Garden chat & photos for torts and people ♫ ♫

Len B

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The one in the fourth pic looks to be a tangled mess with excess fruit. Does it bloom all year or just hold the fruit a very long time?
 

Yvonne G

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No it just blooms in the Spring. You can knock the 'fruit' off quite easily, a strong wind does it, otherwise it just sits there forever. And yes, it IS a tangled mess!! I'd hate to fall into it. Last night I noticed a lot of the fruit on the ground around the mailbox, which is down hill of the cactus plant. I worried that a cat may have been caught up in the bush, but upon further inspection, a dead branch from the tree had fallen into the bush.
 

Yvonne G

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Last time my tortoise partner, William, was here I had him cut down the Empress Tree as close to the ground as the saw would fit. I figured that would kill it. It's a beautiful tree, and it has very pretty flowers, however it also has hard shelled seed pods that could choke a tortoise, and it's in the Babcock tortoise yard.

This Spring it came back bigger and better than ever! The leaves are about 2' across at their widest point. I really hate to cut it down, so I'm asking all you gardening officionados if there's a way to keep it from making seed pods?

Empress Tree a.jpgEmpress Tree c.jpg
 

Len B

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Last time my tortoise partner, William, was here I had him cut down the Empress Tree as close to the ground as the saw would fit. I figured that would kill it. It's a beautiful tree, and it has very pretty flowers, however it also has hard shelled seed pods that could choke a tortoise, and it's in the Babcock tortoise yard.

This Spring it came back bigger and better than ever! The leaves are about 2' across at their widest point. I really hate to cut it down, so I'm asking all you gardening officionados if there's a way to keep it from making seed pods?

View attachment 296323View attachment 296324
I can't help with your question, but maybe they don't produce seed pods on new growth like my mulberry trees don't get berries on their new growth. Thats why I cut them way back to the trunk every other year or 2 and just trim them to a manageable height in the between years. This year the trees I didn't cut or trim back so I would have plenty of leaves for early spring feeding are loaded with berries which is unusal. Today I had to cut a mulberry tree at ground level when I tore down an enclosure that hasn't been used for several years and the tree was growing to close to a needle palm and Walker couldn't fit between them without destroying the palm. When he found that new area with a large Hosta he didn't waste any time to start eating the hosta. He usually doesn't get fed Hosta until late fall when they start going dormant.
 

Yvonne G

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We'll see. Hopefully there won't be seeds!
 

Wenzer

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I've been doing a lot of digging to learn about wildflowers and backyard weeds that I could forage for my RT. I did a little exploration of my yard just to see what I might find, which I believe I have found:

Narrowleaf Plantain
Broadleaf Plantain
White Clover
Virginia Pepperweed
Black Medic (I think)

From my research, I understand that all of these (EXCEPT for black medic) are safe to feed :)

There is a problem with being able to use my (literal) backyard weeds: I pay my neighbor to mow my yard, but he occasionally sprays weed killer around my walkway up to my porch, and in my driveway (I have asked him not to do this in the past but he has forgotten a few times. I don't know if he has sprayed any chemicals in my yard recently but it has been within this year for sure).

So my yard isn't a 100% safe place to forage from. But I'm also not positive where else around my area I could forage and not get in trouble.

I decided to go ahead and uproot some plants as a little project. I assure you these plants will not be going anywhere near my animals at the moment. But I essentially plan to transplant these uprooted weeds into some planters and let them grow until they go to seed. They will be grown indoors where I can be 100% sure they won't be sprayed again.

I'll harvest the seeds from these plants, leave the original plants outside where they can root again, if they want. Clean out the planters and set up fresh soil to plant the seeds. From there, I believe it should be entirely safe for me to feed from the planters. If I have any doubts, I can always go for a third "generation" haha.

I want to have several small planters available with various safe weeds growing so that I can keep one in my RT's indoor cage at all times, and just rotate them when the the first one is munched (I want to regrow them though, so I'm going to try and rotate them before the first planter gets too far gone lol. But at this point, seeds would be readily available from my plants anyways).

