General gardening thread

[Mo]

Originally Posted by avian chaos

Bonnie, do you ever use the Like That Garden app? Geo and I take 20x longer to walk anywhere now because that app is fucking magic and now we want to know what all the plants are.

You're back

[bignothing]

So I got this in the mail today and I guess I'll be planting it by my window. Calendula.



I don't think I've planted anything since... planting beans in cotton in kindergarten? Is that a thing kids do in the US as well?



Hope it actually grows into something pretty.

[ohnoitsbonnie]

Doesn't seem like a reputable seed source but I wish you the best

[ohnoitsbonnie]

So the last thing I planted was this yellow itoh peony I got at HD when I worked there and also a pawpaw. But I don't have pics of those and they're not interesting anyway. In house plant world, one of the mini phals is putting out a bloom stalk, the Davallia fern is happy and pretty, the light pink thanksgiving cactus (but not the dark pink and yellow one ;_ has made a few buds and the maidenhair fern has yet again been cut back.

I have a lot of houseplants. Every good windowsill besides the bedroom (where the rabbit foot fern resides) has been taken up. I wish we had more space. I would like more orchids. Orchids, ferns, tropical cacti, and st paulia are my favorite kinds of house plants, and they're not toxic or attractive to kitties thankfully. The violets I just buy for a quarter when theyre marked down at the grocery store and nurse back to health (and I get consistent blooms in random colors!). Orchids take up a lot of space and you need to wait a long time for blooms but it's worth it.

[ohnoitsbonnie]

[teh b0lly!!1]

i don't know what to make of all these old threads you resurrect like that all the time

[ohnoitsbonnie]

Not stressed enough to flower profusely

[ohnoitsbonnie]

[teh b0lly!!1]

hey this is like my movie thread only.... uh. botanically!

[vixnix]

Originally Posted by ohnoitsbonnie

is that an african violet? I killed a couple of those. My gran gave me one when I asked for one, for my birthday, and she told me it needed careful attention but sadly it died

[ohnoitsbonnie]

Originally Posted by teh b0lly!!1

hey this is like my movie thread only.... uh. botanically!

Hahaha anyone is welcome to contribute

[ohnoitsbonnie]

Originally Posted by vixnix

is that an african violet? I killed a couple of those. My gran gave me one when I asked for one, for my birthday, and she told me it needed careful attention but sadly it died

Yes. I could write up a care sheet for you. One of my favorites. I nurse the 50 cent grocery store ones back to health

[teh b0lly!!1]

fwiw i wish i could just download awesome botany knowledge into my mind and go Whoa like keanu reeves, as i absolutely love anything nature related and would probably find it incredibly relaxing to engage in planting, growing and cultivating of plants, but i'm just not very interested in the theoretical knowledge behind it. i do think it's an awesome skill though.

[ohnoitsbonnie]

Anyone that invests time into understanding even a tiny bit of something bigger than them/humanity is good people in my book. I have some much respect for geologists (and find my mind wandering when I look at formations, or striations, or other such anomalies and fascinating things) yet my eyes kinda gloss over when I read a book on the subject. Not so with plants even though I have been distracted by my job and other things in life. Although I was so sort of traumatized this summer and need to get back into that mindset. Hopefully my skills aren't atrophying.

[ohnoitsbonnie]

I have not been taking classes directly related to the subject. Math classes. Maybe my zeal will return when I'm forced to be more immersed. Anyway, houseplants are neat because they're plants that live IN YOUR HOUSE! This is something that the majority of plants could not tolerate long term without much investment into lights and humidity things as well as chemicals (to be specific, pesticide and fungicide).

[ohnoitsbonnie]

From a heath bald in NC (Craggy gardens)/ Blue Ridge Pkwy. Hiked up in the cold fog (tricks of the elevation, because it was July) and saw a black bear. It was so foggy I was scared of taking a step off the mountain. All in this smol photo is Houstonia, Sibbaldopsis (something I had only seen in rare spots in NJ), carolina phlox and countless grasses or sedges that cannot be identified in the photo.

