#propagating trees

[balkanradfem]

Finding Ginko

So, a while ago I was researching what trees are planted in the parks, in the city I live in, so I would recognize them more easily; I found out they were planted 200 years ago, and it's mostly wild chestnuts, lindens, and maple-leaf sycamores. I also found out that somewhere in the city parks, there is one Ginko tree. This immediately thrilled me, because I knew about the Ginko tree from anime, there was a few episodes of Detective Conan specifically about this tree. So I knew it was originally asian, I knew it had beautiful, fan-shaped leaves, and I was a weeb deeply in my heart still, so I decied that one day, I would find this Ginko, and enjoy the japanese anime tree (the tree originated in China).

Yesterday, I watched a video on medicinal properties of Ginko, and I found out that the leaves have healing properties for brain, memory, and ears. These are the 3 things I consistently have problems with, so I generated a plan; I would find the Ginko, get the leaves, make infusion, drink it every day, get my head fixed. I continued watching the video, and it was revealed that not only it had these healing properties, but also female trees could grow nuts that originally would smell very bad (they referenced dog poop smell) but if you cleaned them properly, and dried them, you could roast them and they'd be delicious, addictive even. So now my brain has generated a new plan: Find Ginko, wait until the seeds fall, propagate it, grow my own, have it growing in my food forest, have the medicinal properties + delicious nut forever. I am going to get my hands on that tree.

So I went out the same day, on my bike, to scout the parks for the elusive Ginko tree! It took me 5 minutes to spot it. It wasn't where the article suggested it would be, but in the random walkway, and it was a majestic, beautiful tree. However, the people responsible for prunining the park's trees, have messed it all up for me. All the lower branches were pruned so heavily, that the lowest branch was still several meters out of my reach. I couldn't get a single leaf. I couldn't climb on the nearby fence as it was spiked. The city was not gonna let me get my ginko leaves.

I despaired for a second, then figured, maybe there's a second ginko tree. This one did not look 200 years old, it looked younger. And the article suggested it was in a place by the river, where trees were at first planted in a botanical garden, and at first every tree had a plaque; I knew where this place was. I said bye to the tall, unreachable ginko, and went on my merry way to seek another.

This time it took me longer. I checked every tree I couldn't immediately recognize up close. In my journey, I inspected one inconspicious tree that was growing next to a restaurant, that I never before paid attention to, and discovered it was a mulberry! Absolutely delighted, I started picking fruit and putting it directly in my mouth; it was delicious. Insane that I didn't know about this fruit tree! A group of girls saw me eating from the tree, and they also went to inspect it; they were delighted, and commented on how long it has been the last time they tried a mulberry. Mulberries are an ancient slavic fruit, my great-grandmother had one in her backyard and I used to climb it and eat from it all day. But a lot of them got cut down because it doesn't have commercial purposes, it doesn't store well, you have to eat it as soon as you grab it from the tree.

Happy with my discovery, I would go on, and not spot any tree with ginko leaves, but I found this plaque!

This is the original ginko tree, the one planted 200 years ago. It was so tall and unnacessible, I couldn't even see the shape of leaves up there, the branches were pruned to 7 meters up. It was almost funny how badly my plan was going; I found two ginko trees, and a mulberry, and yet I had nothing to bring home with me. But then I thought, wait, this ginko was here for 200 years, it could have managed to plant itself somewhere, and it's such a valuable and exotic tree, I'm sure they would allow another one to grow. So I sniffed around and searched the area, and finally. I found another, very young ginko tree. So young they couldn't trim the branches 7 meters up, as it was only 5 meters tall. And I was able to get some leaves!

(That is the tall, unreachable ginko tree in the first picture)

Pleased with myself, I went home and made tea. The tea is almost completely transparent, with only a slight yellow tint, and it tastes very mildly sweet; the only thing I could compare it to is the pleasant taste of tree bark. But I like it, I can drink this every day now I know where to find it. Isn't it cool someone planted this tree 200 years ago and I read about it, found it, and was able to make tea from it? Thank you people who planted the Ginko!

[bakedbananners]

painting i painted 🎨

[smashwolfen]

The most perfect picture of Soshi I may ever take! Noticed she was sitting looking out the window and I had to get up and take this so fast before she decided to move ;w;

[madfoolish]

[parkeryangs]

felix woe.begone deer motif. y'know.

