2021 Mid-Atlantic Garden, Lawn, and Other Green Stuff Thread

[Kay]

I think my seed order might arrive today!

[vastateofmind]

29 minutes ago, Kay said:

I think my seed order might arrive today!

Can I be nosy and ask what you ordered this go-round? I see on the last page you were considering your vegetables for the season...perhaps some flowers. I hope you, and others here, share growth/progress pics...love to see them.

[Kay]

On 2/27/2021 at 11:43 AM, vastateofmind said:

Can I be nosy and ask what you ordered this go-round? I see on the last page you were considering your vegetables for the season...perhaps some flowers. I hope you, and others here, share growth/progress pics...love to see them.

Zinnia, cosmos, mexican sunflower, nasturtium, tomatoes, cukes, couple types of basil (aka the usual). I got dill, not as much for eating but I read it is a butterfly host plant/fave. Wild thyme, flat parsley. Also going to try growing petunia and snapdragon seeds. I splurged and got too many kinds of zinnia (6), cosmos (4), and tomatoes (5, plus they sent a free pack).

I do not have room for all this haha. I'm also nearly incapable of thinning and throwing away. Last year I gave a bunch of seedlings to a coworker friend and she had a blast growing them so going to do that again. She later made me a couple beautiful zinnia drawings I like reading about/seeing others' plants too.

[Kay]

Has anyone had luck planting year-old or more greens seeds (lettuce, chard, mustard, etc)? I resisted but have leftovers.

[Eskimo Joe]

On 2/28/2021 at 1:31 PM, Kay said:

Has anyone had luck planting year-old or more greens seeds (lettuce, chard, mustard, etc)? I resisted but have leftovers.

They'll sprout with probably a 75% germination rate. Leftover seeds usually work for about 2 years.

[vastateofmind]

4 hours ago, frd said:

Might get out today and do some yard work. Had several large trees removed and stumps grounded. CAPE can you recommend what to do with the grindings?  

I am thinking I can use them in the back of my property for natural mulch as they hopefully break down over time, I do not want to use them right next to the house because I read there can be termite issues. Have to research that more. Thanks 

And wow, it looks great next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. And finally some drying.  

Being a little more careful with my posting location on this one.  So, @frd brings up a great question, @CAPE....and I'm in frd's boat. Just had a tree removed from side of house in January, have a two-foot high pile of mulch from the stump-grinding remaining. Can you actually use that stuff for mulching? It was a maple tree, so the shavings are a little more "blond" than typical mulch (at least right now), so I'm just not sure. There's definitely a lot left over and I hate to waste it, or have it hauled away...and I even considered using a bunch of it to fill in a hole that resulted from a previously ground-stump hole in my backyard that has started to collapse a bit. Just curious.

[CAPE]

2 hours ago, vastateofmind said:

Being a little more careful with my posting location on this one.  So, @frd brings up a great question, @CAPE....and I'm in frd's boat. Just had a tree removed from side of house in January, have a two-foot high pile of mulch from the stump-grinding remaining. Can you actually use that stuff for mulching? It was a maple tree, so the shavings are a little more "blond" than typical mulch (at least right now), so I'm just not sure. There's definitely a lot left over and I hate to waste it, or have it hauled away...and I even considered using a bunch of it to fill in a hole that resulted from a previously ground-stump hole in my backyard that has started to collapse a bit. Just curious.

I don't see why not. I prefer the mulch to all have a darker and more consistent 'seasoned' look, so I just buy hardwood mulch. If you don't care about the aesthetics, then sure use it.

[CAPE]

I think I am going to put some grass seed down this weekend in the random patches where it didn't come in very well last fall. Just going to loosen the soil and bury it an inch or so under. Wont germinate right away but should do fine and start coming up the last week of March. Pretty confident the weather will cooperate. Did this last year around the 10th of March and it worked out well.

[diatae]

Looks like it will be a perfect afternoon to put my Meyer lemon tree outside for a bit! Bacardi (that's her name) has lost a lot of leaves, put on new ones, and produced a bunch of lemons since I brought her inside in October.

[mattie g]

On 3/9/2021 at 7:19 AM, diatae said:

Looks like it will be a perfect afternoon to put my Meyer lemon tree outside for a bit! Bacardi (that's her name) has lost a lot of leaves, put on new ones, and produced a bunch of lemons since I brought her inside in October.

That's awesome! We had a Meyer lemon for a few years, but despite thriving most of the time - producing a tree full of flowers and starting to produce multiple lemons, it really suffered indoors due to a really bad infestation of citrus scale that I couldn't get rid of. It was really disappointing to have to ultimately dispose of the tree.

