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Australia's Naughty Plants & The official gardening tips thread

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#3, seeds, cuttings:

I'm hoping Passive will get involved here sooner or later because I'm sure he has lots of gardening secrets he wants to share with us all.."Don't You Pass.. :wink:

So I'm going to put down here what I know..which isn't that much about when people get their first few cactus cuttings in the mail..Now some may have never dealt with cuttings and wonder how the hell do I plant these. First thing to look at is the spines..make sure you know which way is the right way up...obviously this only applies to mid section cuttings..if you can't work out which way is up on a tip cutting I suggest you give the wacky baccy a rest for a while.

Now once you have discovered which way is up..place your cutting on some newspaper or something or in a cardboard box even, and leave to callous over on the end you want to place into your soil. If it's allready calloused over fine you are right to go.

Once the end is nice and hard and dry you can plant the cutting in choice your of soil.

H.

Edited by planthelper

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#2, location,position:

thick shade cloth can be used succesfully to block wind. like in coastal areas where there is strong winds. espesially onshore winds carrying a lot of salt. fast winds carrying salt = hectics windburn for your plants (except tolerant species)

use stakes to hold up shadecloth. tie shadecloth to the stakes with metal wire (steel fixers wire) or something similar

Edited by planthelper

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I like this from the back cover of UK based Chiltern Seeds 2009 catalogue,

#14, spartan gardening sayings, general tips:

'All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today-Indian Proverb'.

Sticky tape is used for glochids,with varying success.

Also you can snip the tips off your agave leaves without unduly spoiling the appearance,also if Badgers use your garden as part of their nocturnal digging and defecation forays a well placed agave will suggest another route.

Edited by planthelper

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#14, spartan gardening sayings, general tips:

Here's one hunab told me...bending the stems on plants such as Psychotrias can induce new branches. If your plants are especially tall you can lay/bend them towards the ground and they will send up new branches from each node. Also trimming the top parts off will send more branches out, thus fattening up your plants with more leaves and less stem. Perfect if you only have limited vertical space i.e in a greenhouse or indoors.

This can also be applied to cacti. Making cuttings near the bottom of the cactus will mean within a year you should have some new pups that will grow into big branches. I've seen as many as three pop up but i'm sure more are possible. You should plant the cutting you made and repeat the same process in a year or two.

Edited by planthelper

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#14, spartan gardening sayings, general tips:

Best advice i've ever had:

"Leave it the hell alone".... :lol:

Edited by planthelper

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please only post general gardening tips and hint's in this thread, because we want to make this topic sticky and a guide for beginners.

sorry, but i will delete all posts which don't fit this catagory on a later date.

hunab, i know it would be better to delete off topic posts right away, but i don't want to upset people who were not aware of the specifics of this thread.

Edited by planthelper

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yeah that sounds good..see when you work together we can achieve anything.. :lol:

H.

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#1, Mulch, Compost, Soil:

Rocks, Pebbles and Moss.

Although these items are mostly used for ascetics they still play an important role in the garden. Use large pebbles and old bush or sandstone rocks inserted into your garden beds for a truly great look. Add pebbles as you would like mulch for cactus gardens..they also give you somewhere to step onto when you need to get into hard to reach places in the garden. Place them so they can be used to step onto so you can have access to everything for maintenance.

Gather moss where you see it in winter and lay it over some rock for a really nice look, you can also lay it at the top of your soil in a pot plant and give it some protection from weeds and acts like a mulch keeping water in.

Scatter a few small pebbles in the bottom of pots for good drainage...soil packed in all the way to the bottom of a pot can be troublesome particularly if the drain holes get blocked and you end up with a boggy wet bottom and soaking wet roots.

H.

Edited by planthelper

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Ok, here's a couple of tips.

#2, Location, Position:

When transplanting a potted plant into the ground, harden it off to the sun by taking a fresh tree branch still covered with leaves and sticking the tree branch into the ground next to the plant so the leaves shade the plant. The leaves on the tree branch will shrivel and dry over a week or two and slowly expose the plant to more sun each day allowing the plant to adapt to the sun gradually. This is especially good for plants that may have been started indoors that would get shocked if exposed to direct sunlight immediately.

