Mumsy's Romantic Garden Advice

[aoxa]

Looking through my old images and found one that makes me cringe and laugh simultaneously. My husband does the pruning of anything over five feet on our property. That's pretty much just about everything since I'm five feet tall. He is just a little taller than that. He has a huge collection of ladders at his disposal but sometimes he just climbs up on anything to get the job done!


The weeping willow behind him is twenty two years old. Grew from a twig I pulled off a tree at the county dump and stuck it in the ground the year Puppy girl was born. It wants to take over the world.

Oh dear. That would make me cringe as well. I am terrified of heights, ever since I fell out of a tree house when I was 7 years old. I don't do ladders. I have very poor balance!

So this goes without saying Christmas lights at our house usually don't happen.. unless my father feels like helping, because Susan is also afraid of heights.

 

[Sally8]

This is crazy crazy !! Never waste cut roses

Did you know that you can grow ro...ses from cuttings?

Simply cut healthy stems, place them in large potatoes, and them bury them 3-4 inches deep in a healthy soil mixture of peet moss and top soil. The potatoes keep the stems moist and help develop the root systems. It's a perfectly simple way to multiply your rose garden without spending lots of $$$.

This is the one that keeps showing up on my facebook. sue

 

[MumsyII]

This is crazy crazy !! Never waste cut roses

Did you know that you can grow ro...ses from cuttings?

Simply cut healthy stems, place them in large potatoes, and them bury them 3-4 inches deep in a healthy soil mixture of peet moss and top soil. The potatoes keep the stems moist and help develop the root systems. It's a perfectly simple way to multiply your rose garden without spending lots of $$$.

This is the one that keeps showing up on my facebook. sue

This is interesting but not something I would try. I don't want potatoes growing up all around my rose plants. I have enough trouble with potatoes coming up everywhere. Besides, I see this as a waste of a perfectly good potato that I could use for dinner. Dirt and sand is free as a growing medium. You must transplant the rose cutting anyway. Why use a potato?

 

[Sally8]

This is interesting but not something I would try. I don't want potatoes growing up all around my rose plants. I have enough trouble with potatoes coming up everywhere. Besides, I see this as a waste of a perfectly good potato that I could use for dinner. Dirt and sand is free as a growing medium. You must transplant the rose cutting anyway. Why use a potato?

Hornby soil consists of mostly rocks, rocks, and more rocks with some clay. The only thing we grow well are rocks so to root anything out of water is something I'd have to buy. Potatoes are cheaper here than store bought soil. Plus I'm always up to try something different. I'd love sand in my soil.

 

[MumsyII]

My orchard has kind of spread all around my half acre this year. I have five dwarf apples, five varieties of pear, three types of plum, Cherry, Hazelnut trees. The farm I grew up on had a hundred year old orchard on the homestead and my family had huge cider making parties in it every year. My dad and mom sprayed their trees some years and even though we washed the apples well by soaking and hosing, I was reluctant to take much juice home for my kids.
I don't spray my trees but I never got great apples and pears either. Our wet winters and Springs spread Scab disease and the fruit is often worthless to me. My kids didn't want to eat heavily blemished fruit. This year I tried something different. Different to me that is.

I have known the Japanese have perfected growing fruit without blemishes for years by bagging the leader fruit after thinning. Perfect apples and pears can sell for $10 in the cities there. I couldn't find paper bags small enough to make this work so I used cheap zip-lock sandwich bags from the dollar store instead.

I thinned the fruit when it was thumbnail size and then after clipping the corners of each bag, centered the fruit and zipped them up to the stem.

It has worked so far! Picked the first perfect Yellow Transparent apple today!

This apple came from a dwarf tree that was on our property when we moved here. It has three grafts that produce three types of apples. A Gravenstein, Yellow Transparent, and a smallish winter apple with Yellow Delicious in its background. This tree always gets diseased leaves and fruit. I haven't had anything off it in years. Until now!

 

[MumsyII]

Hornby soil consists of mostly rocks, rocks, and more rocks with some clay. The only thing we grow well are rocks so to root anything out of water is something I'd have to buy. Potatoes are cheaper here than store bought soil. Plus I'm always up to try something different. I'd love sand in my soil.

If you try this, share the process from beginning to end with the final rose planted and blooming in the garden. I love to experiment too. If it works well for you at increasing your rose plants, that would be a great thing. More roses in the world makes it a beautiful world.

 

[Sally8]

If you try this, share the process from beginning to end with the final rose planted and blooming in the garden. I love to experiment too. If it works well for you at increasing your rose plants, that would be a great thing. More roses in the world makes it a beautiful world.

Plus, I love doing experiments with my grandson. Although lame, we put an egg in vinegar and in no time it ate the hard shell off and left us with the egg membrane.

 

[armorfirelady]

Quote: Cool idea about the potatoes and roses. I have a few greens ones in the compost I could get out & cutting from the new roses I got.

And I never knew vinegar did that to an egg. Might have to try that for myself.

 

[MumsyII]

Yep. Experiments are great if you have nothing to lose from trying. I personally don't want potatos growing where I'll never be able to harvest them without destroying the roots of the roses where they will come up.

I am very interested in seeing potato rooted roses coming up and blooming where they were planted in an actual garden setting. First, second, and third year. Surviving normal growing conditions and winter freezing. Getting a rose cutting to root in a potato is one thing and sounds like a fun experiment. The practical aspects of that experiment and long term successful result is what I'm really interested in.

 

[armorfirelady]

I wonder if you could do it in a pot when you first start and the following spring break the potato from around the roots then plant in the ground?