[diatae]

3 hours ago, mattie g said:

That's awesome! We had a Meyer lemon for a few years, but despite thriving most of the time - producing a tree full of flowers and starting to produce multiple lemons, it really suffered indoors due to a really bad infestation of citrus scale that I couldn't get rid of. It was really disappointing to have to ultimately dispose of the tree.

Ugggh! That sucks. Try again!

[nj2va]

Anyone with experience getting rid of bamboo?  The house we’re buying has bamboo that is priority #1 in the landscaping dept. to get rid of.  I’m inclined to just hire a landscaper to take care of it since it seems like a nightmare to handle - the only good news is that its not a large area since they only planted it about 2.5 years ago.  But there are already lots of rhizomes so want to take care of this ASAP once we close in 2 weeks.

[WxUSAF]

Bamboo is the worst. You probably need a landscaper. You could try a very thorough mechanical removal with some targeted roundup application yourself and see how things go? But you’ll eventually probably lose the battle.

[nj2va]

14 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

Bamboo is the worst. You probably need a landscaper. You could try a very thorough mechanical removal with some targeted roundup application yourself and see how things go? But you’ll eventually probably lose the battle.

Thanks, I think I may just do that in the meantime to see how I do considering I can’t get on the landscapers schedule until July given the spring rush underway.  I get the privacy it provides but I really don’t understand the desire to plant bamboo considering how invasive it is.

[WxUSAF]

It’s a terrible invasive. I wish garden shops stopped selling all these nasty invasives.

[nj2va]

2 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

It’s a terrible invasive. I wish garden shops stopped selling all these nasty invasives.

English Ivy is high on my ‘what the f were they thinking’ list of invasive plants.  I’ll be pulling up all of that too.  

It’s a shame driving on the GW Parkway (or really anywhere) and seeing all the trees just covered in it.

[WxUSAF]

Ivy is terrible. Honeysuckle and oriental bittersweet too. Those three just obliterate native trees.

[nj2va]

Thanks, I had no idea that what I’ve seen all over the area is actually oriental bittersweet....that stuff has basically created huge canopies and overrun huge areas of mature trees around here.  I cut down some of it last summer in the common spaces in our neighborhood.  

[vastateofmind]

27 minutes ago, nj2va said:

English Ivy is high on my ‘what the f were they thinking’ list of invasive plants.  I’ll be pulling up all of that too.  

It’s a shame driving on the GW Parkway (or really anywhere) and seeing all the trees just covered in it.

Years ago, my in-laws let this crap overtake a third of the exterior of their otherwise beautiful brick home. At one point before they both died, they had a landscaper remove it all, but by that time the damage had been done...left so many root marks and pockmarks on the brick. Will never have this planted anywhere near buildings, ever.

[Kay]

how are your pepper sprouts/seedlings @mattie g ?

[mattie g]

28 minutes ago, Kay said:

how are your pepper sprouts/seedlings @mattie g ?

They're actually coming along really nicely. Nearly every pepper and tomato seed germinated, so I had to snip some seedlings yesterday to give the others room to grow. The only issue I'm running into now is that I'm getting some purpling of the leaves, so after some research it seems I may need to add magnesium and/or phosphorus to help them out. I'll probably need to pot up pretty soon, too, but I'd like to get them a little bigger and stronger before doing that - maybe shoot to do it next weekend.

I need to get my lettuce, spinach, and basil seeds going soon, with cucumbers and cantaloupe in the next week or two. Lots happening!

How's things on your end?

[WxUSAF]

1 hour ago, nj2va said:

Thanks, I had no idea that what I’ve seen all over the area is actually oriental bittersweet....that stuff has basically created huge canopies and overrun huge areas of mature trees around here.  I cut down some of it last summer in the common spaces in our neighborhood.  

Yup. It loves edge habitats as it needs some sunlight, so it thrives in suburban environments where there’s not a lot of deep woods. It’s basically wiped out (and hybridized with) native bittersweet as well. 

[Kay]

1 hour ago, mattie g said:

They're actually coming along really nicely. Nearly every pepper and tomato seed germinated, so I had to snip some seedlings yesterday to give the others room to grow. The only issue I'm running into now is that I'm getting some purpling of the leaves, so after some research it seems I may need to add magnesium and/or phosphorus to help them out. I'll probably need to pot up pretty soon, too, but I'd like to get them a little bigger and stronger before doing that - maybe shoot to do it next weekend.

I need to get my lettuce, spinach, and basil seeds going soon, with cucumbers and cantaloupe in the next week or two. Lots happening!

