The thread for those we thought were DEAD !

I have dead plants! I hope some come back! I had a fountain grass plant that was eaten down below the ground that is now a nice 12". Sorry, camera is fried. I had read to cut back the purple salvia in spring, so I did that at the same time as butterfly bushes and fountain grass. But the salvia did not come back. The red salvia was labeled as an annual, but re-seeded itself several times over. I find some plants getting brown quickly and I give it a tug and of course many times the plants comes up in my hand - rootless! gophers. They are even getting the almost guaranteed pest proof plants this year (geranium, russian sage) and last year rabbits ate society garlic.

Two weeks ago I bought some bargains at Lowes in the clearance area. Kidded with them that I may as well buy them dead or dying as that will be their destiny. So far the salvia, geranium and mandeville are doing great.

Lynda

oh i love the clearance shelves, usually just need a little tlc!

quiltygirl...I ,like you love the 1/2 dead plants at Lowes, unfortunatly some times I buy them and don't plant them and then they are 90% dead, however the good news is that some survive and I'm one happy gardener. About gophers, have you tried gasing them with a propane tank with a hose attached and into the hole. We'v been fighting them for years and that seems to work best, at least for a few months.

I have more Society Garlic than I need QG, you'd be welcome to take some, good excuse to drink dry water too!
Also have a red geranium if you want it.
WIB,
SW

SW - SOunds good to me on all 3 counts! I still have your cell # and will give you a call. DD is in summer school to make up grades, so if you do early, I could come by after dropping her off or maybe she would like to come and come over after school pick up at 2:15.

Lynda

Don't do too early. Call me.
Too hot at 2:00. Eve ok.
WIB,
SW

I just found this cool thread! I can't tell you how relieved I am that one of my plants was a survivor! The entire original bush is gone! And it was a big healthy bush. This is a word of warning SW, and one reason why getting new "gopher specialists in training" was so important to me. Just like a fruit tree will do, it started to bloom early in spring and then just shriveled up dead and fell over. I have seen a good stiff wind push over full grown fruit trees that have had all of their roots eaten away by gophers.
And I had made some cuttings, but the labels on all of my cuttings from spring 2008 had faded in the sun and I was waiting on pins and needles for many of them to bloom again so I'd know what survived that harsh winter.
I was byside myself with joy when three of them turned out to be Mood Indigo!! One of my favorites!! Now all of my specimen plants are in containers! Out in the sun, yes, but in large containers!
She just bloomed a few weeks ago.

ah the dreaded "G" they are..... truly disturbing.

Yes, I have an apple tree that would attest to that, except it's dead. :-(

Mine too, KC. : (.
Glad your Mood Indigo lives on, CatSmiling!
WIB!
SW

Chukma SW! Are you back or surfing the web from afar?
Hey, I have a new keyboard shortcut for you :-* is "I'm whistling."
Guess what :-P is for?

Yes, one year my wonderful Satsuma plum bloomed wonderfully and then just fell over in a March wind. Fortunately, I had spit out a pit one day and it had taken root. Yes, it took about seven years for it to get big enough to produce fruit, and they aren't near a huge as a real Satsuma, just about the size of a ping pong ball, but boy are they good. Like golden drops of honey. Somethings are worth the wait. Since this tree was a free gift, I have never pruned it as a traditional fruit tree should be (those are all in the front yard and shade the house). So it is now huge. It feeds allot of wildlife besides myself, ha, ha. It's on the edge of the property and on a slope, so the golden balls just roll down hill. I'll take a picture tomorrow. It looks like a Christmas tree right now, decorated with golden ornaments.

Chukma,
Cute! Being a brat?
Sounds beautiful.
Been a rough week. Camera broke. Had to have 7stitches. Hard to type one handed. Frustrating. Stitches come out the 15th, we leave a couple days later.
Still have to go over care and feeding of plants & critters with house sitter and pack.
So far, so good with the fuchsia's. Seem to be happier in bigger pots for now.
WIB,
SW

Close, it is sticking your tongue out! And :-y means "said with a smile."
What did you do to your hand!!?
As this is supposed to be about lost plants resurecting themselves, I am very pleased to discover my Chain of Hearts is still alive in with my epiphyllum's.
Alas, my wonderful little Rhipsalis finally bit the dust. Someone who was supposed to be taking care of things for me last year, didn't water many things they didn't think were important. This Rhipsalis was very dear to me. It looked like green spaghetti!!! One tiny little piece survived until just last week and then disappeared. I mean tiny, about 1/2 of an inch. Who knows how long it will take me to ever find one again. It was growing in a run down old little nursery way up in northern California. Everything had been in their pots for many years and everything was full of weeds.
So where are you going now?
:-& means tongue tied, ha, ha!

Cat Smiling

This message was edited Jul 12, 2009 11:09 AM

Try posting a photo of it in the Orchid Cactus forum and see if anyone there can spare a cutting. Is it anything like this one that my orioles like to bounce on? If so, I'll share.

