@pakopako@KuoH@chienfou
I have 20 acres of fir and cedar trees in my “backyard” (small woodlot). Someday (fairly soon now ) they will be transformed into money.
@kuoh@macromeh@pakopako
Hope it pans out.
Years ago our neighbor across the street planted pine trees. They were supposed to be for his son’s college fund. Unfortunately Opal came through and wiped out 2/3 of them. They were recoverable but there was so much windfall in the area that the price dropped to virtually nothing.
@chienfou@kuoh@pakopako When we bought this property (30 acres in NW Oregon), it was just wild forest. Because of how it is zoned, the only way we could get permits to build a house on it was to log the bottom 20 acres and replant it (weird, I know, but this is Oregon ) So that’s what we did.
The woodlot is now almost 30 years old and would be ready to log (and replant) soon… (but we’re in no hurry).
Depends on how much space you have.
We have:
Pecans
Apples
Peaches
Pears
Maple
Lemon
Lime
Olive
& Palm trees on our acre.
Not to mention several bushes that are 15-20 ft tall or more, like crepe myrtles, viburnums (snowball bush) loropetalums (Chinese fringe flower) chaste lilac, and spice bushes .
@chienfou Nice! We have:
3 apples (braeburn, mountain rose, pristine)
2 pears (bosc, barlett)
2 asian pears
2 cherries (one sour and one with 4 grafted sweet varieties)
1 plum
1 fig
2 walnuts (black, english)
1 sequoia
3 oaks
3 spruce
1 japanese maple
1 magnolia
that we planted
Plus lots of wild maples, alders, firs and cedars, a wild flowering dogwood and misc other wild trees.
@chienfou oh I meant to tell you!!! I managed to sprout two pecans from my family farm! Well what used to be my family farm. I think I’m going to keep them in the greenhouse or the office over the winter and plant them next spring.
@sillyheathen Very cool. I find random pecan trees growing in my gardens all the time. Glad you were able to intentionally sprout one.
My current sprouting attempt is growing chayote. We ‘discovered’ them recently and I have one I put aside that is sprouting that I’m planning to pot up. I’ll see how quickly it grows before I decide if I’m going to put it in the ground this season or wait till spring. My current “newborn” space has well over 30 pots of plants that are getting established with the intention of planting them this fall or next spring. This includes over a dozen windmill palm trees, pineapple plants, snowball bushes, spice bushes, blueberry bushes, a couple of olive trees, several elaeagnus (ugly agnes), some roses, and two different colors of loropetalum.
I would like a pecan tree or two but the only nut trees we have are walnuts (I much prefer pecans to walnuts). So far, only the (older) black walnut has produced nuts and they are pretty bitter. We leave them for the squirrels. (At least it makes good shade ) The english walnut is newer and hasn’t produced anything yet, but hopefully they will be more tasty if/when it does.
@chienfou we cut down five very large windmill palms around the pool area a few years ago. The berries became a major nuisance when they got really tall. They also were crowding out valuable sunlight to food space so we nixed them.
There used to be palm trees as far north as Austin. Commonplace in San Antonio and Houston. I’ve seen them in place and healthy as far north as DFW.
Then the 2021 Big Freeze hit. (The freeze that killed people because the grid failed and the power went out. In Houston the freeze went on with the power out for like a week or something)
That freeze also killed so many palm trees.
There are still plenty of palm trees in Houston and San Antonio and further south.
The more northern trees are almost all gone now. Dead before the temps warmed.
Miss seeing them. I kinda had a thing for them, it made me happy they were there.
@chienfou@f00l this is how I feel about pecan trees. Our family farm had a lane that was lined with pecans. A bunch of them fell during hurricane andrew. Then the rest went with the next 3 major storms. There are still 2 there which is where I got the pecans that are managed to sprout. I just truly hope they do okay up here. It would be pretty special.
@f00l@sillyheathen
Not sure what your winter temps look like but PNW has a lot of areas that are pretty temperate. I would imagine that total sunshine hours and mayby max temps will be more of an issue than cold.
