GMG Green Thumb Club

[Kalevala]

I feel your pain. I came to the conclusion some time ago that nature is king, not us, and sometimes conditions beyond our control lead to success or otherwise. I read an article recently which initially I thought bonkers, that the best time to sow seeds is at a full moon! Something is going on though.
We can kill with kindness. Potting up my 45 tomato plants I thought it a good idea to add a small amount of blood, fish and bone. NOT a good idea! My most valuable crop did not look happy one bit. In a panic I spent hours re-potting sans my unhelpful addition and now thankfully toms have recovered and I'm suitably chastened.
I would replant your Indian Holly Fern and then leave it alone as maybe it will be happier that way.   

I wonder if it might have just been initial transplant shock?

By the way have you planted your rose yet?

Happy to see that my mint (your basic spearmint sort) survived; I thought that I had lost it.  Am thinking about moving it to a different part of the garden which gets some shade.  At the moment it's between some flagstones on a path that I attempted to create in my garden.  I'm thinking that it's getting baked too much there and I'd really like to get a bigger patch of it.

Sorely tempted to grow some tomatoes this year as I miss them.  The trick is:  how to keep chipmunks from getting at them!

K

[Irons]

I wonder if it might have just been initial transplant shock?

By the way have you planted your rose yet?

Happy to see that my mint (your basic spearmint sort) survived; I thought that I had lost it.  Am thinking about moving it to a different part of the garden which gets some shade.  At the moment it's between some flagstones on a path that I attempted to create in my garden.  I'm thinking that it's getting baked too much there and I'd really like to get a bigger patch of it.

Sorely tempted to grow some tomatoes this year as I miss them.  The trick is:  how to keep chipmunks from getting at them!

K

They had more of a shock shaking blood, fish and bone from roots, K. Tomatoes are fully recovered and happy now. They are resilient plants although sensitive to temperatures below 10c.

Rose in. I now have access to huge mountain of well rotted horse manure so rose has a good start to life.

Mint is tough, in fact can be if conditions allow, a thug. Thrives in wet conditions.     

[Kalevala]

They had more of a shock shaking blood, fish and bone from roots, K. Tomatoes are fully recovered and happy now. They are resilient plants although sensitive to temperatures below 10c.

Rose in. I now have access to huge mountain of well rotted horse manure so rose has a good start to life.

Mint is tough, in fact can be if conditions allow, a thug. Thrives in wet conditions.     

Out of curiosity, were the additives all dehydrated, etc. (I would guess)?

Mint has done better when trying to escape down the hill (amongst groundcover) towards the neighbor's house! lol  I do love it and am trying to find a place to keep it happy.   

K

[Irons]

Out of curiosity, were the additives all dehydrated, etc. (I would guess)?

Mint has done better when trying to escape down the hill (amongst groundcover) towards the neighbor's house! lol  I do love it and am trying to find a place to keep it happy. 

K

Blood, fish and bone is a staple feed in gardens and veg plots. Mixed in a light granular form.

[Mandryka]

I won't use Blood,Fish and Bone because it attracts foxes, who wreak havoc.

[ultralinear]

I won't use Blood,Fish and Bone because it attracts foxes, who wreak havoc.

Same here.

When I first moved out from the city and was planting a new garden, at first I continued to use bone meal to stimulate root growth, only to find next morning that all my new plantings had been excavated overnight and cast aside.  I even have to be careful with compost in case the smell of decay encourages animals to dig down in search of something edible, which nowadays I try to mask under a surface layer of original topsoil.  For roots I use the mycorrhizal fungi granules which have shown good results with no apparent downsides.

[Kalevala]

Yesterday, I spent several hours planting some seeds.  Took longer than I had thought as I had to also make some diagrams just so I would know what I had planted where.  Set up my grow lights and heating pads and will keep my fingers crossed.

We've finally been giving some respite from all of the rain, so I hope to get some work done outside today (if it's not too soggy).

K

[ultralinear]

We've finally been giving some respite from all of the rain, so I hope to get some work done outside today (if it's not too soggy).

K

We've pretty much forgotten what proper rain is like - only a couple of very light brief showers since February to barely wet the ground.    The soil still has some moisture below the surface and nothing seems to be suffering greatly (yet) - and some things seem positively to be thriving.  E.g, azaleas -




Never much to show from them previously, but this year they've really perked up.

I also have a couple of young Lombardy poplars which haven't shown much enthusiasm before now, only grudgingly squeezing out a bit of growth right at the end of each season - until this year, it seems, when they've already put on a foot and appear to be heading for the sky, which is what these notoriously thirsty trees were supposed to do when I planted them 4 years ago.  I can't quite figure it out.  I don't know if they were simply taking their time over deciding if they liked it here (plants do this), or maybe this is their response to me giving up on them and leaving them to grow or die, whatever they wanted.

[Mandryka]

I also have a couple of young Lombardy poplars which haven't shown much enthusiasm before now, only grudgingly squeezing out a bit of growth right at the end of each season - until this year, it seems, when they've already put on a foot and appear to be heading for the sky, which is what these notoriously thirsty trees were supposed to do when I planted them 4 years ago.  I can't quite figure it out.  I don't know if they were simply taking their time over deciding if they liked it here (plants do this), or maybe this is their response to me giving up on them and leaving them to grow or die, whatever they wanted.

I think this is a  common phenomenon, I've certainly encountered it  frequently. They spend their energy at first putting roots down and only later put on  growth above ground.

