My friend at the library asked this morning if I wanted to take home a hosta that someone donated to the plant sale without a pot, as she didn't have the capacity to split it into pots or spend multiple watering sessions keeping it happy. Being the good husband I am, I asked my wife if it's okay with her if I accepted (unapologetic plant accepter here). She said sure, and even understood when I said I needed to bring the truck because it had no pot and I didn't want to dirty her car.

The hosta:

My wife:

This particular flower is native to my geographic area, although there wasn't any in my suburban city. So I got a big bag of conservation seed and dumped it everywhere, and it went nuts. Best "weed" ever.

It flowers for most of the season, but it's most magnificent right now. Hoverflies and other tiny pollinators love it. Honeybees do too, but they're a little big for them.

Two of my favorites. The rose smells heavenly

[Image description: the white flowers and pale leaves of sea kale contrast nicely with the pink, white and green of the dappled willow's foliage]

At least, I think they do

archived (Wayback Machine)

archived (Wayback Machine)

I could have told them that. Who did they think pollinated the durian flowers?

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/22446624

Have you ever had an especially rewarding, adventurous, dangerous, or really stupid experience of harvesting/foraging fruit?

I tend to live a sheltered life, so I don't have anything too exciting to share. I've harvested bananas with a hornets' nest on the underside of a leaf multiple times, but nothing unusual ever happened. I've gone wading through the swamp looking for aguaje, but the anacondas had already been hunted to extinction in that area. I've stood under a fruiting durian tree without a helmet, but it seems that durians don't just fall from the sky when I'm hungry.

Does anyone have an exciting or uplifting story to share?

Share your garden progress, challenges, and/or successes! What's growing on with you all?

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/27601391

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/27601124

I have Ostrich fern on the front of my house that I have been waiting years to try. I keep missing the window when they are ready so I was overjoyed when I saw my fiddlehead popping up. I chopped 9, steamed with in a pan with a little butter for 5 minutes. I plated them with just a sprinkle of flaky salt and had them for lunch today.

They were great and tasted a little like asparagus but with a more savory, earthly flavor. They were amazing and totally worth the wait. I might check tomorrow to see if I can sustainability grab a few more to have them again.

10/10 would forage again.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/21789538

Not necessarily your favourite fruit to eat, but what is/are your favourite fruit tree(s) to grow based on survival rate, fruit yield, ease of maintenance, ease of harvest, grass-killing prowess, and any other combination of factors? What is/are your least favourite? If you have photos or diagrams to illustrate your point, even better!

(If you provide your region and/or Köppen-Geiger or Trewartha climate zone, it will help others to know what to plant or what to avoid!)

While it's not an exhaustive list, I thought this might be handy for any folks looking to ID mystery fruit trees in their area. If you've got additional resources like this but for less common fruits, please share!

Our state inspection was this morning (we passed!) and we're in full plant splitting mode. Today is catnip, irises, and a few more purple flowering raspberries that have begun sprouting from around the bases of our mature plants. Yesterday I gave Juniper the task of separating the yarrow cuttings from the mother plant, and she seemed to really enjoy it.

What's growing on with you all?

Hello,

I recently bought two small bamboo plants and put them in two pots on my balcony. They're both doing well and have grown several new stalks that are already growing a lot. But I noticed that the existing stalks were not growing at all, and today I found out why: a lot of them are missing their tips.

To my understanding this means those stalks won't grow anymore. Should I cut the "broken" stalks off to make room for new ones? I'm worried that the plant won't have enough leaves to do photosynthesis, because I would have to cut away quite a bunch.

As to why the plants are missing the tips: I don't know. I assume the store I got them from did it to prevent them from outgrowing the tiny pots they came in

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/21477992

What did you harvest recently? Post photos if you like, and brag about what you grew or foraged.