Welcome to /plant/, the happy green place on this blue board, where growers, gardeners and horticulturists share their love for things that grow.Newbies and amateurs are very welcome, and we’ll always try to answer your questions.>Flora of the Worldhttp://www.worldfloraonline.org/>Plants of the World Onlinehttps://powo.science.kew.org/>Hardiness zoneshttps://www.plantmaps.com/>Plant ID Siteshttps://identify.plantnet.org/https://wildflowersearch.org/>Pests and Diseaseshttps://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/advice-searchhttps://www.growveg.com/plant-diseases/us-and-canada/>Thousands of Botanical Illustrationshttp://www.plantillustrations.org/>Cacti and Succulentshttps://worldofsucculents.com/https://www.cactiguide.com/https://www.succulentguide.com/>Carnivorous plantshttps://botany.org/home/resources/carnivorous-plants-insectivorous-plants.htmlhttps://carnivorousplants.org/grow/guides>Alpine plantshttps://www.alpinegardensociety.net/plants/>Roses, Clematis and Peonieshttps://www.helpmefind.com>Pondshttps://www.wildlifetrusts.org/actions/how-build-pond>How to Make a Terrariumhttps://terrariumtribe.com/diy-terrarium-guide/Previously on /plant/ >>5132774
Why do people like peat? It's always too dry or too wet.
>>5154186>Because a plant grows at 100% when ti has enough water and nutrients. Adding an extra rootstock won't make it grow faster. Just like how adding extra nutrients when it's got all the nutrients it needs already won't make any difference.Yeah, because if a plant has a single rootstock it can only process so much nutrients. Increase the scale of its root network and it can increase its processing of nutrients, especially when there are two or more main stems fusing into one. Plants with a tri-rootstock networks have been shown in preliminary studies ro have overall increase in diameter of around 150%, an increase in total leaf surface area of 80% and an increased leaf count of 50%. The only downside shown is a minor decrease to the plants height compared to singular rootstock of about -10%. Then there's the histlrical practice of orchard grafting where tree grafters sometimes graft together multiple saplings of the same variety to improve their resilience to harsh weather conditions.
>>5154209I have never known anyone who likes peat
>>5154206>bamboo will grow like crazyWhen will this meme dieIf you plant in a place that's too dry, too rocky, etc it barely grows at allMine only has like 5 stems barely 10 feet tall after four years
I got this ficus as a gift. Where do I trim it? I read that leaving it to grow on its own doesn’t work too well for a bonsai
>>5154269I'm no expert but it looks like it has grown already quite tall, but honestly, it entirely depends on the style of bonsai you're going with. I'd remove the first three lower stems from the main stem with a clean blade to make it seem neater, then I would suggest you either trim down the two branch cannopies horizontally that have split from the main stems upper node so you have an even cannopy with some leaves still present, or alternatively, cut one of the branches off wholesale and keep the other. If you choose the last option I'd then look into bonsai bending to curve the remaining branch overtime very slowly at an 8 or 4 o clock angle (some use wire, string or curved plastic with a channel to fit the branch in to do it).Or you can do the autistic nuclear option and tanuki it.Get a hunk of dried drift or bogwood and cut a channel along it and then align the ficus's main steam along the channel with some bonsai wire. Over time the main stem will fuse with the bog or driftwood. Pic rel is a very simple and basic example of a tanuki and with your bonsai I think that might be something worth looking at due to how tall it is already. You can also drill out a hole at the base of the dried wood with a diameter wide enough to feed the main stem of the ficus through and then bend it along the length of the dried wood, finishing it off by covering the base of the dried wood with substrate so it looks like the ficus is an actual branch growing from the dried wood. That though is more finnicky to pull off though as you need to feed the main steam AND it's cannopy through the drilled hole, which is doable, but you run the risk of damaging the cannopy in the process.
>>5154201Okay so my melon status is SWELLIN’What the fuck do I put under these things so they don’t rot as we approach ripening? It’s honeydew and cantaloupes.
