Yarrow & Yew

one person's relationship with plants and land

[pluralistfarmer]

Farmers speak in precise language. A cow is a female who has had two calves. A first-calf heifer is a female who has had only one calf. A heifer is a female who has not calved. A bred heifer is a female who is pregnant but has not yet calved. A bull calf is a young uncastrated male. A bull is an uncastrated male old enough to breed - and that is far from full-grown, believe me. A calf is an unweaned bovine of either gender. A heifer calf is a female calf; a bull calf is a male calf. A stocker is a weaned calf prior to finishing. A finisher is a calf almost big enough to slaughter - it’s being finished. An open cow is one that is not pregnant. A dry cow is nonlactating. A fresh cow is one that has very recently calved, and a freshening cow is one that is just about to calve. A bull can cover (breed) about thirty to fifty cows. Folks, that’s just cows. Every species has this same level of nomenclature.

JOEL SALATIN, Folks This Ain’t Normal (via pluralistfarmer)

Gonna be a while before I get to this point but… holy hell I got a lot to learn.

(via hqcreations)

[yarrowandyew]

3 of 3 #1- desk plants. This is the dimmest corner of the room. #2- Peperomia (argyreia?) I also acquired for cheap because it was dying in the store (e.g. should not have been on sale at all). It's bounced back but I think it's a dwarf variety that doesn't get very big at all. I'm hoping it'll survive the fungus gnats until I can repot in spring. The other day I picked it up and there were larvae wiggling all over the bottom of it. Yuck. I've since neemed. #3 & 4- rubber plant! We were given a cutting by my partner's friend who has a very impressive specimen in a well-lit apartment. I'm not sure if all these new leaves coming out in the past few days are a result of the more direct sun, the fungus gnat management, or because I put it in some morning sun for a few minutes a few days ago. Possibly a combination of everything. Either way, this is the one I really want to grow out. Here's hoping my kid gets over compulsively playing in any and all dirt, before this thing is big enough to necessitate a pot too big to put out of reach. I'm hoping it'll stay in this pot for at least a couple years... #5- this is what an African violet looks like when it gets too much sun. But, I don't really have another place to put it right now. It's surviving, I'm surprised how well. The unexpected problem I'm having is the flowers grow very quickly, and the stalks get all curled up and the buds gets stuck under the leaves. #6 & 7- Tradescantia zebrina growing in less light. These guys have started branching since I started fungus gnat treatment. So I'm also planning to repot and propagate these soon also. Eventually I want to put some in my kiddo's bedroom. #8- a T. zebrina that was on the desk, that's since been moved closer to the window. I didn't think the light difference would be noticeable since it now has a brick wall absorbing a lot of light behind it- but it looks super happy and is growing much faster now, also branching a lot. #9- I think the neem treatments dried up my Schlumbergera buds. So so sad about this!!!

[yarrowandyew]

2 of 3

#1- plants that live in the south/southeast window. I really hope the rosemary makes it. It’ll be a first for me to overwinter one indoors. I’m going to cut about the top ¼ off since it’s not getting much sun exposure (and the root ball is much smaller than a plant this size needs).

#2- Kalanchoe daigremontiana. A friend gave me a pot full of these things, about 3’ tall and all spindly from being in a dim window for years. I put it on my front porch (morning light only) and it began to fill in. Then it got hailed on. I cut some of the damaged branches off and rooted them. Eventually I pawned off the big, now cracked, pot on another friend who has a southern window to overwinter it in. It began to flower a few days after she brought it home (no doubt because it was no longer spending nights outdoors in the 40s). Now I just have these rooted cuttings, but I’m more than okay with that. They’ll reproduce quickly, and with lots of sun they’ll be healthier than the parent plants were.

#3- forgot to put this in the last post. A couple “dish gardens” that I made from various succulent cuttings. Basically they had started growing awhile ago, but halted due to fungus gnats and probably also neglect. So I’m hoping they’ll do better in the sand and with more attention. (And another mother-of-thousands cutting to the left in that pic.)

#4- this Sansevieria has been the same exact size since I got it a year ago :/ I repotted and moved it to the window, but I don’t know what’s up with this guy.

#5- Tradescantia zebrina! Love how this one looks with a few hours of direct light. I’m hoping to propagate in spring and use this to grow outside next summer as a ground cover for our bulb beds.

