Seed Snatchin' XV: Show Us Your Kits!

Darleen, I have a friend in South Carolina and her veggie garden is surround by her herb garden and intergrated in with the herbs are leek, onions, garlic, and a few not so tasty flowers that are pretty to look at. When ever she hears of a plant that the deer seem to avoid she adds it to the list. She redesigned and added the outside beds after a deer family reunion ate her entire garden except for the leek, onions and garlic.

That's a great idea!! Where in SC? Maybe she will let me come see it! hee hee!!

Nicole

She is up in the mountain by Blowing Rock. Don't ask me for other direction cause I have to call her from the airport and follow her up to get there. I have been there 6 times and I thought (Ouch) I could figure it out the last time and attempted it alone. I ended up in Gaffney, 6 hours later and not a clue as in where I had been or where I was going.

Nicole, what are you thoughts on Morning Glory's in South Carolina.

Morning glories (at least on my place in SE Ohio) are a deer delicacy! Is that what you meant?

NO!! The morning glories I fight are the 'wild' ones... Maybe there is another kind out there that's not so invasive but they are everywhere here too! I agree they are pretty but they can reek havoc on a veggie/etc garden... They reseed like crazy.

Nicole -

Okay, well I think that I will be safe if I try some on the fence line opposite the veggie garden. The neighbor has the back of his work shed filled with old junk. I really don't care to look at it, and figure the fence is mine and is a 6 chain link there, so a vine that just runs wild will be perfect. It is behind my garden shed also, but no area should ever be with out something blooming.

Thanks ladies.

Ruby(rosepetalz) came to visit me last week.She flu into St.Louis and we went to the Mo.Botanical Gardens.We snatched lots of rose seeds and I'm guilty of taking cuttings from a Real,fragrant snail vine.heehee Have 4 hope they all root.I already took the rose seeds out of the hips..they are heading for the frig until spring when I'm going to sow them and pray some are as great as their parents.I had to toss them in my purse no tools were allowed on my trip.heehee

Well, I 'might' have just relieved an echinacea of a spent bloom or two at Lowe's...

But I'm not telling about the time I dug a dwarf crested iris in an Arkansas state park.

Watch-out for those Park Rangers, they really get an attitude about that.

Yeah, I know. The day we were up on the mountain, we didn't see a single other person. We did meet up with a rattlesnake, though. There were iris EVERYWHERE, but we only took one. It was on the edge of the path and I figured it was going to get trampled to death eventually, so we rescued it. How's that for rationalization?

Honestly? I probably wouldn't do that again, now that I know there are places where I can buy just about anything I want - wildflowers included.

Carat - here are a couple of vines I just LOVE that are annuals..

Hyacinth Beans - purple flowers, dark leaves, and purple pods-don't eat though..

Scarlet Runner Beans - by far my favorite! Hummingbirds love them and you can eat the beans!

Another 'thug' in my garden is Black Eyed Susan Vine - avoid it unless you like pulling up seedlings years later!

thanks I jotted all those down on my lists of do's and don'ts. Does the Hyacith Bean plant look alot like sweet peas?? Saw a plant I loved while in Gettysburg, PA sounds just like that. To many tourists and onlookers to snatch. I will be somewhat close, so if you hear some noises in the scarlet beans please dont shoot. LOL

Funny I already had Black Eyed Susan Vine on the don't list from my own experience. I have them everywhere from a neighbors plant. She loves it, but most of the seeds end up germinating in my yard. I will usually dig them up and hand her the tub so she can try to replant. Bless her heart, she tries.

KB, on a girl scout outing a few years back to a state park here called Red Rock, my daughter's friend picked up a small 1 inch round rock to send to her grandma as a gift. As all the girls were loading into the van the ranger came over grabbed the girl (13) and handcuffed her for federal theft. Her parents ended up paying a fine of 2500.00 for that. A little extreme for a rock I think.

Oh myyyyyyyyy. Yes, I'd say that was extreme. I have some red sand from Red Rock Canyon. We found a really cool corked bottle while hiking there in June, and I just filled it up with that wonderful stuff. It's really pretty, and so different than what we have here.

Honestly, I can understand the rules. I mean, what if everyone took an iris? But that's not likely to happen anyway, and they do multiply every year. But still...I won't ever do it again. I feel too guilty about it.

