Plant Shopping
Feb. 18th, 2024 07:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithToday I ordered plants from Edible Landscaping. This is one of the better nurseries for food forests or other permaculture projects. It also offers many native plants for wildlife gardening. The selection of native species fits very well with my laissez-faire permaculture.
I keep hoping that if I plant enough of these damn things, eventually I'll get more than a handful for myself. Usually the birds eat most of the fruit. Juneberries and saskatoons pretty much taste like tree blueberries. Some cultivars stay short enough that you can plant them under overhead lines and they make great hedges. Others are more like small trees, well suited for layering.
Jennybelle Juneberry
Amelanchier obovalis
Jennybelle can be grown as a specimen with its 8-10' tall height and 8-10' width.
"I am very glad to see you offering jennebelle juneberry again. I remember ordering this back in the late 80's or early 90's and had it growing and fruiting for a number of years. For whatever reason which I do not remember it eventually died. But it had outstanding fruit! and I am looking forward to growing it again, by far the best juneberry I have ever tasted and an ornamental plant to boot." D Morris Winston Salem NC Jenneybelle juneberry was introduced to me by Jack Rice of North Carolina in 1987. Jack named the plant after his daughter Jennifer. He described it as a must have plant, prized for its fruits, dependability and adaptable to all extremes of weather. A fruit that "never lets us down." Unlike blueberries, juneberries are not finicky about soil types. They grow on rich lime or acidic soils. Zones 5-9 Space 10' circle
Princess Diana Juneberry
Amelancier x grandifol
Gracefully spreading 12'-15' bush with excellent red fall color, lasting late into the season. Shrouded with large white blossoms in spring, "Princess Diana" will often bloom while young. Delightful, large purplish-red edible fruits are produced in abundance. Usually singled trunk. Space 8' circle Native Zones 3b-8a.
Success Juneberry
Amelanchier alnifolia
The first Juneberry I tasted. Introduced from Kansas in 1939. Pretty round shaped shrub up to 8'. Space 8' circle. Zone 5-8
Pawpaw actually comes from a tropical tree family, hence the big squishy fruit, but this type grows in temperate areas. Seedlings are more variable in fruit traits but better for quantity, because pawpaw won't pollinate itself or too close a relative. You need at least two minimally related trees for good fruit set, so seed-grown trees give you an advantage there.
Select Pawpaw
Asimina triloba
Seedlings come close to being true to type. Select Pawpaw seedlings should have large fruit size and fine flavor, carrying on the fine genetic pool from the superior varieties the seeds were obtained. Native Zones 5-8. Two select pawpaw will cross pollinate. Plant 6' apart for hedge like appearance or 10'-14' circle to stand alone.
I have raspberries, but I like to add new ones to keep up the diversity. This matters less if you're not trying to breed them, but I have birds dropping seeds all over everywhere, so I want a good mix of parent stock. Also I need enough raspberries that I get some instead of the birds eating them all.
Double Gold Raspberry
Double Gold Raspberry is a flavorful raspberry, vigorous, and disease resistant. Double Gold produces a deeply blushed, golden champagne-colored fruit with a distinctive conical shape. The "double" in its name is for its two harvests per season. The first year of planting, the initial crop is produced in the fall on the tips of current year's canes, and a second crop is produced farther down the same canes the following summer. In taste tests, Double Gold has been a favorite. Fruit is too delicate for long distance shipping, therefore a good choice for home gardeners. Double Gold is resistant to Phytophthora root rot as well as most of the common leaf diseases. Zone 5-8 Space 5' circle or 3' apart in 5' wide beds.
Jewel Black Raspberry
Rubus occidentalis
Vigorous and erect, Jewel black raspberry adapts to many areas. Large berries of excellent flavor Ripen early June 5th at the nursery. The plants are pretty in the growing season. In winter leafless arching canes are purplish red, usually with their tips in the ground producing another plant. Black raspberries are the first raspberries to ripen in the spring. A good reason to include them in your gardening plans. Black raspberries are native to the US and can be found growing along fields and fences and along wooded areas. Good soil, mulch and ample water can only help you succeed with one of the best treats in spring. Space 4' circle or 3' apart in rows 5' wide. Zones 5-8.
Ohio's Treasure Black Raspberry
Rubus occidentalis
Ohio Treasure's berries have a pleasant flavor with a good balance of sweetness and freshness. The fruits are considered medium in size and average 2.1 grams per berry and are comparable to Jewell with 2.5 grams per berry. The fruit quality is very good for farms and gardeners.
