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Call to all gardeners! [pics]

 
  

Page: 12(3)

 
 
Liger Null
21:25 / 12.06.05
Does anybody know anything about container-grown tomatoes?

Mine is yielding lots of little green fruits, but the leaves are turning all yellow and blotchy...
 
 
admiral sausage
22:09 / 12.06.05
are you using any tomato plant food ?
 
 
Liger Null
22:49 / 12.06.05
No, what kind should I get?
 
 
Tryphena Absent
21:11 / 19.06.05
My hydrangea is dying and I can't work out why. Perhaps it's the heat, it was 33 degrees today but only part of it looked ill on Friday and I watered it right before I left for the weekend. Most of the internet sites I've read say that hydrangeas are hardy but my clematis is fine and is meant to be an erratic plant.

I feel so miserable.
 
 
Squirmelia
14:31 / 20.06.05
I'm also growing a tomato plant (indoors - it is in its second year and has flowers and tiny green tomatoes currently) and my leaves are looking a little bit yellow too, but not that badly. I'm more concerned about the stems snapping due to the weight of the tomatoes. It already has a pen sellotaped to it due to an unfortunate house-moving event last year.

There is a garden festival in my town next weekend, so I am wondering I can find some kind of tree to grow indoors there, maybe citrus.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
16:23 / 20.06.05
I've popped my hydrangea in to a composted pot. Hopefully it will start to live again.
 
 
grant
18:00 / 20.06.05
I know hydrangeas tend to be thirsty (and am in the process of killing one right now because if it's sheltered from the rain and the sprinklers aren't running, I have trouble motivating myself to water by hand). I saw a few in south Georgia over the weekend that were flourishing in the heat (around 100 F some days), but all of them were either just-rained-on or else in the process of being watered by someone much more conscientious than this gardener.

Yellow leaves *sounds* like a plant might want more sunlight. Hard to say, though. Could just as well want more of a nutrient, so try plant food (compost, whatever -- tomatoes like calcium, so fish heads and egg shells do 'em good).

Commercial tomato plants aren't really how tomatoes happen without human intervention -- the fruits are almost always too heavy for the stalks. You need to either set up stakes for the plants or invest in a tomato cage -- a kind of funnel-shaped wire mesh/ladder thing. The wide end goes on the ground, the plant grows around and through it, leaning on it for support where it needs it.
 
 
bitchiekittie
18:40 / 20.06.05
I'm sorry to hear about your hydrangea - I hope it perks back up. mine is in a shady spot and I rarely water it myself, so it relies heavily on the rainfall, and it's growing very well. hopefully grant's advice will work for you.

I know nothing about gardening, as this is the first one I've had in my life. my mother never really bothered with one, either, until I started planting absolutely everything in my yard. so, basically, I'm telling you that though I like to talk a lot of shit about gardening, I have little to no actual useful advice to give anyone. I just love to puff up and show off photos of my success stories!
 
 
grant
14:04 / 21.06.05
If you have success stories, then you're a gardener.
 
 
HCE
17:59 / 21.06.05
My tomato plants, a few of which have rallied after the inital shock of transport, are refusing to die from dehydration. I love these guys! Any reason I shouldn't give them the same food I give everything else, namely Miracle-Gro?
 
 
Tryphena Absent
16:41 / 01.07.05
Garden update: in a fit of madness I pruned my hydrangea last week by which I mean I cut off all the dead bits. It looks a bit healthier now it's started to rain again and some of the flowers are starting to open so phew and all that. One of my lavender buds has a petal and I have seedlings but I'm not sure what they are. I have just planted some pansy seeds, a snip at 34p and repotted a snapdragon that I found in the M&S sale and had roots growing out of the bottom of the pot. So all in all I haven't had to water anything for days and I've started to get FLOWERS. Yay! One day I might have pictures.
 