#1, Mulch, Compost, Soil:

Put down a layer of finished compost as a mulch in your garden, keeping a mulch free area in about a 6 inch circle around each plants stem to avoid causing stem rot. Then put down a layer of either cardboard or paper (avoid using stuff with chemical inks on them though) on top of the compost. Then put down a layer of 1/2 finished compost on top of the cardboard/paper so you can't see the cardboard/paper. The mulches will both continually feed the garden with nutrients and will also trap moisture keeping you from having to water too much. The cardboard/paper will prevent weed seeds from sprouting making it so you almost never have to pull weeds from the garden. The 1/2 finished compost layer will turn the rest of the way into finished compost about halfway through the growing season, at which time you can put down another layer of cardboard/paper and a new layer of 1/2 finished compost.

Edited by MrPotato

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#4, Watering, Fertilizers:

I'm sure we all love to go to Bunnings and see those wonderful coloured bottles of quick grow and miracle wank...and think oh yeah I'm gunna give everything in pots at home a good dose of that shit..its in a bottle right and its in the gardening dept...it must be good. Thing is those ferts are good..and they do work..if you really know what you are doing..most of them are specialised for a particular type of rose or orchid or azaelea..what ever..there is not really an all rounder...osmocote has a kind of all rounder..but each plants needs are slightly different. No good giving an acid lover something that's going to make the soil more alkaline..and vise versa. Know your plants..know what the ideal ph is for that plant and get a Ph tester for the soil. Adjust accordingly with the correct fertilizer or soil conditioner. DO NOT go splashing lots of bottled fert all over everything in the garden or on every pot..likely you will kill em..and DO NOT give em extra cause you think it will make em extra green and big..the fact is the opposite will occur you will kill them quick smart.

A trick I use is..I think about feeding my plants..I then say to myself..nah..I'll do it in a few weeks..the clock in my mind lets about 3 weeks go by and then I remember mmm yeah ok I'll feed em a bit. I only use about a quarter of the dose of liquid fertilizer and use a watering can followed by a good hose in or even better do it when its raining. Much better to under fertilize than over fertilize..allways remember that...especially with cactus..with cactus its even more imperative to under fertilize.

My favourite way to feed is to not really feed at all..I chuck around chicken poo pellets around the plants that would benifit from that and use thrive cactus fertilizer very very lightly maybe twice in one whole growing season. I'm no growing expert by a mile but I know enough not to abuse those ferts in a bottle from K Mart etc..

H.

Edited by planthelper

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i just started getting some order into the thread and simplyfied it, basicly i used the nummbers as followes,

please for all postings stick to this order:

#1, mulch, compost, soil:

#2, location, position:

#3, seeds, cuttings: ( to be added: propagation)

#5, pestcontroll, disease: (to be added: total content)

#6, vegie patch; (to be added: lot's of content)

#7, tools, diy:

#14, spartan gardening sayings, general tips:

so if one of you strts a new subject, not yet covered, pick #8 and so on!

posts which are made without, regards of this rule, will be either deleted, or if they are worth it, i will try to edit them so the fit this format, thx!

hunab, i made your pebbles and moss a #1, after all pebbles are a form of permanent mulch, and it keeps the thread easier to use.

last thing, now many post say, edited by ph, i don't realy like this, so just go and edit your posts minimaly (for example use capital letters wher i didn't {mulch

Edited by planthelper

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#5, pestcontroll, disease:

very often we get posts here of people who are asking us "how to save" there plants which suddenly turned sick, after having been purchased just a while ago.

and pretty much most of the time, the owner of the plant just simply got too carried away, "trying to help" the plant, by doing this and adding this, and at the end the plant dies, because it got "loved too much".

if you are a beginner, don't do anything to the plant, just give it a nice spot with ample light (best is morning sun only) (ref: #2, location, position) and water just slightly.

pest, mostly only are a big problem with plants which are "not happy", because of lack of nurturing or bad location, both or some other issues.

sometimes a pest will go away, by just moving the plant into a brighter position, another time, the pest or disease will be less of a problem by just fertilizing more, or for example by increasing or decreasing the humidety.

for example, amphids will be less bothersome in many cases if one moves a plant from indoor to outdoors, and than mist or sprays down the leaves repeatedly with (soap)water.

or cacti will recover from various fungi attacks by just simply beeing kept more dry.

most of us will try a rather try the organic approach when it comes to pestcontrol, and the most natural would be the encouragment of predadory insects, or animals (ladybirds, premantis...).

fungus gnats can be sucked off with the vacum cleaner, and the pot's get a protective layer of diamateous earth (***sab link needed***), or killed by soaking the pots in water mixed with pyrethrum.

neem oil is also very good, just mix a few ml's with water and a few drops of detergent.

if you use white oil on say viridis, make sure to wash it off with water after you removed the scale, other wise the whitoil might kill your plants.

often it helps to controll the ants, which farm some pest animals, than the actual pest.

sometimes the best methode is to mechanicly remove the pest from the plant, with a soft brush and soapy water.

