Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with plant

Help me find a way to grow sweetgrass!

gwenlister — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:27:13 -0800

My father LOVES and wants to grow some sweetgrass in his lawn/field. Anyone know where I could order some clippings/seed/way to grow the darned stuff? He loves the smell of it and it holds a lot of memories for him from childhood. He said it basically doesn't propagate from seed so APPARENTLY he needs a place he can get clippings. He hasn't been able to find any of the plant, let alone enough to get clippings from, so he's down to buying clippings online (because no one around here has any). Any suggestions where I could direct him online? I don't think price is much of an issue for him. He's kinda obsessed. LOL

Please help me with my poor tomato plant!

farfaraway — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 10:28:58 -0800

How do I nurse a very sick tomato plant back to health? I gave it far too much tomato feed by mistake, and a day later the leaves are horribly droopy/wilted (but still green), though my tomatoes are still looking like they're ripening. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how best to recover it? It's an indoor variety, grown in a foil pouch if that helps.

Please help me rescue my ginkgo tree

aquafiend — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 07:51:32 -0800

Calling all plant propagation / grafting experts. I have a small ginkgo (about 9 inches tall) with great sentimental significance - it was used in my wedding ceremony earlier this year. Until yesterday, I had it in a large pot on the back deck because it seemed too small and delicate for a permanent home in the ground. Yesterday when I went outside I found it on the ground, uproooted and chewed in half (!!). The stem had been separated from the roots about half an inch above the soil level by some animal. Here's what I've done so far (for better or worse):

I made a clean cut on both sides and attempted a whip and tongue graft. I bound the graft together using twine and replanted the whole thing in a small pot inside and covered it with a glass jar to keep the humidity up. I didn't use wax or anything else to seal over the twine because a) I didn't have any and b) the whole thing is now in a humid environment. I also removed three leaves (out of six).

I have never grafted before so I have no idea if I did a good job. I did my best to align the cambium layers, but the stems were slightly different sizes because of the missing chunk so it's only really aligned on one side.

My question(s): I REALLY want to save this plant (for obvious reasons). Is this the best strategy? Would it be better to just try to root the stem? There are a couple of dormant buds on it.

Is there any way to encourage the roots to re-sprout?

Would it be worth burying the graft so that the stem has a chance to root OR take the graft? The graft is about a half inch above the original soil level, so it would mean burying the roots a couple of inches deeper.

thanks in advance for any help.

Source for fake boxwood material?

monkeybutt — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 13:54:00 -0800

Source for fake boxwood material? Does anybody know of a source for fake boxwood materials (or similar)? I've seen faux boxwood topiaries in shapes (spirals, rings, etc) in stores but what i'm looking for the the supplier of the raw plastic material for these creations. i'm looking to make an entire wall out the stuff.

thanks

Can I transplant a 10-foot-tall eucalyptus?

biwa-shu — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 02:36:02 -0800

Is it possible to transplant a 2-year-old, 10-foot-tall eucalyptus? I'd prefer not to just cut it down but sources on the internet seem to say it's not possible to transplant it. Anyone have any positive experiences with this?

Need a cheap substitute for a big flowerpot

picea — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 10:13:07 -0800

I'm wanting to start a little cactus community in one, big pot, but I'm having a hard time finding a pot that's as large as I'd like for a decent price. I'm starting to give up on finding one cheap enough and am now trying to think of another object I could use as a flowerpot substitute. Any ideas? Basically I want something round and probably at least 22" in diameter. I have a big golden barrel cactus for the middle and want some smaller succulents to spread out around it, so it needs to be roomy. In terms of how it looks, I want it to be reasonably attractive or interesting and definitely not plastic. My wife suggested a metal basin, which might work, but I'm not completely sold on it yet. I'd prefer to spend no more than $40 on this planter.

A prickly question . . .

flug — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:58:07 -0800

Can you identify this type of thistle? I believe this is what it looks like when green/growing. I've seen stands of these along roads, fencelines, and ditches in the western U.S. If I remember they grow about 3-4-5 feet tall, each spiky flower on an individual stem, which was either leafless or had only very sparse leaves.

I'm pretty sure it's not a field thistle, tall thistle, canada thistle, musk thistle, scotch thistle, bull thistle, milk thistle, sow thistle, globe thistle, syrian thistle, cotton thistle, golden thistle, blessed thistle, star thistle, carline thistle, creeping thistle, cabbage thistle, marsh thistle, fountain thistle, arizona thistle, new mexico thistle, or any of the about a bazillion other photos/descriptions of thistles I've looked at. (It's certainly possible it is some variety of one of those, and I'm just not enough of a botanist to figure it out--but pretty much all of those don't even look close at all.)

What kind of plant is this?