We grew a plumeria outside a couple of years before we lost it in some heavy freezes when I didn’t have the heat (provided by plant covered in old school c9 sized Christmas tree lights) turned on in the old frame I put around it. I had to regulate the temp somewhat because sunny days it would get easily 90+ inside of the Cold frame. We were on a trip when an unexpected cold snap happened without having the heat turned on (which I normally kept track of and could turn on and off remotely). On this particular trip I neglected to monitor the temperature at the house carefully enough and the weather caused it to get below freezing inside the cold frame. So sad.
@sillyheathen
We had three windmill palms around our pool. One died years back. The tallest is probably 15 ft. Haven’t had too much trouble with the berries though keeping up with the dead branches is a bit of a PITA. Actually had one that self-seeded in a ring around it, so I now have a nursery for them with 15 or 20 potted that are getting bigger. Several are still growing around the base of the mother plant They are crazy expensive locally, so I thought I would grow them up to four or five feet then maybe do some bartering with the local nursery I use in the spring one year.
My biggest problem is a huge (15-20 ft diameter & a dozen feet tall) chaste lilac that is five feet from the pool edge. As the blooms die they drop little pieces of flower all over the pavers which then blow into the pool. But the wife loves it, so it stays.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That’s one of the benefits of living in the same place for almost 40 years. Pecans (and a couple of figs) were here, all the rest were planted by us. There are actually multiple trees that have been planted and cut down in that time frame as well (like the transplanted dogwood, an entire line of pine trees that were placed on the property line as starts from a forestry project, some other fruit trees, popcorn trees etc).
@Star2236
My wife really wanted to grow a willow tree, but we’re rapidly growing out of space to put it in that wouldn’t cause problems with shading. I tried to put one in several years back but the spot we had it in will flood occasionally and I think that did it in. A third fig tree lives there now.
@sillyheathen Cedars and pine trees and straight tall white ashes
Oak trees, pecan trees and yes, calabashes
Bright silver maples with seeds that take wing…
These are a few of my favorite things…
@macromeh@sillyheathen
My wife and kids dug up and transplanted a dogwood from the woods across the street. They planted it next to the mailbox and it survived for 25 years or so before it finally died. It had beautiful flowers though!
Not pine trees, especially the ones with the 7" pine needles. Had 2 of them that were really tall and that was 50ish 55 gallon garbage bags full of pine needles that needed raked up each year… and then a pile of pine cones… a real PITA.
@sillyheathen
Probably. I imagine it should be fairly acidic… which blueberries love. My wife has been juicing a lot lately and I’ve been using the banana peels and lemon peels winged up to a slurry in the blender (Vitamix of course ) them mixed in additional water around those berries. Seems to be helping them.
@f00l
OK…
Here is an oops - we bought 3 sequoia seedlings to plant on our property. We planted two of them on the edge of the front lawn near the road, and temporarily put the third seedling in a holding area near our greenhouse while we decided on a good spot to plant it.
Well, when we eventually went to transplant the third seedling, we discovered that it had aggressively grown surprisingly deep roots. I gave up trying to dig it out (without killing it) and there it sits to this day:
(BTW, while this one thrived, the first two sequoias that we planted died after a while, despite our efforts to keep them alive. Now there are healthy fir trees in those spots. )
@macromeh@werehatrack the Englishman wanted to cut down the sequoia at the front of our property but he knows I would lose it. I love that bloody tree.
@macromeh@sillyheathen@werehatrack
Very nice! It’s funny how the plants that you “forget about” seem to be the ones that do the best.
I have a rose bush in a back corner of the property (by the shop) that has been growing fantastically since the roots grew out the hole in the bottom of a pot after we neglected to transplant it for several years. It is amazingly robust and someday I keep thinking I will actually dig it up and transplant it … hasn’t happened yet.
@chienfou@macromeh@sillyheathen Occasionally, one gets surprised by plants that were expected to die. I tried growing a red Bell pepper last year in a very large pot, and it did poorly; it was neglected for much of the last part of the year. But it was still alive when winter came, so I gave it the protection it needed, and it’s now large, lush, and bearing very tasty peppers. During the winter, I bought two pairs of those waxed amaryllis bulbs that are ready to bloom with no attention, and when they had done their bit, I didn’t discard them. I peeled the wax and planted them in another large pot. Those are doing amazingly well; one of them is absolutely enormous, and has thrown off five more that are still small but growing. These are the variety with the deep red flowers. I’m planning to build a bed for them out front when the weather lets up a bit.