[ohnoitsbonnie]

also here is a Saxifrage lol don't ask me which one I would need to look in a book

If u know me u'd know I love the plants that survive in cracks or alpine plants or maritime plants etc. because they have it so ruff

[ohnoitsbonnie]

walking fern or Asplenium rhizophyllum

Some more tropical Asplenium make good houe plants but I have no personal experience with them

[ohnoitsbonnie]

Asarum canadense, planted, my garden


Chasmanthium found central park west probably between 90th and 105th. Likely to be progeny of a planted specimen but who knows

Cercis canadensis, planted by me in my garden

Pine barrens fen:

Cranberry, Drosera, Sphagnum, probably an orchid or two, Narthecium, Chamaecyparis thyoides (my professor said these could be 50+) years old but stunted by the conditions


Calopogon and Pogonia

[ohnoitsbonnie]

My feet got very wet taking those last ones

[ohnoitsbonnie]

Theres also some huckleberries blooming in there.

[ohnoitsbonnie]

Planted a ginger from the grocery store

[ohnoitsbonnie]

The culm seems slightly etiolated to me but it'll get more grow light I promise. Also it is still unfurling its leaves.

[ohnoitsbonnie]

I don't eat garlic bulbs only stems so I'll also be planting one of those soon for the fire escape garden. Garlic scapes are amazing

[LaBelle]

My lemons never ripen.

Not an euphemism.

[ohnoitsbonnie]

Originally Posted by LaBelle

My lemons never ripen.

Not an euphemism.

Sorry I'm not too familiar with growing citrus. This link says there's many variables: https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edi...stay-green.htm

I would use them even if they never turned the "correct" color and I have

[ohnoitsbonnie]

Vixnix's home had a calamondin or mandarin tree and her son and I made a citrus drink with them. There's no reason why they'd be inedible before ripening.

[LaBelle]

Originally Posted by ohnoitsbonnie

Sorry I'm not too familiar with growing citrus. This link says there's many variables: https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edi...stay-green.htm

I would use them even if they never turned the "correct" color and I have

That's true.
We have a sicilian lemon tree and while we can use them before they ripen, they don't taste as good as when they do.

[cork_soaker]

Originally Posted by ohnoitsbonnie

So I decided to grow sweetpeas this year.

It being that our family has recently found ourselves with a bit of yard under our feet (land standers), I've begun the immensely pleasurable occupation of figuring out what to do with it, plant-wise. I have, essentially, no idea how to go about it. But I love the "wild," unkempt garden look, where flowering plants crowd against each other, spilling into pathways and winding up and over fences and such — and so have been doing some research on how to achieve something like that.

I did plant some sweet peas because they remind me of my grandmother, and have some nasturtiums starting out at some of the edges and corners. I'm too wary to go to the local nursery at the moment, but am amassing quite a virtual shopping cartful of perennial seeds. It's a lot of fun to think about (I find myself turning to the Garden Fantasy Channel when those pre-sleep thoughts about the real world come a-knocking), and I love the experimental aspect and the casual learning involved.

The quarantine is nice in that I can wander our into the modest mud flat that is currently the back yard to squat and stare at the ground nearly every quarter hour or so, all day long, every day for the foreseeable future, assessing various matters of importance ("Were these teal unisex polymer clogs the best choice?").

Built some raised beds, too, but there's no dirt in them yet. Where does the dirt come from? There are the questions I lovingly wrestle with, day in and day out. Does one dig it up from another part of the yard? And what to do with the resulting crater(s)? Fill them with water to entice local amphibians? Whom amongst us can sleep with such croaking and chirping? Then where to procure frog poison under such circumstances? How does the water even stay in the hole?

Every stone in the garden path is a step toward inevitable madness.

[Alice]

I’d just like to say that this is exactly the kind of content I was hoping the current state of the world might inspire more of on this board. Thanks for posting