Results 1 to 16 of 16

Thread: Gardens and plants

  1. #1
    Forum Member S. Cane's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2014
    Location
    Ever heard of José Carioca?
    Posts
    4,651

    Gardens and plants

    Do you like gardening? Or growing plants in vases?

    In order to deal with stress I found out that collecting and cultivating cacti is one hell of a good therapy.

    I'm something of a Buddhist, I love and respect all kinds of life, and though I do love dogs and animals in general, I also like plants a lot. And now that I'm living in an apartment, I gotta keep things real. Cacti are forgiving, enduring forms of life. If well kept, they'll be good pets/bonsais.

    Right now I own a few species, a Mexican Asiento de Suegra (barrel cactus), a couple of Mandacarus (a Brazilian cactus) and recently bought a vase with a nice Texan barbed wire cactus...





    Show your garden or your vases, if you got 'em.

  2. #2
    Forum Member DanTheBluesMan's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
    Location
    Southern NH
    Posts
    4,717

    Re: Gardens and plants

    I'm waiting for the legislature of my state to allow me to grow my medicinal cannabis. I did it once before decades ago. Crazy stupid thing to do but it came out incredibly well. The smell was incredible, I wish it could be bottled and sold for aromatherapy, it was that good. It was an amazing experience, watching it every day, nurturing it, breathing CO2 on it and getting O2 in return. Trimming leaves, training branches to spread out and develop more flowering sites. I almost hated to cut it down but my roommates were graduating and I'd have to find a new place to live. We were lucky we didn't get busted.

    I would like to grow it outside in the sun next time so that's going to require having a house preferably not in a HOA so a Karen can't complain to the board about it.

    And heck, if I have an outdoor garden, I want tomatoes and peppers and squash and beans, maybe some onions or scallions, garlic, basil, oregano.
    "Live and learn and flip the burns"

  3. #3
    Forum Member dirtdog's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    The Deep North
    Posts
    2,346

    Re: Gardens and plants

    I have a brown thumb. I tried growing hot peppers for a couple of seasons...had a coworker set me up with some sprouts one year. Apparently you have to do things like make sure they get enough sun, water them and protect them from critters. I got a few peppers one season (jalapeños, mostly). My wife is the gardener, I’m the carpenter.

    i totally dig bonsai and I might try that. But recognizing I have a brown thumb.

  4. #4
    Forum Member S. Cane's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2014
    Location
    Ever heard of José Carioca?
    Posts
    4,651

    Re: Gardens and plants

    Quote Originally Posted by dirtdog View Post
    I have a brown thumb. I tried growing hot peppers for a couple of seasons...had a coworker set me up with some sprouts one year. Apparently you have to do things like make sure they get enough sun, water them and protect them from critters. I got a few peppers one season (jalapeños, mostly). My wife is the gardener, I’m the carpenter.

    i totally dig bonsai and I might try that. But recognizing I have a brown thumb.

    I love bonsai but they’re generally a pain in the butt to keep. I live in a hot and arid semi-desertic region, so Bonsai made of trees like Japanese Sakura cherry or black pine die very easily. I tried twice.

    Cacti and succulents, on the other hand, feel at home here, most species being native and endemic here.

    I also dig the terracota vases with desert plants...

  5. #5
    Forum Member gibsonjunkie's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Location
    Bloomfield, CT
    Posts
    6,774

    Re: Gardens and plants

    I barely manage to keep my lawn mowed. Not a plant person. My wife has a medical marijuana card and we are allowed to grow plants so sooner or later she is going to try.
    "We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness." Mark Twain

  6. #6
    Forum Member jrgtr42's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    1,174

    Re: Gardens and plants

    I keep a few plants inside, plus I do a small garden every year, some peppers, tomatoes, maybe squash or cucumbers.
    Plus I grow hops for homebrewing beer.
    I used to have a bonsai tree, but it eventually died, |I had it for probably 20 years or so. Don't know what happenned to it - I kept watering and such...
    I just picked up a aquaponics thing - a fish tank below, with pods to grow herbs or whatever above - the outflow from the tank feeds to plants, and the plants / grow medium cleans the water. Just waiting to have a chance to set it up.
    ********************************
    "Do you call sleeping with a guitar in your hands practicing?"
    "It is if you don't drop it."
    - Trent Lane, Daria, Episode 1-2.

  7. #7
    Forum Member S. Cane's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2014
    Location
    Ever heard of José Carioca?
    Posts
    4,651

    Re: Gardens and plants

    I picked up a new one this morning. Blue Pilosocereus.


  8. #8
    Forum Member Laker's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Location
    On da lakeshore in Wisconsinski
    Posts
    1,398

    Re: Gardens and plants

    Quote Originally Posted by gibsonjunkie View Post
    I barely manage to keep my lawn mowed. Not a plant person. My wife has a medical marijuana card and we are allowed to grow plants so sooner or later she is going to try.
    Not a plant person here either. I’ve always said I’d like to blacktop our lawn and paint it green.

    A good friend ,as a joke, once planted a pot plant in his back yard and put a tiny white picket fence around it. Some kids cut through his yard, noticed the plant and ratted him out to the authorities. My friend ended up with a year’s probation for his little joke.

