Heavenly

[Manalto]

I hope they do well for you way up there by the Arctic Circle. Check Dave's Garden website in the "Regional" section to see if it has been reported to grow at a latitude similar to yours.

https://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/51597/

You can also browse the "Gardener's Notes" at the end. Sometimes you can find one that's helpful.

[nhguy]

I hope they do well for you way up there by the Arctic Circle. Check Dave's Garden website in the "Regional" section to see if it has been reported to grow at a latitude similar to yours.

https://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/51597/

You can also browse the "Gardener's Notes" at the end. Sometimes you can find one that's helpful.

The Grampa Otts have been blooming for two weeks. I planted them around the bird box post in the veggie garden, those are 10 feet tall now. I also planted them around a metal sculpture I made in a flower bed, they all look wonderful.
Thanks again for sending them up here. I'll collect the seeds for next year

[Manalto]

I've been wondering if the morning glories grew for you, so I'm really pleased to hear they have. Save some seed of course, but you may also observe some self- seeded plants next year. I'm not 100% sure it'll happen at your latitude but I bet it will.

Incidentally, I planted some here in Alabama in May and they're growing gangbusters. Old Grandpa Ott really gets around!

[Lily left the valley]

The Otts we planted under the Hidden Treasure Trellis let us know that trellis was far too small for their ambitions! My neighbor to the east was a gem about it, though. She thanked me for sharing our flowers. I'm curious to see if any seed pods that dropped will sprout next year or not. The other place we tried to plant a few were too quickly shadowed by the wild blackberry ground creeper that grows in that bed. I want to try again next year there, but I'll have to be more diligent about keeping the creeper at bay so they have a chance!

I did gather many, many pods when we did fall clean up and I stowed the trellis in the garage for the winter. I work on freeing the seeds from them a few at a time when I can while waiting for my tea water to boil. I've been plotting to plant Otts all along the chain link fence of our southern neighbors come spring. They've pretty much killed or cleared out every living thing on their side of the fence save some scrub grass back there. So they'll get plenty of sun. I'm thinking it might be a fantastic green screen. I should probably ask the neighbor's permission first, but...they don't really like to talk much when I do happen to be out back at the same time as them, so...what's the worst that can happen? They get upset at all the flowers?

[Manalto]

\ so...what's the worst that can happen? They get upset at all the flowers?

I'm not going to say and tempt fate. Let's just hope for negligence on their part.

[Lily left the valley]

\ so...what's the worst that can happen? They get upset at all the flowers?

I'm not going to say and tempt fate. Let's just hope for negligence on their part.

Turns out a friend of mine down south has a chain link fence and he told me he'd loooove some of those seeds. I'm in the process of deshelling more so I can send him a lot of the Otts and I'm going to send him some peas as well since he claims he would love to start gardening but wants something easy. (I'm sending marvel peas that we have amazing luck with even when they got neglected. I think those will work.)

I have been looking into--and very much would rather--creating a hedgerow along that stretch. Like everything else, it'll be in tiny increments, year by year. So maybe by 2030 I'll have a respectable thicket back there.

[Manalto]

Rather than buy multiples of one plant, one budget-conscious strategy I've employed many times over the years is to buy a shrub that I like and learn how to propagate it from cuttings to populate a hedge. (Some, of course, are easy and some are not.) It's remarkable how quickly the cuttings catch up with the mother plant.

[phil]

usually serious pot growers use clones, Its faster that way and you dont have surprises like male plants. when they get a strain they like they keep it going. seeds take time to get going. I think a good time to take clones is when they are little, and in their growth spurt phase. similar may apply to other plants.

[Manalto]

It does. Many of the commercially-available ornamental (and some agricultural) plants are clones, propagated by vegetative means (cuttings, division) or micropropagation (tissue culture) to retain the desired characteristics (mutations), which tend to be recessive. If they were open-pollinated as they are in nature, they would produce offspring that vary in appearance. Industry likes uniformity and predictability.

The risk of growing clones with no genetic diversity is that it makes them susceptible to disease; natural selection is impossible among plants with identical genetics. A good example is the banana. 'Gros Michel' is the banana that those of us of a certain age grew up with. A disease wiped them out worldwide. They were replaced by 'Cavendish' which is less flavorful (according to some - and my memory). Now 'Cavendish' is threatened by a fungus known as Panama Disease. Here's a nice article on the topic: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/g ... el-bananas

[phil]

Thanks James that was interesting. I have of course heard about the issues with Bananas but I never really fully understood what the danger to them was.

how about roses? I know some botanists have marveled over them and taken them seriously. I have one with red roses that wraps itself around my lilac bush and I like that it does that because they stay in bloom quite a while and it makes it look like the tree has flowers. It must be 20 feet long or so. It has some stems that I have cut back but I was wondering how far I should go. would I have a chance of propagating them by digging roots up and trying to split them and should I cut all the stems down to a foot or so or is it ok to have some that are left long? That thing came with the house so it's at least 20 years old.