The plants have high vigor producing two crops per year. In most parts of the US the plants can be mowed to the ground after the foliage naturally falls. The stems regrow in the spring and begin yielding fruits in the middle of August and will continue to produce fruit until the middle of October. If you leave the canes to overwinter, they will produce a late spring crop at the same ripening time as Jewell. Zone 3 - 8.
Do you want ideas for what you can do with edible landscaping? There are plenty of guides online:
20 Plant Polycultures and Guilds
Midwest Permaculture Plant Guilds eBooklet
Many of my trees have what I call mini-guilds around them: a ring of low-growing things that add visual and other benefits. My main ring plants are daffodils and comfrey. Sometimes I have other spring bulbs like crocus for extra pollinator value, but it's the bitter daffodil bulbs that discourage root-gnawing creatures. Comfrey is a real workhorse; it fills basically every role in a guild except for fixing nitrogen. I don't worry much about nitrogen because I have clovers all mixed in with the lawn grass for that. I also have wild senna in the wildflower garden that I'm trying to spread around, and garlic chives in various places that I'm trying to get under trees to attract beneficial wasps.
I keep hoping that if I plant enough of these damn things, eventually I'll get more than a handful for myself. Usually the birds eat most of the fruit. Juneberries and saskatoons pretty much taste like tree blueberries. Some cultivars stay short enough that you can plant them under overhead lines and they make great hedges. Others are more like small trees, well suited for layering.
Jennybelle Juneberry
Amelanchier obovalis
Jennybelle can be grown as a specimen with its 8-10' tall height and 8-10' width.
"I am very glad to see you offering jennebelle juneberry again. I remember ordering this back in the late 80's or early 90's and had it growing and fruiting for a number of years. For whatever reason which I do not remember it eventually died. But it had outstanding fruit! and I am looking forward to growing it again, by far the best juneberry I have ever tasted and an ornamental plant to boot." D Morris Winston Salem NC Jenneybelle juneberry was introduced to me by Jack Rice of North Carolina in 1987. Jack named the plant after his daughter Jennifer. He described it as a must have plant, prized for its fruits, dependability and adaptable to all extremes of weather. A fruit that "never lets us down." Unlike blueberries, juneberries are not finicky about soil types. They grow on rich lime or acidic soils. Zones 5-9 Space 10' circle
Princess Diana Juneberry
Amelancier x grandifol
Gracefully spreading 12'-15' bush with excellent red fall color, lasting late into the season. Shrouded with large white blossoms in spring, "Princess Diana" will often bloom while young. Delightful, large purplish-red edible fruits are produced in abundance. Usually singled trunk. Space 8' circle Native Zones 3b-8a.
Success Juneberry
Amelanchier alnifolia
The first Juneberry I tasted. Introduced from Kansas in 1939. Pretty round shaped shrub up to 8'. Space 8' circle. Zone 5-8
Pawpaw actually comes from a tropical tree family, hence the big squishy fruit, but this type grows in temperate areas. Seedlings are more variable in fruit traits but better for quantity, because pawpaw won't pollinate itself or too close a relative. You need at least two minimally related trees for good fruit set, so seed-grown trees give you an advantage there.
Select Pawpaw
Asimina triloba
Seedlings come close to being true to type. Select Pawpaw seedlings should have large fruit size and fine flavor, carrying on the fine genetic pool from the superior varieties the seeds were obtained. Native Zones 5-8. Two select pawpaw will cross pollinate. Plant 6' apart for hedge like appearance or 10'-14' circle to stand alone.
I have raspberries, but I like to add new ones to keep up the diversity. This matters less if you're not trying to breed them, but I have birds dropping seeds all over everywhere, so I want a good mix of parent stock. Also I need enough raspberries that I get some instead of the birds eating them all.
Double Gold Raspberry
Double Gold Raspberry is a flavorful raspberry, vigorous, and disease resistant. Double Gold produces a deeply blushed, golden champagne-colored fruit with a distinctive conical shape. The "double" in its name is for its two harvests per season. The first year of planting, the initial crop is produced in the fall on the tips of current year's canes, and a second crop is produced farther down the same canes the following summer. In taste tests, Double Gold has been a favorite. Fruit is too delicate for long distance shipping, therefore a good choice for home gardeners. Double Gold is resistant to Phytophthora root rot as well as most of the common leaf diseases. Zone 5-8 Space 5' circle or 3' apart in 5' wide beds.