Flunkie — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:30:53 -0800

What kind of plant is this? Northeastern United States, hardiness zone 6 or 7. It is prolific, is a single slender and vertical stalk with leaves branching off along almost its whole height, can get to at least four feet tall (which is about the height of the one in that picture), has a seemingly shallow root structure (or at least is easily pulled out of the ground), and pisses me off.

When I say "at least four feet tall", I mean that's the tallest I've seen before it pissed me off sufficiently for me to kill it. It may get larger; I don't know.

Not a dandelion, then what?

fearfulsymmetry — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 03:49:37 -0800

What's this plant...? Thought as first it was a dandelion, now I'm sure it isn't. Was photographed in the UK a couple of weeks ago. Saw it beside a path near farmland among other weeds and grasses. Seed head about the size of a large dandelion's. I've tried tracking it down online but my google-fu is weak.

Another plant identification question.

kiripin — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 19:00:40 -0800

Can you identify this shrub? I saw it last January in the Japanese Tea Garden at Golden Gate Park. It was somewhere between 4-6 feet tall, as far as I can recall. The multicolored berries(?) were growing in groups of three, and leaves were emerging from some of the larger ones.

I've done a lot of googling, but to no avail.

Ipecac?

spork — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:03:34 -0800

Are these berries edible? The bush/tree has bark and is about 10 or 15 feet tall. The berries are blue with purple juice, have no pit and are sweet. Yeah, I tasted them. Will I die?

My photo is an homage to High Times' reader submission pics.

Help identify strange swamp cabbage on our property?

JMOZ — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:58:34 -0800

Can anyone help me identify this odd cabbage-like plant that we have tons of growing on our property? Pictures and more description inside. It's springtime in Delaware (well, in lots of places, but we're in Delaware), and so we get to enjoy seeing what plants we have at our new house. We're trying to identify a strange, cabbage-like plant that grows (from "horns a few months ago") in the marshy areas near the stream which runs through our yard. There are a ton of them, and so we'd like to know what they are!

I'm no horticulturist, but I know some of you may be. Anyone know what this is/may be? Any info would be helpful. We're not so much concerned as extremely curious.

Overview picture
Closeup
Picture of plant and horn

Can my tulip plant be saved? How?

Kwantsar — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:36:47 -0800

The leaf tips are turning brown. Are my tulip plants dying? I got a few bulbs in a small planter for Christmas. In short order, some stems (stalks?) emerged from the soil. They were green and robust.

Somewhere along the way, the growth decelerated, and the ends of the stalks turned brown. I (foolishly, perhaps) replanted them in a larger pot with some fresh soil. I may have damaged the root structure a bit when I transplanted the bulbs, but I don't believe I did a whole lot of damage. Either way, the browning has continued. As it stands, I have three or four reedish six-inch sprouts, two string-ish six-inch sprouts, and a handful of shorter reedish sprouts emerging from the soil. The long reeds have gone brown at the top, sthe short reeds and strings have wilted a fair bit.

Some resources say to trim the brown, some say to give more water, some say to keep the brown, some say to give less water, some say to give more light, et cetera.

So, I guess my question is:
1. What should I do?
And my other questions are:
2. Can I keep it outside when the nights are near-freezing?
3. Is there a reliable web resource for plant care?

Colchicum Autumnale Info?

CliffDiving44 — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 19:49:27 -0800

I need some information on colchicum autumnale. What is the age of reproductive maturity/generation time of colchicum autumnale? Also, I need its number of offspring and its lifespan. I'm doing this for homework and can't find the information anywhere (been searching google for a while now!). Any help would be appreciated, please cite your references. Thank you.

What is this succulent?

nakedsushi — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:37:20 -0800

What is this cute little succulent and where can I get one? What is the succulent seen here called? Bonus points for telling me where I can get one.

image here

What is my viney plant thing?

katillathehun — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 14:17:43 -0800

When my grandfather passed away recently, my coworkers sent me a lovely arrangement of tulips and a viney plant thing. The tulips have died, but the viney thing has begun to grow and sprout some leaves. So my question is a two-parter. 1) What IS this viney plant thing? 2) How do I keep alive a while? (Can/should it be moved to potting soil? What's the best light for it? Etc.) Picture here.

What are these alien plants?

puffin — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 06:29:17 -0800

Help me identify my small collection of succulents. Over this past year I have now accumulated six different succulent plants. I have no idea what species they are, or how to care for them apart from not watering more than twice a month. Searching online has mostly yielded confusion since I know absolutely nothing about plants in general, let alone cacti/succulents.