@macromeh@sillyheathen@werehatrack @chienfou Speaking of roses, there’s a wild rose that came up as a volunteer from a bush in my neighbor’s yard. It’s pretty when it blooms, but it’s an obnoxious thing otherwise, throwing out long branches with lethal thorns on it. I should probably just cut it down but I can’t quite bring myself to do that.
Most of the backyard/hill is black walnuts. Which is yes some can be worth something. But. Roots kill others.
Also you can tap them for syrup like maples. It is way less but I have a few pint jars from 10+ years ago. If they sealed. You can do stuff with the nuts.
But I did plan to replace most with fruit trees. Things you don’t get too lol
@unksol IDK, the nuts from our black walnut are bitter and unappetizing (the squirrels seem to like them ). And they really make a mess of that part of the yard. Nice shade tree though I guess…
I look forward to trying the nuts from the more recently planted English walnut (if/when it starts producing).
@macromeh@unksol we had a massive black walnut in our backyard in pdx. One of our dogs used to go nuts for the squirrels. Until they started pelting him with the black walnuts. It was like watching a live action open season.
@macromeh I’m not sure I’ve had them on their own really. I guess I should try some this year but I mostly ignore them other than rolling an ankle while mowing. They are in some ice cream. So sugar would offset any bitterness. Pretty sure people who grow them on purpose do it for the wood and sell the nuts in the meantime.
@tinamarie1974
Don’t know how yours are doing but mine have done fantastically well this year. I was a bit paranoid because we had a frost strong enough to kill all the new growth after it started leafing out late spring, but it is recovered very well. I also had planted a second variety a couple of years back and I noticed it has some figs on it for the first time this year. Looking forward to those. Also especially looking forward to the bourbon fig jam I make every year with the abundance of figs I get from my 15 to 20 foot diameter plant near the pool.
Mine are doing well. I think I told you mine are starts from a family plant brought over from Sicily. The one Ive had for 8-10 years is getting pretty big and bears fruit every year
Dad gave me two more starts this year, but they are growning like crazy! I would be suprised if they produce fruit this year.
@tinamarie1974
That’s very cool.
I love fresh figs, but whole fig preserves and bourbon fig jam are definitely a way to use up an abundance of them. They don’t keep worth a crap once they start coming in so you either have to eat the stew out of them or preserve them somehow. I’ve had good luck with dehydrators as well.
@chienfou@tinamarie1974 We have a fig tree. It seems to be thriving (i.e., needs lots of pruning every spring). It produces quite a few figs each season but only a dozen or so ever get ripe enough to enjoy. I guess the season here in NW Oregon is barely long enough for them to fully ripen.
Fruit trees. Linden trees.
Is this a bonus poll question tonight, in addition to the one about RC cars?
Willow
Many
@pakopako Money.
KuoH
@kuoh @pakopako
Many money…
@pakopako @KuoH @chienfou
) they will be transformed into money.
I have 20 acres of fir and cedar trees in my “backyard” (small woodlot). Someday (fairly soon now
@kuoh @macromeh @pakopako
Hope it pans out.
Years ago our neighbor across the street planted pine trees. They were supposed to be for his son’s college fund. Unfortunately Opal came through and wiped out 2/3 of them. They were recoverable but there was so much windfall in the area that the price dropped to virtually nothing.
@chienfou @kuoh @pakopako When we bought this property (30 acres in NW Oregon), it was just wild forest. Because of how it is zoned, the only way we could get permits to build a house on it was to log the bottom 20 acres and replant it (weird, I know, but this is Oregon
) So that’s what we did.
The woodlot is now almost 30 years old and would be ready to log (and replant) soon… (but we’re in no hurry).
@kuoh @macromeh @pakopako
Score one for sustainability!
Depends on how much space you have.
We have:
Pecans
Apples
Peaches
Pears
Maple
Lemon
Lime
Olive
& Palm trees on our acre.