Sounds to me like a ranger was behind on his quota of tickets for that year and tried to make it all up with that one young girl. A mere warning with explaination would have done the job nicely, and she would have learned a much more valuable lesson!

Carat, have been to Red Rock Canyon, it is a beautiful place. That was several years ago, I was still working, or I probably could have been that girl. I didn't have time for gardening then, so didn't snatch anything. I have been know to take a pretty red flower from the Smokey Mountains though. Now I know that the penalties are really steep, will do my snatching on private land!!, or with owners permission.

We were on the way to a friends house out in the country over the weekend, and I sweet talked my DH into digging up a roadside asparagus patch for me. A man that will stop in the middle of nowhere and dig plants for me is a keeper. He did a great job - got nearly all the roots. So much easier than planting and waiting years, and I think that the stuff that grows wild here is better than store-bought. Thankfully we were in the truck or he would not have wanted to put plants in the car, and we would not have had a good shovel. He keeps a heavy duty fold-up one in the truck for emergencies. Asparagus is an emergency, right? There's an asparagus honor system here. People mark their roadside spot with spray paint on the road or flags tied to fences and for the most part everyone honors the dibs. They hit their own marked patches and not others. This patch was about 4 feet long, and not marked. It will be very happy along our back fence.

Wow! Wild asparagus!!! That's cool! I have 25 in my backyard and next year will be 'the' year I can start really harvesting! Got enough to feed my 3 year old this Spring but that was it!

Carat I'm not sure what sweet peas look like but I bet if you looked in the plant files they have pics! You will LOVE both of those vines, I'm sure of it!!

Nicole

Hubby and I are ditch-diggers, too. ;-) I got my bellflower and aquilegia canadensis that way, as well as some beautiful white daisies.

Ah, yes, another cultivar... the ditch diving divas!

Oh, and how could I forget my rudbeckias!!

Which bellflower grows in your ditches, kbaumle?

Creeping. At least I think that's what it is. Here's a picture of mine:

Aren't bellflowers pretty! The really good thing about them is that they spread so well, and the really bad thing about them is that they spread so well. I think this one could be a bit of a thug, so I'd keep him in a separate bed or he may take over. They tend to send out underground shoots and pop up everywhere. Here's the PF entry for creeping bellflower. There are more negative comments than positive. You might want to plant him in his own bed.

If the daisies you dug were oxe-eye's, they tend to spread quite readily, as well. They are a wonder ditch flower and bloom like crazy, but the drop copeous amounts of seed and also throw undergrown runners. They are pretty in a meadow or in an untended bed. You could put them in a bed with the creeping bellflower and see who chokes out who!

As for the A. canadensis, if it's anything like our A. formosa, a cousin, it will spread by seed, but it's easy to move or pull when young. It will be a much better behaved member of your garden family.

The bellflower is in a small bed that I originally intended for just wildflowers and things I dig up in the woods or ditches. It has evolved into something else now, though. The bellflower may get moved next year, we'll see. The daisies are in an area all by themselves, but my husband wants those moved, because they mess up his mowing. *rolls eyes* I think you're right, they are ox-eyes. I'm not sure I'll keep them anyway.

Okay, after reading more, that thing is COMING OUT. I hope I can get it all.

I always hate to bad mouth a plant. There are no bad plants, but some are not very good about sharing. Perhaps Mr. Bellflower could find a spot along the road or driveway.

It has returned to the ditch from whence it came. LOL.

Ah, well. It's probably just as well. There are other campanulas that are better behaved. I've been snatching seeds all fall & will have my seedlist updated soon. I'd be happy to send you some. Just email me if you want some blue in your garden.

I have some of a creeping campula, but not a clue what kind. It's been great for filling in an otherwise difficult slope. Sometimes "agressive" can be a great thing.

Exactly! There are few plants I don't allow on my property, and those are the thugs that won't go away. I should have known better than to bring the oxe-eye daisies in 10 years ago, but I have to admit, I love them along the edges of my yard or the roadside. They don't ask for much and the offer a lot.

