I have recently discovered Plants. Did you know: if you find a plant you like, you can just⌠collect its seeds? Or, you can dig it up and plant it somewhere else?? OR (now this one is crazy but stick with me) you can take part of it and grow it into a new plant?!?
Amazing! First, I started small: I noticed some milkweed was spilling floaty seeds everywhere, so I borrowed a couple, planted them, and several months later I had so many Monarch and Queen caterpillars I had to give some away.
Next: I noticed a baby morning glory vine had popped up in my side yard. I didnât want it in my side yard, so I dug it up, put it in my brand new flower garden, and several months later it has taken over the entire back half of my yard.
Then: my coworker brought in some lemongrass cuttings sheâd done, and I planted it in my yard. It exploded and itâs the most massive lemongrass bush Iâve ever seen.
Now that Iâve done my âhands offâ experiment with the back yard (conclusion: invasive grasses will completely take over and prevent any natives from taking root), I am ready to become the master of my realm. But Iâm still broke as heck. So!
Milkweed vine (Matelea?) and Monarda seeds nabbed from the field at work!
Every mango I ever eat ever again! (Three germinated, started #4 last night)
Ruellia simplex which I *cough* may have borrowed from a park. I took five because I didnât have scissors or a knife and I didnât trust my ability in making cuttings but ALL FIVE ROOTED and some are starting to bud!!!
Red yucca from the parking lot at work
Itâs contagious! My coworker went for a walk in her neighborhood, and saw a strange tree with these 15 inch long seed pods that look like giant string beans. So of course she took one to give to me. It matured over the weekend, and today I popped it open and LOOK AT ALL THESE SEEDS!!! Itâs a Catalpa tree, which is native to the eastern and southern US states. It makes HUGE F-ING flowers which it drops everywhere, making a huge mess. They get TALL. And I have a HUGE HANDFUL of them. What am I going to do with 100+ Catalpa trees?!?! My (not very large) yard is already filling up with trees (though I eagerly await the total consumption of my house into thick wooded forest in the middle of my housing development). Iâm thinking Bonsai đ
September 11, 2018
Mad scientists and backyard horticulturists have a lot in common actually
Mad engineers are just as important as mad scientists, someone needs to actually know what theyâre doing. Any mad scientist can design a death-ray but building one that doesnât blow up in your face when you pull the dramatic switch?Â
Speaking as a (mad) plant scientist I wholeheartedly endorse your efforts and attitude.
âThis is my first cabbage! You know, a lot of times theyâre kind of soft, but this one is solid! Itâs going to be good eatinâ!â âWhat are you going to make with it?â âWell, this one Iâm giving to my parents. You have to give the first one away or you just spoil the whole spirit of gardening.â
Nasturtiums are my favorite flowers. I had 5 varieties growing in my yard last year! Theyâre a great cool weather plant for the beginning gardener. They are a low care plant. Nasturtiums are some of my favorite flowers because Iâm not able to do a lot of garden care most of the year. The seeds germinate quickly and the plants donât take a lot of time to establish themselves. If you plan on having this along with vegetables, you may need to trim your nasturtiums back once in awhile.
A neighbor of mine planted nasturtiums in her raised bed and was surprised how quickly the spread. Theyâre very easy to remove. All parts of the nasturtium plants are edible. I make jelly with the flowers. Some people enjoy them in salads
Theyâre a great all around plant. In this photo theyâre being used as companion plants to a vegetable plot at a local community garden:
My neighborâs nasturtiums growing in their raised bed
Nasturtiums growing up a mesh trellis at a community garden
Itâs Spring here in the Southern Hemisphere and Iâm getting my garden on. Gardening isnât terribly hard or expensive, but it does take some knowledge and some time, and like anything that requires knowledge and time it can be daunting to start.
I grew up with suburban gardener parents and Iâve been doing it myself for a few years now so I thought Iâd share some of my knowledge with the black pit of tumblr. Read on for planty goodness!
Some surprise volunteer potatoes came up in one of the sack planters out there, from where I stuck in a few sprouty potatoes I think 2 years ago? Because why not.
They didnât do anything then, and I thought that was the end of it. But, up sprouted some this year. I was kind of glad to see them, especially since I havenât been able to do basically any gardening.
And the plants were doing pretty well. Until, AFAICT, those rats that have been hanging around outside decided to go digging for some spuddy snacks! đđđđ
Best I can figure, at least. Not much of a loss, but it still aggravated me finding that.
(Getting our trash inaccessible obviously hasnât made them move along yet. Pretty sure theyâre just going upstairs and raiding the neighborsâ now, since I can hear them up on the deck there at night. No clue where theyâre sheltering, either, but hey. Those neighbors already donât much like us, and I donât want to say anything about it and probably get them blaming Those Foreign Weirdos for the incursions.)
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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