Your houseplants and gardens - Yellow leaf means underwatered AND overwatered?! What a country!

Last summer, my chickens "planted" a sunflower by pecking it into the ground, after it fell out of their food. It grew to give feet before being knocked over in a storm.

So this year, I mixed a bag sunflower seeds into their feed, and waited.

There's now a crop of them growing.
update:
there's a tight-ish cluster of them in the rectangle my chickens were in, they're all about 4' high
20240429_193411.jpg
 
reviving a dead thread to post that i am now a proud mother of ten saplings, including one that's still budding even after our retard lawn mower guy ran it over. last year's gardening adventure didn't go so well (lost a little gem magnolia and it seems like the other is threatening to kick it too) so i'm ecstatic most of this year's plants are thriving. now i just need to find out what entity my neighbours made a pact with to make their gardens look like they came out of a southern living magazine.
 
Anyone have a tip on places to buy iris rhizomes? German irises, the guys with the big honking rhizomes, not the bulb guys, rock garden/reticulata/Siberian/Dutch.

The places where I usually buy SACK OF BULBS just have bulbs, which I guess makes sense, and when you get more specific the iris people (and the prices) are kind of crazy.

I have irises that came with the place, and I was pleasantly surprised at how well they took to dividing--I think they'd been crowded for a long time. I just want to intersperse some other colors, and reinforce an iris foothold where other things don't like to grow.
 
Anyone have a tip on places to buy iris rhizomes? German irises, the guys with the big honking rhizomes, not the bulb guys, rock garden/reticulata/Siberian/Dutch.

The places where I usually buy SACK OF BULBS just have bulbs, which I guess makes sense, and when you get more specific the iris people (and the prices) are kind of crazy.

I have irises that came with the place, and I was pleasantly surprised at how well they took to dividing--I think they'd been crowded for a long time. I just want to intersperse some other colors, and reinforce an iris foothold where other things don't like to grow.
i'm sorry you have bad taste and you can't enjoy the dainty appeal of siberian irises or southern blue flags, hope you get better soon. :heart-full:


update on the saplings: god please stop fucking raining for two seconds my garden is going to turn into a blackspot mosh pit if this keeps up. so far it's contained to my biggest, otherwise healthiest persimmon sapling because of course it is, but i'm dragging my feet with getting a real fungicide since we live by a stream and i don't want any of it to run off into the water. sometime this week i'll test out using a baking soda solution as a crunchy alternative in the hopes it'll at least stymy the mold growth.
 
German irises
Since they're considered a fall planting bulb, you're not going to find them being offered right now. Unless they're growing in $12 a pop pots (for one single plant!) at a garden center.

Your best bet for now is to research Dutch bulb places and sign up to get their catalogs when they're released. Most bulb houses release two catalogs a year, one for spring planting (which is now) and the other for fall planting which will come out in mid to late summer.

I did a quick search and saw that K. van Bourgondien sells them in bags of 5. Not a cheap thrill but the price per rhizome goes down as you buy more bags of 5. But when I backed out of the link (that I got to via an image search) and went to their regular website page, there weren't any being offered for sale. Which bolsters my theory that they're only available at certain times of the year.

You could try to score some locally by using social media, putting up an iris wanted flyer at your grocery store, or whatever. German iris need to be divided every 3-5 years and they grow like mad (and poop out if they're not divided) so people who do have them often have extras to give away. You're running a little late, but local garden groups often hold sales to fund raise during the spring and members dig up and donate their extras to be sold at 'em. So you might score new colors at something like that.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Aunt Carol
K. van Bourgondien sells them in bags of 5. Not a cheap thrill but the price per rhizome goes down as you buy more bags of 5. But when I backed out of the link (that I got to via an image search) and went to their regular website page, there weren't any being offered for sale.
K. van Bourgondien does preorders for their fall shipping; I just got their catalog in the mail. I was actually checking their website when I despaired, and was confused by the lack of listings, but I think we both stumbled in while they were in the middle of updating for the fall sales.

Van Engelen just has bulb irises; they're the company I usually order from, although it looks like they don't have cyclamen so I'll be dividing my order up anyway.
You could try to score some locally by using social media, putting up an iris wanted flyer at your grocery store, or whatever. German iris need to be divided every 3-5 years and they grow like mad (and poop out if they're not divided) so people who do have them often have extras to give away. You're running a little late, but local garden groups often hold sales to fund raise during the spring and members dig up and donate their extras to be sold at 'em. So you might score new colors at something like that.
Yeah, civilians want them gone now, plant sellers want to mail the rhizomes later when they're dormant. I just found people selling individual blooming irises locally. When I get emails saying my bulb catalog order is shipping in Fall, I'll check again and see if any responsible gardeners are dividing their boring, not-currently-blooming irises.
i'm sorry you have bad taste and you can't enjoy the dainty appeal of siberian irises or southern blue flags, hope you get better soon. :heart-full:
I have a bunch of those planted too! I just appreciate the Germans for their tendency to territorial expansion, and I'm planning to recruit some more to help me subjugate the natives.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Anasa Tristis
I think we both stumbled in while they were in the middle of updating for the fall sales.
Agreed! It's hard to imagine, but some places do stubbornly remain old school. I get seeds from Sandhill Preservation. They do not have online ordering. If you want their seeds or other offerings, you must print out an order form and mail it in.
Yeah, civilians want them gone now
It just occurred to me that you may want to check eBay too. Ordinarily I would never recommend getting seeds off eBay or Etsy, but a rhizome is a rhizome. The worst surprise you could get later would be a wrong color. German iris rhizomes are tough as nails. I'm sure healthy ones would travel well through the USPS. Once I had a horrifying borer infestation where the worms hollowed out the rhizomes to the point where they were almost just empty shells. But after cutting away rot and potting up the salvageable looking ones (and, granted, babying them carefully) they recovered and I was able to plant them back out. Which was rather amazing. I don't think a Siberian or a Japanese iris would have bounced back like that after being gnawed almost to death.
I just appreciate the Germans
They're the reliable Bertas of the garden. They're not as location fussy or water needy as the Siberians or the Japanese. And although I had that borer problem, voles and mice have never eaten my Germans they way they wiped out all my Japanese iris one winter. Every last one, the little bastards.
 
