Poll: gauging interests in gardening posts

[untonuggan]

So I don't get to do as much gardening or plant things as I would like, due to the gardener in my house taking up all the outside space (despite offering me space periodically) and having cats + super low light in my house. BUT I have experience with gardening, plus said gardener dragging me taking me to all kinds of gardening things for years. Plus I am pretty good at pruning -- real pruning, not the crap the power companies do -- even though my hands don't want to cooperate anymore.

Many of my friends now seem to have actual garden space, or want to do more with herbs or houseplants or whatnot. But if you haven't absorbed a bunch of gardening stuff from Master Gardener child-of-farmer for years, it can be difficult to know "what is enough water" or "how do you pick soil". So, I was thinking of maybe doing some gardening posts? If people are interested? Plus I know enough to know what I don't know, which...there is so much to know, plus cool science.

Thus, a poll:

Poll #17393 Gardening Post interest survey

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 31

View Respondents

Are you interested in gardening posts?

View Answers

Yes, for my own current garden use
13 (43.3%)

Yes, for future garden use
10 (33.3%)

Yes, to share with someone I know
6 (20.0%)

I'd read them just to know stuff, but they're not a high priority
14 (46.7%)

They're not my thing
1 (3.3%)

What kinds of gardening info would you be most interested in?

View Answers

How to water houseplants
14 (48.3%)

Choosing plants
17 (58.6%)

Microclimates or other science! thing
16 (55.2%)

Pruning: how to & seasonality
13 (44.8%)

Growing plants from seed
16 (55.2%)

What to watch out for on a plant label
12 (41.4%)

Plants I wish I could ban from nurseries
13 (44.8%)

Why being ruthless can be good for ecosystems
14 (48.3%)

Growing bulbs outdoors
13 (44.8%)

Other I will explain in comments
5 (17.2%)

Ticky!

View Answers

Cat
14 (45.2%)

Dog
1 (3.2%)

Rabbit
1 (3.2%)

Zoo
1 (3.2%)

Sleeping in
14 (45.2%)

How would you describe your gardening experience? (1 is "I have never touched soil" 10 is "green thumb")

View Answers
Mean: 4.20 Median: 4 Std. Dev 2.27

1		2 (6.7%)
2		8 (26.7%)
3		4 (13.3%)
4		4 (13.3%)
5		2 (6.7%)
6		4 (13.3%)
7		3 (10.0%)
8		2 (6.7%)
9		1 (3.3%)
10		0 (0.0%)

p.s. unrelated to current poll, am thinking of making a twitter that is me ranting about plant things that piss me off. (such as the massacres that power companies regularly do when people plant tall trees under power lines, which then weaken the trees anyway.) "plant rant" is sadly taken, but if you have any good twitter handle ideas let me know. was thinking of something Lorax related, but I find the whole "speak for the trees" theme kind of irritating even though that is kind of what I would be doing...

Comments

[kaberett]

... so I'm interested but I'm Just Interested and having an autism about filling out the poll; nonetheless, herewith an expression of interest!

[untonuggan]

XD no problem!

[alee_grrl]

There was no ticky for anything and everything. :) While I don't have spoons for gardening at the moment, hope springs eternal and I'd love to read about all the cool, useful stuff you would post.

[untonuggan]

good to know, thanks!

[jesse_the_k]

Green_queen? Leaf_whisperer? Syntheisze_this?

[untonuggan]

i like all of these suggestions, thank you!

[dingsi]

... dibblequibble ?

My grandparents used to have a large garden but I was too little to be of much help or really getting what gardening is about. So I kinda wish for nostalgic reasons that I could start doing Garden-ish Things? But am too low-energy to do it and I'm literally living in the basement, sigh. That being said, I would read your posts.

"such as the massacres that power companies regularly do when people plant tall trees under power lines, which then weaken the trees anyway" - what does that mean? I read it like, the power lines weaken the trees? Or is that just me, the non-native speaker, misreading it?