Not to mention several bushes that are 15-20 ft tall or more, like crepe myrtles, viburnums (snowball bush) loropetalums (Chinese fringe flower) chaste lilac, and spice bushes .
@chienfou Nice! We have:
3 apples (braeburn, mountain rose, pristine)
2 pears (bosc, barlett)
2 asian pears
2 cherries (one sour and one with 4 grafted sweet varieties)
1 plum
1 fig
2 walnuts (black, english)
1 sequoia
3 oaks
3 spruce
1 japanese maple
1 magnolia
that we planted
Plus lots of wild maples, alders, firs and cedars, a wild flowering dogwood and misc other wild trees.
@macromeh
/giphy hats off to you
@chienfou @macromeh I have major tree envy.
@chienfou oh I meant to tell you!!! I managed to sprout two pecans from my family farm! Well what used to be my family farm. I think I’m going to keep them in the greenhouse or the office over the winter and plant them next spring.
@sillyheathen
Very cool. I find random pecan trees growing in my gardens all the time. Glad you were able to intentionally sprout one.
My current sprouting attempt is growing chayote. We ‘discovered’ them recently and I have one I put aside that is sprouting that I’m planning to pot up. I’ll see how quickly it grows before I decide if I’m going to put it in the ground this season or wait till spring. My current “newborn” space has well over 30 pots of plants that are getting established with the intention of planting them this fall or next spring. This includes over a dozen windmill palm trees, pineapple plants, snowball bushes, spice bushes, blueberry bushes, a couple of olive trees, several elaeagnus (ugly agnes), some roses, and two different colors of loropetalum.
@chienfou @sillyheathen
Wishing good luck with your pecans!
I would like a pecan tree or two but the only nut trees we have are walnuts (I much prefer pecans to walnuts). So far, only the (older) black walnut has produced nuts and they are pretty bitter. We leave them for the squirrels. (At least it makes good shade
) The english walnut is newer and hasn’t produced anything yet, but hopefully they will be more tasty if/when it does.
@chienfou @macromeh
Both of you are so tree-blessed.
@chienfou we cut down five very large windmill palms around the pool area a few years ago. The berries became a major nuisance when they got really tall. They also were crowding out valuable sunlight to food space so we nixed them.
@chienfou @sillyheathen
There used to be palm trees as far north as Austin. Commonplace in San Antonio and Houston. I’ve seen them in place and healthy as far north as DFW.
Then the 2021 Big Freeze hit. (The freeze that killed people because the grid failed and the power went out. In Houston the freeze went on with the power out for like a week or something)
That freeze also killed so many palm trees.
There are still plenty of palm trees in Houston and San Antonio and further south.
The more northern trees are almost all gone now. Dead before the temps warmed.
Miss seeing them. I kinda had a thing for them, it made me happy they were there.
These trees are still doing ok in Galveston.
@chienfou @f00l this is how I feel about pecan trees. Our family farm had a lane that was lined with pecans. A bunch of them fell during hurricane andrew. Then the rest went with the next 3 major storms. There are still 2 there which is where I got the pecans that are managed to sprout. I just truly hope they do okay up here. It would be pretty special.
@f00l @sillyheathen
Not sure what your winter temps look like but PNW has a lot of areas that are pretty temperate. I would imagine that total sunshine hours and mayby max temps will be more of an issue than cold.
We grew a plumeria outside a couple of years before we lost it in some heavy freezes when I didn’t have the heat (provided by plant covered in old school c9 sized Christmas tree lights) turned on in the old frame I put around it. I had to regulate the temp somewhat because sunny days it would get easily 90+ inside of the Cold frame. We were on a trip when an unexpected cold snap happened without having the heat turned on (which I normally kept track of and could turn on and off remotely). On this particular trip I neglected to monitor the temperature at the house carefully enough and the weather caused it to get below freezing inside the cold frame. So sad.
@sillyheathen
We had three windmill palms around our pool. One died years back. The tallest is probably 15 ft. Haven’t had too much trouble with the berries though keeping up with the dead branches is a bit of a PITA. Actually had one that self-seeded in a ring around it, so I now have a nursery for them with 15 or 20 potted that are getting bigger. Several are still growing around the base of the mother plant They are crazy expensive locally, so I thought I would grow them up to four or five feet then maybe do some bartering with the local nursery I use in the spring one year.