Never ended up catching that chipmunk, just put up a small fence.

Sunflowers are getting starchy, potatoes coming in really well, and my trimmed blackberry bush is exploding.

None of my jalapenos or watermelons have seemed to take hold.

Grandpa brought me a bunch of flowers from his greenhouse, but ill need to pick up more to fill out planters
 
Back in late April, I found one of those Venus flytrap plants somebody misplaced in a lightbulb aisle. I ended up “rescuing” him* and when returning it to the garden center, I decided to adopt him. Here he is first day home under a grow light:

1716419340875.jpeg
Doesn’t look like much, but he’s grown since then. Just upgraded his home to something a little more epic (using old/random plastic Halloween stuff from Goodwill and whatnot):

1716419423931.jpeg
I got a little spacer to elevate him out of the water saucer so it doesn’t get too wet (but will still let the humidity rise). I’m letting him soak for now as he was fairly dry today.

Still haven’t fed him a fly yet…

*I started referring to it as a him, but I have no clue how gender works in this species. Plants are weird man.
 
Back in late April, I found one of those Venus flytrap plants somebody misplaced in a lightbulb aisle. I ended up “rescuing” him* and when returning it to the garden center, I decided to adopt him. Here he is first day home under a grow light:

View attachment 6011733
Doesn’t look like much, but he’s grown since then. Just upgraded his home to something a little more epic (using old/random plastic Halloween stuff from Goodwill and whatnot):

View attachment 6011734
I got a little spacer to elevate him out of the water saucer so it doesn’t get too wet (but will still let the humidity rise). I’m letting him soak for now as he was fairly dry today.

Still haven’t fed him a fly yet…

*I started referring to it as a him, but I have no clue how gender works in this species. Plants are weird man.
venus flytraps are delightful and their leaves (?) make me think of little baby bird mouths. years ago i had a venus flytrap named darcy that i kept in my room. usually i just fed her moths or fruit flies, but there's this one time i had a loud, fuckheug fly that was buzzing around the window nonstop up until it suddenly wasn't. turns out darcy helped herself to a snack.

Never ended up catching that chipmunk, just put up a small fence.

Sunflowers are getting starchy, potatoes coming in really well, and my trimmed blackberry bush is exploding.
have you tried setting down some kind of repellant, or is your garden/lawn too large to efficiently do that? also, how do you effectively trim blackberries? i got a few wild canes that i thinned out so the other plants, including wild elderberries, won't get crowded out, but i never worked with fruit shrubs before and i don't know what's the right amount of attention versus doing too much.
 
have you tried setting down some kind of repellant,
Some redditor said to use cat hair so I brushed my cat and staked the hair down around each plant. This was before the fence and seemed to work

Edit: blackberries are retarded. Any branch over 2 years needs to get culled, they'll never fruit again. Some people swear you need your bush to start completely fresh each year. Coworker said his bushes weren't producing anything so he ran over them with his riding mower and they regrew and exploded with fruit.

Last year I had great production after cutting everything down. This year I cut the tips off of of every branch to encourage them to sprout off the sides and it seems to be working well. Have a lot of flower buds forming, looks like a bumper crop.
 
Last edited:
Some redditor said to use cat hair so I brushed my cat and staked the hair down around each plant. This was before the fence and seemed to work
This seems bonkers but I also believe it would work and I want to try it now.

I'm traveling to visit my favorite plant boutique tomorrow. I need a new baby. All my plants are non-baby size now. I really get a kick out of taking them from that tiny <2inch stage into normal size houseplants. And it's cheaper, too. You people are tempting me to get a carnivorous plant but.... I don't need THAT much of a baby.

I tore out a massive invasive vine from this trellis thing outside my house, but now it looks really empty. I'm tempted to put the pothlings in a planter at the base and let them have at it- when the winter comes, I can just chop the whole thing to bits and move it indoors. It's a pothos, what's the worst that can happen?
 
