Some People!!!

My Mother doesn't care what the plants are as long as they bloom at some point, have huge blousy flowers and look exotic. In fact she's never quite sure what we have in the garden (I share the garden at her house). I have to mark all the plants we have in the catalogues each year, so she doesn't splash out on things we already grow. We spend Sunday afternoons wandering around the garden and me telling her (yet again) what the names of the plants are. She is starting to pick it up but she will take off seed pods and then not label them! She loves exotic Orchids and they like her, in fact all her plants like her ... she manages to murder mine!

Apart from the plant murder what really bugs me? Everytime she propagates something, it roots and flourishes regardless of what she does to it.

She managed to talk a lady at a local plant fair into giving her a free cutting off a huge Impatiens niamniamensis - Congo Cockatoo and then stuck it into a milk bottle of water and put in in the greenhouse in full sun (they like partial shade). To my suprise it produced roots in 2 weeks even in a baking hot, sun drenched greenhouse.

I then cringed when I found she'd potted the plant with clay soil from the garden. 'It'll die!' yelled Baa.

Nope, 3 weeks on it's growing new leaves and buds (which she takes off).

Just goes to show how little I know! However, were I to do that it would curl up it's toes and turn a nice shade of mushy brown.

The only way I'll get green fingers like hers, is if I dye them for a week. Still, I'm lucky she allows me to share the garden and direct the planting otherwise she'd have a garden full of Calendula and I'd have a lot of tall grass and weeds ;)

Baa, I know what you mean. My MIL raises Sweet Williams that bloom from spring to fall. In this heat. She can't tell you what they're called, but she sure can make them grow - I guess by ignoring them. Me, I baby things and they reward me by curling up their leaves and turning brown :(

LOL Vols, I'm glad I'm not alone out there ;)

I can remember years ago the garden feuds between my father and my grandmother. Mainly the subject was her roses vs. his roses. My father would buy the latest from catalogue, use proper pruning techniques, water faithfully, fertilize on time, 'bank-up' for the winter, and so on. She did none of the above. Oh yes, my grandfather was given instructions to 'cut' the rose down in the fall (by half). Of course she never had problems with insect or disease, her's bloomed first and lasted longer, and she would tell my father what he was doing wrong.

It carried over into the vegetable patch where her tomatoes (plants supplied by my father) were ripe first, no disease, and a much larger crop. The same can be said for other vegetables grown.

Looking back I think her success was due to a warmer space and to all of the scraps she would throw to the birds from the kitchen onto the garden. All I know is my father would be steaming on the ride home, and my brother and I thought is was funny but didn't laugh.

This message was edited Monday, Aug 5th 11:53 AM

LOL Golddog I can just imagine your fathers face on the ride home!

It all comes down to benign neglect - I find I have much better luck when I just let nature take it's course. I lose some, but I also win some. Patience, dears, patience!!

I totally agree with you Kathleen, the plants that I pamper and coddle almost seem to resent it, the others that I just let fend for themselves to wonderful well, most of them!!!
Becky

Wouldn't it be something if Ruth Stout could add her comments here. A no nonsense gardener that believed in giving her plants natural methods of cultivation. She eliminated the shovel and hoe by mulching her vegetable garden with everything available, and then 'poking' a hole for the plants to grow in. Water conservation, fertilization; acccomplished! One person I would love to spend the day with.

Amen. I feel like I commune with my grandma and Ruth Stout when I'm in my veggie garden.

ROTFL Kathleen,

I doubt my plants would agree they are babied! I'm all for them doing their own thing which is probably why I have more success from seed than anything else.

Hmmm, well maybe standing over them glowering isn't exactly babying, but who knows - plants are like little kids, some things just stick with them!

I'm fond of seeds myself, and I have a few that need planting now. Or later, or when a whim takes me, and sometimes they actually germinate and grow. I have some magic fountain delphiniums that came from just that kind of a whim, or was it a wind? Anyway, I need to go move them away from the little dogwood a bit and see how they like living in the sunshine.

Oh, and gardening isn't a competitive sport!!!!!!!

