My Spring Garden Pics

hilashes · Post by **hilashes** » Tue May 05, 2009 3:21 pm

Here is a shot of my garden after the first couple of days of good hard rain. Everything is looking so lush and green, the rain was much needed since we hadn't had any for a month which is unusual for this time of year in Vancouver. I just planted a new Musa and Windmill Palm almost 3 weeks ago, I'm sure they were happy for the rain even though I'd been watering them in everyday about 2 gallons. I noticed a bit of yellowing on the lower fronds of the windmill...pics are below, could I be watering it too much? I bought this palm leaning a bit to the right...will it straighten out? Just started to wonder about that. I also made a huge mistake in my fertilizing calculations the other day when I watered in 2 Tbsp. of 30-10-10 (soluble) instead of 2 tsp. .... YIKES! I'm praying I haven't hurt it too much!! what do I do, if anything?
My Musa Basjoo in the front yard hasn't shown any sign of life yet. I'm waiting for pups everyday... I go check and there's nothing. I hope it's not gone. I mulched so well and it flopped in its jacket over winter. Lots of banana owners this year saw the same thing. What a winter! I'm not giving up yet but I'm running out of patience as I'd like to put a new one there! See last pic for the mother corm.

Heidi

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Paul Ont · Post by **Paul Ont** » Wed May 06, 2009 5:22 am

Heidi,
Don't worry about the over fertilization, just give the proper amount next time. If you are worried irrigate well to wash the salts from the soil more quickly. The basjoo is probably fine, it's just having to regrow from suckers, which, in soil temps below 20 celsius can take a long time!

I would move to Vancouver or Victoria if only the summers were better! The climate, in terms of USDA zone, is so awesome and the plants you can grow are amazing! I also love that the cities are willing to plant palms and bananas publicly. You would NEVER see the kind of dedication to public horticulture in any of the other places I've lived in Canada (Alberta, Ontario, Nova Scotia).

Cowtown Palm Society · Wed May 06, 2009 9:20 am

Heidi,

Very nice work! The yard looks great! Very cool landscaping.

Paul: It must be noted that, in terms of dedication to public horticulture, the City of Calgary excels at maintaining vast expanses of dead brown grass!

Duncan

hilashes · Post by **hilashes** » Wed May 06, 2009 10:13 am

Hey thanks Duncan! Hopefully things will green up in your area very soon! lol

Paul, thanks for your reassurance. I will post more pics when pups push through the banana. and maybe I shouldn't fertilize the palm for a few more weeks, what do you think?

Heidi

Alchris · Post by **Alchris** » Wed May 06, 2009 4:20 pm

Heidi; Your yard looks great.

Paul; I object to your reference to Alberta not maintaining good public horticulture. You obviously have missed Edmonton's massive plantings of perennial blooms in our public areas. Once you have seen these areas of Dandelions with their gorgeous yellow blooms followed by wonderful white globe shaped seed heads, I am sure that you will retract that nasty comment.

Allen

hilashes · Post by **hilashes** » Wed May 06, 2009 4:58 pm

Paul; I object to your reference to Alberta not maintaining good public horticulture. You obviously have missed Edmonton's massive plantings of perennial blooms in our public areas. Once you have seen these areas of Dandelions with their gorgeous yellow blooms followed by wonderful white globe shaped seed heads, I am sure that you will retract that nasty comment.

Allen that is so funny! I can appreciate what you've said....I grew up in Camrose.

And thank you for the compliment on my yard.

I will soon post a pic of another new Trachycarpus Fortunei that I bought today! woo hoo!

Heidi

Okanagan desert-palms · Wed May 06, 2009 11:35 pm

Heidi nice to see your pics. We all need an El nino next winter . You might want to hold of on watering to much until it really warms up. Bring on some warmer seasonal temps for this time of year would be great.

John

hilashes · Post by **hilashes** » Thu May 07, 2009 8:22 am

Hey thanks John! I agree about the watering - especially now that we've had a week of rain. Today I noticed my Musa stopped pushing out it's leaf. I expected it to be opened by now. We're supposed to have sunny skies into this weekend so I'll just leave everything alone for now.

Heidi

BILL MA · Post by **BILL MA** » Thu May 07, 2009 8:07 pm

Don't worry about over fertilizing hilashes. My 15 gal. windmill after 5.6 degrees no heat it's first winter in SE MA covered only had 3 good leaves + the 2-3 spere leaves. I then fertilized 20-20-20 for 6 weeks straight on heavy duty. It grew leaves almost as fast as the basjoo. Warm humid summer when it gets here. It grew 14-15 leaves nice ones by winter. This winter with c-9 lights for protection about 70 watts my tree flowered 7 seed stems and looks as good as when I wrapped it. Hardyjim has inspired me to protect my plants and tree's even more this year. I bought 3 giant 30 gal. washys and added heat to there roots along with other tropicals. hardyjim seems to be on par with me for planting things that do not belong?

lucky1 · Post by **lucky1** » Sat May 09, 2009 1:02 pm

Heidi, thanks for those pictures.
Always love to see your yard.
That's a great looking new windmill, and the musa looks good.
The musa out front should be sending up a pup soon with soil warming.
Maybe GENTLY poke around a few inches down with your finger...if nothing's coming, you can head off to the nursery again

Bill, welcome to the forum! Your data is VERY encouraging, especially since I've got a lot of 20-20-20!
the thought of a windmill growing 14 to 15 leaves is unbelievably exciting.
Did you add any magnesium and manganese?

You're right, Jim is a great teacher of winter protection.
I've learned a lot too from Jim and others here.

