Anyone into gardening here?

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Wife trapped bunny #3 this evening and we took a trip to the park to release it to be with its siblings. No more snacking on our fresh veggie seedlings for these guys.

My Canadian hardy cactus is in year 3 now. It's spread and despite having a big hole in one of the main paddles of one bit it's branching nicely. It also grows surprisingly fast when it gets warm. Hoping it will flower again this year. I planted some hardy succulents alongside it and one of those is flowering already.

Project #367 for this summer is to try to get a dragon fruit cactus to grow up. I bought it on sale from a greenhouse as it looked cool. It's a climbing cactus that grows aerial roots and will climb supports. It also prefers humid areas like rainforests etc and will sometimes give you dragonfruit when mature. The plant I bought had about 20 “heads” so I plan to divide it up into smaller plants to see if I can get them to grow and mature. They will be brought inside for the winter.
 
JC99 said:
Wife trapped bunny #3 this evening and we took a trip to the park to release it to be with its siblings. No more snacking on our fresh veggie seedlings for these guys.

My Canadian hardy cactus is in year 3 now. It's spread and despite having a big hole in one of the main paddles of one bit it's branching nicely. It also grows surprisingly fast when it gets warm. Hoping it will flower again this year. I planted some hardy succulents alongside it and one of those is flowering already.

Project #367 for this summer is to try to get a dragon fruit cactus to grow up. I bought it on sale from a greenhouse as it looked cool. It's a climbing cactus that grows aerial roots and will climb supports. It also prefers humid areas like rainforests etc and will sometimes give you dragonfruit when mature. The plant I bought had about 20 “heads” so I plan to divide it up into smaller plants to see if I can get them to grow and mature. They will be brought inside for the winter.
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Bunnies cute. We had a trio playing in the backyard yesterday. They also eat the flowers. In winter the euonymus plants end up with no leaves below where a bunny can reach standing on tippy toes.
 
Hedge issues: We have a great eight-foot-high hedge across the back of the yard. The trouble is that it is also about ten feet thick. I'm trying to clip it back three feet to free up more yard. If it works it will take years as I'm grafting shoots into the main trunks as an experiment.

I've also planted an eastern white cedar in a shady spot to see if it will grow in the conditions. It would get a bit more sun if some tree branches around it were trimmed back. Some of the branches aren't technically mine to trim but I'm thinking of doing a Dorian Grey snip every once in a while, hoping no one will notice. The neighbour directly behind me is reluctant to make changes even though if he did, it would make his yard look $30,000 larger. It's not something you can do a month before you list for sale.

The new cedar is a trial. If it works, I'll plant more.
 
Question for pot plant fertilizer.

I have 28-16-8 that I have been using. Also have some 20-20-20. Should I start using the latter now?
 
timtune said:
Question for pot plant fertilizer.

I have 28-16-8 that I have been using. Also have some 20-20-20. Should I start using the latter now?
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Is the 20-20-20 miracle grow or something like that?

I’m asking because if you are going to be ingesting that pot, go get yourself some nice natural fertilizers from your local grow shop or nursery instead of a synthetic all purpose designed for homeowners and their ornamental pots.

I’m biased, but in my opinion, plants almost never need numbers that high or at such proportions.

Once the plant is moving into flowering, I would use a lower N fertilizer and move to one that is higher is P and K. I can’t recall the exact numbers of what used to use, but it was something closer to 1-4-3 for flowering and it was all natural.

edit - here's what I used on my last go round for my outdoor plants - quite nice and simple for anyone to use.
www.gaiagreen.com

Power Bloom | Gaia Green Organics

GAIA GREEN Power Bloom is a high phosphate fertilizer specifically formulated to support prolific flowering and fruiting. As a result, GAIA GREEN Power Bloom is our best fertilizer for root development and for all flowering and fruiting plants. ORGANIC GAIA GREEN Power Bloom is approved for use...
www.gaiagreen.com www.gaiagreen.com
 
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timtune said:
Question for pot plant fertilizer.

I have 28-16-8 that I have been using. Also have some 20-20-20. Should I start using the latter now?
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My BIL is a chicken farmer. I dug in about 1 cup of chickenshit per plant - made monsters.
 
2 in the ground. 2 in pots.
 
Remember, these are robust weeds, in the ground they shouldn’t need anything to grow to a good size. In pots? YMMV.
 
timtune said:
2 in the ground. 2 in pots.
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I'm a fan of keeping it simple if the other growth around them is looking like its doing well i would leave them alone as far as extra fertilizer goes and let them be other than irrigating if there is a dry spell.
If they are out of public sight now would be a good time to pound in some form of trellising to help support the plants later in flowering.
For the ones in the pots some bloom booster would help the 20/20/20 is more of a general purpose fertilizer.
When fertilizing especially in containers go light always try to error on the less side too little fertilizer will seldom do much harm but too much can kill the plants in short order.
 
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Mad Mike said:
My BIL is a chicken farmer. I dug in about 1 cup of chickenshit per plant - made monsters.
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My buddy gets dried chicken pooh pellets (HomeDepot??) which he mixes up with water to make a slurry. When he lifted the lid it was so foul! He says after adding that you can practically hear it grow. I think it's too smelly for the Squeeze.... Yeah I know it's coming.

Yes, I've been thinking it's time to add some support stakes.
 
On the chicken poo theme: When I was working on my private pilot's license in the winter of the 1980's another student pilot was on a solo exercise when he noticed a minor engine glitch. It was a charging issue that could have been handled by resetting a breaker.

Instead, he decided to do a precautionary landing on a farm strip. He ignored the large X's on the runway and landed. X = Runway Closed.

It turned out that the farmer couldn't truck his chicken manure onto his fields in winter so piled the crap on his runway until conditions improved.

The pilot stepped out of the plane into ankle deep chicken poop. When he realized the plane was OK to fly, he got back in, bringing in some poo with him to decorate the carpeting and took off. The tires flung the runway poop up to where the prop wash splattered it down the side of the fuselage, the undersides of the wings and over the tail surfaces.

Pilot got a fitting nickname.
 
nobbie48 said:
On the chicken poo theme: When I was working on my private pilot's license in the winter of the 1980's another student pilot was on a solo exercise when he noticed a minor engine glitch. It was a charging issue that could have been handled by resetting a breaker.

Instead, he decided to do a precautionary landing on a farm strip. He ignored the large X's on the runway and landed. X = Runway Closed.

It turned out that the farmer couldn't truck his chicken manure onto his fields in winter so piled the crap on his runway until conditions improved.

The pilot stepped out of the plane into ankle deep chicken poop. When he realized the plane was OK to fly, he got back in, bringing in some poo with him to decorate the carpeting and took off. The tires flung the runway poop up to where the prop wash splattered it down the side of the fuselage, the undersides of the wings and over the tail surfaces.

Pilot got a fitting nickname.
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He's lucky the accumulation on the wing surface didn't bring the Cessna down. I've seen mud accumulation abort takeoff on grass strip runways.
 
JC99 said:
Our first Japanese beetle showed up yesterday on a cherry tree. We let him have a little swim in some soapy water.
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We don't see too many as I've been spraying with nematodes. I've noticed a few exoskeletons so they're around. Also the cicadas are singing away. Some people like them. Me, not so much.
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