The cucumbers are up

[electra225]

I planted seven seeds, I have five viable plants. They seem to grow fairly slowly when they are babies. I know you guys from cold country are not concerned about plants this time of the year, but our cucumbers burned up last year. We planted them in March. This year we decided to try earlier. Maybe we'll get some cucumbers this time.

[TC Chris]

Here in Michigan, outdoor growing things are still barely holding on. I keep houseplants at my office but moved them to my backyard this summer for the office move. I pruned the big jade plant and the trimmings actually reach out on the ground and grow roots. At home I have summer outdoor geraniums that move indoors, into the unheated back room that stays above 40 degrees all winter, each fall. They get trimmed back too in the fall and again in the spring. Those cuttings keep going until we get a real freeze. And this year, all that is delayed. Until tomorrow, I fear. The forecast is for "wintery mix," a polite way of saying "various damned forms of frozen and semi-frozen water falling on you." We will see whether I have the gumption to ride to work on the bicycle in that now that it's 3 miles and not just one. But then, the weather folks all like to scare us by overestimating.

By the way, the office plants really liked being outside. They all turned out greener, cleaner, and happier. Except for the Christmas cactus. That one was thriving too until a rabbit decided that it looked like dinner this fall. Half of it disappeared. The other half is blooming right now at my office. It should be called a Halloween cactus. The geraniums don't really like being indoors. Small windows, low light, short days. They get leggy and drop many leaves. I may add some grow lights on timers to brighten things up a bit. One of the geraniums is 27 years old and the other pots are all cuttings from that one.

Chris Campbell

[William]

As I write this, it's raining and the leaves are coming off the trees like crazy. Whenever this weather pattern decides to stops, all the leaves should be off the trees at my house. Then, I hope, I can do the final clean up and be ready for what comes next.

Wow, Chris, you certainly have a green thumb. I have never tried to hold over geraniums, but maybe I should.

Bill

[electra225]

I managed to save three geraniums out of seven over the summer. Next summer, I won't waste my time. Chris's geraniums must be a different type than the ones we had. The roots rot and they die, or the "grinnies" dig down and get the roots.

[TC Chris]

Mine live in pots; I just lug the pots in and out.

Chris Campbell

[19&41]

Among the few plants my brown thumbs can allow to grow, my prickly pear cactus pears are toining poiple. I guess they do so anyway whether pollinated or not. People keep telling me they are good eatin'. I have yet to see anyone get some, though. The only thing they do here is fall off and get in the path of my lawn guy's weedeater. Then I have tiny poiple dots on my car.

[electra225]

Prickly pear cactus will grow on rocks. They are like weeds in the desert, very tough. They multiply like rats in their environment. My foray into the geranium saving project was ill-advised. I hate to see anything die. They were so pretty, I figured I could save them for another year. I have a brown thumb as well. We had a friend, recently deceased, who could grow anything. She had the only Missouri "naked ladies" in Arizona. Surprise lilies are their more proper nomenclature. She started our fan palm from a seed in a coffee can. Now it's 20 feet tall. That lady was blessed with a true green thumb.

[19&41]

That was my grandmother all over. If a person had a plant, flower, or shrub that she liked, she would ask for no more than a stick from the plant and she would grow it into the same beautiful plant. She had the most diverse collection of potted plants I've seen since.

[TC Chris]

I've been trying to propagate a cottonwood tree from a branch off my big one, which is likely toward the upper end of the usual lifespan range. My brother the botanist said they propagate by branches landing in the riverside mud. Well, I've been poking 'em into wet dirt for years with no luck at all. That thumb isn't even brown. It's amputated.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

Aunt Helen was the green thumb when I was a kid. She was a witch. She could "witch " a well. If you had a wart or the miseries, she would fix up a poltace and say an "incant" over the affected area. It worked. She would find those cottonwood "staubs" growing around the pond and plant them at the edge of a draw to keep it from washing. You might get better results if you found one of the starts growing naturally and transplanting it. Aunt Helen, like the rest of her siblings, was quite the character.

[electra225]

The cucumbers has sprouted right up the last couple of days. I moved them out into the yard more, so they get more sun.

[19&41]

Hope they make it!

[electra225]

Happy wife, happy life, if you get my drift......

[Firedome]

Same here, my good wife is all about her veggies and flowers, she's a Cornell U Master Gardener, among her many other talents. I think she'd never want to leave the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast for any other climes for that reason, it's a great place for a dedicated gardener, plenty of rain, good soils, decent growing season, and now that she's newly retired will be more into it than ever.

[19&41]

It's nice to have a hobby that yields a reward.

[electra225]

Cucumbers are not necessarily a hobby. More of an accomodation. The wife isn't able to mess with them, so that leaves me to do it. I don't mind it, really, I'm just not good at it. My brother has the green thumb in the family in my generation. He's not as good as Aunt Helen was, though. She could make corn grow on a rock.

[TC Chris]

She would find those cottonwood "staubs" growing around the pond and plant them at the edge of a draw to keep it from washing. You might get better results if you found one of the starts growing naturally and transplanting it.

My hope is to get one to grow from my cottonwood tree, Populus deltoides. It's huge and old. It was pretty big when my parents bought the little cottage in 1954. It's along the shoreline of Lake Huron's Saginaw Bay, where cottonwoods are one of the major native species along with black willows, boxelders, and (a tiny bit farther inland) red oaks. Viewed from offshore, you can locate my little house by looking for the tallest tree. It stands out.

But most people don't like cottonwoods because of the cotton and the stickum-coated bud shells that it sheds in the spring. Me, I admire a tree that's suited to its environment, that gives shade, and that has endured a long time in this case. There's an undeveloped stretch of beach farther north and during low-water years you'd see annual rows of cottonwoods and willows sprouting along the shoreline as the water levels receded. Then we had high water again and they all washed away. My big tree is now in a yard and over a house so it doesn't have offspring popping up.

I'd like to get one started because the tree was hit by lightning about 15 years ago, and that may have combined with age to make it a little less healthy looking. This one is already near past the upper end of the usual age range for the species. Maybe I should try planting one of the cotton-borne seeds next spring.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

Do you have a county extension agent in your county? Or a good nursery? Either of those places should be able to advise you on how to propagate a start from your cottonwood tree.

[TC Chris]

Good idea. I have been relying on my brother, the botanist. Sometimes it pays to seek other expertise.

Chris Campbell

[William]

Chris, it's too bad you do not have a couple of seeds from your Cottonwood tree. You could start them in the house this winter and then plant the baby tree outside in the spring.

Bill