Native Botany and Horticulture - Gardening for Gigabrains

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Hey. So. Wtf plant is this? It looks like okra, but that doesn't make sense to me. Goats pay it no attention. Central Texas.

Edit: nope, absolutely not Okra. Flowers are wrong. Fruit looks like okra kinda.
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Livestock guardian dog foot flr scale
 
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i admit that i like to pull over so i can look at cool flowers i see near the road, and yesterday i found the most dr. seussian wildflowers on my way back from work that i didn't know existed until twenty-four hours ago.

behold, orange-fringed orchids. according to wikipedia they like "acidic hillside seepage bogs", which is something we have in common. i most certainly did have to step in ankle deep water to get pictures of them but it was worth it, and if their growing conditions weren't so fucking specific i'd probably nab a seed head or two once they're ready.
 

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Master gardener and professional plant nerd here.
Cirrhosis_of_Liver said:
Apart from being non native, what's bad about crape myrtles?
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They arent aggressively invasive but do escape, I found some growing in a logging road a couple days ago. The problem with crepe myrtles is ecologically they dont provide much for wildlife, and culturally are irresitable too unknowing homeowners and bored city works looking something to chop and prune on. Crepes are trees, they want to act like trees, not bushes. They can be great trees for small spaces, except the large white ones "Natchez" which are the ones that most people commit "crepe murder" on. I could write several pages of ranting about crepe myrtles. I try to avoid them in designs, its too much temptation for butchering. If you want dwarf crepes that behave like bushes, they exist and are really cool in the garden.
 
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Drip Torch said:
Master gardener and professional plant nerd here.

They arent aggressively invasive but do escape, I found some growing in a logging road a couple days ago. The problem with crepe myrtles is ecologically they dont provide much for wildlife, and culturally are irresitable too unknowing homeowners and bored city works looking something to chop and prune on. Crepes are trees, they want to act like trees, not bushes. They can be great trees for small spaces, except the large white ones "Natchez" which are the ones that most people commit "crepe murder" on. I could write several pages of ranting about crepe myrtles. I try to avoid them in designs, its too much temptation for butchering. If you want dwarf crepes that behave like bushes, they exist and are really cool in the garden.
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i'm so happy someone else hates these things. the town i work in literally has several rows of nothing but crape myrtles because they're both plug-and-play and fast-growing enough to make busybodies feel like big boy landscapers every time they chop them up. shit's maddening. all i can think of is how that land and effort could be spent taking care of local natives doubling as ornamentals, like dogwood, fringe tree (not the chinese species either i mean the american one stop bringing shit from asia over here you lazy fags), silverbell, redbud, and oaks. but it seems like most landscape designers -- and homeowners for that matter -- want to have their cake and eat it too; sure, we can line a walkway with trees, but they can't be too messy or attract too many bees or grow too slow or too fast or spread out too much. they want nature without the icky, unaesthetic parts.
 
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The American fringetree, Chionanthus virgincus is a great native understory tree and should be used more in landscapes. There are a number of interesting small to medium growing native trees that have potential, unfortunately few have invested the time to "improve" a species into what would be considered a garden quality selection. So availability to the consumer is very limited. A genus that has some success is Amelanchier, serviceberries.

People want a maintance free yard, that remains static throughout the year. Its the mentality that the outside should be like their living room. This is why a perfect uniform carpet of turf is commonly considered the ideal for an outdoor space. That is also to make people feel wealthy and make others think so too on a subconscious level.
 
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Drip Torch said:
The American fringetree, Chionanthus virgincus is a great native understory tree and should be used more in landscapes. There are a number of interesting small to medium growing native trees that have potential, unfortunately few have invested the time to "improve" a species into what would be considered a garden quality selection. So availability to the consumer is very limited. A genus that has some success is Amelanchier, serviceberries.

People want a maintance free yard, that remains static throughout the year. Its the mentality that the outside should be like their living room. This is why a perfect uniform carpet of turf is commonly considered the ideal for an outdoor space. That is also to make people feel wealthy and make others think so too on a subconscious level.
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and it's that mentality driving idiots to buy plastic turf instead of doing literally anything else, because we've been so inculcated with the idea that lawns should look like tiny golf courses. i know that cleaning up tree debris can be annoying, but they're living things, not furniture. i survived almost two decades of oaks dropping acorns on our roof, tulip poplars throwing out seeds like confetti, black locust seedlings popping up in the most random places, and the maple in our front yard dumping its autumn foliage straight onto the driveway, because i don't mind that this is the cost of living around nature. i'm not scared of sweeping the porch and raking up leaves, because i wasn't raised to be a little bitch who melts down if there's a single twig out of place.

now that i got my daily autist screech out of the way, what are you guys' favourite "weedy" or unconventional wildflower? partridge pea is mine right now since they're pretty, easy to grow, are loved by bumblebees, and great for rehabbing shitty soil.
 
mold said:
it's invasive it just came along



my biggest issues are comfrey and blackberries, next down is morning glory, nipplewort and *fucking walnut*
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Not to downplay the issue of Invasives in your area but this is a nice problem to have. Is the walnut timber-worthy or not really?
MS-09 DOM said:
To quote above, your local tree surgeons / arborists love when you ask for a dump of chips, it saves us some cash at the dump (yes all our wood chips end up at the dump)
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My issue with this is not knowing what was sprayed on/near the trees that end up chipped since most of them will be from urban/suburban environments, along with also potentially importing pests
 
Drip Torch said:
Master gardener and professional plant nerd here.

They arent aggressively invasive but do escape, I found some growing in a logging road a couple days ago. The problem with crepe myrtles is ecologically they dont provide much for wildlife, and culturally are irresitable too unknowing homeowners and bored city works looking something to chop and prune on. Crepes are trees, they want to act like trees, not bushes. They can be great trees for small spaces, except the large white ones "Natchez" which are the ones that most people commit "crepe murder" on. I could write several pages of ranting about crepe myrtles. I try to avoid them in designs, its too much temptation for butchering. If you want dwarf crepes that behave like bushes, they exist and are really cool in the garden.
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It’s a shame, Crape Myrtle is one of my favorite flowers but it’s banned in my area for the reasons you listed above. Thankfully there are quite a few non-invasive substitutes that are related to Crape Myrtle or bear a superficial appearance. I’m quite partial to New Jersey Tea.
 
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Cherry Eyed Hamster said:
It’s a shame, Crape Myrtle is one of my favorite flowers but it’s banned in my area for the reasons you listed above. Thankfully there are quite a few non-invasive substitutes that are related to Crape Myrtle or bear a superficial appearance. I’m quite partial to New Jersey Tea.
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This is the first I have heard of crepes being banned in a locality. Not surprising though, plant restrictions can be all over the place, depending on the area and enforcement. Ive been on that end, and I harbor A&N levels of hatred for Bradford pears. If I shouldnt hate people, I sure can hate a particular cultivar of tree.
Crepes are so versatile and adaptable, you can graft them together and make living arbors. Spectacular if pruned correctly. It's wow factor is hard to compete with.
 
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Cirrhosis_of_Liver said:
But why?
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1. Introduction of the Bradford was a oopsie by the USDA. What was believed to a be sterile cultivar, it wasn't. It bred with another cultivar "Cleveland" and escaped, now forming dense thickets of very thorny interlocking brushy shit.
2. Very weak branch attachment angle, will catastrophicly split under moderate wind load.
3. Flowers smell like cum.
4. Over sold, over planted, making near monocultures in suburbia.
5. I have scars from getting ripped up from working in invasive pear thickets.
6. I will kill on sight if I can.

Total Bradford Death!
 
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