 
Sekhmet
16:56 / 01.07.05
nightclub dwight - Miracle-Gro has a special formula just for tomatoes, if you want to bother, but the regular stuff should work fine. Personally, I prefer compost rather than the chemical stuff - it seems to work better, IME, besides being supernice environmentally, and free to boot.

(Although you may get more than you bargain for - I'm pickling and canning and saucing everything in sight, and I still have too much coming out of the veggie garden... my refigerator is full of tomato sauce, giant cucumbers and cantaloupes the size of your head...)
 
 
Tryphena Absent
16:43 / 11.07.05
Hydrangea flowering!!!! W00t.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
12:50 / 08.08.05
Can I just share this with someone. I bought this plant yesterday-



It had flowers at the time. Look, the animal that did this didn't even have the grace to eat the petals...

 
 
Triplets
13:07 / 08.08.05
DO NOT WAAANTTT
 
 
Tryphena Absent
13:25 / 08.08.05
I'm going to kill it. I'm going to stake out the garden and see it and kill it. It's eaten one plant already and dug up two others and I'm going to KILL IT.
 
 
Triplets
13:32 / 08.08.05
With face-mallets!
 
 
Saveloy
13:48 / 08.08.05
My guess is squirrel. I've seen one of the charming little bastards nibbling away at one of our rose buds - turning it like a nut and letting each petal fall to the ground un-eaten. Gah!

Or MOUSES. My gardener pal says they're like foxes; if a mouse gets into his nursery it'll go on a kill frenzy, chewing the Dickens out of every poor, defenceless seedling but eating none. He says traps are useless, so he carries a mouse hammer.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
14:40 / 08.08.05
My flatmate said he was going to bring his gun back from Scotland with him so we could shoot the bastard (which may be the squirrel that I just screamed "I'm going to get you, you plant-eating ratbag" at). Flatmate, if you are reading this, the new course of action is, bring gun and bullets. We're shooting to kill.

Also, do squirrels taste good?
 
 
Psi-L is working in hell
14:52 / 08.08.05
Can't say I've ever eaten one myself....but plenty of squirrel recipes should you catch the little bugger!
 
 
grant
17:28 / 08.08.05
Just avoid the brains.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
17:40 / 08.08.05
I'm intending to get the critter through the head anyway. Arrggghhh, I can see one of the evil things in next door's garden right now. I don't think it's the one I have mortally threatened.
 
 
bitchiekittie
03:50 / 09.08.05
nina, I'm so dumb - I thought you had a weed that was lifting/pushing your plants out. I've never had a real issue with squirrels, just bunnies. my bunnies really like gerber daisy leaves and strawberry plants. the bunnies aren't particularly plentiful and both plants are very hardy, so it's never a real problem. if it IS a squirrel, try offering him something tastier - like peanuts!

new garden pics:


this large cluster of daisies popped up from last year. though they're annuals in variable weather like we have here, if you don't cut off the dying flower and just let the seeds do their thing all spring, summer and fall, you're very likely to get a couple of plants next year. they're my favorite garden flower, as they bloom for months, sometimes you'll get a surprise color, and they're extremely hardy and easy to care for.


this one is a little squished looking, having just bloomed, but I assure you, it got much prettier.


I can never remember what these are called. I bought some last year, they grew well and I loved them. they come in many colors, so this year I bought these and purple clusters, too. they attract big fat bumblebees, and I absolutely adore fat fuzzy little bees.


tomatoes slowly getting fatter


a weedy vine that comes back every year, I have no idea what this is. I shouldn't let it grow, as I have to constantly cut it back before it strangles my other plants, but I think it's pretty, and I like watching how it winds its way around anything nearby within a few days.
 
 
Saveloy
07:22 / 09.08.05
Bitchikittie:

" if it IS a squirrel, try offering him something tastier - like peanuts!"

Good advice, that. It worked for my mum, who was fed up with the squirrels nicking da boidy seeds that she left out for da boids. A well stocked peanut holder mostly solved the prob.

