I think there might be cooler weather coming. Someday, anyway... I need to get all the little - and big - pots of plants in the GROUND! Plus I need to move this there and that here...
But FIRST, of course, I have to DIG and work in the compost and the Nature's helper and the Black Kow and dig and dig and dig to make happy homes for all these plants...
Actually, first I have to figure out where they are going to go.
When the temp gets over 90 all work stops but soon... maybe...
How about you? Do you have lots of plants that need to be planted? Bring me the Absorbine Jr Liniment...
too many plants still in pots!
I'll try this again. I think DG has some kinks on preview and going back.
I've been working on a huge chip pile from trees we had taken down in late June. Two very large pines, several tall poplars, sweet gums, and some smaller trees I had taken down myself made a mountain of chips.
Pots (500 or so) are mostly houseplants and will have to be cleaned up of mud, debris, and bugs I can see before they get hauled back into the basement and garage for winter. Maybe next year I will get a huge greenhouse so I can keep the mud inside that structure instead of the basement.
I've been using Icy Hot on my achy neck. Shame that they stopped making it in stick form. Capzasin-P is another great product but it kicks in when you least expect it to. Any sweat or sun shining on the spots you apply it to seem to activate it.
Here was the start of the pile.
The pile after the fence went in and spreading it began.
The pile is down to two garden carts (14 CF garden cart) worth now. After that is done, then it will be on to more clearing of the lot.
The large pine coming down.
Timber!!
good luck Butch!
Sterhill,
do you have clay or is your soil already prepared?
It's a mix - I keep amending and the clay keeps pushing up! So some digging is hard and some a bit easier... The woods areas I have to contend with lots of roots.
Yep. You should see my pot ghetto!! I have plants/shrubs that have been in pots for 2 years now waiting for the back yard to be fixed up, or someone to buy the house next to us and cut down the line of weed trees that grows on the other property (I got rid of all that where on ours.). It's stuff like suckering privit, and re-seeding junk....I can't plant my lovely new shrubs until that is gone... I just keep potting them up in size. Some where a gallon and now are 3 gallon size!!
GGG
There is a point where you either have to plant it in the ground, start root pruning, or risk losing it. I have several conifers and Japanese Maples in pots for 2 or more years. I've lost a nice large cryptomeria and two metasequoia so far and two of the Japanese maples have dropped most of their leaves due to lack of water. I had a hydrangea P.G. in a pot for 4 years and finally planted it last year. It hasn't grown much (maybe it is permanently stunted?) but it is happier in the ground than the pot - a lot greener and bushier.
The one thing I am reluctant to plant is bamboo. I have three 22 inch pots of bamboo and won't be putting them in the ground anytime soon. I may have to move these up to 36 inch pots next.
Here is one plant I finally put in the ground at the old house after being in a concrete urn for years. Now I wish I had kept it in a pot to move here. It more than doubled in size in just a couple of years (golden weeping deodar cedar).
500 pots???? And I thought I had a lot! I have nothing compared to you! I am thinking about sharing with some of my flower loving neighbors because I don't want to bring all of these indoors when it does decide to get cold.
I have a little storage room under the house with shelves and electricity that I may use as a greenhouse. It has no artifiicial light though.
I would say around 500. I set up the basement and garage last year with 5 wooden benches 8 foot long, 2 foot deep and 10 chrome shelving units (the ones you get at Sam's). There are over 60 shop lights on around 12 hours a day. It does seem a bit crazy (stupid) to have this many but I'm not addicted. Just like them a lot and can't live without them. So far, my wife hasn't kicked me out of the house but has put her foot down on bringing any into the living area. So there are 5 AV's in the bathroom, 4 begonias in the kitchen/living room, 1 streptocarpus in the living room, and I can usually bring the biggest aloe pot into the living room and maybe one agave in the dining room for winter.
Then I see some of the people in California and Florida where they can grow things outdoors year round and still have 1000's of potted plants.
Here are two of the wooden benches I made.
GGG - Don't wait for that house to be sold. The new owner may not do what you want. Call the realtor and see if you can get permission to whack 'em yourself and plant shrubbery. I cannot think that any developer/owner wouldn't approve of that, since it enhances property value. Boy do I wish we'd done that instead of waiting. A new subdivision went in next to us, and 3 properties' back yards abut our lot. Two of the new owners have just trashed their back yards, making our own look awful. We've planted some evergreens as screening, but it's going to be a while before it looks decent. So, don't wait! Sheila
Hi hcmcdole - I am vastly impressed! That looks wonderful!
I have a very small set up in my laundry room for over-wintering with lights - your looks like Disneyland compared to mine...
That's beautiful!
Sterling
Thanks Sterling. I went from a smaller house where I overwintered all my houseplants in the garage. I then put in a greenhouse (14'x18') which looked huge at the time. It took about two years to pack it and then the spillover went into one side of the garage so my wife could park her car. The next year it got worse and the additional plants went in the barn/shed with a new kerosene heater that worked erratically. I lost a lot of bromeliads that year (3 years ago) due to a faulty heater. We then moved to a new house with lots of space and with the intention of adding a much bigger greenhouse than the previous one. With two house payments, the greenhouse was put on hold, so the first year was pretty dismal - few lights and hardly any shelving. Last winter I went into overdrive building shelves and adding lights (added some electrical outlets to the big utility room) and used X10 controls for the timers (computer control via USB to the controller and wireless to the modules) which is a lot better than the controllers they sell at Lowes.
The biggest problem I see now is humidity. The air just dries out too quickly.
Here is a chrome shelf in a smaller room which is great for shorter plants. I used the cheapest shop light fixtures, six way power strips, and middle of the road bulbs. Wire wraps hold the fixtures in place.
