Weekend in the City

We stayed in the City last weekend to get some limbs & bushes trimmed. The weather was perfect but those limbs got bigger & bigger, or seemed to anyway.

We decided to try our hand at grafting again. I wrote about our first experience here:  Plant Experiment. We got 10 plants out of that one & I'm happy to report that 9 are still alive.

We did 20 Loropetalum & 3 Camilias. Hopefully our success rate will be better this time.

As we were cutting back the Loropetalum we ran across this guy:

This blog is turning into a reptilian site. This one was as calm as the other one & only about 1/2 as long & 1/2 as big around. But, with different pattern & coloring. I need to get a snake book to identify what critters we have hanging around.

Rister isn't doing his job very well.

The hawks were very active & screeching at one another for about an hour or so. Then the owls started but it was too dark to get a picture of any of them.

Went to visit FIL after we were done, then came home, gave Nelly a bath, had an adult beverage & ate a steak with a twice baked potato. Overall a very nice weekend with a couple of semi-major projects finished.

Plant Experiment - 50% Success Rate

My FIL started all our Crepe Myrtles using a grafting method off of his existing plants. Click to see posts where we planted them at the Country House In-laws Crepe Myrtles & Our Crepes.

In theory, this method should work with any 'hard wood' shrub. We decided to try it on some Loropetalum & Camellia. 

Loropetalum - much more purple than this pic shows.

I don't have a pics of each step but here is how we did it:

1. Select a strong straight stem.

2. Scrape the bark off all around about 2" long.

3. Put wet moss all around scraped area.

4. Wrap tin foil around it, leaving the foil open at the top so it can get water. Make sure bottom is squeezed tight to hold water.

5. Let sit for about a year.

6. Cut just below the foil.

7. Plant in pots.

8. Trim tops back.

9. Give a good drink of water.

10. Once well established (hopefully), plant in yard.

Camellia ready to be cut from mother plant.

Close up of Loropetalum packet.

See how it's open at the top & closed tight at the bottom? It's leaning because the top of the plant had gotten really long & heavy. We did 16 Loropetalum & 4 Camellia.

Ready to be put in pots & trimmed.

None of the first Loropetalum we unwrapped had any roots. We thought it was going to be a dismal failure but we wound up getting 6 with roots, whew. All 4 of the Camellia had roots.

Loropetalum

Camellia

10 plants plus 1 azalea that I had cut off last year & stuck in the pot.

We wound up with 10 free plants. Of the ones that didn't root out, we think we must not have scraped enough bark away. Oh well, the experiment wasn't a complete bust.

Cross your fingers they live.....