Jewel Black Raspberry
Rubus occidentalis
Vigorous and erect, Jewel black raspberry adapts to many areas. Large berries of excellent flavor Ripen early June 5th at the nursery. The plants are pretty in the growing season. In winter leafless arching canes are purplish red, usually with their tips in the ground producing another plant. Black raspberries are the first raspberries to ripen in the spring. A good reason to include them in your gardening plans. Black raspberries are native to the US and can be found growing along fields and fences and along wooded areas. Good soil, mulch and ample water can only help you succeed with one of the best treats in spring. Space 4' circle or 3' apart in rows 5' wide. Zones 5-8.
Ohio's Treasure Black Raspberry
Rubus occidentalis
Ohio Treasure's berries have a pleasant flavor with a good balance of sweetness and freshness. The fruits are considered medium in size and average 2.1 grams per berry and are comparable to Jewell with 2.5 grams per berry. The fruit quality is very good for farms and gardeners.
The plants have high vigor producing two crops per year. In most parts of the US the plants can be mowed to the ground after the foliage naturally falls. The stems regrow in the spring and begin yielding fruits in the middle of August and will continue to produce fruit until the middle of October. If you leave the canes to overwinter, they will produce a late spring crop at the same ripening time as Jewell. Zone 3 - 8.
Do you want ideas for what you can do with edible landscaping? There are plenty of guides online:
20 Plant Polycultures and Guilds
Midwest Permaculture Plant Guilds eBooklet
Many of my trees have what I call mini-guilds around them: a ring of low-growing things that add visual and other benefits. My main ring plants are daffodils and comfrey. Sometimes I have other spring bulbs like crocus for extra pollinator value, but it's the bitter daffodil bulbs that discourage root-gnawing creatures. Comfrey is a real workhorse; it fills basically every role in a guild except for fixing nitrogen. I don't worry much about nitrogen because I have clovers all mixed in with the lawn grass for that. I also have wild senna in the wildflower garden that I'm trying to spread around, and garlic chives in various places that I'm trying to get under trees to attract beneficial wasps.
(no subject)
Date: 2024-02-19 05:06 am (UTC)Yay!
Date: 2024-02-19 05:17 am (UTC)Re: Yay!
Date: 2024-02-20 03:46 am (UTC)Re: Yay!
Date: 2024-02-20 09:43 am (UTC)Awesome! They have lots of citrus, figs, pomegranates -- some of the tropical stuff is crazy cheap.
>> I have no land but I might take over some of the university greenhouse, especially since a coworker has been pissing me off about it. I just need to look at the seeds, grow some fun things and make it an experiment <<
That's a great idea. Hmm, if you want an experiment, consider getting a seed mix and then try to identify things.
Or you could always try pushing the envelope, that's fun. These guys made tomatoes that survive snow.
Or you could try growing things that nobody is, like breeding plants to maximize pollinator appeal instead of human appeal ... no, that wouldn't work in a greenhouse unless you put pollinators in there too.
Re: Yay!
Date: 2024-02-23 05:07 am (UTC)I've been wanting to do a study on the differing amount of menthol in the various mint cultivars but the stupid gas chromatograph is SO touchy and such a nightmare to use
Re: Yay!
Date: 2024-02-23 05:23 am (UTC)*ponder* Recruit allies. Find out who in your state is losing their shit over the insect apocalypse and trying to stop it. Tell them you have an idea that would help insects and could be deployed over a wide range, but you need help getting a place to set it up. It should work because plants already have variety in amount of pollen / nectar and flower shapes; it's just a matter of offering the pollinators a smorgasbord, writing down what they prefer, and then breeding selectively for that. I mean just in the first year you could put out "Of the 50 zinnas we trialed, these 5 had the most pollinators" or "These dills had the most swallowtail caterpillars" or "Butterflies preferred these 3 subspecies of echinacea the most."
>> I've been wanting to do a study on the differing amount of menthol in the various mint cultivars <<
That would be so useful for everything from herbal medicine to pest repellent.
>> but the stupid gas chromatograph is SO touchy and such a nightmare to use <<
Alas! :(
Well, maybe there's another way. Menthol is a potent flavor that comes from oil. Peppers are tested for capsicum with a dilution test. Could that work with menthol? The stronger the concentration, the more water it should take before you can't find the mint anymore.
Re: Yay!
Date: 2024-02-25 05:12 am (UTC)Yes we can do serial dilutions on it. Right now I don't have a student strong enough in chemistry to try it