#6- my sad, sad jasmine. I got this on clearance from a nursery that I’ve since stopped buying from, because I’ve now had several experiences with buying dying plants with the potential to infect other plants. Pretty unprofessional imo. Anyway this one bounced back pretty well and has grown a ton. But it doesn’t necessarily look very healthy. I left it outside as long as night temps were above 40° and have noticed some flower buds forming. I was very back-and-forth about repotting it at this point in the season, but I went ahead and did it because it’ll be getting more direct sun inside over the winter, and it was growing out the bottom of the previous pot- plus that pot was very small and its indoor spot is near a vent.

#7- Codiaeum variegatum that lives in 5yo’s bedroom. A very thirsty plant, but grew quickly in the great light in this room, and surviving the fungus gnats well, probably due to its size.

#8- Hoya carnosa! I decided to repot since it never had been in 12+ years and the pot was obviously too big. And! It was two plants! The bathroom also gets good south/southwest light so I’m hoping we’ll have its first-ever flowers in a year or two.

[yarrowandyew]

Houseplant post 1 of 3! Can I not caption each photo via the app? First is the jungle corner, which sadly necessarily exists in the second-coldest corner of the house, having southeast and southwest windows. Notice the textbooks helping that succulent mess get some sun. #2- this guy (some kind of Echeveria?) growing new leaves all over the formerly bare stem, plus a bunch of new growth from older leaves at the top. #3- see the tiiiiny baby leaves!?!? I accidentally knocked one off after this photo :( #4- Homalomena putting out two flowers! I think this is because the sun through the windows is more direct when it's lower in the sky, even though there are less sunlight hours. Last year it put out one bud, but it never opened, and I removed it when it began to shrivel. I repotted it a few weeks ago and it ended up being four plants, this one being the largest. I think it had begun to bud before separating them, but the second bud came up a couple weeks after. We'll see what happens. #5- Aglaonema putting out new stems. First time it's branched in its 12+ years of life. It's also grown a lot since it came into my care two years ago. Makes me feel like maybe I do know something about plants. #6- I'm killing my orchid. It was fine for awhile until I repotted it. The new leaf keeps growing though, so I'm hopeful even if it loses more of the bottom leaves. I'm hoping the leaf loss is due to the rotted roots I removed (there are still some very healthy-looking ones). I think this medium is too coarse, but I don't have other orchid substrate. I'm going to mix in some regular potting soil and vermiculite and see what happens. #7- Tradescantia cutting- I definitely overexposed it at some point but hopeful it'll recover. I potted it 12 days ago so maybe I'll see some new growth soon.

[yarrowandyew]

question about houseplants!

Hello lovely people, I have a question for y'all. This is my first year I have plants that I’m bringing inside for the winter. I began hardening off a few days ago, but the weather looks to be cooler than the previous forecast predicted, and I probably won’t have more than one or two days warm enough to put them back outside, before we go out of town for five days next week. Do you guys think I should spend the next few days carting them back and forth between their winter homes and my T5s in the basement to continue hardening off? It sounds like a lot of work, and I’m wondering if I can just stick them under the grow lights on the timer until we come back, and then I can deal with hardening off from the grow lights?

[yarrowandyew]

I guess I should have specified, my plants are coming indoors from 6-8 of direct sun, to locations indoors with only about 2-3 hours direct sun. Hence the hardening off. I’d really like to avoid my plants dying of shock or getting super leggy over the next few months. It’s not inside vs. outside, it’s what’s the best situation for reducing light exposure, given my circumstances- with the forecast changing, my going out of town for four days, and the fact that I do have T5s on a timer readily available.

[yarrowandyew]

question about houseplants!

Hello lovely people, I have a question for y'all. This is my first year I have plants that I’m bringing inside for the winter. I began hardening off a few days ago, but the weather looks to be cooler than the previous forecast predicted, and I probably won’t have more than one or two days warm enough to put them back outside, before we go out of town for five days next week. Do you guys think I should spend the next few days carting them back and forth between their winter homes and my T5s in the basement to continue hardening off? It sounds like a lot of work, and I’m wondering if I can just stick them under the grow lights on the timer until we come back, and then I can deal with hardening off from the grow lights?