My biggest problem is a huge (15-20 ft diameter & a dozen feet tall) chaste lilac that is five feet from the pool edge. As the blooms die they drop little pieces of flower all over the pavers which then blow into the pool. But the wife loves it, so it stays.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@f00l
That’s one of the benefits of living in the same place for almost 40 years. Pecans (and a couple of figs) were here, all the rest were planted by us. There are actually multiple trees that have been planted and cut down in that time frame as well (like the transplanted dogwood, an entire line of pine trees that were placed on the property line as starts from a forestry project, some other fruit trees, popcorn trees etc).
We used to have a huge willow tree until it got knocked by a storm. It was my favorite tree.
@Star2236
My wife really wanted to grow a willow tree, but we’re rapidly growing out of space to put it in that wouldn’t cause problems with shading. I tried to put one in several years back but the spot we had it in will flood occasionally and I think that did it in. A third fig tree lives there now.
ALL the trees! I do love them so.
@sillyheathen
Cedars and pine trees and straight tall white ashes
Oak trees, pecan trees and yes, calabashes
Bright silver maples with seeds that take wing…
These are a few of my favorite things…
@chienfou @sillyheathen
@sillyheathen @chienfou
We are literally surrounded by trees, but I think my favorite is the wild flowering dogwood in the corner of the back yard.
@macromeh @sillyheathen
My wife and kids dug up and transplanted a dogwood from the woods across the street. They planted it next to the mailbox and it survived for 25 years or so before it finally died. It had beautiful flowers though!
@chienfou @macromeh
Dogwoods in the wild
@sillyheathen
That’s blooming awe-some (stuff it 'bot).
Not pine trees, especially the ones with the 7" pine needles. Had 2 of them that were really tall and that was 50ish 55 gallon garbage bags full of pine needles that needed raked up each year… and then a pile of pine cones… a real PITA.
@Kidsandliz Didn’t you say that your kid ended up being able to cash in on them, though?
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh
And those make excellent ‘mulch’ for blueberry plants!!
Though I must admit… pine sap on your car is a PITA
@chienfou @Kidsandliz @Kyeh now I wonder if I could just use the litter from the sequoia on my berry patch instead of buying stuff from down the road….
@sillyheathen
) them mixed in additional water around those berries. Seems to be helping them.
Probably. I imagine it should be fairly acidic… which blueberries love. My wife has been juicing a lot lately and I’ve been using the banana peels and lemon peels winged up to a slurry in the blender (Vitamix of course
I was in S Florida once when youngish and stayed in a house that had monster lemon and lime trees the the backyard.
I mean the lemons and limes were huge. Half the size (at least) if an American football.
So we played football with the fruit and tried to catch everything instead of let it hit the ground and become nothing but pulp.
The monster fruit did inevitable go to pulp after a while and we all wound up covered in lemon juice along the way.
Way fun.
Love all trees. Let’s have more trees.
@f00l Did you also have lots of fresh limeade & lemonade?
@Kyeh
Yeah we did that also, when we weren’t in the mood for “lemon-lime football”.
@f00l
OK…
Here is an oops - we bought 3 sequoia seedlings to plant on our property. We planted two of them on the edge of the front lawn near the road, and temporarily put the third seedling in a holding area near our greenhouse while we decided on a good spot to plant it.
Well, when we eventually went to transplant the third seedling, we discovered that it had aggressively grown surprisingly deep roots. I gave up trying to dig it out (without killing it) and there it sits to this day:
(BTW, while this one thrived, the first two sequoias that we planted died after a while, despite our efforts to keep them alive. Now there are healthy fir trees in those spots.
)
@macromeh Apparently that was the ideal spot for a sequoia tree!
@Kyeh @macromeh
Gorgeous.
@macromeh Someday, if no idiot cuts it down or otherwise kills it, that’s going to be truly magnificent.
@macromeh @werehatrack the Englishman wanted to cut down the sequoia at the front of our property but he knows I would lose it. I love that bloody tree.
@macromeh @sillyheathen @werehatrack
Very nice! It’s funny how the plants that you “forget about” seem to be the ones that do the best.