Potatoes and summer squash are happy, I don't normally grow potatoes but was interested in a lab developed strain from Idaho. There's something funny about that, they really love their potatoes
Alpine strawberries bless me again, they are some hardy fuckers. When the fruits ripen the whole area smells so sweet. Been growing extra bushes of orange thyme to share as gifts too, highly recommend although they're really slow to get started. Just brushing one to release the oils is a dopamine hit
 
I confess I haven't visited this thread before because while I sometimes do okay when it comes to gardening outdoors (I tend to murder houseplants) I also lean toward being a lazy indoor kid.

But this spring I've started a small tomato (3) and pepper (6) bed that's doing well so far and tomorrow I'm transplanting squash seedlings (pumpkin and watermelon - the butternuts haven't germinated, wahhh) into a raised bed along a fence.

Today I planted some sweetgrass plugs I ordered online... I probably should have waited a few days before transplanting them into the raised redwood planter box I built but I was too excited.

Oh and I set up a planted aquarium for my mom, which seems to be doing okay despite the brown algae bloom that happened when they left the light on for a few days while they were out of town.

All of that said, I fear I am being too optimistic and I'm just going to end up with dead plants, empty pockets, and crushing disappointment.
 
I'm traveling to visit my favorite plant boutique tomorrow. I need a new baby. All my plants are non-baby size now. I really get a kick out of taking them from that tiny <2inch stage into normal size houseplants. And it's cheaper, too. You people are tempting me to get a carnivorous plant but.... I don't need THAT much of a baby.
Get thee a jewel orchid. They grow slower than a ball rolling in molasses so they stay baby for a long time.

All of that said, I fear I am being too optimistic and I'm just going to end up with dead plants, empty pockets, and crushing disappointment.
See, though, that's how you find the plants you do like. I've had several crushing disappointment plants (spaghetti squash, most cruciferous veggies...) but that just taught me what I don't like and helped me find the ones I do.
 
Edit: blackberries are retarded. Any branch over 2 years needs to get culled, they'll never fruit again. Some people swear you need your bush to start completely fresh each year. Coworker said his bushes weren't producing anything so he ran over them with his riding mower and they regrew and exploded with fruit.

Last year I had great production after cutting everything down. This year I cut the tips off of of every branch to encourage them to sprout off the sides and it seems to be working well. Have a lot of flower buds forming, looks like a bumper crop.
so you're saying these fucking things take two or three years to even make fruit and then when they do they just give up after that. cool. at least they sprout back up on their own.

anyways i got a question for east coast plantfags: should i try growing trumpet vine from cuttings as a trellis plant? maybe i'm just too inexperienced with handling cuttings, but yesterday i experimented with putting one in a pot of moistened dirt instead of water with rooting hormone, and it started going all sad and droopy within an hour which didn't make me too confident. i know trumpet vine grows like a motherfucker once it gets established, but is it fussy about how you propagate it, or is the depressed look normal for vine cuttings in general?
 
anyways i got a question for east coast plantfags: should i try growing trumpet vine from cuttings as a trellis plant? maybe i'm just too inexperienced with handling cuttings, but yesterday i experimented with putting one in a pot of moistened dirt instead of water with rooting hormone, and it started going all sad and droopy within an hour which didn't make me too confident. i know trumpet vine grows like a motherfucker once it gets established, but is it fussy about how you propagate it, or is the depressed look normal for vine cuttings in general?
Shorty softwood cuttings of trumpet vine (Campsis radicans) dipped in hormone and stuck in a small pot (of potting soil, not dirt) should work. Drooping for the first few days is normal. Keep 'em in diffused light until they perk up. Then give 'em lots of light. If there's a question of not enough humidity, throw a plastic bag over it for the first week or so.

Years ago I took softwood cuttings off a roadside trumpet vine. Iirc, they were slow to root. But once the best survivor got into the ground it did take right off. The first few years were great but eventually it became a real menace, so choose your location wisely. And be warned. Their underground lateral runner roots (which are about a foot down) can travel over 15 feet. Coming up in the lawn they can be mowed, no prob. But when I had trumpet vine popping up in the asparagus row that was unacceptable. And a real horror to deal with. As cool as the vine was (I made it like a tree going up a post, it's main vine was as thick as my arm) I loved the asparagus more. And couldn't have both in the same spot. It was a huge job to get rid of it. I had to dig out every bit of the side runners and the main root goes straight down to China. It's one of those tough ones that'll come back if you leave bits behind. Also be advised too, that while watching the hummers fighting over it is great entertainment, since it oozes sugar at leaf junctions and whatnot it also attracts all kinds of wasps. And ants. So it's best enjoyed at a distance.

I got a red native honeysuckle vine for the hummers and although it tends to be a snarly mess, and not as spectacular, it's much better behaved.
 
so you're saying these fucking things take two or three years to even make fruit and then when they do they just give up after that. cool. at least they sprout back up on their own.
I don't want to dox my location, but it's really bizarre eavesdropping on people trying to grow blackberries. It must be like a Southerner hearing someone complain that their kudzu just isn't thriving.

Blackberries are delicious but if you ask anyone here about blackberry bushes you start hearing anecdotes about pouring used oil or borrowing someone's goats.
 
Back