Plant Propagation the Basics Oct - 2015

Here we are

From http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1404577/

Oh , Penstemon seeds

wow! dats a lot of penstemon.. I did not have one single seed sprout this year, I heard it takes up to 3 years... I might be dead by then ,, sheesh!
I have about that many dames rocket , gaura, and obedient plant seeds, tho..

Debra I will see what I have , I am moving some today ,
My Guara does not do a lot of seeds , plant is growing and still blooming , Nice airy little plant when there are bunches of them ,

I can't even find the seeds on my Guara, so you guys are ahead of me.

Ju.... what color are your penstemons? Are those all from your garden? Nancy

Nancy They are dark Towers" yes , the plants came from Santa Rosa Gardens about 5 or six years ago to start with it is pink and white bloom , red foliage with enough Sun ,

Seeds become Huskers Red , when they grow , My plants are from Runners and cuttings no seed grown by myself yet ,

Thumbnail by juhur7 Thumbnail by juhur7
Click an image for an enlarged view.

Read more: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1394041/#ixzz3oDCXlnck
You can see them here Nancy , Earlier this season
Their in my June 3 posts on the thread , two photo's of only them , A bunch of posts that day .

This message was edited Oct 10, 2015 7:51 PM

Wonder why my post didn't show? Should have been the first one after you started this JU. Sorry. Wasn't avoiding you. jen

my giant wild Gaura is blooming again after being cut back twice. It is every bit if 4 ft tall still. Crazy! All from a few seeds I gathered out in the country. now, I have tons and tons of seeds if you want any. I wold have been to the roof if I hadn't taken two ft off when I thought is was a weed but wasn't sure, and it immediately bloomed. cut again another two feet for the seed stems ( they were starting to drop) so I was very surprised to see new buds and now blooms. the bees are all over this thing during the day. the 3rd pic is in June,( i HAD JUST CUT IT DOWN., behind the tall phlox. It was growing the same rate as the rose of sharon it was next to I think. it was in full bloom in aUGUST, I MUST BE TIRED, sorry caps lock. last pic is August .

I planted over 1000 seeds of standing cypress, and got one tall stem in that area.. I did not cut the dried seeds off I want it to spread naturally.

Debra I read your post early this morning while I was sleepy , Really nice now that I am awake I can see the photo's , lol
Here are about a Half dozen rooted cuttings Penstemon packed together
I am waiting to dig up the Chicory , terrible to try and move those are ,Penstemons are easy ,
They all look green and ratty this time of year here

Most things look that way this time of year JU. I've been trying to get Bob to go out and empty my annuals from the planters on the deck. Guess I will have to get moving first. That always seems to get him to do it, if I start in. Thats ok. I can do that. Think the annuals only have roots 4 inches deep don't they? Maybe I'll try to save half the potting mix in the pots this year. That would be nice.

That is a giant Guara Debra, I sure hope mine doesn't get that big. I also love the Penstemon Dark Towers, I was at a nursery last year looking at it and some seeds fell in my pocket, lol. I love it when that happens.

I'm such a nerd though. I had to ask permission first if the seeds could follow me home.

Jen, you sure know how to get things done. I do the same thing (inadvertently), I start a project like replacing the soffit and fascia, inevitably my DH feels compelled to contribute.

Mipii Dark Towers is the Hybrid form , the seeds make Husker's Red , looks a lot similar ,
As before , a thing that is , only they are all great , my Beardstongue . the Penstemon everyone thinks is a foxglove , is not showing in my garden ,leaves or anything , That put on a show early this year , love the penstemons , wonderful, easy plant ,

I forgot , the Guara here is still blooming , only not showy , thinly spreading , pretty airy blooms anyway .

This message was edited Oct 11, 2015 9:08 PM

Okay, fine...I don't have Dark Tower seeds. Isn't there a chance like one in 50 is Dark Towers, or will they all be Huskers Red?

Seeds of all of them , started from a North American native Penstemon Husker's Red is most common happen from seeds .
You can get any one of FIVE species , of Penstemon . from the seeds , (possible)
Hybrids can occur naturally or variation
I know you know , I am just typing , about reading this many times ,
it is the , Boston , Fern , from sword Fern thing , lol anything might , Mutation since the first are many , you know ,
Was not picking on you Robin , only yaking the same old same old .

Don't you believe it Robin. He hasn't picked on me for a long time now Robin, so it's your turn. He has to get is juices running to pick, pick, pick. That makes him feel good. LOL, huh JU. That's ok, as Sharon would say, :"we old women can take it." We need him to keep us kicking.

I know other people are reading this and may have had the same questions you just answered. You're very good at sharing your knowledge, I can't thank you enough. Yak away...

I agree Jen, and perhaps he needs us to keep him kicking, sounds mutually beneficial to me.

He seems to be awfully quiet tonight Mipii. Think he is either hunting for a good comeback, or on to someone else he can pick on. I doubt that. Think the first. Well, just an hour. That's not bad. >grin< Should be good. LOL

That last thread was amazing! hello from Texas.