Is my Benjamin wet enough?

taz — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 02:37:24 -0800

Do you have a happy Ficus tree? Can you help me water mine? I have four large (about five feet tall) indoor Benjamins that haven't stopped dropping leaves since I got them in September... which, yeah, was probably not the best time of year to acquire new, finicky plants. At any rate, they are at least dropping fewer leaves as time goes on (but I had no idea that they would still be dropping leaves after so long!) and do continue to put out new leaves, so I'm hoping for the best, but I'd love to have some level of confidence about how much to water them. I get contradictory advice when searching, and I'd like to hear from folks who have healthy specimens themselves.

Each one is near or at a window; the general climate here (in Greece) is dry; they each have a quite large pot (they were re-potted at the same time that we got them). They came from a nursery, but not an upscale one. They don't have any yellow leaves, but each one continues to drop perfectly healthy fully formed leaves.

If I at least could be certain that I'm not under-watering them, I would be glad. I'm watering 1.5 liters each, about once every two weeks, but that's me holding back, since I read that the worst thing was over-watering, and this amount was recommended at some web site somewhere.

Please help me to identify this plant

cadge — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 19:04:13 -0800

What is this houseplant? I bought this large indoor tropical houseplant yesterday at Home Depot, but when I got home, I realized it did not have an identifier tag on it with care instructions.

Can anyone identify it so that I can look up its proper care?

Photo of its leaves
Photo of the whole plant

Fusarium wilt: destroy immediately?

bread-eater — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 17:53:24 -0800

So my tomato plants look a bit sick (yellow -> brown leaves on the bottom). If it has fusarium wilt, must I destroy it? I'm not sure if it's fusarium wilt, and I'm not asking for a diagnosis here because I think it's hard to get a firm answer on that anyway. All that I've read online about FW says to destroy the plant if it has this disease. My question: why? If I let it die naturally (while still producing some food for me), is it so bad? Is the "destroy immediately" response to prevent further spread of the bacteria? Are the fruits still edible?

Thanks, Mefite gardeners!

So, what kind of plant am I?

toxic — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 09:47:01 -0800

What kind of plant is this (hi-res here), and how does it like to be taken care of?

What is this plant thing?

cftarnas — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 12:22:53 -0800

What on earth is this plant like thing ? My friend posted that to her blog, and I googled around with various combinations of succulent, seed pod and spikey with no luck.. I haven't seen it in person, but my best guess would be a succulent and/or a seed pod of some sort. It was found in the SF East Bay Hills, if that helps.

Mystery cactus

dead_ — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 11:08:27 -0800

Help identify this cactus! I was given a clipping of this cactus by my mother and it has been growing wonderfully for almost a year... yet I still don't even know what kind of cactus it is! Can anyone help me here? Thanks!

What can I do, from the big changes on down to the minutae, to make a difference?

iamkimiam — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:24:24 -0800

What can I do, from the big changes on down to the minutae, to make a difference? I want a more environmentally conscious lifestyle! I just recently watched the LA Times online documentary, Altered Oceans and was really inspired to make some changes in my lifestyle to help reverse the damage we've done to our oceans, earth and wildlife. What are some things I can do and small changes I can make for a positive global impact? I am looking for unconvential ideas as well as obvious ones. I am already a member of Environment California, Surfrider, and various other groups. I don't want to just throw money at the problem. I want to make adjustments to my behaviors and habits so that I am going about my life with conscious reasoning that I can be proud of.

Here are some examples of the types of ideas/changes I am hoping to hear about:
• Reuse a single plastic water bottle (instead of continually buying water and throwing out the bottles). Chop down any extra bottles, fill with dirt, grow stuff.
• Only eat self-caught seafood
• Walk to a farmers market and buy groceries there instead of driving to a grocery store and blindly filling cart with product.
• Pay all bills online and cancel all mailed statements, thereby reducing trash.

Bonus points for ideas that make life easier and/or increase productivity/efficiency.

I would also love to hear about some good resources, links, etc. Or ways that items that can be reused, instead of thrown away—if only I knew how to reuse them!

Thanks in advance!

I apologize if linking to the documentary was inappropriate. I think it's a helpful point of reference in describing the bigger problem I am trying to do my part to solve. I have no intention of making this a question with an agenda, or a chatfilter. I just want suggestions!

risks of nuclear power

edtut — Sun, 27 May 2007 03:51:48 -0800

what is the difference between radiation poisoning, burn due to radiation, contaminated/heavy water, etc. what are the differences between nuclear power plant accidents and atomic bombs. i have studied this stuff ages ago, and will do more research, but would be interested to see the usu range of inputs from meta. i want to know primarily about the differences between the risks of bombs and the risks of nuclear power plants. but any detail on isotopes used, half life and long term risks, damage done, types of contamination, safety for both modes, transport risks, waste storage, and any related topics. thanks