[bigmeatpete69420]

I am overjoyed with how this fig clone is looking about 2 years into propagation

It almost even looks like it has a few mini figs

[farmobileo3]

Show me the roots! My cuttings are doing well. I have sugar cane, guava, pomegranate and mulberry cuttings.

[felixcosm]

not a woe.begone question but what's your favorite plant? Sincerely and enthusiastically, @i-talk-about-plants-to-strangers

Ohh this is a hard question. I have a lot of favorite plants but I'll try to make a short list of plants I'm always really happy to see out in public

Coleus

Chicory

Ribwort

Chestnut trees

Birch trees

Moss

[sarahgrows]

My Grandma has this huge dwarf umbrella tree that she let me take some clippings of to try to bring home. I'm hoping I'll be able to get them to root so I can have a piece of my Grandma with me always 💚

[orticasimpatica]

Ortica Simpatica, Metal birds

[balkanradfem]

Today I found out there's a way to propagate fruit trees that is superior both to grafting and cutting, and I am both mad that I didn't know this before, and crazy excited about trying it out, it's almost like plant magic!

The name of it is Marcotting. It's a great way to save old fruit varieties that are dying! Or if you just have a tree you want a clone of.

So this is what you do. You pick a fruit tree that you want to clone, and you pick a healthy branch, take a knife, and peel a bit of the bark off, only about 1-2cm. Then you take a plastic bag, tape it so it's fastened under the cut, fill it with wet soil, and then tape it again, above the cut. What you did was make sure that the part of the peeled bark is completely surrounded by soil.

You leave that soil bag on the tree for 2 months.

And it will grow roots in there.

Once it grows roots, you can cut that branch off, and plant it. It will grow like a new tree, 100% the same genes, same species, 100% giving you the same fruit.

I'm so insanely excited to try this, most cuttings just die for me, and all trees from seeds either need to be grafted, or will be giving some wild produce, but this is a simple way to gain any fruit tree that you can get away with putting a little bag of soil on for a few months. The varieties that are usually easily propagated this way are citrus, fig, mulberry, and lychee. It takes 6 months for an apple tree to get roots like this!

Here's a link where you can read more about it, and a video where you can see it being done! Go forth and plant those fruit trees. Future generations will prosper from your effort.

[inthecityofgoodabode]

March 2024: More Spring Stuff & Happy Saint Patrick's Day

Join me human:

As I watch the sun set:

We did some planting & transplanting this week:

Including some store-bought ginger that we're propagating. If all goes according to plan, we should have 5 to 6 ginger plants:

First bee butt of 2024:

My queen is drying dandelion leaves. You're supposed to be able to make a concoction with them that is beneficial in the garden. We'll see. If the results are noticeably beneficial, I'll post a follow up later in the year:

I can't believe the size of the leaves of this cilantro. You can't buy this in the grocery store:

This is the second day after planting these sweet potato slips & they are already perked up & happy:

Our 3 year old Red Russian Kale after harvesting this week:

We went to a local hardware store to see about getting some repairs done to our mini tiller. Turns out the repair department is closed on Sundays so this happened instead:

For Saint Patrick's Day, it was a nice warm Spring day but the temperature starting dropping as we're expecting an overnight low in the mid-30s Fahrenheit. Perfect fire pit weather:

[encryptedlunacy]

Legitimately having to leave these trees behind is the saddest thing about moving house to me

(ignore the propagation box, there was no way in hell I wasn't gonna attempt to grow them back from cuttings in pots this time!!)

[kihaku-gato]

The urge/itch to get my hands on ginkgo seeds again, and/or see a mature fruiting specimen in person in Ontario again.

The dream to see that or witness first person the stories of large mature trees of the lesser known-to-here ilk like Kentucky coffee tree. I once heard the stories of ones that could very well rival our old Silver Maple Tree pair here at home.

Seeing such rare provincial gems while difficult to realize with how things are rn, it is still hard to beat.

[smellslikebot]

oh i almost forgot i need to research the best way to propagate a persimmon tree (air layering, cuttings, ???) because my parents keep talking about Moving so i offhandedly mentioned to my mom "hey have you ever heard about this? maybe if you leave you can still sort of take your persimmon tree with you" and she was like Huh.... Yeah...... That's a great idea!OK start looking into this right now immediately

[bigmeatpete69420]

I was a naughty neighbor on my walk today

This branch has been downed in a yard for a full week, I wanted day 1 caus3 it's a perfectly good tree to propagate

It's got these really cool berries on it so welcome yo my garden

And then some size perspective