Gardening, Part 2

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I like @anon67050589’s idea of sharing with your neighbors. Eastern Redbuds are my favorite early spring tree - pretty and don’t make me sneeze!

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In my yard (North Alabama) they don’t need any help or pampering. They self seed everywhere. It’s a constant battle to dig them up before the taproot and the lateral anchoring root get strong. I love them over on the edge of the wooded areas in my neighborhood, just not so much in my yard.

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Have you been hand pollinating? We get so many peppers in large part bc we have so many bees and wasps and such in our yard. But if you are growing indoors, you may need to hand pollinate. If you don’t know how: take a small, soft , and clean paintbrush or makeup brush and brush gently into each flower, one after another. I do this with strawberries sometimes. Those are compound fruits, so if the entire set of flowers on each stem isn’t pollinated, they grow in funky shapes.

I wish you a full harvest of peppers :hot_pepper:

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Not really… I did shake the plant a bit… one guy who makes aerogarden videos had success with that method… Apparently that worked? I can see two peppers growing to a decent size now. The thing has a very large number of flowers, so we’ll see how many peppers I get out of the thing.

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I think shaking will work if you have a turbulent airflow, problem is most pollen is deactivated by water, so if it gets wet it won’t work. Kii’s suggestion for hand pollinating does work, I’ve done peaches and cherries that way, but it sure is more reliable when the insects get it done :slight_smile:

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Yeah, tulip poplars are like that around here. Even after spreading mulch in one area im still plucking seedlings…
Currently no red buds on the property, so who knows they may display similar exuberance if they get established.

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I have a small ornamental tulip poplar, but it doesn’t seed at all. My pesky plant is your well-behaved one, and vice versa.

If you decide you need more redbud seedlings/saplings, I’ll dig and ship. Same for crape myrtles, false indigo, spiderwort and daylilies.

(Just kidding, but only because of shipping costs…)

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Water usually isn’t a problem, since it’s a hydroponic system. I think it’s set up close to an air vent, so that might be pretty turbulent. I might give the hand pollinating a try with some of the other flowers, but in addition to the two that are growing, I’m seeing at least 3 or 4 more that are starting to grow.

Yes, but I don’t want bees in my house! :smile:

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I swap you for all my multiflora roses and wine berries!

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Ugh. Crepe myrtles are damned zombie trees. We didn’t poison the one we removed, though I did dig out all the roots I could find in 2 hours of solid sifting and digging. Yet we still have the roots trying to make a tree again 2 years later.

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Life finds a way.

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Can confirm. Also they self seed like the redbuds and send up suckers from their roots.

Hollies can also be pretty monstrous IMO. We removed a bunch of various species and sizes of Chinese hollies over 5 years ago, all with horrible stabby leaves that take years to decay, and like you with the crape myrtles, I’m still attacking new sprouts from the roots I either didn’t find or couldn’t remove because they were too large and/or deep. And I DID try to poison them, drilling into the roots and pouring undiluted stump killer into them. Oh, and same with leatherleaf mahonias - nasty!

The neighbor’s golden rain trees across the street send every.single.one of their seeds into my yard, and every.single.one of them germinates, but at least they are comparatively easy to pull up, even after they get a little size on them.

I love trees, I really do. Just not these.

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I like crepe myrtles. I just wish they weren’t so aggressive! The one we removed was planted literally a foot from the corner of the house. The planners did that with every house in the neighborhood like they thought they were bushes and not trees. We now have a much more suitable Pride of Barbados/Phoenix/Fire bush with sunflowers, Echinacea, cosmos, and other wild flowers.

We also have a Mexican redbud we planted in the back. Here is hoping it isn’t as seedling-mad as the eastern variety!

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You eventually get a bush if you cut a crepe myrtle tree down enough times. And some varieties do grow in bush form.

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A lot of neighbors chop off their heads every year in late winter. Very ugly and sad looking. The variety planted here are definitely on the tree side of the size spectrum and they have to be severely cut to keep the size down. Not a good variety for flower beds right next to the house and most of them have been trimmed to form bare trunks instead of bush-like. I’ll have to get pics of the crepe-murder next February

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Maybe not quite the right thread, but I loved this side-by-side of the same Red River Gum 130 years apart. The scar is where the local Meru people cut a bark canoe on the banks of the Murray River, around the mid-C19th.

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And from your WIkipedia link, I learned that River Red Gum trees provide habitat for an Australian bird called the Superb parrot. Take that, Superb owl!

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Barney’s Farm - Skywalker Og Strain - Auto Fem… Tiny plant, but big buds.

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I have no wonderful crop pics for you good folks, as my allotment is on a slope and facing south, so even the sweetcorn, which has been abundant for the last few years, has already gone to head at two-feet tall.

However, we do have a well…

So, top tip for today’s blistering heat, get yourself a scaffolder’s trug…

And then do the watering.

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The hotel in which I’m staying has a small garden, which if you believe the signs (and I don’t) they use to supplement the kitchen fruits and vegetables. I think with some minor effort they could make this a very productive space.

I just wanted to tend to it so badly!

The bees in the garden are crowded on the outside of the apiary because of the heat today.

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