Dollar store plant supports!

I had a orange tree that died and I took the branches outside and put them around a weigelia, thorns and all. It worked to keep the deer away.

Wow! I just happened upon the pictures of your garden, colliwobbles and it's gorgeous. What is the name of the dahlia in the summer picture - dark leaves and red/yellow flowers. Also there's a shrub/small tree on the fall picture between the 2 sumacs (just to the left of the front door in the picture) what is that?

Oh, good idea, Patricia. Citrus seems to keep a lot of creatures at bay. My Meyer lemon is the only plant my cats don't mess with.

I don't have any citrus branches to work with, but I wonder if I hung little bits of orange peel around my plants if the deer would leave them alone. Or I could put citrus peels in the locations they manage to sneak through the fence, just to make their experience entering the all-you-can-eat buffet less pleasant.

Hey Colchie, we are both on Vashon. It would be fun to get together sometime. What area of the island do you live in? I'm on Point Robinson Rd.

Katy59, here is an update on your starts in the Cloner. The hardwood cuttings are taking a lot longer to start than I had anticipated. I am enjoying their blooms though. They would probably do better if I stripped off the blooms and most of the leaves, but I don't have the heart to do it. They are so pretty. What do you think?
Here is a top view picture I just took tonight.

Here is the bottom view showing the roots.

They're alive and that's what counts. What has it been - 3 weeks?

Very cool. I can see the ninebark leaves, the forsythia trying to bloom, the magnolia stellata blossoms . . . I forgot - what else is in there?

Oh, there was lonicera nitida - did that make it?

Thanks for posting the pictures, Lynn. Talk about having something to peek at every day!!

Hi Colchie,

I think I bought that dahlia a couple of years ago at Fred Meyer, towards the end of summer. I didn't know at the time that those potted dahlias could go in the ground. After they died off, I buried them randomly, not even thinking they would come back. Anyway, of course I couldn't find the tag for that one, but I'm pretty sure it's from the "Happy Single" dahlia line...it might be Flame. http://verwer-dahlias.nl/en/hs_intro_en.htm They don't list that variety on their site, but if you do an internet search for "Happy Single Dahlia Flame", you'll see it.

Regarding the shrub to the left of the front door, that was here when I moved in (5 years ago). I searched a couple of years ago, and I think this is what it is http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/1714/ I've noticed them around the area, and I've seen them super small, to one that was as tall as the house! I I think ours might be headed in that direction eventually. Ours faces west, so it gets lots of afternoon sun.

Here's a picture of what it looked like when I first got here. I really haven't done anything for it, except water once in a great while. I guess it's just happy that the yard is now a garden, and not dead grass. :-)

Two of the markers fell into the reservoir, I need to fish them out and find out where they belong. This has been fun to experiment with.I'm sure we'll get some of them to take. Do you want any Salix integra 'Hakura Nishiki'? I have several that have nice roots on them now.

Lynn -

Thank you, but I do have one, plus a couple smaller starts. It's a nice plant. I think I must have captured everything I gave you in that list - there were the three types of ninebark, so it seemed like there were some I'd forgotten.

Jana, I'm amazed at the difference in your yard from the first picture. It looks tired and dry in the first photo and some people would focus on the lawn. But with the garden you put in, it looks lush and junge-like. Nice job!!

Mean to say that I think your plant is a Fatsia japonica, too. They're usually sold here as indoor plants, but will survive outdoors if they're protected. My mother had one that grew to about 8 feet in Oregon. It was under a patio overhang on a west-facing wall and seemed to love the "no-direct, but lots of" light location.

Hey Maury hill farm. Get together would be great. I live in lower gold beach. It's 3 a.m. and just got home from work, so I'll post more tomorrow

Love that cloning machine. Is that something you made? Or purchased? I think I need to do that. Info please.

Lynn said that she got the commercial cloner and heater from someone off of Craig's List for a steal. I see them on ebay, too. Here's the link.

In the propagation forum, there have been a couple of threads outlining people's do-it-yourself versions.

http://www.ezclone.com/home.htm

Kathy

Thanks katie