Relentlessly trimming a backyard tree to train it to a leader when it had had 4 or 5 candidates before.

That’s the big thing I put into practice this year: so long as you leave the edges where it comes close to other canopies intact so they don’t muscle in, you can create big yawning gaps in your canopy and the clear sun will fill it back in from the remaining wood in a year or two

raginrayguns:

The TA who ran my field ecology class told us that when we saw a plant we didn’t recognize, it was important to make up a name for it, and use that name until we look up what it’s called. After that you can use the official name or your own name or whatever, the important thing is to always have a name for it, even before you know the official name

Yard weeds I know official names of – dandelions, false dandelions, blackberry, tree of heaven

Yard weeds I know by names I coined – purple tab false mushrooms, satellites, waxburgers, sharpleaf, horsecotton, hexapods, lesser shitvine, greater shitvine, vector plant, axolotl gills, velvetfold, spider grass, crack fern

Portland has volcanic/flood deposit soil and a mild climate so a lot of stuff will grow here (but we’re north enough to limit the season, so the Wilamette Valley specializes more in growing seeds and starts)

One thing though it lacks wildlife to nibble sprouts away or hard frosts so the main thing weeding out tree branches are strong windstorms from when ocean and interior air fronts sweep down the gorge and meet

So trees are given to get too bushy with tons of stubby branching while more elegant stuff gets torn off

Getting cold and leaves are falling but since the rains came back got another spring-like sprouting season for small wildflower weeds, don’t remember that in previous years

plantanarchy:

plantyhamchuk:

trapqueenkoopa:

goodbyemisery:

garbagefingers:

so-calledmooner:

garbagefingers:

I planted black hollyhock and irises this year! 

A+ content important I would also suggest soft goth things such as 

blackbird euphorbia (maybe tender here maybe niagara goths can have u)

black negligee bugbane 

chocoholic bugbane (tbh all bugbane is prolific and spoopy and wonderful)

hellebore black swan maybe also tender?

black truffle cardinal flower

the ever fave heuchera obsidian 

britt marie crawford ligularia FAVE JURASSIC LOOKING BB

and obv purple smokebush for soft goth smoke monster vibes 

thank the dark goddess for you! Saving this post! 

Black pearl pepper is another good one, I can attest that they look really cool in person. Aside from being ornamental, the little peppers are edible, and I think decently hot? I haven’t tasted them though so idk about that part

Black Pearl plants are EXTREMELY drought hardy and the peppers taste great, yes! I love mine even though I’ve given it less than stellar care; I’ve had it for…almost 10 years I think!

These pictures are so cute and so is the article.

Black Mondo grass also.

Also this is a tropical moat places but bat flower/ Tacca chantieri

Bat flower

kontextmaschine:

just a hori-hori, honestly

you sever the root deep enough it can’t regrow and throw the leaves and reproductive bodies in the compost bin before they can go to seed, that’s the trick

people with houses adjacent to me have put noticeably more effort into their yards since I started my highly visible anti-broadleaf campaign several years ago and you know what? okay.

interesting how I taught myself to cut off dead branches and fill out the exterior and create a bubble canopy and now my whole house is pretty thoroughly bubbled in and I’m gonna have to replace some of my inner color more shade-tolerant

Just trimmed a tree that used to be 3 trunks from base/8 at first branching/14 at second when I moved in back to ¼/6 and the canopy should fill itself back in complete by sometime next year

One of this year’s gardening level-ups is realizing how to time the summer climate with my grass-cutting heights so it doesn’t either dry out yellow or get wet and rot at the base

kontextmaschine:

Ugh, nothing like taking 3 years nursing a shoot to fill in and patch a bare spot in the canopy only to realize that’s such a rich vein of sunlight it’s going to develop into a major branch that totally throws off the tree’s balance so you have to cut it off

On the up side I did use that one to learn about timing the trimming of shoots, that if you let them branch as much as they want during the growing season all those leaves generate carbon to make the main shaft thicker, and then with fall the tree sucks energy down to store in the roots, in winter you trim it down to the terminus you want to grow from, and then in spring when the tree pumps energy back to the branches that bud gets near the entire energy budget pumped up that shaft

So on our block there’s what’s technically a city right-of-way for a never-paved cross street, but practically it’s a walking path/park/community yard full of grass and trees, where people plant things

And I just passed through and this neighbor that planted a tree three years ago trimmed it and he clearly had no idea what he was doing and it’s painful to look at

Like, I even get what he was going for! It came in all beanstalky with thin trunk and branches, and he was trying to train it back into a more compact, thicker shape.

(It came in that way cause it’s stretching for sunlight cause he planted it somewhere one year from being canopied over even with a better, clear location 5 yards away, but that’s neither here nor there)

But what you should do in that situation, you take your too-long branch and you find a branch off it heading in the right direction and trim back to leave that as the main branch.

He just lopped off branches square where he wanted, resulting in an ugly blunt stub, the branches off it two feet back all competing with each other to be the leader off at 60° angles, and without any apical buds to suppress them a whole hedgehog of waterspouts going straight up

Did what I could to salvage it, I’d offer to take over tending, but I don’t know how to have the “give it up, I can’t stand your work” conversation

kontextmaschine:

Just went out gardening on Feb 6, there’s patches of snow on the grass and all my trees and bushes are budding already

…so, maybe this is the normal timing and it’s just new that I pay close enough attention to notice it this early on.

Went into the backyard to do some night gardening to salvage something of the day. Man, it’s not just the trees continuing to grow branches through the winter; my spring flowers are full-grown and ready to bloom and some of the trees are regrowing leaves already.

Never seen that before even in years of mild winter, but then maybe wasn’t looking for it. Haven’t seen it in plants off my property, either, it could have something to do with all the weeding and tearing out vines and roots and this year mulching leaving then with more energy stores than they’re used to.

My trees and bushes have continued to branch and grow significantly through this winter even after losing leaves, which I hadn’t seen before.

theemperorsfeather:

hyggehaven:

*Re-posting, with new information

A store-bought bag of topsoil, a roll of landscaping fabric, or a bag of cedar chips doesn’t go very far if you have a large garden or a very limited budget. Here are some ways to create the materials you need for a beautiful, organic, productive garden, by both re-directing household waste, and foraging in your local area. I use a lot of these tricks in my garden to make it almost completely free for me to continue growing new things, and expanding the workable area every year!

For soil

• Save your food scraps to create a rich compost for growing veggies and amending your soil. There are numerous options for every size of dwelling and yard. Small space solutions such as Bokashi and vermicompost work indoors and don’t produce bad smells, so you can keep them underneath the sink.Worm towers, compost heaps, and outdoor compost bins are a great solution if you have more space. The more you add, the more rich, nutritious material you can make for your garden. I like composting because it means I don’t have gross smelly garbage bags to deal with, because food waste is diverted. It seems like a lot of work at first, but it actually saves time, money, and transportation.
• Seaweed or kelp is one of the best things for your garden, with over 70 essential nutrients, and acting as a weed barrier and a moisture-retentive mulch. I collect seaweed nearby on the beach with my bike trailer, or, when I go for a walk I bring a little home with me each time. It’s an absolute miracle for your soil.

Worm tower

Fertiliser

There are three things that are essential for plant growth. These are nitrogen for leaves and vegetation (N), phosphorus for roots and shoots (P), and potassium for water movement, flowering, and fruiting (K). Commercial fertilisers will give the relative concentrations of each of these compounds with and “NPK” rating. Plants like tomatoes also need calcium to produce healthy fruit. You can create amendments for your garden and soil at home so that you do not have to purchase fertiliser.

For nitrogen

• Grass clippings contain 4% nitrogen, 1% phosphorus, and 2% potassium (NPK = 4-1-2).
• Human urine contains 12% nitrogen, and it’s sterile. Dilute before adding directly to plants.
• Legumes such as beans, clover, peanuts, and alfalfa fix inorganic nitrogen into the soil with mycorrhizal organisms and nodules on their root systems. Plant these crops every few years in rotation with others to renew the soil organically.

For phosphorus

• Human urine is also a great source of phosphorous and trace amounts of potassium.
• Ground up bones or shells add a slow-release phosphorous to the soil
• Had a baby recently? Bury the placenta in the garden.

For potassium

• Hardwood ashes 
• Composted banana peels

For calcium

• Break down all of your eggshells, or seashells you have found, in a plastic bucket, using vinegar. This creates a soluble calcium solution you can add to a watering can. 

Soil Acidity/Alkalinity

Many plants are particular about what the soil pH should be.

• To make soil more acidic: add oak leaves, pine needles, leaf mulch, urine, coffee grounds or sphagnum. 
• To make soil more alkaline: add wood ash, shell, or bone.

Mulch

Mulch is decomposing organic matter that adds nutrition to the soil, while simultaneously keeping out weed growth and retaining moisture. It also attracts worms, fungi and other beneficial creatures to your soil. Free sources of mulch include:

• Leaves
• Garden waste
• Grass clippings
• Straw (often straw bales are given away after being used for decoration in the fall. You can also plant vegetables directly in straw bales using a technique called straw bale gardening).
• Wood chips (if you can borrow a wood chipper after you’ve collected some wood you can have attractive wood mulch for free)

Straw bale garden

Landscaping fabric

When mulch isn’t enough to keep the weeds down, many people opt for landscaping fabric. It can be quite expensive and inorganic-looking. Free solutions that both attract worms and can be replaced in small segments as they break down include:

• Newspaper*
• Cardboard*
• Egg cartons*
• Printer paper, looseleaf, etc. in thick layers*

*try to make sure you are using paper that has vegetable-based dyes, so you aren’t leeching toxins into the soil.

Soil density/drainage

• If your soil is compacted and you have plants that require low levels of water, or excellent drainage, add sand. I don’t recommend stealing it from the beach, but ask around and you’d be surprised at how easy it is to get for free. Sawdust also improves drainage. Adding organic matter and mulch encourages worms, who also till and aerate compacted soil.
• If the area still needs drainage, dig a hole and fill it with bricks or rocks to create a “dry well”
• For drainage in pots, add crushed bricks, terra cotta pot fragments, packing peanuts, small stones, marbles, orsand to the bottom under the soil layer. I find these in construction sites, on craigslist, or at flea markets.

Pots and growing containers

If you have space, raised beds are a great no-dig way to establish growing space. If you are pressed for space (like working on a balcony) there are many cheap or free options for container gardens.

• Creating raised beds allows you to build up the soil without digging. Free ways to do this include using rocks or lumber (like my DIY “lasagna garden” made with the sheet composting technique), using the “wattle“ method with sticks and posts you have found, using discarded straw bales, old bricks,paving stones, cinder blocks or really anything else you have lying around.
• Hugelkutur raised beds, which fix carbon and provide drainage, can be made by stacking sticks and untreated wood, and then piling soil or compost over it. (Thanks milos-garden)
• Rubber tire gardens retain heat in the night and allow for great drainage. They can also be painted in fun ways.
• Herb spirals (here is mine: 1, 2, 3) can be built with stones, bricks, and other found materials.
• I often use old cooking pots, barbecues, teapots, or other found objects as planters.
• Making wooden planters is easy, and scrap or salvaged wood is also easy to come by. I’m not a fan of using wooden pallets for DIY projects, but they are also a free source of lumber for things like planters.
• If you can track down peat moss, cement, and vermiculite, you can make an easy Hypertufa planter in whatever shape you would like, provided you have a form in which it can dry.
• I’ve made hanging gardens out of soda cans.
• You can build a self-watering container with a 2L pop bottle.
• Start seeds in eggshells
• Make biodegradable pots out of newspapers.

Wattle raised beds

Rubber tire gardens

Hugelkultur

An herb spiral

Hanging gardens in cans (2)

Trellises and supports

Many plants need external support, such as stakes of trellises, to thrive.

• Rebar can almost always be salvaged cheaply or free and makes a great trellis, arch, or purgola 
• Build trellises and supports out of the pliable young stems of plants like willow

Rebar trellis/arch

Living willow arch/trellis

Paving

Paving often requires a foundation of sand or another stable and well-drained substrate, and a covering of stones, bricks, or other weatherproof elements. Slowly collect stones over time, or free paving stone fragments to create a mosaic-type walkway. Often people give these things away on craigslist. I made a patio and fireplace out of free salvaged bricks, for example.

Salvaged garden walkway

Greenhouses and cold frames

• Here is a gallery of greenhouses made out of salvaged windows and doors
• A cold frame is easy to make with salvaged lumber, and plastic sheeting.

Window greenhouse

Palet cold-frame

Seeds and plants

• Swap seeds with other gardeners
• If you see a plant you like at someone’s house, ask for seeds or cuttings
• Save seeds every year and build a library of options. Here is a great guide to seed saving.
• Save seeds from foods you like from the grocery store: consider growing peanuts, ginger, garlic, peppers, or a walnut tree: all of these and more can be planted from store-bought produce.
• Learn to take cuttings. There is a tonne of info on the web about basic cutting propagation, layering, (like I do with rhododendrons) air layering, and numerous other techniques to take clones of plants you like. This saves going to a nursery and shelling out big bucks for all the variety you want.
• For cuttings, willow tea and honey are great rooting hormones/antiseptics/anti-fungal agents, which can save you $40 if you were thinking of buying commercial rooting hormone.
• You can root cuttings in a potato! (See my methods for rooting “borrowed” plants here)

Air layering

Rooting cuttings in potatoes

—-

I hope this helps you build your garden outside of the usual capitalist channels! It can be a cheap or free hobby if you are willing to think outside the box, and maybe put up with things that don’t look as clean or crisp as a hardware store catalogue.

If you have any further ideas, please add them! The more information the better.

Another source for pots: Your local garden center (even some at the big name big box stores) may have many, many, MANY used pots they will sell for pennies or possibly even give away.

I think I finally got the hang of the scythe

The instructional stuff I read (and watched) was all “don’t use your arms to move it, hold them straight and pivot at the hips!”

And for a while I was trying to do that and it just exhausted my arms and didn’t have that great control anyway

And I think the thing was to start your rotation at the core but don’t treat the arms as solid spokes but heavy ropes with their own inertia and let them whip around to follow the core

Now that I’ve got the rhythm honestly I’m thinking of upgrading from a 24″ to a 32″ grass blade or maybe at least a 28″ heavy blade, there’s one part of the side yard that’s a thick enough grass species I have to make a few hacks at it at cutting length

Haha holy shit, I just realized these two weeds I’d been dealing with ever since before I got this house, so like five years?, one I called “Satellite Weed” (though it really reminds me of a space station) and one I called “Rice Krispie Wheat”, were the same plant all along, just in different stages of development grown to different shapes in different soils and sun exposures

kontextmaschine:

When I moved in this smoke tree had been hacked half to death and then left to pollard out for years; the highest point was a tuft of leaves on an 8-foot whip.

So I trimmed the absurd stuff back gradually over 2 seasons so not to shock it, and that stimulated enough budding that hopefully I can train it back into some coherent shape.

Coming in pretty well!