Hello all the way to Texas Gypsi!

Yes ..and a Hi ya Gypsi

Actually , I have been cleaning seeds , I get bored with that though ,, Love growing them when the energy is here with me ,
Jen accusing me of being quiet ,, lol what a thing ,
Fell back asleep . Have more seeds to go pick pods of . bagging a couple every evening . not real fast ,

Darn it!! Just lost another post.

Hi Gypsi, what thread was amazing? I would like to see it.

You are from Fort Worth, isn't that in the Northern Texas? I stopped at Dallas/Fort Worth airport one time on a trip home. Think it was in the North, unless I was asleep and dreamed it. You don't have a zone on your profile so it's hard to know, or even guess what you can grow there. I know, that doesn't always help, but sometimes.

JU, you will have to post pictures of your seeds every once in a while before you start giving them away. Most of you have probably seen them, but it is amazing what he does. Probably not to Debra. I think she must do the same thing.

Well, it's Monday morning, time to put out fires that popped up over the weekend, like the garbage disposal still sitting here in my livingroom that didn't get installed 'cause the plumber was sick. Hope he is better. When he disinfected my well a couple weeks ago he had had pneumonia. Hope he didn't have a relapse 'cause he started working too soon.

Jen We have the cleanout being snaked this afternoon , strange these similarities

Hmmm Seeds .

1 hibiscus syrica pods
2 orangeglo
3 Hibiscus Dinner plate
4 Stargazer bubils lilium
5 marigold pod Tall

The last thread in this string: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1404577/

was amazing. I am indeed in north Texas, don't have a zone because I don't know what zone I am in and every time I pick one mother nature changes her mind.

We have a couple of functional zones here. In the cities the temps do not get as cold in the winter, and moisture is easier to come by. We have members in Arlington and Irving who can keep things alive that I can't. I live at the south edge of Fort Worth near Crowley, and it is more prairie, sun and baking heat in summer. Cockroaches are rare out here, it is just too dry. Lizards snakes and salamanders, carpenter ants and grasshoppers are the pest. And the heat and the dry. I have 3 ponds so I am a haven for birds, frogs and whoever else wanders by, last year I had at least 3 carolina or red eared sliders, they showed up when the creek went dry.

I don't do many raised beds or don't raise them far, they just bake and die. The upper end of my lot even with 10 inches of rain my wildflowers only got 2 inches tall as the rain just ran down the hill and didn't soak in, so I am playing around with permaculture wales to try and get more penetration. The drought has been here off and on, more on than off, since 2005. It rained in late 2006, some in 07, 08, and 09. Snowed winter of 09/2010, then the drought turned back on again and it didn't rain really until this May. 10 inches in the 25 days it rained. I have lost trees and shrubs and have a do I try to save situation going on with a 15 year old queen elizabeth rose I started from a cutting so it isn't a graft and I know it has deep roots.

Propagation used to be easy, take a cutting, stick it in the ground in November, the fall and winter rains started the willow tree that died in 2005, the abelias, and my queen elizabeth roses. No rooting hormone or anything. My soil is good. It once had a lot of microbes. The parts I can afford to water still do. I compost a lot too.

I had a greenhouse built at the end of 2011 for a couple of reasons, propagation was one, rescuing the foundation at the back of my garage by creating a protected zone with greywater constantly added from my kitchen sink, and to do aquaponics, raising food using fish as fertilizer was another. So I can do a bit of propagation. But I am not familiar with winterplanting stuff. And my zone. It will hit 97 here today. In the winter it gets colder than it does in town but I don't think it has ever gotten below 5 degrees Fahrenheit.

Gipsi How interesting the different problems we face. I lived for a while in Flower Mound and Dallas, did no significant gardening there except when I couldn't stand Air Conditioned apartment living I would sometimes go to my sister's House and whack at her shrubs. It never lasted long due to the heat and the fire ants!
Anyway I recall reading that botanically, Dallas to Fort Worth is just a few miles, but it is the border of the humid east and the dry western part of the state. So your zone difference is quite real!
I would like to see your greenhouse?

I lived in Mesquite in 1970 yes ,, I agree , a very hot place in Summer , Beautiful place ,
Horned toads were like a plague of frogs at that time , Black widows , disturbed from construction from fields were everywhere , and the Tarantula were pretty , The part where they wanted to hang out with you on the porch was not so good ,

Sadly our horned frogs are gone - killed by construction (habitat loss) and fire ants. Photos from the inside and last year. I will have to take some new ones as I work with the new shelves I have. I was using gutters over a stock tank and trying to raise plants aquaponically and it so did not work out, except for bog plants for ponds and some duck weed. When I had it built in October of 2011 it was originally to have a plant area above a chicken run, as the winter before I and my hens nearly froze to death with them in their winter coop The chick pics are under the bench in their toasty warm run when I was raising winter chicks in November 2011. Construction was Oct 23 of 2011. Last December's aquaponics experiment wasn't a lot more successful than 2013 but I am doing a bit better now, still more to change.