I have a rose bush in a back corner of the property (by the shop) that has been growing fantastically since the roots grew out the hole in the bottom of a pot after we neglected to transplant it for several years. It is amazingly robust and someday I keep thinking I will actually dig it up and transplant it … hasn’t happened yet.
@chienfou @macromeh @sillyheathen Occasionally, one gets surprised by plants that were expected to die. I tried growing a red Bell pepper last year in a very large pot, and it did poorly; it was neglected for much of the last part of the year. But it was still alive when winter came, so I gave it the protection it needed, and it’s now large, lush, and bearing very tasty peppers. During the winter, I bought two pairs of those waxed amaryllis bulbs that are ready to bloom with no attention, and when they had done their bit, I didn’t discard them. I peeled the wax and planted them in another large pot. Those are doing amazingly well; one of them is absolutely enormous, and has thrown off five more that are still small but growing. These are the variety with the deep red flowers. I’m planning to build a bed for them out front when the weather lets up a bit.
@macromeh @sillyheathen @werehatrack
@chienfou Speaking of roses, there’s a wild rose that came up as a volunteer from a bush in my neighbor’s yard. It’s pretty when it blooms, but it’s an obnoxious thing otherwise, throwing out long branches with lethal thorns on it. I should probably just cut it down but I can’t quite bring myself to do that.
anything but Bradford Pears. So terrible. I know they say they don’t live long. These are over 40 years old cause they know I hate them
Most of the backyard/hill is black walnuts. Which is yes some can be worth something. But. Roots kill others.
Also you can tap them for syrup like maples. It is way less but I have a few pint jars from 10+ years ago. If they sealed. You can do stuff with the nuts.
But I did plan to replace most with fruit trees. Things you don’t get too lol
@unksol IDK, the nuts from our black walnut are bitter and unappetizing (the squirrels seem to like them
). And they really make a mess of that part of the yard. Nice shade tree though I guess…
I look forward to trying the nuts from the more recently planted English walnut (if/when it starts producing).
@macromeh @unksol we had a massive black walnut in our backyard in pdx. One of our dogs used to go nuts for the squirrels. Until they started pelting him with the black walnuts. It was like watching a live action open season.
@macromeh I’m not sure I’ve had them on their own really. I guess I should try some this year but I mostly ignore them other than rolling an ankle while mowing. They are in some ice cream. So sugar would offset any bitterness. Pretty sure people who grow them on purpose do it for the wood and sell the nuts in the meantime.
@unksol Yeah, that’s my understanding: black walnuts are mostly grown for the attractive wood and English walnuts are grown for the nuts.
Fig! I have three of them.
@tinamarie1974
Don’t know how yours are doing but mine have done fantastically well this year. I was a bit paranoid because we had a frost strong enough to kill all the new growth after it started leafing out late spring, but it is recovered very well. I also had planted a second variety a couple of years back and I noticed it has some figs on it for the first time this year. Looking forward to those. Also especially looking forward to the bourbon fig jam I make every year with the abundance of figs I get from my 15 to 20 foot diameter plant near the pool.
@chienfou that jam sounds fantastic!
Mine are doing well. I think I told you mine are starts from a family plant brought over from Sicily. The one Ive had for 8-10 years is getting pretty big and bears fruit every year
Dad gave me two more starts this year, but they are growning like crazy! I would be suprised if they produce fruit this year.
@tinamarie1974
That’s very cool.
I love fresh figs, but whole fig preserves and bourbon fig jam are definitely a way to use up an abundance of them. They don’t keep worth a crap once they start coming in so you either have to eat the stew out of them or preserve them somehow. I’ve had good luck with dehydrators as well.
@chienfou @tinamarie1974 We have a fig tree. It seems to be thriving (i.e., needs lots of pruning every spring). It produces quite a few figs each season but only a dozen or so ever get ripe enough to enjoy. I guess the season here in NW Oregon is barely long enough for them to fully ripen.
@chienfou Ive not yet had a harvest that left me in a quandry. I think last year I got maybe 40 or 50 over about a month.
One day I hope to have that problem
@chienfou @macromeh I have the same problem for some of my figs due to frost.