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# 5 pest control, desease:

Just adding something here to the above and that is..if you having a serious problem with ants..and I mean they are taking over your house and garden...get some Boric Acid..available from e-bay and it's pretty cheap. I bought some recently and it came in zip lock bags with full instructions. You simply boil some water and honey in a saucepan and add the required amount of Boric acid and simmer. I then took some used up tea light candle holder containers and filled them up with the juice and placed them around the garden. Within minutes every ant in the area was swarming to the sweet honey and acid drink. I also splash some on some bricks and around where I have seen them regularly travel. The ants take a small amount each back to the nest for the queen and that's the end of that. I still have ants around but only a few..it seems brutal but they where really taking over at mine and I had to be drastic.

I also took a dry paint brush and brushed the acid around where I've seen cockroaches try and get in the house..with them they walk through it and because they are such fastidious cleaners they lick it off thier feet and die. This shit really works..I have seen 1 cockroach since I started this routine as opposed to usually 20 or 30 a day ..its really a very good way to combat 2 pests that are very common. And no ants means no aphids..so its help prevent 3 pests.

H.

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#5, pestcontrol, disease:

i dont know about killing insects, i feel that ants have a job to do they love caapi and i love to see them travel up and down the vine, certain times of the year the ants come out in force but i figure they are just doing what they need to do, i dont see harm with ants, even when they come in the house i dont really like it i try to discourage it with peppermint oil or talcum powder or find where they are coming in and spread lime or talcum powder etc around. but they never seem to stay here very long. i guess they are just stocking up, i read somewhere that in some places like indonesia food offerings are given to the gods or spirits of the land a distance from the home, this serves to purposes, the gods/spirits are happy and the ants go to that place for food as opposed to coming into the house.

in regards to cockroaches i dont know what its like where you are but those European cockroaches death to them i say, and this sounds like a good method, but be careful as there is a native cockroach well it is native here dont know about where you are, but here there is a native cockie that does not cuase the same problems those ferel ones do, not all cockroaches are the same

i think it is a balance you need in yoru garden, take away the ants and whats going to take the place there you might end up with more aphids as the ants wont collect them, i think what you gotta do in your garden is createa little ecosystem that supports each other if you have too much of one thing then you need to figure out what you need to invite into your garden to combat that, i might mean planting more atives to attract birds or have a haven for lizards or something like that. i wish i knew more about this idea of gardening, but that is what it hink about pest control. even snails are pains in the arse but you can still collect them and feed them to the birds.

Edited by planthelper

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#3, seeds, cuttings:

a list of plants you might grow, appropiate links disscusing the specific plant will be added, over time.

thx for your patient! :) cheers teotz, as i copied the plant names from your junk folder.

Banisteriopsis caapi ~ “Vine of the Souls” or “Ayahuasca”

Psychotria viridis ~ “” or “Ayahuasca”

Diplopterys cabrerana ~ “Oco’ Yage” or “Ayahuasca

Psilocybian Mushrooms ~ “Teonanacatl”

Ipomoea violacea ~ “Tlitliltzin”

Rivea corymbosa ~ “Ololiuqui”

Argyreia nervosa ~ “Woodrose”

Salvia Divinorum ~ "Pipilzintzintli" warning, illegal to cultivate!

Trichocereus spp. ~ “San Pedro”

Lophophora williamsii ~ “Peyote”

Tabernanthe iboga ~ “Iboga”

Heimia salicifolia and Heimia myrtifolia ~ “Sinicuichi” or “Sun-Opener”

Mimosa hostilis ~ “Jurema”

Cannabis sativa ~ “Marijuana” warning, illegal to cultivate!

Nelumbo nucifera ~ “Scared Lotus”

Passiflora incarnata ~ “Passion-Flower”

Erythroxylum spp. ~ “Coca Leaf” warning, illegal to cultivate!

Nymphaea caerulea ~ “Blue Lotus”

Papaver somniferum ~ “Opium Poppies” warning, illegal to cultivate!