Yeah, I know, it's a lot of extra work for no real reason ? I can just buy seeds off Amazon or somewhere... but I think my project sounds more fun!

I've got two nice broadleaf plantain transplants, one larger narrowleaf plantain and a couple of small offshoots with it, and several runners of white clover. I'm not going to do anything with the Virginia pepperweed right now just because it doesn't seem like a very "boisterous" kind of plant; it's mostly long stems with small, thin leaves. I don't think it would be worthwhile as food other than something toss in here and there, so I'm going to worry about that one later :)

Here's some pics of the plants before I get them ready to plant. They've been rinsed with water to remove general debris and I've inspected them for any wilted or not-so-good looking parts, which I removed. I want to wash them in something that could help wash away any possible diseases or chemicals, though Im not sure what to use, so I'll be researching that. I'll apply a bit of cinnamon to them for anti-fungal and rooting agent to try and help them take to the planters better, especially the clover, since I didn't do a great job at picking them ? most of them have little to no roots haha... I can always try again!

Some pics of the plants below; would anyone mind confirming these for me? I'm fairly certain about the plantains since they are budding right now, and when I researched lookalike plants, their flowers/buds appeared to grow differently.

*I'm not positive if this is the correct subforum for this, but I couldn't find another that seemed applicable. Please let me know if this is incorrect!

 

Oxalis

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View attachment 296263

The golden barrels are about a foot across at the widest point. The picture doesn't do them justice.
Awesome barrels! I just love 'em! :<3:

@Yvonne G, what does your tortoise warning sign say?

I've been busy this late winter and early spring investigating our new yard, which includes an old orchard. We had lots of daffodil blooms when everything first started to warm up. We had some irises and globe thistle in the backyard. In late April, I found some lovely native trout lily growing near our driveway:

Trout Lily.jpg

I also found some orange poppies that bloomed recently, but the wind from a rainstorm promptly blew their petals away.

Poppy1.jpg

Poppy2.jpg

Within the last few days, we've found some fruit growing on apple (or possibly) cherry trees. It's kind of exciting to see what grows the first year you're a new homeowner. So far, we've planted a dawn redwood (metasequoia) tree, a sycamore tree, and started our very own pawpaw patch! We also have some spicebush and viburnum to plant. And my husband couldn't go without his columbine flowers and some ferns, so I'm sure next year we'll be seeing some nice colors around the property.
 

Yvonne G

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Awesome barrels! I just love 'em! :<3:


@Yvonne G, what does your tortoise warning sign say?

I've been busy this late winter and early spring investigating our new yard, which includes an old orchard. We had lots of daffodil blooms when everything first started to warm up. We had some irises and globe thistle in the backyard. In late April, I found some lovely native trout lily growing near our driveway:

View attachment 297648

I also found some orange poppies that bloomed recently, but the wind from a rainstorm promptly blew their petals away.

View attachment 297645

View attachment 297646

Within the last few days, we've found some fruit growing on apple (or possibly) cherry trees. It's kind of exciting to see what grows the first year you're a new homeowner. So far, we've planted a dawn redwood (metasequoia) tree, a sycamore tree, and started our very own pawpaw patch! We also have some spicebush and viburnum to plant. And my husband couldn't go without his columbine flowers and some ferns, so I'm sure next year we'll be seeing some nice colors around the property.

Love your plant pictures! Do you mean to tell me you spent all that time making a tortoise garden and then you moved house? Or am I getting you mixed up with someone else?
 

Oxalis

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This one is on Dudley's fence:

View attachment 297660

And here's a close-up of the one you were asking about:

View attachment 297661

This one is in the SA leopard yard:

View attachment 297662
I just love them!! :) Our real estate agent gave us one as a house-warming gift:

1592445407911.png

Love your plant pictures! Do you mean to tell me you spent all that time making a tortoise garden and then you moved house? Or am I getting you mixed up with someone else?
No, you are correct. Steve had a great outdoor enclosure for about 6 years, but we really wanted to get out of the suburbs. We got out just before this lockdown, thank goodness. And now Steve's new enclosure will be 5 times as big!
 

