2025 Lawns & Gardens Thread. Making Lawns Great Again

[dendrite]

19 minutes ago, tamarack said:

That's impressive. 
Maybe they would survive at our 4B zone - median for winter's coldest is -24.  We were told that Reliance peach would make it here, and as that's my favorite fruit we planted a whip shortly after we moved here in mid-May of 1998.  Summers 1998 and 1999 saw great growth but the following winters killed back most of the increase.  2001-02 never got below -12 and the following summer we had 100+ sweet tennis-ball-size fruit.  Then Jan-Mar 2003 brought 12 mornings at -20 to -29 and the tree was dead, other than a weak below-graft sprout that showed up in June 2003 and died before first frost.

Your problem would be getting ripe fruit with your frost pocket and short growing season. There’s a couple of really early cultivars that may get you fruit in longer growing seasons…Halvin, Summer, Delight, and VE-21 come to mind. At the least they’re a tropical looking, ornamental tree in the landscape. 

KSU Chappell is by far the most vigorous variety out there, but not necessarily precocious. That’s a nice one to have if you want one to size up quickly. They can be slow growing the first few years so it’s nice to have one that at least looks like a tree. 

[dendrite]

I’ll add that there’s a guy growing them in VT (Buzz Ferver) that is right next to MPV airport. I know of a few people growing them in Quebec too. 

There’s someone in northern Aroostook near the border growing them, but he just planted them within the last few years. He’s lost most of his peaches as well so he planted those hardy Siberian C seedlings. 

[BrianW]

Some great late season blooms from my vines. All my clematis and morning glory are going nuts with flowers. The ice plant is still blooming as well.

Just noticed a few dandelions and clover flowering in the lawn as well. 

[Chrisrotary12]

So many munks in my buckets this week. 

[dendrite]

@wokeupthisam

Here’s a question I always wondered…

The Christmas trees are getting cut dormant after Thanksgiving. Can you cut dormant scions from a tree (winter pruning) and bark graft to a cut stump in the spring when the bark starts slipping? Or are the trees functionally dead after cutting and sitting all winter? I’m not familiar enough with firs to know if the sap tries to flow despite being chopped a few months prior. Being able to reuse a mature root system would have the new grafts sizing up quickly.

[wokeupthisam]

6 hours ago, dendrite said:

@wokeupthisam

Here’s a question I always wondered…

The Christmas trees are getting cut dormant after Thanksgiving. Can you cut dormant scions from a tree (winter pruning) and bark graft to a cut stump in the spring when the bark starts slipping? Or are the trees functionally dead after cutting and sitting all winter? I’m not familiar enough with firs to know if the sap tries to flow despite being chopped a few months prior. Being able to reuse a mature root system would have the new grafts sizing up quickly.

@dendrite

Yep, you're right you could provided there's enough healthy branches left on the stump for the photosynthesis needs when spring arrives.  Haven't tried grafting but for the root system reasons you noted, occasionally if we come across a cut stump with a whirl or two of healthy branches left, we'll leave them intact in the field and will see a few branches turn upwards the following season, attempting to become a leader and if that happens, after a few months we'll pick the best looking leader and snip back the other wannabe leaders but not the horizontal branches.  (Learned the hard way that cutting those support branches off too soon kills the stump due to losing too much photosynthesis).  If all goes well, after the growing season there's a new 'tree' 1 - 1.5 ft long growing off the old stump.  And as you thought, those 'turnups' have the benefit of a mature root system and can get to market size sooner than a planted seedling, perhaps more importantly they withstand the droughts better than planted seedlings.  Stumps left without healthy branches intact wouldn't support a grafted scion from what I've seen - and even stumps left with just one or two healthy branches generally die back quickly.   I haven't tried grafting because grafting skills aren't in my toolbox, but the 'turnup' results I've seen indicate to me it's a viable alternative.