Barb

hilashes · Post by **hilashes** » Sat May 09, 2009 9:54 pm

WOW Bill that's amazing - 14 or 15 leaves! If I could only see that with mine. I'm learning so much since I've planted my new Windmills. Thanks so much for the tips, I'm already planning new action for overwintering them. I hope I have the success you have this year....I lost 2 little Trachys from last winter so I'm really going to baby these ones! At least they'll have longer time to establish themselves.

Barb - Great to hear from you...thank you for your sweet comment on my yard! It is my pride and joy and I could not wait to get my hands into everything again this year. I did what you said with the Basjoo and unfortunately turned out to be a goner. So I'm hoping a get a new one for Mother's Day??

I look forward to gaining more knowledge from the great experience and advice everyone here has! I planted the second Windmill today, so pics to come. I've found a new soil from the nursery that I am crazy about (not to mention the Basjoo) it's Sea Soil, full of micro-macro nutrients and trace elements. I've mixed it in with the Windmill soil, does anyone here use similar stuff? here's the link to it if anyone's interested, it's in the orange and white bag.

www.seasoil.com

Heidi

BILL MA · Post by **BILL MA** » Mon May 11, 2009 8:17 pm

Thanks lucky 1 & hilashes!

I thought the same thing last year when my palm was suffering. The only thing I was thinking with the 20-20-20 was rebounding leaves. I figured a second year palm could take it. It did with flying colors I did also use a cup of epsom salt in the beginning and a month or so later. I also used palm and iroxa food from florida about around mid june I think in the mix.

This was about a week after uncovering.

One more week or so.

This was close to the end of the year late Oct.

Hope the Pictures come out this is my first time

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hilashes · Post by **hilashes** » Tue May 12, 2009 9:55 am

Bill, those are some great pictures, thanks! I can't get over the difference that Trachy is in only one month. Love the rest of your garden too!

Heidi

lucky1 · Post by **lucky1** » Wed May 13, 2009 4:34 pm

Spectacular pics Bill...

That's it!!!! I'm going to overfertilize my stuff too

Barb

BILL MA · Post by **BILL MA** » Wed May 13, 2009 5:48 pm

It worked for me with a little yellowing on the tips. I Just say keep an eye on it as you go. You'll be able to tell if it's not happy. Like I said the only reason I tried it was I wanted more leaves and I didn't want to wait. The stuff I used was the miracle grow 20-20-20 mix. It was blue.

I won't be as aggressive this year since it stared with a full head. It'll still get juiced when the weather is warmer. The last picture was after about six months of grow. I stopped fertilizing after about seven shots or so, way before cold. I'll try to get some photos this weekend when get some time.

Bill

hilashes · Post by **hilashes** » Wed May 13, 2009 7:38 pm

I have a question. My Yucca's (Filamentosa) oldest leaves are yellowing since I planted it 2 weeks ago. I'm thinking the soil might be boggy, as it's in a mix of black organic and sea soil. I've read they don't like wet feet, although it is sitting in an all-gravel retaining walll. I was told to water in well for establishment so I did everyday for a week. Now we've had 5 or 6 straight days of rain and I'm wondering if it's had to much water. I'm tempted to add some gravel or something to mix into it's existing soil...does anyone have a suggestion?

Heidi

hardyjim · Post by **hardyjim** » Thu May 14, 2009 4:22 am

Dang Bill,14-15 leaves! that rocks,I would love to see that many leaves in a year! I was using Mir-acid on my stuff last year,(esp bananas) I have been using some very high nitrogen stuff this spring to try and bust some stuff loose,my plan was high N early,high P middle and high K late,maybe I will try something more balanced for next month like your suggesting,I think mother nature will provide the ingredient that makes the most difference next week,80F weather!

lucky1 · Post by **lucky1** » Thu May 14, 2009 10:12 am

Jim, so has the high N stuff started to explode? Hope so.
Our weather's been hit and miss too.
Looking forward to some heat finally.

Heidi, yuccas need superb drainage, they'll rot in Vancouver's rain unless they're planted under an eave, or in a raised bed on top of gravel. Treat them like a succulent. Good luck.

Barb

hilashes · Post by **hilashes** » Thu May 14, 2009 11:33 am

Thanks Barb - should I just dig it up and plant it in perlite soil? sorry for all the questions, just don't want to lose anything new!

Thanks, Heidi

lucky1 · Post by **lucky1** » Thu May 14, 2009 11:48 am

Heidi, I'd move your question over to the Yucca category and maybe more yucca lovers would chime in.
If it were mine, I'd move it to a gravelly area from which water drains in all directions, i.e. a high point in your yard, not where water drains TO.

If your property's soil is very fertile and loamy, I would dig the hole deeper than required, add a few pounds of gravel (or just rocks) at the bottom of the hole, then start backfilling with your natural soil. then plant the yucca. Mix with perlite if you wish...might be a good idea in Vancouver's heavy rainfall.

Or plant it under the overhang of house...where very little rain lands, as long as water drains away.

Barb

hardyjim · Post by **hardyjim** » Thu May 14, 2009 12:40 pm

Hey Barb,not sure if anythings really exploding yet but our weather has been absolutely incredible with highs mostly in the 70sF and lows around 50F,looks like next week will be some 75-85F highs,that will really get the nanars and cactus going and I guess everything else!

lucky1 · Post by **lucky1** » Thu May 14, 2009 1:00 pm

Hi Jim,
glad to hear your weather's going to produce that explosion of growth soon.

I'm particularly interested in this HEAVY FERTILIZER discussion, but I'm such a chicken.
I tend to UNDER fertilize.

But the thought of 14 new fronds on a palm is sooooooooo tempting.

Barb

PS--our weather has been the pits! Even a threat of light frost TONIGHT! Damn.

hilashes · Post by **hilashes** » Thu May 14, 2009 4:23 pm

Thanks again Barb, I'll check out the yucca forum!

Heidi