My Solanum uleanum cutting rooted and has new shoots, was under a bell jar in moss, now moved into standing semi-vented jar. >>5154395dry untreated cardboard slat if you don't have too much rain
Hibiscus guy from the last thread. It got through the repotting OK and it's rebounding with a lot of new growth. The old leaves dried up but once it recovered it took off.Question: I'm not gonna fuck with it this year while it's regrowing, but next year is there anything I can do to encourage growth from the bottom like a normal one, or am I stuck with everything growing from the tips of the old trunks?
>>5154757Backstory was it was kept in the same pot indoors for 20 years with no fertilizer and apparently no soil. Most of the plant had died off and was rotting.
>>5154757If it was more alive you could probably hack it back to a stump and start over. You're better off waiting for it to go dormant and taking off like one third off the top of the old branches, and then do it again next year until they're completely gone.
>>5154757It's not a normal one, it's one that survived 20 years of awful conditions. Let it look unique.
>>5154843I'm a little reluctant to hack anything. Most of that stump is already toast.>>5154889I'm jealous of my neighbor who has one that's had a happy life. It's only a couple years old and it's 5' tall and bushy enough for a Viet Cong to hide in.I think my guy had been repotted several times from absolutely tiny pots in the past, and they never took out the crushed pot shards used for drainage. When I was soaking the roots I found three layers of stuff buried in there. When I got it the roots had long escaped the pot looking for greener pastures.
>>5154209>>5154254>making bogs without peatPeat is based and i wont hear anything else from you hippies
>>5154509>dry untreated cardboard slatWanted to stop back by and confirm that this worked really well. It rained maybe once and then I just replaced the cardboard as needed to keep it dry. Glad I buy so much dumb shit online and have so many boxes lmao
What can handle very hot reflected heat from rocks or being stuck between very hot rocks?
>>5154995Are you trying to grow something in a sauna?
>>5154995
>>5155023BASED
Update on the mystery plant in the garden
If I took a cutting of the nice new leaves how easy would it be to grow?
I asked about Garlic in Plants in the last Thread but got no answer. Maybe someone will be so kind as to reply this time
>>5155123It's not a mystery plant, its a rose of Sharon as you've been told before
>>5155152I dont know what a rose of sharon is so its still a mystery plant
>>5155152Yes but it's still THE mystery plant
>>5155175it's a temperate perennial rose mallow (mallows being the same family as okra) that eventually forms a flower bush or a small tree, similar to the tropical hibiscus you see for sale as annuals except it will overwinter and live for decades and is the national flower of korea
>>5155260Never heard or seen this mystery plant. It seems quite mysterious
I really like the smell of these.
>>5155142what is your question my son
>>5155343Thanks for calling me that, it's quite warming.I want to know if topping the soil with garlic skin actually keeps the flies away, or am I just wasting my time?
>>5155382i would not imagine so. garlic skins don't contain a lot of the phytochemicals that cause garlic to repel pests. if they did you would be able to smell them. and even if you spread actual garlic cloves on your soil they would lose their potency quickly. you'd be better off growing an actual garlic plant in your garden bed for this purpose, or another species in the genus allium like chives since garlic has much stricter timing requirements to grow. alliums in general are said to repel aphids and some kinds of caterpillar and are traditional companion crops for plants which are vulnerable to those pests, like cabbages. i don't know about flies but most things other than humans seem to really hate the smell of alliums. even birds in my experience. i have to move my parrot to the other side of the house whenever i chop garlic or onions or he starts shrieking
>>5155618oh sorry i've just realised you're probably talking about a pot rather than a garden bed. have you tried BTI, aka mosquito bits? it worked very well for me when i had fungus gnats infest all my trays. people do also make sprays out of garlic for this sort of thing since it will actually last a bit longer in a container than a garden bed, especially if it's indoors, but then your whole house will stink of rotting garlic so it's not something i would do personally
>>5155618Sad to hear, becaSe this is a real ontmgoing problem. I was referring to indoor plants so most of that doesn't apply. Thank you for your response
>>5155629I feel like you can just buy a garlic concentrate or something for this no?
