Garden chat & photos for torts and people ♫ ♫

Maro2Bear

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Glenn Dale, Maryland, USA
Took a day to travel over to Maryland’s Eastern Shore and visit the Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge. Blue sky, crisp air, sun shining brightly. Lots of migrating Canada Geese present, other waterfowl, plenty of Gold Finches, and a few American Bal Eagles. Few people.

It was a great location and great day for snapping pix. Just enough cool temperatures in our area to trigger a change in colors.

I’m looking into volunteering at the refuge. Plenty of things to do and see.

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CarolM

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I need some help from the garden experts please. My Hibiscus tree has been slowly dying.
At first it was just the leaves going yellow and then the leaves were dying. Today I cleared all the ivy that was growing around the tree. And i cut all the dead branches off the tree. But there were two main branches which came out of the ground which were completely dead. And they looked like this. Does anybody know what could be the cause? I have had this tree for over 13 years and it has always been green and had flowers on a constant basis. The first picture is what my tree looked like earlier this year. And the other pictures are what the dead branches look like.
Any help and advice on how to save my tree would be greatly appreciated. I have cut a lot of the dead branches off, taken all the ivy growing near it away. I am hoping that this will sort out the problem. 20180707_145012.jpeg20181021_184057.jpeg20181021_184049.jpeg20181021_184119.jpeg
 

CarolM

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That's some sort of rot. I've seen that on woody branches when the roots have died. Too much water?
Normally I would think too much water but we have gone through a drought. Although we had the drought and then had a lot of rain during winter. Maybe after the drought all the rain was too much. Hopefully by taking away the affected branches the tree can recover.
 

Pearly

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Normally I would think too much water but we have gone through a drought. Although we had the drought and then had a lot of rain during winter. Maybe after the drought all the rain was too much. Hopefully by taking away the affected branches the tree can recover.

See if you can remove all the rotting stems. I would dig around the roots to see if they are all getting soft and brittle. If you can spot the soft pieces, get them out and scoop out as much of the soil around as you can without hurting the roots. Then replace it with good well draining soil mixed with bunch of compost. If there is still healthy part of root system left there, it may recover. See if you can find Hibiscus mix fertilizer. I agree with Yvonne, it does look like a rot of some sort. Was is getting enough sun during the rainy season that you had? Maybe like you said all that rain was just too much for it. I know Hibiscus does best in full sun with very well draining soil. Wishing you best of luck with it. Meanwhile look at thisIMG_6705.jpg I bought this one in 1 gal pot last summer. It was just 2 little sticks, maybe a foot long or less. My Mom put if in the ground few months ago and would you look at it?! This is in South Florida
 

Pearly

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I had a request from a member to see my cactus garden, so I snapped a few current pictures. I haven't done anything out there in a long time, and the weeds are taking over. Also, it's the total wrong time for blooms, and yet a couple of them are blooming.

In this first picture, the curve for the new street access starts in the middle of the cholla cactus on the right side of the picture, and ends at the stake just below the cholla.
View attachment 254540
In this picture, the saguaro cactus on the right (with the sign on it) is directly in line with the existing power pole (out of the picture on the right) and when they widen my street, I worry the power company will want to set their new pole right where the saguaro is. I started that either from a seed or from a tiny 1" pot, bought at a desert cactus stand many, many years ago. It's been planted in this location for a bit over 25 years. It's very precious to me and so I put a sign on it so hopefully it won't be harmed during the road widening and pole relocation.
View attachment 254541 View attachment 254542 View attachment 254544 View attachment 254545 View attachment 254546 View attachment 254547

This poor cactus garden. It really needs some attention. Too much to do. . . too little time. . . no energy!

Yvonne, your cactus collection is awesome!!! Love those “barrels”! I would love to see all of them bloom. I would looooooove to have a saguaro, but don’t think it would like the few days of freezing temps we get here each winter. Don’t let the road widening people touch your saguaro. Especially if it’s on your property.
 

CarolM

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See if you can remove all the rotting stems. I would dig around the roots to see if they are all getting soft and brittle. If you can spot the soft pieces, get them out and scoop out as much of the soil around as you can without hurting the roots. Then replace it with good well draining soil mixed with bunch of compost. If there is still healthy part of root system left there, it may recover. See if you can find Hibiscus mix fertilizer. I agree with Yvonne, it does look like a rot of some sort. Was is getting enough sun during the rainy season that you had? Maybe like you said all that rain was just too much for it. I know Hibiscus does best in full sun with very well draining soil. Wishing you best of luck with it. Meanwhile look at thisView attachment 254919 I bought this one in 1 gal pot last summer. It was just 2 little sticks, maybe a foot long or less. My Mom put if in the ground few months ago and would you look at it?! This is in South Florida
Oh wow. Yours has done beautifully in such a short time. Thanks for the advice. I didn't do the soil thing but pretty much did take out all the bad branches. I will need to do the soil this weekend coming and just wait and see. I do have another tree which I planted a month ago. But this one is special as it has been in my garden from day one. And has provided flowers and leaves to all my torts for a very long time.
 

Jacqui

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We've had some pretty warm temperatures for October. It was nearly 90°F the other day. Whew.

Steve checked out the gourds that grew in our yard this year. They're the "grandkids" of the gourds that decorated our wedding reception. :D

View attachment 253835

Lol I have pumpkins, squash, and gourds that I allow to come up volunteer. They were from ones I used to decorate my daughter's wedding a couple of years ago.
 

Iochroma

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Carol, my first thought was of your drought - it makes the news even here. I would water the hibiscus generously every few days, and fertilize twice a month.
 

CarolM

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Carol, my first thought was of your drought - it makes the news even here. I would water the hibiscus generously every few days, and fertilize twice a month.
Thank you very much. I will definitely do that. With all the TLC it is going to be getting there is no way it cannot come back with a bang.
 

T Smart

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Lovely photos you all have posted! I'm jealous of all you warm weather members. Anyways, I've got a question regarding spineless cactus:

Has anyone had success growing it indoors? If so, what's the best way to go about it?
 

Yvonne G

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Lovely photos you all have posted! I'm jealous of all you warm weather members. Anyways, I've got a question regarding spineless cactus:

Has anyone had success growing it indoors? If so, what's the best way to go about it?
Any cactus requires a lot of light. It will grow indoors, but without a very bright light it will be spindly and reaching.
 

Len B

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A few pics from today.Picture 11 16 18.jpg The local water turtles haven't gone down yet.Picture 011.jpg Mulberry trees still have leaves.Picture 008.jpg It was a great summer for the banana trees, This group had some almost 20 feet tall and bunches of small bananas that wont have time to get ripe.Image1.jpg The figs got off to a slow start, might not have time to ripen up before the cold weather sets inPicture 010.jpg These spine less are already starting to lay down and go dormant for winter.The pepper plants still have peppers waiting to be picked.I didn't take any pics but all the ROS have lost their leaves already. We had a wet summer which was good for all the plants. A local lawn service company donated a new garden at the welcome sign coming into town and I gave them permission to use my water hook up and hoses to water it until the plants get established. It only needed watering 3 times all summer.They were planning on using milk jugs and buckets carried down the hill to water, That would have never worked, after meeting the group that was going to maintain and do the watering at the new garden.
 
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