I always enjoy hearing how the rest of you guys live and with. Like the snakes, etc. But you call them things I don't know what they are. Like Carolina or red sliders? I envision snakes etc. Also, the problems/or not you have growing different things.

JU, I mean those bags of seeds you end up with after getting the chafe out all winter. LOL, it is amazing. I always thing you are running your own seed company.

Think I can top you now JU., I just now got a call from my neighbor telling me that she and her husband were 4 wheeling up on the back of our property, there are power lines across all of our properties, and they found a big pile of garbage on my property. Bicycles and everything. Someone has been piling stuff there. Can you believe that? How in the hell are we suppose to get it off there. The people on the North of us have a gate across there on their property so they are the only ones that can get thru. The one that called me (they live on the south of me) said it was very definitely on my property. She called the sheriff and they gave her an 800 number to call and they will send someone out to go thru the garbage to try to tie it to someone. Otherwise I am stuck cleaning it up. I have 40 acres (all treed) so it is probably several acres away from the house. But, she couldn't report it. Has to be the owner. me.

I'm telling you, people are rotten. Just what I need. Bob is going to take the 4 wheeler and go up there tomorrow, with the camera, and see what exactly it is. She said it was a huge pile.

We crossposted Gypsi. It is amazing what we do for our plants and animals isn't it? I was looking at your pictures and reading what you wrote at the same time. Trying to figure out what you were doing. Wlhat did you have built in October of 2011? Is there any way you can put your light (florescent) on chains and drop it down over your seeds? I normally have my lights within 3 or 4 inches of my seeds. And in the house. Some like my petunias and tomatoes on a heat mat.

If you had the lights on chains you could raise and lower them as the plants grow. Yes, your chix look like they are very comfortable. What is the violet colored light you have on them? How many do you have?

Your plumbing for the aquaponics is very interesting. Looks like something I, or JU, would have done. huh JU????

Red eared or Carolina sliders are turtles, the pond they have been in is not fenced, and they can get in and out fairly easily. I think they went back to the creek when it rained in May. My neighbor's kid brought me 4 crayfish for that pond when they were swimming up my street. I don't know if they stayed, it is the wild pond, I raise lilies, bog plants and mosquito fish in it. I run a pond service, I sell all 3 now and then.

. The snakes that I am always chasing out are rat snakes in the chicken coops or diamond backed water snakes out of the ponds. I now have a snake trap aka minnow trap in each pond and that has helped a lot, and a net to trap them around the perimeter of the ponds. Haven't lost many fish this year, and I sulfur the fenceline.

Greenhouse was built Oct 23, 2011 (found a photo but not a good one, and that was the date it was taken) I need to get longer chains for the lights. I do have one heat mat.

The aquaponics plumbing was way too complicated, very hard to control where water went and way too much evaporation, I went to a smaller pump and a single tube laying on the expanded shale from it this summer and that has done much better. Still needs work

The red light over the chicks is a heat lamp. Presently I have 10 old hens, all moulting in one stage or another, so if I get 2 eggs a day I was lucky. The pen in the greenhouse is rodent proof and now weasel proof, I lost about 17 birds to a weasel in 2012, including part of the ones in the picture and all but 2 of the black australorp chicks I got in may of 2012. Only weasel sighting in North Texas in years. After I weasel proofed my pens and left my dogs out for 3 weeks he decided to move on

I have heard they are real bad for chix. When my sister and her sons built her chicken coop and run, they first laid either hardware cloth of some kind of small wire down. Very expensive, I am sure, but don't know which is worse doing that, or putting a lot of food in them for a long time and then losing them. Also, my sister, like you I am sure, was just heartsick to think of losing any of hers that way.

That weasel got about 5 birds at a time, one night my dog had to go out and we interrupted him and he only got 2. they can go through any opening a golf ball will fit through, and that last interrupted time had slipped through a spot where the layers of chickenwire overlapped. They are however wild and endangered so rather than killing him I just seriously "proofed" my coop. It worked, because a weasel generally doesn't move on until you run out of chickens.
The birds I have lost since have been heat stroke and old age. not as gory for sure.

Wow Gypsi, thanks for sharing. There is a lot to learn raising fowl. Last summer I took the whole season off and volunteered at a nursery, it was also a farm. I got the chance to get up and personal with some farm animals (including feathered ones). What a treat it was to learn and observe.

They had a villain in their story too, I think it was a coyote.

Where have all the flowers gone ??? Yikes !!!



Oh My , BIG Sigh ,,,

Jnette a long time ago people were dumping on the property of a place I was renting with some other college students. The owner was a sick old lady, so we didn't bother her with it. We went through the trash, found mail so we knew who was doing it. One Saturday we took several large carloads of it over at about 6 am, carefully spread it all over their lawn, and left a note saying they had apparently "lost" their belongings and we were returning them. Dumping ceased.

I love it Pistil!

Definitely a How To !!! ,