Baa, I think I'm like your mother. I'm certainly not successful with everything I try but when it is successful, it' just plain dumb luck as I am pretty clueless. I've also noticed if the seed is supposed to be difficult, I get almost 100% germination, if it is supposed to be so easy that a child can do it, it rots before it germinates. I'm pretty sure divine intervention has something to do with to - LOL

I have a friend who gardens in gravel... no soil, just gravel. She feeds the plants a little Miracle grow or 8-32-16 once in awhile. She tells me she just throws seed out the door and it grows. Her place looks like a show place, and most of her plants are volunteers that come up on their own, or plants I give her because they look ten times better at her place. I attribute it to good drainage and more sun and heat from the rock, but I just think she practices "tough love". I swear my plants are doing better now that I haven't time to fuss with them!

I am sure everyone has gone away on holiday, leaving behind houseplants we feel, without a doubt, will be in a terrible state. Only to return and find them standing tall, more green than before, with a smile to give; not the plants they once were. How can they have improved this way?

This lesson must give notice that a hands-off-approach is in order. I once put my dear, tender, can't make-it-without-me plants in the bathtub, on stones covered in plastic, and lit by a timer. No more! Just water them and let them be on holiday as well.

golddog

I've considered setting aside an area on my plant sale tables for "masochistic plants". I'd fill it with yarrow, mountain bluet, oxeye daisies, and anything else that thrives on abuse and bad soil. Some plants truly appreciate a little TLC, but I think others just consider us chumps and decide to keel over and die if we fuss over them!

Gardening isn't competetive? Now you tell me Kathleen LOL

Vic, well done on your propagation :) Some people just have a knack, it seems like you have it already ;)

Golddog, my houseplants get watered once a month, one (a Schefflera- Umbrella Tree) gets watered 3 times a year, it's 15 years old, 2ft tall and very bushy! Recently a friend of mine came back from holiday to find all her houseplants had died, the person who was watering them (not Baa)left them too long before giving them a drink, I suppose it all depends on what you grow ;).

WZ, I once spoke to a lady with a beautiful garden. Her seed sowing technique was to plant the seed packets whole ... yes the seeds were still in the packet. It worked for her! You could group your tough plants into where they suit best, shady wet plants on one part of the bench, dry and windy plants on another etc.

At the end of the day I think we must find what works for us best.

Baa: I've decided the masochistic plants go to the spots where my hose won't reach! Love the story about the whole seed packets. It reminds me that the volunteer seedlings always seem to do better. Maybe plants are like cats... they are always more agreeable if they initiate something themselves.

Kenny planted twenty tomato seeds last year and FORTY plants sprouted! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! ;) He always does better with the plants than I do, but I don't mind as I've gotten him interested in flowers these past couple years (he's always been mostly a veggie gardener). This year our garden didn't do well at all, mainly from neglect from him (AND me, though even if I would have cared for it, it wouldn't have been nearly as lush as if he'd done it). Maybe this fall or next year, once the beds and water system are done in the garden addition...

Wingnut: Those garden projects are always ongoing. I think God invented gardens to teach us patience.

HMMMM!

Your G'ma sounds like she knew what she was doing. Is that where you got your "green thumb"?? :-)

Funny thing, you guys talking about seedlings and all. The basil seeds that I planted near the tomatoes are doing SO much better than the two that I purchased from small pots. The seedlings are almost caught up in size, same watering and conditions. They don't wilt like the others when I miss a watering, and they don't have any holes in them. I don't see any bugs on the others, but they just seem to be weaker plants? Maybe greenhouse grown by a grower?

I think you're right, Weeze. Patience is one thing I've needed to learn, so I think God's up there giggling right now after infecting me with the gardening bug and matching me with Kenny. ;)

Right on, Wingnut!

Evelyn, I have had the same experience. Seedlings (in situ) are stronger and more drought tolerant as a rule. Transplant shock must part of the reason. And possibly the unnatural temperature of the greenhouse, especially night temperatures.

This spring, I had started far too many tomato plants, considering the only way to grow them here is in the greenhouse. Of course, I hoped to sell quite a few. At any rate, I had transplanted them to 3-1/2" pots, and they took up too much room in the greenhouse, so I put them out in a plastic covered coldframe. One night the temperature dipped down below freezing, and one end of the cold frame hadn't been closed. Most of the tomato plants were badly damaged. I decided to salvage what I could, so I began pruning back the bad leaves and stems...even topping some of them. When I opened my little greenhouse for business, I gave away these tomato plants, who had, by that time, begun new growth along the stems. I've talked to several folks who have told me those are some of the toughest little tomato plants they've ever had, and they've outdistanced the ones that they've bought at other greenhouses. After that little taste of frost, I guess even our cold Alaskan summers looked like a Hawaiian vacation!