[untonuggan]

sorry for delayed response!

ok so pruning a tree has the potential to get rid of dead limbs, crossing branches that are going to cause problems later, and generally create a healthier structure. also when you remove a branch, the tree releases hormones that say GROW NEW THINGS (so if you do so in winter when a tree is supposed to be resting, it can mean your tree basically pulled an all-nighter).

you also don't want to remove more than 1/3 of a tree at a time, because that can be Too Much and weaken its immune system.

if you do what power companies do, you are not pruning to make a happier tree. you are pruning to make a shorter tree. often here, they basically just cut off half of the top of the tree.

what then happens is the tree is a bad structure (for the tree), plus it's vulnerable to infection, plus it's putting all its resources into growing as fast as possible (but not into the big limbs, into tiny limbs called "water sprouts"). you basically have a recipe for "tree gets knocked over in storm" because the entire tree's system is weakened.

this is aside from the fact that "street trees" -- the ones dealing with asphalt on their roots and a bunch of car fumes -- have a much harder time surviving anyway.

tl;dr it's late and i have brain fog so i can't tell if that made sense, but. in the name of "protecting power lines" the power companies basically massacre trees in a way that makes them *more* likely to get sick/die/drop limbs. also just look sad and ravaged. so yes. *flames from the side of my face*

[dingsi]

Belated reply to tell you that yes, this was a very good explanation, thank you! And it showed me how little I know about trees in the first place. :/
(I have noticed a thing with our street trees here, they seem to lose their leaves extremely early and I wonder if that's also because of all the salt people use as soon as there are five snowflakes on the sidewalk?)

From what you described, it looks like the power companies *could* prune trees in ways that were more efficient as well as easier to endure for the tree, but it's probably a time & money factor -- people would have to be able to assess the situation beyond "make tree shorter", depending on how you'd have to cut it may also be more difficult to do, and what power company would want to put that much effort into it? :(

[syntaxofthings]

YES PLEASE

(garden brain is on full force)

[untonuggan]

I THOUGHT OF YOU

[syntaxofthings]

I figured :D

[sonia]

I seem to have a green thumb? But my gardening experience is mostly, add fertilizer & spread the roots when you plant things. Water. Weed. Prune like crazy because this is Oregon.

What I want to know is how to keep aphids from infesting my dinosaur kale! I.e., I do not want to spend a ton of persnickety effort on my garden, but I do want to grow food. Snap peas and greens seem to do fine.

Yes please on any informational posts, basically!

[untonuggan]

good to know!

[melannen]

You didn't have an opt-in on the scale for "garden a lot, everything dies." :p

And I am, as always, searching for advice on having a vegetable garden in a yard full of mature shade trees. (Advice other than 'don't'.)

[untonuggan]

:)

(we have like 9' of sun so i sympathize. basically we have a lot of leafy greens atm but will see what i can do...)

[melannen]

Leafy greens is the usual advice! The problem is I know my edible plants, so if I don't do *anything* in the yard I get all kinds of fancy wild edible greens (everything from mint to dandelion to poke and beyond) so it's super-hard to motivate myself to do all that work for basically the same result...

[princessofgeeks]

Very interested for future reference in: transplanting iris, dealing with a wet area that needs to be a flower bed, figuring out what plants would work in the hot south and require little attention, tricks for weeding vegetable gardens to minimize labor, plants that do well in the hot summer shade.

[sporky_rat]

Depending on which part of the hot south you're in, you could stick with natives?

(But come July, everything will need all the water all the time.)

[ironed_orchid]

I love reading about other people's gardening, and sometimes it informs my gardening, but for the most part the climate and soil and other environmental conditions are too different to where I live to be useful in a direct way.

[untonuggan]

i can definitely see that. ^_^

[frayadjacent]

I'd mostly read for enjoyment and inspiration to get out in my garden.

But also if you know about this, I'd like to read about container gardening. I'm about to move into a place with some outdoor space but no soil, and I like the idea of container gardening but most of my attempts at it have failed.

(Then again, most of my attempts have been container gardening produce, which I'm not even going to consider in a shady garden in the UK. Hopefully decorative plants are easier.)

[untonuggan]

ooo, yes!

i imagine container gardening in the UK is quite a bit different in terms of plant selection, but general principles are probably similar.

also fyi I'll add this before I write a big thing about it, my mom is *obsessed* with growing miniature conifers in containers right now. which seems like something that might work in the UK? (based entirely off the fact that conifers grow well in Seattle, and British flowers grow well in Seattle. I could be wrong about the conifer thing in the UK, and I don't know about availability.)

(just, uh, also check what people mean when they say "miniature" because a miniature version of a 100 foot tree might grow to be 25 feet and that is not actually good for a small container. here is one example with pretty good documentation.)