Wenzer

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Update!

Attempt #1 is a (tentative) failure.

The plants dried out and wilted very quickly after digging them up, and although I planted them ASAP, they seem to have wilted too much and I don't know if they will bounce back.

That being said, I have yet to get a good look at their root systems after they were planted. Im not very experienced in horticulture, and I know even less about weeds like these. This may be incorrect, but I have a bit of a hunch that if their root systems are still fairly healthy and intact, I may be able to "restart" the plants.

My first attempt consisted of using small planters/containers with drainage holes, and a potting medium of organic, plain topsoil mixed with spaghnum peat moss (the stuff I had on hand haha).

I placed them outside near the same areas where they were dug up, so they would get an amount of sun they were already use to getting.

I'm going try again and do things differently to try and see what I can improve and if I can make it work :) I'll describe my intended changes in a moment, I'm going to switch from mobile to my laptop to type.

--

This time around, I'm going to try and grab just one or two plants I think. I suppose it was a little ambitious to try and do all of those plants at once! There's plenty out there though so now worries about that haha.

I will probably use the same potting medium and use small planters/containers again. Instead of placing them directly outside right after planting, I'm going to keep them indoors for the first day or two to try and reduce drying them out via the sun. I'll place them near a window with indirect sunlight, I may also set up one of my succulent grow lights on them at first.

I also want to treat these ones a little bit like seedlings, as they are pretty fragile and react similarly to how my first plants did. I think if I loosely wrap some clear plastic/saran wrap around them for the first few days. I want to try and maintain the humidity better in hopes that they don't immediately wilt again. If things go well I will see about moving them outdoors to adjust them.
 
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Canadian Mojo

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You should actually reduce the light transplants get for a week or two to give them a chance to reestablish. Keep them in the shade until they perk up, then move them to sunnier locations. Another common technique is to reduce the amount of leaves so the roots have an easier time. The leaves produce food for the plant, but they draw a lot of water so if you've ripped off a bunch of roots digging them up you have to adjust the balance.
 

Wenzer

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You should actually reduce the light transplants get for a week or two to give them a chance to reestablish. Keep them in the shade until they perk up, then move them to sunnier locations. Another common technique is to reduce the amount of leaves so the roots have an easier time. The leaves produce food for the plant, but they draw a lot of water so if you've ripped off a bunch of roots digging them up you have to adjust the balance.

Oh I see! Thank you for this!! I'll leave the plant lights off of them, then. Do you think the loose plastic wrap around them would be helpful?

I removed several leaves and pieces that were damage or icky looking on these first plants. Do you think it's beneficial to remove the flowering buds that are growing? I know they take more energy to focus on growing them, though with more foliage removed it may be too hard on the plant I'm thinking...?
 

Maro2Bear

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Oh I see! Thank you for this!! I'll leave the plant lights off of them, then. Do you think the loose plastic wrap around them would be helpful?

I removed several leaves and pieces that were damage or icky looking on these first plants. Do you think it's beneficial to remove the flowering buds that are growing? I know they take more energy to focus on growing them, though with more foliage removed it may be too hard on the plant I'm thinking...?

Increasing the humidity around your transpant will help it out, as will the removal of flowering buds. You could actually use a large ziplock bag around your pot to help limit the transpiration. Keep them out of the sun & heat.

PS - Transpiration is the process of water movement through a plant and its evaporation from aerial parts, such as leaves, stems and flowers. ... Leaf surfaces are dotted with pores called stomata, and in most plants they are more numerous on the undersides of the foliage.
 

Canadian Mojo

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Pay particular attention to the keeping them out of the sun and heat if you do put a bag over them or you will very quickly end up with steamed vegetables.

Removing flowers and seeds is a good idea for the reasons you're thinking.
 

Yvonne G

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Anyone know how to kill sedge that doesn't harm turtles and fish? I chop it to the ground with the weedeater, but the stems are so tough it makes the weedeater work so hard the battery only lasts for about 10 minutes.
 
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