Kathleen

Hi Kathleen,
Wow, you have it!!! Does the new growth sometimes have a pink tinge to it?
Is there anything of mine you'd like to have in trade?
And I was looking at hummingbird feeders the other day and considered one like yours. My orioles have learned to pull the bee gaurds off and toss them. They can drain a full feeder in a day! They have a brood to raise accross the street in a huge willow tree. So I don't mind sharing, even though they try to drive of the hummingbirds.
I was thinking of a second one for the back yard in the hopes that they wouldn't find it.
Do your hummingbirds like this style? Obviously, your orioles do :-D

Thanks! Catherine

They all use it, Catherine (such a GOOD name!). The hummers zip in and out, but they have another feeder in the front - though it's been staked out by a very selfish Anna's who won't share. Bad boy! At our other house (we didn't have so many orioles), the hummers would sometimes call a truce in the evening and have their supper together.

You have D-mail.

Kathleen

And speaking of Orchid Cactus...about eight years ago I was visiting my parents up in Grants Pass, Oregon where they retired and notice a practically dead succulent in a pot outside their front door. The snails had eaten so much of it, I wasn't even positive myself that it was an epiphyllum until I picked it up and looked at it more closely. I hadn't seen one since my years in a large nursery in the 1980's. I asked my mother if she realized what she had there and she had no idea! Someone had given it to her some time back. I talked her into letting me take it home with me and promised to bring it back once it had recovered. Which I did. By the time I brought it back, it was covered with foot long sprigs (don't know the correct term for them). Alas, she put it in the deep shade, so it never bloomed. She finally mailed me some horrible thin little springs to ask me what was wrong with it. They were thinner than pencils and limp.
I really didn't expect any of them to make it, but I put them into pots on the windowsill/shelf with my dendrobiums and they all just graduated out into the sun on the front porch to be with their brethren! Now, perhaps after all of these years, they will have a chance to bloom and I will finally see what color they are. I will post of photo if they do!

Here is a photo of another save from the dead! I used to grow three colors of Gloxinias. It is easy to grow them from cuttings when they first come up. So I used to give the new starts away as soon as they got big enough to bloom. Then I was ill for a while and all of mine disappeared one winter. I think a slug got into their pots while they were dormant and ate all of the little tubers in them. I was so shocked that spring when nothing came up! Nothing! Here is a photo of what once was.

And here is a photo of my new little start, which has come back to me via one of the people I gave a purple one to!!! I needed a sunny window for my dendrobiums, so I went HomeDepot and screwed a barbeque grill onto the window sill. I'd share a photo of them in bloom, but it wouldn't fit this category ;-)
The little furry guy is the return gloxinia.
And a generous member here at DavesGarden has replaced my Rhipsalis there behind it.

Hey imapigeon,
Are you going to the Gilroy Garlic Festival? I have wanted to do that forever!! But I have always had to work or couldn't make it for some reason or another. You are just over the hill from me. I think I am going to make it this year. Not that I need any more garlic, ha, ha! I grow my own leeks, onions, and garlic. Because one can never have enough of all three. Just gathered some leek and onion seed yesterday. But I have never had garlic ice-cream!!!!

It's a fabulous festival---all the infrastructure work is provided by volunteers who donate their working hours to their favorite charity. It's so professionally done that a lot of people don't realize that.

I volunteered directing traffic in the parking lot for 3 12-hour days for 15 years, benefiting my son's high school band & football programs, then the Rebekah Children's Home. I have made it into the festival a few times, and it's wonderful----food and crafts galore. My DH is still involved with the parking committee, and my pottery teacher will have a booth again this year. I may go, but more likely I'll leave it to our visitors to enjoy themselves!

The festival starts next Friday the 23rd, and if you can go on Friday it's a great day---less traffic and lighter crowds. Sunday is the second-best day from that aspect.

I had something unsual happen this year also. In Spring 2004 I purchased a Stachys coccinea (Scarlet Hedgenettle) from High Country Gardens. The first year it thrived. In 2005 it died back during summer. That was the last I saw of it until this year when it came back bigger than ever. It is a little inconvenient as I just planted two Rosemaries very close by. However, the hummingbirds really like it, so what the heck!!

Thanks,

Chuck

Pictures, Chuck! I will go look that one up, you have my curiosity going!
Imapigeon, this year I am going to make it and I will go this Friday! I have always loved the fact that it is all for charity. I think I will go early in the morning, I don't do well out in the heat. That is just amazing that you were able to direct traffic for 12 hour days out in that heat! I've seen the "misting" room on the news every year to cool people down, ha, ha! And I can't wait to see the flames fly when they do the cooking!

I'm hoping the marine layer will kick in for the festival. It's been absent this week for setup (and hot as blazes), but often that means the festival itself is the beneficiary because the inland heat starts to draw the fog farther in.

We had only one really horrid year when it was so hot one of my friends and I visited the CalFire tent after we shut down, and let several attrractive young firefighters mist and soothe us while they practiced their first aid skills...and it did help.....LOL!

The little gloxinia that could! He is finally going to bloom. Whew! This is a decendant from a plant given as a gift over ten years ago. Every year, it would put out two weak side shoots that I'd cut and root. When those got big enough to bloom, I'd give them away.
This little guy is all that is left, but he's doing well.