[Kalevala]

We've pretty much forgotten what proper rain is like - only a couple of very light brief showers since February to barely wet the ground.    The soil still has some moisture below the surface and nothing seems to be suffering greatly (yet) - and some things seem positively to be thriving.  E.g, azaleas -




Never much to show from them previously, but this year they've really perked up.

I also have a couple of young Lombardy poplars which haven't shown much enthusiasm before now, only grudgingly squeezing out a bit of growth right at the end of each season - until this year, it seems, when they've already put on a foot and appear to be heading for the sky, which is what these notoriously thirsty trees were supposed to do when I planted them 4 years ago.  I can't quite figure it out.  I don't know if they were simply taking their time over deciding if they liked it here (plants do this), or maybe this is their response to me giving up on them and leaving them to grow or die, whatever they wanted.

I know, it seems like more often than not these days were dealing with extreme weather variations.  Your garden looks lovely by the way.  What is that fir(?) next to your azaleas?  Is it a low grower?  I do like the contrast between the grey and the pink/green.

Didn't get much done outside today however I did clean up the mess from my potting!  Also, planted some fennel seeds today as I do love fresh fennel bulbs.    Lots to do outside; I'll have to make an early start of it tomorrow.

K

[ultralinear]

What is that fir(?) next to your azaleas?  Is it a low grower?

Yes it's a dwarf pine, about 4 feet high, couldn't tell you the exact species.

[Kalevala]

Yes it's a dwarf pine, about 4 feet high, couldn't tell you the exact species.

Like the pagoda too!  Nice job!  Is your garden/yard strictly ornamental or do you also have a veg garden and/or herbs?  In any event, it looks very peaceful.

K

[ultralinear]

Is your garden/yard strictly ornamental or do you also have a veg garden and/or herbs?

There's an area for herbs outside the kitchen, but otherwise it's ornamental, with an emphasis on naturalism.  In part this is a response to the destruction around us.  When we came here this was a farming village, with farmworkers' cottages that had actual farmworkers living in them.  Everywhere was very green, lots of trees.  This all changed about 15 years ago when the developers arrived, since when a pattern has been established: each house that comes up for sale ends up being demolished, the site levelled completely, and two or three large houses squeezed in, with any remaining ground mostly paved over plus maybe the odd small square of grass.  The destruction of habitat creates wave after wave of wildlife refugees looking for a home, which we try to accommodate with what we hope is a benign environment - and what doesn't live here will move through in search of food, so I'm not sure that growing vegetables would be a practical option.  We do have some fruit trees amongst the ornamental, but the interval between fruit ripening and being plundered by animals is very narrow so one has to be vigilant.  A couple of years ago my partner's favourite Discovery apple tree was stripped in a night, and all the fruit stacked neatly around the base - we can only assume, by squirrels (they do like their apples.)

[Iota]

There's an area for herbs outside the kitchen, but otherwise it's ornamental, with an emphasis on naturalism.  In part this is a response to the destruction around us.  When we came here this was a farming village, with farmworkers' cottages that had actual farmworkers living in them.  Everywhere was very green, lots of trees.  This all changed about 15 years ago when the developers arrived, since when a pattern has been established: each house that comes up for sale ends up being demolished, the site levelled completely, and two or three large houses squeezed in, with any remaining ground mostly paved over plus maybe the odd small square of grass.  The destruction of habitat creates wave after wave of wildlife refugees looking for a home, which we try to accommodate with what we hope is a benign environment - and what doesn't live here will move through in search of food, so I'm not sure that growing vegetables would be a practical option.  We do have some fruit trees amongst the ornamental, but the interval between fruit ripening and being plundered by animals is very narrow so one has to be vigilant.  A couple of years ago my partner's favourite Discovery apple tree was stripped in a night, and all the fruit stacked neatly around the base - we can only assume, by squirrels (they do like their apples.)

What a heartening tale! Lovely to hear, I applaud you. I like your pagoda too! 

[Kalevala]

There's an area for herbs outside the kitchen, but otherwise it's ornamental, with an emphasis on naturalism.  In part this is a response to the destruction around us.  When we came here this was a farming village, with farmworkers' cottages that had actual farmworkers living in them.  Everywhere was very green, lots of trees.  This all changed about 15 years ago when the developers arrived, since when a pattern has been established: each house that comes up for sale ends up being demolished, the site levelled completely, and two or three large houses squeezed in, with any remaining ground mostly paved over plus maybe the odd small square of grass.  The destruction of habitat creates wave after wave of wildlife refugees looking for a home, which we try to accommodate with what we hope is a benign environment - and what doesn't live here will move through in search of food, so I'm not sure that growing vegetables would be a practical option.  We do have some fruit trees amongst the ornamental, but the interval between fruit ripening and being plundered by animals is very narrow so one has to be vigilant.  A couple of years ago my partner's favourite Discovery apple tree was stripped in a night, and all the fruit stacked neatly around the base - we can only assume, by squirrels (they do like their apples.)

I struggle with animals in my own garden.  That said, I'm really sorry to hear of the changes in your area.  Animals need space/territory/migration routes, etc.  There are things, I suspect, that you can do to protect your trees.  Chipmunks do damage to my (small amount) of tomato plants; trying to figure out better (netting?) protection.

I ordered some seeds recently for mini-romaine type lettuces.  It turns out that I'll be getting more than I had initially thought.  I'll try and preserve some of them, but I think that I'll need to give some away. 

K