Nicotiana spp. ~ “Tobacco”

Mitragyna speciosa ~ “Kratom” warning, illegal to cultivate!

Myristica fragrans ~ “Nutmeg”

Silene capensis ~ “Root of the White Ways”

Calea zacatechichi ~ “Bitter Dream Herb”

Catha edulis ~ “Khat”

Areca catechu and Piper betle ~ "Betel Nut" and “Betel Leaf”

Leonotis leonurus ~ “Wild Dagga”

Sceletium tortuosum ~ “Kanna”

Piper methysticum ~ “Kava Kava”

Camellia sinensis ~ “Tea”

Humulus lupulus ~ “Hops”

Theobroma cacao ~ “Cacao”or “Cocoa” or “Chocolate”

Ilex Paraguariensis ~ “Yerba Mate”

Ephedra spp. ~ “Ma Huang”

http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/inde...&hl=ephedra

http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/inde...&hl=ephedra

http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/inde...&hl=ephedra

Lactuca virosa ~ “Wild Lettuce Opium”

Scutellaria lateriflora ~ “Skullcap”

Pausinystalia yohimbe ~ “Yohimbe”

Artemisia absinthium ~ “Wormwood”

Aspalathus linearis ~ “Rooibos”

Leonurus sibiricus ~ “Motherwort”

Canavalia maritima

Sida cordifolia

Zornia diphylla ~ "Maconha Brava"

http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/inde...?showtopic=8759

Verbascum blattaria ~ "Moth Mullein"

Lobelia inflata ~ "Indian Tobacco"

Urmenetea atacamnensis ~ "Coca del Suri"

http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/inde...;st=0#entry7333

if a plant is missing, post about it (preferable with a good link from some sab disscussion about it, and i will add it)

if you have found a good thread about a particulary plant, post it and again i will add it next to the plant in question, cheers.

Edited by planthelper

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# 4 watering and fertilizers.

I hope a lot of people think about water consumption and try to be wise with water. Water saving techniques can be..

`re using washing water from the laundry..collect spin and rinse water in a bucket and water your garden with this grey water.

`collect water in buckets when it rains..particularly in dry area's where it may not rain often..water tank even better.

`look at running downpipe water from gutters into tanks, tubs, buckets..anything to catch the water in..what I did on one part of my guttering was attach some plastic 100ml conduit..cut in half length ways and screwed it onto the edge of some guttering and it now carries the water out along the conduit to water the garden instead of hitting the concrete and running off to storm water.

`remember its a great idea to fertilize when it rains so you don't have to waste tap water.

`if you have large amounts of plants to keep watered try looking to rain bird for gelled water that can be dug into around the roots of the plants and lets water out at a constant slow rate..thereby reducing the need to water daily.

`dunk pot plants into buckets of water and the water wick up through the bottom of the pot into the soil..you will save a lot of water this way as one bucket of water can wick water many pots without waste.

H.

Edited by Hunab Ku

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B. cappi lends itself to fast propagation via air-layering or simply unwinding branches and laying the long branches down in the ground. I did this in years past by digging a very shallow trench with dips and rises so that every other foot was lightly buried in the ground. You can do a slight variation of this by running the vine through pots of soil with a space every so many inches as this will allow you to cut the pots free and you have a nice row of plants to trade. Of course, B. cappi grows very fast when done this way and you can literally create a veritable forest of vines very quickly in this manner. Still, if your a bit lazy, you can simply take hard wood cuttings devoid of leaves and stick a handful of them in a single pot and fill this pot up with soil. Time to see active growth and roots varies with this method, but several months is not unheard of with some smaller hardwood cuttings.

Most hard to root plants can be air-layered. My quick fast and in a hurry method is to slice open a pot on one side. I then make a hole in the center on the side or on the bottom depending on the angle of entry of the branch or vine to allow the branch/vine to fit inside without a lot of rubbing. Bind the pot back up with some duck tape or other such quick binding material and fill the pot up with potting soil or moss. Keep this moist, humid, and warm and you should have a nice rooted specimen ready to be cut free in no time. Air-layering is even helpful with some Brugmansia which can be hard to root like B. sanguinea, B. flava, B. aurea Rothkirch and it will almost always result in a faster growing larger plant earlier than it could have been achieved by simply taking and rooting a cutting.