  9. #9
    Forum Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    SW New Mexico, USA
    Posts
    1,658

    Re: Gardens and plants

    My brother in law grew some pot while he was recovering from his M/C accident. One of the best plants was a "volunteer" that sprouted next to his garbage can. He brought it in and cultivated it, and gave joints away for Christmas!
    I grow tomatoes in the flower bed in front of my shop, last year was a good year, but snow in late October forced me to pick all and let them ripen inside.





    My wife has plants inside and out, but the only cactus she cultivates is "Christmas Cactus".
    Last edited by Bill Moore; 02-08-2021 at 02:38 PM.

  10. #10
    Forum Member ch willie's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    Tennessee
    Posts
    8,163

    Re: Gardens and plants

    My parents could grow beautiful plants and gardens. So could each of my siblings. Sitting here in the suburb, I have clocked the last 5 years without successfully growing one tomato. Last summer, o so wonderfully, I had a lush and thriving plant. I had a little plastic fence to keep out the dog. I sprayed the plant with the hose, and my dog Keeve thought I was playing with him. He jumped for the stream, fell backwards, and broke my plant beyond saving.

    But I am an optimist and am going to try again, plus onions, garlic, and potatoes. Gotta break the curse.
    If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison

  11. #11
    Forum Member OldStrummer's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2016
    Location
    Northern Virginia, USA
    Posts
    3,928

    Re: Gardens and plants

    My dad had a green thumb to envy. He gardened like a madman. He had a greenhouse attached to one of our homes, and I remember him growing African Violets under lights indoors. "Air plants," orchids and everything he set his hands to grew like crazy. There was a time I would be responsible for watering his plants while he was away traveling.

    Which is where I got my gardening "skill." I tell people my gardening method is: I water them, and if they don't die, I keep them.
    Striving to be ordinary

    Proud to be a TFF Dumbass!

  12. #12
    Forum Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    SW New Mexico, USA
    Posts
    1,658

    Re: Gardens and plants

    My moms family were farmers, and I spent some time with my grandparents, finishing grade school, and starting high school. When the weather warmed, we would go to the fields, and my grandmother and I would "chop" cotton, (cut weeds). I didn't realize it at the time, my grandpa and uncle had a lot of "braceros" to do those jobs, my grandmother was teaching me to work!
    Mamaw had flower plants in the house, but outside everything she cultivated was something to eat. We moved into town when I started 9th grade, and remember coming home with her talking to a neighbor while she worked the space between the sidewalk and the curb. "What kind of flowers are those?" "Lordy, Ms. Jones, them's not flowers, them's turnip greens!"

  13. #13
    Forum Member ch willie's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    Tennessee
    Posts
    8,163

    Re: Gardens and plants

    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
    My moms family were farmers, and I spent some time with my grandparents, finishing grade school, and starting high school. When the weather warmed, we would go to the fields, and my grandmother and I would "chop" cotton, (cut weeds). I didn't realize it at the time, my grandpa and uncle had a lot of "braceros" to do those jobs, my grandmother was teaching me to work!
    Mamaw had flower plants in the house, but outside everything she cultivated was something to eat. We moved into town when I started 9th grade, and remember coming home with her talking to a neighbor while she worked the space between the sidewalk and the curb. "What kind of flowers are those?" "Lordy, Ms. Jones, them's not flowers, them's turnip greens!"
    Haha. My parents were from the country, and my grandparents grew a garden full of food. Great, fresh stuff, naturally fertilized. When I grew up and was out on my own, I suddenly realized that not everyone has fresh vegetables--i was in a big city, far from the country relatives. I grew up just thinking it a normal thing to eat straight from the garden.
    If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison

  14. #14
    Forum Member S. Cane's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2014
    Location
    Ever heard of José Carioca?
    Posts
    4,651

    Re: Gardens and plants

    My new acquisition. Bolivian Lobivia Arachnacanta.


  15. #15
    Forum Member Don's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    Massachusetts
    Posts
    11,288

    Re: Gardens and plants

    Another brown thumb here! You should see my lawn and landscaping! It's an embarrassment to my neighborhood! I'm not sure how my wife and I managed to even raise kids!

    My father had a big vegetable garden and beautiful lawns when I was a kid. None of it rubbed off though. That was his hobby and I had nothing to do with it.

  16. #16
    Forum Member ch willie's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    Tennessee
    Posts
    8,163

    Re: Gardens and plants

    I've been getting into plants over the last few years. Now me bonnie darlin' is fixing me up. I've got one of those mailboxes surrounded by plants including azaleas. Full blown suburbia. I'm more into the big wild things growing in my back yard, the boxwoods and the magnolia trees, the maples, and numerous vines and such. I liked controlled wildness.

    Last summer, I planted Compact Japanese Holly in my shrub beds in the front. They seem to be thriving. We filled up the bed this summer with Creeping Jenny, a rose bush, and primroses.

    The ones that got away during storms are too numerous to mention, the most tragic being the loss of two giant willow trees out of the front yard. Storm just sucked them out of the ground, the roots exposed, the trees leaning over the roads.
    If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •