Propagation Of Rose Cuttings

My first attempt at propagation (first attenpt at this for anything) is going well! I got a basic rundown of how to do it from a GardenWeb friend who is a Master Gardener. She's awesome (Thanks, April...lol)! Basically, these are the steps she told me:

*Get a 2-liter soda bottle, wash it out & cut it in half
*Put some soil in the bottom half of the cut bottle
*Dip rose cuttings in rooting hormone
*Place cuttings into soil, putting at least 2-3 leaf nodes below soil level
*Water heavily
*Place top of bottle back on (around) bottom half, leaving the cap on, forming a terrarium of sorts
*Put bottle in somewhat sunny location, but not too sunny so cuttings don't get cooked in bottle
*Once rose cuttings start to show a bit of new growth, take top of bottle off for a few hours a day
*Once a good bit of new growth has formed & roots are visible on edges of bottle quite well, etc., transplant & you have new rose plants!

Well, I followed these directions with my 3 Zephrine Droughin Climbing Rose cuttings I got from another good friend on GardenWeb (Thanks, Connie!). They have been "propagating" for almost 3 weeks now. About a week after I started them I saw roots coming off all 3 cuttings. I was so excited (as this is my first real attempt at propagating anything)! =) Now, they have started to get a little bit of new growth & are almost close to the stage where they need to be transplanted. I bet, by the end of November, I will have transplanted all 3 to their own homes. I just think it's awesome to be able to cut a 6 or so inch piece off a rose plant and using what it seems like is so easy of a process, make it into a totally new plant! Below are a few pictures of the process, in chronological order. The first one is from a day or two after I started them. The second is from about 8-9 days ago & the third is from Wednesday morning of this week. I know it's not too easy to see the plants through the bottle, but you can get a general idea of their size (somewhat...lol). Let me know what y'all think. =)

Fall Middle Tennessee Plant Swap Garden Additions

This past Saturday, the 17th, I attended the Fall MTPS (Middle Tennessee Plant Swap) with about 30 other great kind awesome people! I brought home some beautiful plants. Some of which will make up my new flower garden. I also got several neat herbs which will be my indoor Winter herb garden & more. Below are some pictures of them along with identification. Thanks again to all the great friends from the MTPS who gave me(or traded for) these new additions! =)

UPDATE: All unidentified plants have been named. =) Thanks to some of my gardening friends on here & on GardenWeb for help with them.




OUTDOOR WINTER GARDEN


Aloe:



Bee Balm:



Cereus Tetragonus 'Fairy castle' Cactus:



Caryopteris:



Grape Hyacinth: (Thanks a ton, Evelyn! There must have been over 30 wee bulbs in the lot you gave me!)



Kerria Japonica (Japanese Rose):



Close-up of Kerria Japonica:



Dragon's Blood & Blue Spruce Sedums: (Thanks Jenn F. & Dave for the identification help!)



Cereus Peruvianus Monstrose Cactus:



Strawberry Bed: (Thanks Dave, these should do well. Half of them have already started straightening up!)



Kalanchoe Daigremontiana (aka Bryophyllum Daigremontianum...also known as Alligator Plant & Mother Of A 1000): (I love this plant! It drops wee lil babies into the soil)



UT Orange Canna's: (Jeff: If you see this, you're proud of me now, right? ;) )





INDOOR WINTER GARDEN


Old & New African Violets, Lemon Lime Basil & My Target $1 Plant Tests:



Herbs (Parsley, Greek Oregano, Cilantro, some type of Purple Basil, some other herb I forgot the name of (in bottom left corner), and my new Red Dragon Flower cuttings. Thanks, Wanda!):



Indian Mint (Deffinitely one of my new favorites!):



Wandering Jew:

Fall Seeds & Plants: Preparation For Spring

Some of you may be aware that tomorrow I will be attending the Fall Middle Tennessee Plant Swap. I already have a handful of pre-arranged trades & i'm sure will be coming home with some other items I didn't expect, also. So, i'll have some new things to grow next year from seeds & plants I get there, plus from seeds i'm getting off the GardenWeb Seed Exchange forum. I am very excited about some of them. See below for my already building list of new items for next year, which include my new flower garden section! =)

New additions:

*Dwarf Pomegranate Tree seeds (will be a great addition to my fruit garden!)
*Kerria Japonica plant
*Zephrine Droughin Climbing Rose plant
*Bee Balm plant
*A few more Red Dragon Flower starts, as my current plant seems on its way out due to the weather :-\
*Melrose pepper seeds
*Wisconsin 55 tomato seeds
*Sungold tomato seeds
*Canterbury bell flower seeds
*Aloe

The Hyponex Experiment Story & Results

HYPONEX EXPERIMENT

Born: April 5th, 2009
Died: not yet

Many of you may be aware of what I dubbed my "Hyponex Experiment" plant this year. With the cost of pre-mixed Miracle Gro or another type of pre-mixed good quality potting medium (Pro Mix, etc.), I decided to do an experiment of sorts seeing exactly how bad Hyponex Potting Soil is for growing vegetables. I picked a Jalapeno Early Organic pepper plant to use. It's somewhat common knowledge how substandard the Hyponex soil is, but I wanted to see for myself. It supposedly clumps together easily, has sand in the mix, etc., etc..

A great link that shows its composition & also compares it to 4 other types of soil is below.

Potting Soil Comparison

The 40lb (2 cu ft, I believe) bag of Hyponex is about $1.50-$3.00. The same size bag (if it existed) of a Miracle Gro Potting Mix would be over $20! The 1.5 cu ft bag of MG runs about $10-$15. You can see one of the main reasons for my experiment now. =)

This test lasted about 18 weeks, from the day I put the Jalapeno seedling in the Hyponex until just a few days ago when I took the final picture of it (see pics below).

I found that over the first few weeks, with the same exact feeding & watering regiment as my other Jalapeno plants, that there really was not much, if any, noticeable difference! Probably because the plant still held nutrients from it's previous home/medium. I started to notice it was drying out a good bit quicker than the others, so I about doubled the amount of water it got for the remainder of the experiment. I still, throughout the whole 18 weeks, kept the feeding the exact same as my other Jal plants. After about a month to a month and a half, I started to notice the other Jal's leaving it in the dust so to speak. The Hyponex plant was flowering a lot less, producing slower, producing smaller fruit & looking a good bit less healthy (yellowing). It stayed that way for the rest of the experiment lifetime, eventually even yellowing a good bit more over the last month or so. I probably got about 7-10 total Jalapeno's off the plant, most of which were smaller than Jal's off my other plants (which, on average, have already produced 40-60 Jals a piece).

Summed up, Hyponex provides pretty much no nutrition for a plant at all. It does work well as a good physical supporting medium, as I didn't have to stake the plant. I may have done so for a week or two just to be safe, but it was not necessary. The first few weeks with a plant in this soil with show little to no difference than the same type of plant in a better medium. Over time, the plant in Hyponex will show nutrient deficiencies which cause yellowing, low fruit production, smaller fruit production & possibly other effects as well. I would not reccomend using Hyponex for any plant that doesn't love poor quality soil (for instance, it would work just fine for Nasturtiums, as they prefer poor soil). I believe Hyponex, if supplemented with some type of nutrient rich matter, would be just fine for single season plant growth. In fact, next year I plan to continue this experiment. I will put another Jalapeno plant in a mix of Hyponex and some type of nutrient supplement like compost or whatever.

Below is my original introduction blog post about The "Hyponex Experiment" & a picture life-cycle of the plant. Please let me know what you think. If you have any suggestions for the supplement to use with it next year, keeping in mind it must be cheap as I don't want the cost to add up anywhere close to what a good potting mix would cost. Any other suggestions, comments, questions, or anything I may have left out of this post that you're curious about are welcome. =)

Thanks - Steve




Introduction blog post

PICTURE LIFE CYCLE:

05/12/09 (Date of transplant into Hyponex potting mix):


05/18/09:


05/27/09:


06/04/09:


06/11/09:


06/15/09 (First flower):


06/20/09 (First Jalapeno forms!):


06/22/09:


07/01/09 (First Jalapeno continues to grow):


07/06/09:


07/06/09 (closeup):


07/11/09:


07/18/09:


07/30/09:


07/30/09 (closeup):


08/11/09:


08/11/09 (closeup):


09/24/09 (Final picture):

My Latest Additions

A plate of peppers...Orange Habanero's, Serrano's & Hot Banana's:



Some pickled red & green Jalapeno's, one jar of which I will be bringing to the Fall MTPS, if I can make it there:

A few pictures & some unfortunate news.

Pictures i've taken since the last update on Steve's Garden are below. Enjoy. =)

The unfortunate news being i've been diagnosed with Avascular Necrosis in my right hip & am having surgery soon...at 32 years old.

Serrano:



Orange Habanero:



Dwarf Banana Tree:

about a week ago...


August 21st...


"Monster Cherry Tomato" seedling experiment plants, at about 7 weeks old are 3 feet tall are confirmed to be to producing maters. =)

Garden Update: Real Harvests Are Starting!

Welcome back to Steve's Garden. Some of you may be aware that i've already pulled about 40-50 or so Cherry tomatoes. They were all quite tasty! I've also harvested about 5-6 Hot Hungarian Wax peppers, 2 Jalapeno peppers, some herbs & various other small harvests. Well, the pictures below will explain this better, but starting last week, my Early Girl tomatoes are ripening & I probably have well over 150-200 peppers on several different plants that will be ready to pick within the next week or two! Not to mention, I am constantly picking herbs, have pickling cukes well on their way & beans soon to flower. I imagine i'll have a constant flow of fresh veggies for the rest of the season, which is awesome! =)

Here is a round of pictures of only the plants harvested off of already or very soon to be harvested...

First off are a few pictures of some maters I yanked off the plants within the past few days.

My favorite, the Early Girl tomatoes i've picked within the last few days (3 of the maters pictured are from my neighbor):



Cherry tomatoes (This is about 2 days worth off 2 plants. I'll be waiting 2 weeks or so for the next set to come in & start to ripen.):






Next, an update on my dwarf fruit trees.

Dwarf Banana Tree (This thing is taking off bigtime! I love it! Heck, it might be 2-3 feet tall before I have to take it indoors for the Winter.):



Dwarf Lime Tree (Continues to get new growth at the same rate.):






Early Girl Tomato Update (I was so excited to get my first ripe EG this year! With all the crazy weather throwing everyone's plants off where their maters won't ripen, I was a bit worried. Almost every tomato in the following pictures will probably start to ripen & be picked within the next week or two.):
















Pepper Plant Update...

Hot Hungarian Wax & One Jalapeno:
















California Wonder Bell & Yellow Bell (Cali Wonder first, then Yellow. Both of which now have 4-5 peppers growing on them! I didn't think I would get many of these this year as they just started finally producing fruit about 2 weeks ago.):



Isn't she beautiful?!?! =)













"World's Hottest Habanero" (This plant has probably 40+ Habs growing on it with many more to come soon.):










The "Serrano Tree" (lol...I call it a tree because the dang thing is probably over 4 feet tall now. It also has probably 30-40+ peppers growing on it & many more soon to come.):








The "Hyponex Experiment" Jalapeno (Continues to show yellowing leaf stress/malnutrition from crappy soil, but still producing! It probably has about 6-7 Jals on it currently.):








Pickling Cucumber bed & Yellow Wax Bean bed (cukes still trying to take over, but they've luckily taken to the bamboo I am trying to get them to grow on. I should have a few to pick quite soon!):








My experimental Cherry tomato seedlings, grown from seeds picked out of one of my "Monster Cherry Tomatoes.":