Sharon, I had made a pretty lengthy post in the coffee house forum, this is the link to it. There is a couple of threads in that post that tell of what I am up to. Sometimes the coffee house has some pretty interesting stuff in it. I never much have looked at that forum when I first joined our forum, because I was so into reading about the bees, but there really is some cool topics, smiling.
Link:
http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,18929.0.htmli tried transplanting some fireweed this fall. i don't know how that will work. i just moved a couple of plants loaded with seed. i hope it will either spread root, or reseed, but i have not had good luck with the fireweed seeds that i tried to plant.
Kathy, I know about your Fireweed. Remember when you and I were both gathering that seed, telling each other of how we looked like that white fluffy person, all covered in the fluff? I do, I am sure you do too, go back into the cobwebs of your mind, I have to go back in there many times too, and my cobwebs are getting thicker and thicker, hee, hee.
My Fireweed seeds that I spent so much time gathering, never did do anything either, just like your experience. EXCEPT. Last year in the middle of summer, right smack dab in the middle of the horse pasture out back, in amongst a pile of timber that wasn't removed from our property, there was several fireweed plants, growing like there was no tomorrow. Best I can figure here is that some of the weed seeds that I spread around, all over the back, and what the birds didn't get, grew. Maybe the birds didn't find the seeds because of the location of the seeds, and they had a chance to grow. So, they grew, there must have been some form of earth between these hunks of timber, strange. This is what the group looked like, there was actually two groups.
See the light pink tall flowers (for those who don't know what Fireweed looks like).
Kathy, I think that digging up the Fireweed plant, seeds and all was a great idea. That is another way of propagating Fireweed, I have read about that method too. I think that the seeds that were held on that plant will have drifted here and there on the wind and you may have Fireweed showing up all over the place. Maybe, Fireweed seeds also require a good deal of cold weather to enable them to germinate, so it may depend on what time of year the seed was spread by you (and me). Maybe the weather just was not cold enough.
I know with the Sea Holly, the seed does not do well, unless it is held in the cold for 4 or five days. I hold seed like that in my refrigerator. Many seeds of plants, such as the Snapdragon species must be frozen for about 48 hours or longer to break the seed dormancy. Seeds are very strange things.
Now Kathy, about the buckwheat seeds coming through the grasses that have grown and died back throughout the winter. I don't know. Seriously. Did you ever get a chance to look at the buckwheat as it germinated? Those are extremely tender little seedlings. Even buckwheat itself is a very "soft" stemmed plant. I am not sure that the seed would poke through the grasses before the grasses began to grown. Buckwheat....I am pretty sure that it would germinate long after the grasses have started to grow and would probably be smothered out, it just seems to me, but I could be wrong. Kathy, turn your entire pasture over and then broadcast that Buckwheat, and make sure that you take a picture of these beautiful fields of fragrant white blossoms, that would make for some very beautiful, beautiful, pictures.
Oh so many comments to make. I must get on with it, but don't want it to be a book.
Ann, oh yeah, those pots will be freakin' heavy, I surely do know that, it will be a two person job to move those things, probably just as heavy as a deep full of honey, I can't lift a full deep of honey, now a deep of brood and bees, no problemo!!! Oh yes, I am also fully aware of how sticky real estate deals can get, with regard to plants. That is why.....as soon as the ground thaws here, the ones that I am not dividing, but removing from the ground, will be long, gone out of the ground, long before any potential purchasers will even get to have a look at our place. I have some very special sub-shrubs and perennials, as Jody said, ones that have been given to me, and that person is no longer. The blueberry plants, yes, coming or staying, they WILL be noted on paper. My intention is to take them. BUT....again, I am moving to a totally different climate. Our wet lower mainland is a perfect place for growing blueberries, as they love moisture. I am moving to a dry, dry place, I don't know how they will fare, of course there is irrigation, but if the plants would not be happy moving with me, they will not coming with me, I think of their feelings too, and would not want to "force" them to a pretended happiness, hee, hee. Anything that is in pots, any potential purchasers will be made fully aware that they are coming with me. But there will be so much left behind, they will be happy. I will not take everything from here, as I said, most of the plants coming are going to be divisions of those mother plants. Eeeks!!!
Oh Jody, that Monte Python thing, wonder what that was all about. The red Elderberry bushes that grow here and are poisonous, have a very beautiful fragrance with the creamy white umbrels of flowers. The Black Elderberry bushes' flowers are even more strongly scented, so I have heard. I know how sweet the red Elderberry smells, I can only imagine the fragrance of the black Elderberry. Jody, I am attached to my plants, very deeply, perhaps because they have grown with me, in so many ways, I have many from years and years ago, many.....I have rhododendron bushes that are now about 15 feet tall and wide. I first planted those when we moved here. They were in two gallon pots and I could lift them up so easily. Now these are beautiful and the most wonderful trees, they sit along the back of our pool bordering the bush. I cannot take them with me, they will stay, and yes, I will kiss them all goodbye. Hee, hee, smiling. My oldest Daughter has 5 horses, plus her Sister's horse that now lives with them. That is one whole lotta horse puckies!!!
Look at this picture of the pool. At the back, look at the two identical smaller trees, they show up in the picture on either side of the street lamp. Those are a lavender coloured rhododendron, beautiful in the spring.
Have a most wonderful and awesome day, love and live life, health. Cindi