Psychotria species can be propagated via air-layering branches, rooting the leaves, or starting seeds. My favorite method is simply to pull a few handfuls of leaves off and cut them in half. Stick each half halfway in the ground and the lower portion with the petiole still attached will throw up 1-3 new plants on average. The upper portion with many veins cut and exposed to the soil will generally throw up at least one plant per vein.

Keep these moist, humid, and warm at all times to maximize results and don't be alarmed if the leaf starts to die before your plants start to sprout. This generally means you picked an immature leaf and immature leaves are not the best for this as they tend to dry a bit faster. Patience is always a virtue with everything of this nature. Keep a watchful eye to make sure conditions stay right, but don't mess with things... i.e. try to pull up the leaf to see if roots have started, etc. You can sometimes use a single leaf for multiple propagations. I.e. after you have a set of plants from each leaf started and growing just a bit, you can remove the plants from the leaf and pull the leaf out and start them in fresh pots to get another batch of clones going.

Top 5 seeds to choose from for my personal amusement...

Any hybrid or pure species seeds of the following...

Trichocereus

Lophophora

Brugmansia aurea

Psychotria

Syrian Rue

Edited by Inyan

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list of plants you might grow, appropiate links disscusing the specific plant will be added, over time.

thx for your patient! cheers teotz, as i copied the plant names from your junk folder.

Thanks! I love when people benefit from my work!

General Entheogenic Cacti Info

Edited by Teotz'

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OK so I have been having this war with ants and my Psychotria Viridis...I was at the point of giving up on the plant as it showed very little if any growth being planted in the ground with plenty of shade and lots of warmth and water...turns out that as a last resort to understand this little problem between me and this boring plant..i took a large hand held magnifying glass and checked out just what the ants wanted with this plant...well it turns out they where farming mealy bugs or something...all white and shell like looking but so tiny...anyways I decided to get it out of the ground and place it in a pot to give it another chance..soil mix is

1 part Vermiculite

1 part perlite

1 small part of yard soil mixed in with some nicely cured horse poo

placed in a pot and look how cool and happy she now is...man she has grown more in the last 2 weeks since being in that pot than 4 months in the ground getting fucked over by ants.

Tip...never give up... :wink:

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Edited by Hunab Ku
  • Like 1

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scared lotus heheh

oh right, tips.

pests. at first sign of trouble, blast pest oil or pyrethrum into all nooks and crannies. if problem becomes solvered, then the problem was bugs. mealybugs in particular are likely to avoid your detection.

Edited by ThunderIdeal

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TIP...for those growing Caapi....if you see ants running up and down your vines I suggest you have a very close look at the undersides of each leaf for signs of mealys, white flys, thrips or aphids...I found thousands of them today and it took me hrs of blasting each leaves underside with jets of water to remove them...they may return so be vigilant and allways check the underside of leaves.

H.

  • Like 1

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i'm trying to get some young perenials going,heimia,vines .

the idea to pinch the tips out to encourage root growth keeps coming into my head......doing it the plant slows its often vigourous growth for a bit,the stem thickens up and becomes stronger......this seems like it would allow the plant to get better established in the ground for future years rather than put on lots of foliage that often dies back in winter?

t s t .

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TIP...for those growing Caapi....if you see ants running up and down your vines I suggest you have a very close look at the undersides of each leaf for signs of mealys, white flys, thrips or aphids...I found thousands of them today and it took me hrs of blasting each leaves underside with jets of water to remove them...they may return so be vigilant and allways check the underside of leaves.

also true for any vine, all insects and especially ants seem to be drawn from my argyreias and turbinas. Ants are farmers of several enemies, so keep an eye, good remark. Leave any spidernets unharmed, they can block some of the ants pathways and unnerve the the critters, as well as sqeezing with your fingers can do.... nothing like a few ant graves upwards the vines... I don't know if it really works, but it feels a natural thing to do...

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#5) Pests/diseases:

Quarantine new plants if at all practicable.

I had mealies and scale come in on single plants, after being smug for quite some time about how clean my collection was, and in both cases by the time I realised that I had them they'd spread to other plants (thanks Botanic Gardens...).

Ironically, for space reasons I have my plants in two separate areas, but by the time I'd figured out that pests were sneaking in I'd already mixed old and new plants together. If I'd separated/isolated my new plants and kept an eye on them for a few weeks/months, or perhaps even given them preventative treatment (including bare-rooting, treating, and repotting?), I might not be fighting a rear-guard action now!

Prevention is better than cure!

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