>>5155630I don't know what to do. I'm asking
None of these so called companion plants repel insects. They're old wives tales. It's ridiculous how people believe certain plant must surely repel insects because they happen to possess a strong or distinct smell to us. As if insects would hsve the samr sense of smell, sensibilities or preferences as human beings (the fact that many insects are attracted by rotting organic matter and literal shit should immediately refute this idea). Garlic repels flies as much as it does vampires.
>damn is that garlic? gross>anyway
>>5155655I agree with this somewhat. One has to remember they are animals in the wild. They can't afford to be picky. Even if they don't like the smell, it might be the only thing they can eat or place they can breed. It kind of reminds me of that scene in Battlefield Earth where the humans are eating rats.
>>5155655I thought companion plants worked by being more attractive to insects than other plants. Like they protected the plants you wanted by being eaten preferably. But I don’t know where this idea came from.
>>5155833What you're describing is called 'bait cropping' but it's mostly based on wishful thinking (aren't you just inviting pests into your garden at that point that otherwise wouldn't have been there by giving them a dedicated food source?). The best way to mitigate pests is probably by avoiding monoculture.
>fliesIf you have flies then you need to get rid of the rotting food in your houseIf you have fungus gnats, which is what you actually have, you need to learn that plants aren't fish and don't have to be drowned every few days
>>5155960In my own experiments to eliminate them I found that gnat populations can survive a crazy amount of deprivation. They will just change their characteristics to improve survival chances.The only real limiting factors are that larva need some organic material with minimal moisture and they need to live in a medium that they can burrow through and can emerge from the surface as adults.So there's basically two options:1) Go with a soilless mix and use synthetic fertilizer only2) If the soil has organics than can break down then the surface needs to be covered with something like river sand and the pot only bottom-watered.
>>5156003Diatomite won't work?
>>5156015I'm 30% diatomite
>>5156085OK but seriously, it's a layer of silica shells of some single-celled algae. They sell it as a broken up powder and at the insect/egg scale it's like crawling on broken glass. It's supposed to cut open larvae and dehydrate them.
>>5156085Diatomite is my name.
>>5155960>you need to learn that plants aren't fish and don't have to be drowned every few daysFalse.
>>5155655these are literal basic facts about plant biology. plants like garlic have strong odours and flavours because of secondary metabolites that they produce for the main purpose of deterring herbivory. they're called antifeedants and if you'd read literally a single thing about what they are and why they exist you would know this. the main antifeedant and flavour compound in garlic is called allicin and its effects on smell, taste, and insect predation are eminently googleable. you are at any moment less than 5 seconds away from this information and you resist acquiring it in favour of dismissing the things the people who know it do as wives tales
>>5156172Nonsense. It's entirely possible that garlic has a certain chemical defenses against certain insects but that doesnt mean that it keeps those those insects away altogether or thay it is some kind of universal insect repellent. But people like you typically start seething when you dispell these old garden myths because they were taught that way by grandma so they're emotionally attached to them
>>5156172Anon, refer to >>5155687You're going to eat moldy bread if you're starving and don't know when you'll get food next.To put a point on it, you're going to eat AROUND the mold.
Some of my tropical Solanum varieties (but notably, not all) are strongly red fluorescent under a blacklight. Specifically Solanum evolvulifolium shows a mixed reaction, with newer shoots being more red, and mature shoots not showing strong redness.
https://youtu.be/M1tpyd5VOGk
My Tomato plant seems to be growing well, but almost all the flowers its grown lately have never really opened and look to have withered. What am I doing wrong?
My wild bergamot has finally flowered and I'm really excited that even if summer is pretty much over its actually showing off a bit. Even saw a humming bird checking it out for a little bit for a second or two, was too far to tell if it was actually drinking from it.