"I have in my hand a bunch of nuts." It's appeasement, but squirrels lack the industrial-military might required to start taking the piss in the way Hitler did.
 
 
grant
17:23 / 10.08.05
I can never remember what these are called. I bought some last year, they grew well and I loved them.

Those are lantana. That's also the name of the town where I grew up. They're toxic, so don't let the kids nibble on them.
 
 
grant
00:15 / 16.10.06
I am a frail flower of a man:



After Ernesto passed us by, nearly every orchid I own decided to bloom. Some have sent out multiple sprays by now -- the one right in front of my rumpled shirt is like a rope of purple blooms now.

That's five individual plants visible, three varieties of orchid. All purple and white, alas (no showy oranges or yellows).
 
 
astrojax69
00:46 / 16.10.06
wow! wondrous stuff, grant... my orchid - a hybrid called 'kathryn' after the girl in the florist the grower knew well - is just coming back to life after a near-death experience. and i have a neighbour works at botanical gerdens growing cymbidiums [sp?]

i'm impressed [though i thought you were a bearded one...?]

i'll have to work out how to get pix on here, 'cause i have spent the last two or three weekends planting twenty trees my [rented] place usen't to have. am very proud of me. all natives, all in rock-like clay. s'worst bit of gardening, all that work!


on squirrels, we have possums in oz to eat our plants.

some of my recent digging also encompassed a 5m x 3m vege patch. if'n i catch one of them critters coming down from the power lines in back of my garden and eatin' my carrots and herbs, ooh, it'll be wanting not to have... and yes, you can indeed eat possum and it is quite delicious! (though sourced from a registered farmer, of course!)
 
 
sorenson
02:31 / 16.10.06
Is this the place to boast about garden successes? I have recently ventured into roses - never thought I would, but despite myself I have succumbed to the family obsession. First - climbing roses, big blowsy and beautiful:

katesroses

Next - first red rose I ever grew, so perfect it made my heart glow every day that it graced our house:

firstrose

In a month or two I might come back and post vegetable pictures (no possums in my back yard - just about the only good thing about living near an industrial wasteland...).
 
 
bitchiekittie
13:08 / 16.10.06
I love roses so much.

and grant, how impressive! orchids are my absolute favorite flower, and I've kill absolutely every orchid I've ever gotten, which are many. I finally settled on some "peacock orchids" for my garden, which are not actually orchids and aren't nearly as pretty, but they do grow for me!
 
 
MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!
14:06 / 16.10.06
Yo ho!

A well-timed thread: I planted my first "serious" garden this year, various flowering perennials, and I'm wondering how to "bed it" for the winter. Is it best to cover the whole thing with mulch and mark where the "good plants" are, or to mulch around the good plants, or to mulch ONLY on the good plants in hopes of whacking everything between 'em, or what?

My main concern is not being able to recognize the good plants from the e-e-eeevil ones next spring.
 
 
grant
16:21 / 16.10.06
I love those climbing roses. Roses don't do too much for me. Orchids seem to like being barely maintained. (My yard would be famous for the depth of its weeds, if such things were ever seriously measured.)
 
 
grant
16:21 / 16.10.06
The rose *plants*, I mean. They don't *respond* too much to my ministrations. Sheesh.
 
 
sorenson
23:13 / 16.10.06
grant, I am actually just benefitting from an accident of location - for some reason here in Melbourne roses pretty much grow themselves. I think it is a combination of the climate and the soil - cool enough to not get too many diseases and clay soil which they love. But I am still happy to take the credit!

And your orchids are spectacular by the way. I've been meaning to get a couple of the big showy cymbidiums - I'm hoping I will have more luck with them in pots than I do with other things (given they like to be pot bound and don't need too much attention). Australia has heaps of very cool native ones, but I haven't had much luck growing them. Check out this one in the wild though - it's a flying duck orchard! (not my blog)
 
 
grant
23:14 / 16.10.06
Whoa. Those are funky.
 
  

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