How's things on your end?

Very good report! Cool that everything germinated so well and that you're nearing potting up time already. It would be interesting to hear the results of the magnesium/phosphorus if you decide you need to do it.

So far I've only started petunia seeds, a new experiment this year, tiny slow growers but doing well. This weekend I plan to start tomato and basil seeds and then toward the end of the month cucumbers and the main batch of annual flowers for the butterfly, bee, and hummingbird buffet. I think I'll try sowing some lettuce, spinach, and parsley outdoors in containers sometime soon, too.

[mattie g]

3 hours ago, nj2va said:

Thanks, I had no idea that what I’ve seen all over the area is actually oriental bittersweet....that stuff has basically created huge canopies and overrun huge areas of mature trees around here.  I cut down some of it last summer in the common spaces in our neighborhood.  

 

2 hours ago, WxUSAF said:

Yup. It loves edge habitats as it needs some sunlight, so it thrives in suburban environments where there’s not a lot of deep woods. It’s basically wiped out (and hybridized with) native bittersweet as well. 

There's also kudzu, which does much the same thing in creating huge canopies.

[WxUSAF]

3 minutes ago, mattie g said:

 

There's also kudzu, which does much the same thing in creating huge canopies.

Yes. Less of that locally, but some around for sure.

[nw baltimore wx]

8 hours ago, nj2va said:

Anyone with experience getting rid of bamboo?  The house we’re buying has bamboo that is priority #1 in the landscaping dept. to get rid of.  I’m inclined to just hire a landscaper to take care of it since it seems like a nightmare to handle - the only good news is that its not a large area since they only planted it about 2.5 years ago.  But there are already lots of rhizomes so want to take care of this ASAP once we close in 2 weeks.

I think mdot uses something with glyphosate herbicide in it. It seems very effective. You can get it from good mail order places. If you call them, they may even have a good recipe for getting rid of bamboo specifically. 
 

I will try to find the place I got my stuff from to kill my invasive Bermuda grass.

[Eskimo Joe]

Bamboo, Ivy, Kurdzu, Mint, and Chinese lantern flowers are the WORST plants. They find a small spot and just flourish. I know of several community gardens that outright ban these plants and make members sign a waiver agreeing to not plant these species in a community setting.

[mkellerm]

11 hours ago, nj2va said:

Thanks, I think I may just do that in the meantime to see how I do considering I can’t get on the landscapers schedule until July given the spring rush underway.  I get the privacy it provides but I really don’t understand the desire to plant bamboo considering how invasive it is.

We had bamboo at our old house, which had spread along a steep slope from neighbors two doors down.  The slope was steep enough that we couldn't use machinery to dig out the rhizomes.  What worked for us was to cut down the stalks at the base, then brush full-strength roundup on the stump with a paintbrush.  Then, every time it sent up a new stalk, we waited for it to get to full height in order to use up as much of the stored food in the rhizomes as possible, then cut it right before the leaves opened and repeated the roundup treatment.  We couldn't eradicate it because a lot of it was not on our property, but we were able to hold it back effectively.

[nj2va]

8 hours ago, mkellerm said:

We had bamboo at our old house, which had spread along a steep slope from neighbors two doors down.  The slope was steep enough that we couldn't use machinery to dig out the rhizomes.  What worked for us was to cut down the stalks at the base, then brush full-strength roundup on the stump with a paintbrush.  Then, every time it sent up a new stalk, we waited for it to get to full height in order to use up as much of the stored food in the rhizomes as possible, then cut it right before the leaves opened and repeated the roundup treatment.  We couldn't eradicate it because a lot of it was not on our property, but we were able to hold it back effectively.

This seems to jive with some of the solutions I’ve read online, too.  When I was last at the property, the landscaper pointed out where some of the rhizomes could be seen shooting out from the main area.  Do you think I could take an axe to them to cut it off as a mitigation, too?

[mkellerm]

3 hours ago, nj2va said:

This seems to jive with some of the solutions I’ve read online, too.  When I was last at the property, the landscaper pointed out where some of the rhizomes could be seen shooting out from the main area.  Do you think I could take an axe to them to cut it off as a mitigation, too?

I would definitely do that, and any time you get a clean exposed cut, hit the rhizome with roundup as well.  At our place, when there was an exposed section of rhizome above the ground, we'd cut out a section and roundup both sides.

The other thing about this strategy is that the dead stumps and rhizomes take a long time to decay.  I tweaked my ankle more than once working on the hill when I stepped on one of those stumps without looking.