[yarrowandyew]

Been thinking about repotting this guy for awhile (a year?). Based on everything I'd read, this plant seemed like it was in a pot way too big. I thought maybe that's why it's never bloomed in its 12+ years of life (the past two with me). I know it also got hit by the gnats, but that was a fairly recent thing. Either way, it could use fresh soil so I got around to it today, and found there were two plants in there! Sadly they hadn't grown much outside the original plug they'd been rooted in. But, I think this fresh start is what they needed. They'd already grown so much since we crossed paths, after being stagnant for a decade. The smaller one is in a teeny pot so I'm crossing my fingers for flowers within a year or two.

[yarrowandyew]

Crassula muscosa wasn't getting any direct sun in its previous home. Now it's used to being in 6ish hours of sun outdoors and obviously loving it, and I feel bad that I have to start hardening em off to bring em in for the winter. Assuming winter ever comes.

[yarrowandyew]

Started working on this little project today. My partner’s mom brought this to me a couple months ago- obviously she’d had it for a long time, it’s gotten unruly and she just didn’t want to deal with it anymore.

I’m still a houseplant novice and I have no idea of id’s, so if anyone wants to help me figure out what’s in here it’d be appreciated!

All the large ones hanging over the edge are gonna be cut down. I’ll try to root them but if they don’t take, I’m not worried about it. I know I should’ve done this weeks ago to have a better chance at success (with cooler temps and less sunlight hours coming) with rooting them, but I didn’t, so oh well.

All I did so far was clean it up. All those leaves in the second picture are already rooting. There were lots of dead ones in there too. I pulled some older leaves off the big ones, and pulled an old spindly Echeveria out that didn’t look like it’d make it. My partner’s mom had this on a covered/enclosed deck year-round. While apparently warm enough in the winter, I don’t think it was getting as much sun as it’d like- you can see in the last pic, that stem going horizontally through the middle has sprouted new growth at almost every old node, since it came to its new home on our back patio, getting only a few hours of afternoon sun. That’s gonna be my biggest challenge, I think- figuring out where to put it inside for the winter where it’ll get enough sun (and where the toddler won’t mess with it).

[yarrowandyew]

Admittedly left the plant a little sparse, but I decided to go hard in case I dont get around to harvesting again before it freezes.

[yarrowandyew]

@krippner it's still 60s/70s in the day here, it's just those damn nights at altitude. We do have cooler temps predicted for the weekend, but back to 70s daytime and 50s at night next week. All I know is two years ago, it was in the negatives at night the entire first week of November, and back to highs in the 60s the following week!

[yarrowandyew]

Lows in the high 30s tonight. Picked the last tomatoes and peppers, optimistically covered the eggplant and tomatillos, dug the sweet potatoes (they were ornamental, and a bust, only a few small ones from 1 of 3 plants) shucked the last glass gems and picked the last (of 3) pumpkin. We had mildew, rust, grasshoppers, and aphids pretty bad. It wouldn't have been so bad on all of them if I had kept up on weeding. Pretty much all that's left are kale and some flowers and herbs. I never got around to digging a bed for winter stuff, and hurt my back again today. Oh well. Denver weather'll probably let me do it next week.

[yarrowandyew]

I really want to go lots of directions with saving glass gem seed, but I really don't have space to try and run several separate patches, plus making sure they're as fertilized within their group as possible seems like way too much work with a 2-year-old next year. I might just save a few from every cob and mix them. We'll see.

[yarrowandyew]

Plant all the bulbs!!! And rhizomes and columbine and foxglove. Someone please remind me to water them in.

[yarrowandyew]

Tried to post the first pic yesterday as I was working, but it got lost in cyberspace I guess. Getting ready to put some of these back in the ground, along with a bunch of bulbs plus some other herbaceous perennials I got for 40% off today :)

[yarrowandyew]

Just dug up the bulbs I planted this spring! Glad to see most of them are in awesome shape. Grape hyacinth sure is a fast multiplier! Unfortunately there was an ant colony under the weed mat when I pulled it up. I’m gonna apply some ant killer (save the DE for near plants we eat) after I put the kid down for a nap, and hopefully I can just dump topsoil over it. While the kid naps I’m gonna be working on digging up this mass of irises in the back, to transplant some up front into the bulb bed, along with these and a ton of others we purchased yesterday. I’ll post an update later.

[yarrowandyew]

Finally cleaned up (mostly) the hollyhocks from hail damage. Can't wait to see the show next year. Now a break for my back, and then we'll get to the clary sage (to the top left of the hollyhocks).