I have been moving the diasy volunteers to the edge of the pond. They're agressive enough, I hope to help choke out the weeds. I can't use roundup out there because of the fish, and the fish-safe stuff is outragously expensive. I don't know how he managed, but DH weed whipped them down this year when they were in full bloom, claiming he "didn't see them". Little bits of flower petals all over the grass, and he didn't notice. Amazing.

Selective vision!

Right up there with selective hearing!

Hello fellow snatchers! I haven't been doing much snatching lately, but have been following along the thread. Today, I have a daring snatch to report:
Across the street from Sportco in Tacoma, there is an abandoned commercial greenhouse with a home on the property. This place has been vacant so long that the greenhouses are full of very tall weeds, the yard is all overgrown, you get the picture. I decided I wanted to see it up close so my son and I wandered over, not 'seeing' the 'no trespassing' sign on the door to the house. We weren't going to the house anyway. We wandered around the greenhouses and got spooked because they were so big and empty of everything except weeds. We ventured into the back yard and looked around , then walked around the front of the house. There was a lovely lacecap hydrangea growing by the front door. I felt brave so I took several cuttings. Then around the corner I saw a lovely and extremely overgrown hardy fuschia, pale pink flowers dangling everywhere. I took more cuttings. About this time someone from the rental agency across the street came out and yelled over to me that the house and property had been bought by someone. Playing along, I acted surprised (actually I was surprised) and yelled back did he know who the new owner was. He said he did and that their offices were down the street. He was nice, but I figured I better not press my luck. I said thank you very much, I would drive down and talk to them. I look really respectable, so he likely believed me. I drive a white minivan. What kind of criminal could I possibly be?
I did actually try to find the office by driving down all the parking lots on that side of the street slowly, looking for soandso property management, which is what I though he said. But I didn't find anything that looked right. I have the address, so I'm going to look them up on the tax assessor website and see if I can contact the new owner. The property is so run down I would be willing to bet they will just plow it all down. If so, I'm going to ask permission to dig. There's a huge wisteria, a nice weeping japanese maple, several roses that were blooming their little hearts out, the hardy fuschia, and a bunch of other stuff.
It was a bit of a close call, but I have my cuttings! Maybe I need to go in the dead of night! LOL

'daring' LOL
great story and I hope you get their permission to go back and hit the jackpot.

LOL Pixy. I popped in this thread just as I left the Test Blu thread and with the halloween story going on I guess I am so tired I mixed the two together and expected for a ghost or something to come popping out of the greenhouse.

Heck if they are going to be tearing down the place you should see if you can get some of the greenhouses sections to build one of your own if you don't already have one.

Recycle queen here.

Casey

Oh wow, and if you do get to go back and you don't want that Japanese maple, I know someone who would LOVE to have that! LOL!

ooh that is an excellent idea Casey. I sometimes accompany dh on his work trips out of town. We were going through a little town on the other side of Raleigh and I saw a nursey sign, I didn't even have to ask, he just turned at the sign lol. Anyway, back behind it were the remnants of an old greenhouse business. Huge hoophouses and the most adorable potting table I have ever seen. I wanted it so badly! The man at the nursery still open said for me to just take whatever, the man had abandoned the place. We were in a car, no way to snatch the table so I said I'd be back. 2 weeks later dh went through there again and stopped for me. The whole place was leveled, the hoophouses and pots, etc were in a huge pile of rubble, and the potting table was now at the other man's nursery with a fresh coat of paint and a $500 price tag. Grrrr!!! I could have rented a trailer, I could have tied it to the top of the car, I could have put casters on it and pushed it home (LOL).

I know I said it above, but I really hope you can get in touch with these folks and work something out. The worst they can say is no. If that happens, then you have that option b of a dead of night swipe LOL

Rachel

Yeah, I hear you, Rachel. The only difference between your neck of the woods and mine is that they would have immediately put a 500$ pricetag on that table without even bothering to move it or put a coat of paint on it.
I took a look at the greenhouses. They are huge and are metal and plastic. Believe me I was looking for salvagable stuff. There was a huge old mixer , looked like gas powered, they likely used to mix potting soil. There was a potting bench upside down on the gravel drive, but it wasn't anything special. The place has been abandoned so long, and it's in a commercial area close to the Port of Tacoma, so it's been stripped. I'm a scrounger by nature, but I do already have a greenhouse.
I'll let you know what they say, if I can find out how to contact them.