I've been cleaning out the back of my lot over the last few days, which I'm happy to say I've let go over the last few years. I mean, this stuff was grown over, "jungle bad." Remember the song, "Battle of New Orleans," where they sang, "Ohhhhh, They ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles, And they ran through the places where a rabbit couldnt go....?" Well, they wrote that after visiting my back yard... I swear. Once I got it all cleared, I found a few nice surprises: Muscadine Classic SE U.S. staple. These are wild grapes, growing along the top of the side fence. You can kinda get a sense of it in the pic. Some fertilizer and judicious pruning and we'll have a nice arbor full of good fruit. Sassafrass Known as 'file' to dem Cajun folk in Loosianne, this is the plant of a hundred uses. Don't really know how to cultivate it, though. I do plan to turn it into loose topiary shrubs, as opposed to tall trees. :Berries Wild raspberries. Beauty cane here. Im going to train it around the tree on the tomato cages, trailing in and around the stand of sassafrass. This grows all over the yard, but this is the nicest one. Mixed in this area are a half dozen stands of wild rose, which Im going to train upwards, into small 'rose trees.' Garden fun.
Ooo! Score! And yes, I remember that song... "...they ran so fast that the hounds couldn't catch em..." LOLOLOL
Quote:Actually, I found several of plantings of all these. One was a large muscadine clump in one spot, with long, rangy vines. This is common for these wild grapes - they can stretch for very long distances. This clump had entangled it's many arms over an area of about 20 square feet. Once I had unraveled this mess from the overgrowth, I had 8-10 live vines. I bundled them into a "rope" and will build them a horizontal arbor to trail along. After fertilizing and mulching them for a season, I'll prune them back and (hopefully) branch root them so they will fill out. I've also gotten a couple dozen Sassafras bushes throughout the area, which I am going to try topping as "mophead" dot plantings. Sassafras normally grows tall, as it is a deep woods plant. This means it's habit is to stretch for sunlight - which makes for a slender yet strong trunk on mophead cuts. I'm hoping these dot plantings will stand up nicely in the chicken yard, offering shade and cover. Sadly, I haven't found any other strong berry growths. Cane fruits are really kinda tender plants, needing protection and shade from other plants. You don't normally find them alone in the wild, but in symbiosis with sheltering plants. Once I get this one fertilized and mulched over a season, I should be able to layer and/or tip root this one to produce some more. When kept in tight control, they make very nice trellis plants, and I have a couple of places where they will fit in nicely. Like I said, all a big experiment in horticulture.
.....they ran so fast that the hounds couldnt catch them, from down the Mississippi to the gulf of mexico.
