dawn. Jen

Have you started another forum and I missed out?

What makes you think that Peg? Not that I know of, unless I was left out too. :0) jen

All talk stopped after Sept 15th and I miss it. Every now and then I would get a tip about something new in propagation which I love.
Hope everyone is safe and all the bad weather.

I know, once people start putting things away for winter etc. they get busy, and then Halloween seems to start the holidays. Just hate to think about winter. Seems we kind of lose track of the threads for a bit but we are always still here if you start it up again.

Up here in North country it is different from the area where you and some of the others are. But we do love to hear about those tips. If it is something I can use, I usually will add it to my computer files. There are people in NC and always glad to hear from people in Texas, etc. So you need to just post and someone will answer.

I do that too Jen. If I like an article it goes in my dg blog. I save some to a word dog and save it with tags. One thing I saved disappeared when the owner of the pictures decided he did not want people sharing his pictures around. Drats it was so cool what he did with cattle fencing for roses, walls, arbors etc. It was painted green and looked awesome. I guess I found out it was his business and that people were taking his ideas. A lot of people started trying to find those pictures too I found out.

Cattle Panels would make good arbors, trellises, etc. I can see why if he is making them and selling them.

I do not even know what a cattle panel looks like. I will have to Google that.

I keep all my articles in my bookmarks under categories.

He was not selling them he was a landscape designer. I sent him a message once and he ignored it.

I don't understand then. If he weren't selling them, then what did he care if people used his designs? Too bad I would like to see them.

I'm going google cattle panels.

We have been having temps in the 30's and 40's at night. I have cleaned the GH, move the succulents in and am almost out of space. I still have some hanging baskets out and some of the bromeliads. Broms are my pride and joy. Most of them are NOID, but I still love them.

I did that too Peg and there are a lot of ideas. The one was purely decorating ideas for the house. Interesting. But, I didn't really look any farther. I have had my hoophouse out of them for about 4 or 5 years now. I have 5 of them together and the hh is 20 feet or more long. They are 52 inches wide and 16 feet long. My hh is 8 feet wide at the bottom, 6 feet or more high in the center. Jen

Jen, you have lots more area to fill than I do. My what I could do with that much room.
I use a 10X12 GH, a 8X10 rinky GH and DH's work shop for hanging plants during the winter. I give away most of what I propagate.

Right now I started some calandula seeds which have not sprouted after 4 weeks. I also do a tray of hydrophonics. I put bottle brush seeds in about a week ago and one has already sprouted. Then I have some pots with vermiculite with the dwarf evergreen (Lil' John) bottle brush, coleus, lantana (that needs to be put in soil), and whatever breaks off by me stumbling around.

I do want to start some cora bell seeds that I have never done before, but have been reading about them germinating. Am not sure of their requirements.

Those of you with lights and heat mats growing all day and night, Don't you worry about fires starting? Electirc bills?

Dawn, I don't have lights running all night, they are on a timer with 16 hours on and the on time is during the day. The heat mat doesn't get that hot even when it does like my heater did. The thermostat went out and it cooked the seeds but no, it never did any other damage. As far as the lights, they are florescent and don't use that much juice.

Also, the lights aren't hot enough to start a fire and there is no material to burn anyway.

hmmm. I want to do it but I doubt I could convince Greg of this.

What kind of setup would you have? What seeds would you plant? I guess what I am doing is trying to figure out your area, which I know nothing about. You wouldn't set them up in your new place when you are living in your current one would you? The reason I wouldn't, more than anything, is that they still have to be watered. The planting mix dries out even tho the plants do not germinate and use up the water. You still have to tend them just like if they were plants. They just don't use the water as much and don't need fertilizer and possibly pinching back or whatever.

The most important challenge of growing seedlings inside is watering. Just as Jen pointed out, they can get get warm and then dry out if not monitored daily. I have done this many, many times. It only takes one day and then all is ruined!

The domes help, but don't take the place of being there to take care of them.

You are right. My calandulas didn't sprout.

Well I agree, when I get things germinating in my cloner, they dry out fast too. Once I put them in pots they usually die while at work, because they dry out too much. I know I would need heat mats or grow lights but Greg would be afraid of the bills or fire.

Dawn, maybe you need to change your potting mix if it is drying out after you plant them. Or, use bigger pots. They should not be doing that. Do you soak your mix good before you plant them. If I am using mix that has dried out, I always put a 3 gallon bucket of mix in the sink and run HOT water in it. Fill it up and leave it overnight. If it is fresh mix that has not been opened I just water it good after planting and should not dry out for quite a while depending on how warm they are. But just don't wait too long to water again.

The problem is here the sun is very strong if I have plants in the window light. It dries out fast. If I make it too moist, it gets algae when I grow from seed. I do need a better mix though.

Well, that would be a start. After that, it is just trial and error. jen

It looks so crappy in the winter if I sow stuff indoors, it is just a mess of containers. Wish I had a garden room just for that stuff.

Yes Dawn, don't we all. Would be nice.

I know someone who had their back patio converted to a garden room after it was enclosed. My house that I regularly live in has no light as it faces north and is on the east side of the house. Pointless for that purpose.

I thought of that too. But, my steep roofs, kitchen on one side and bedroom on the other form a valley and it dumps right onto the back deck. I have seen the snow piled 5 or 6 feet high sometimes out there. Not easy to shovel off. Anyway, it would hardly work for a garden room to enclose it.

Guess no one is propgating at this time. I did put some coreopis plants in pots today. They are yellow and guess I will use these for the MG sales in March.

Jen ~ Do I have to keep the brugmansia indoors or only when it gets close to freezing? I have so little room indoors.

Mine froze and came back several years but one year it did not, so I would bring it in.

Thanks, Dawn!

My peas have set their second set of leaves.

I am not propagating them but I have hundreds of new baby worms in my compost pile.

We are suppose to be back into low 70s by Thursday.

I have been throwing seeds in quite a few places for spring. They just sit there and then come up end of March or early April.

Have a great, safe Monday. Sharon