Hortisexual Plant fetishists...

15 Jun '07 5:33 pm

Well, thanks again, Mark! Perhaps I'll try the trench idea. I have a young tree peony about a couple of feet away from the black thug, and I don't want THAT to be impacted by my yearly surgery on the bamboo, so maybe the trench would help forestall any side effects to the peony. I've heard that a metal barrier a couple of feet down will also help to contain bamboos - maybe I could put in something like that. I'll have to look around and see what I can obtain for free from scrap yards! That should be a good project to assuage my instinctive urge to procrastinate! Very Happy

Cheers!

gordonf

16 Jun '07 7:07 pm

hey gordon and mark, I split this post of the emailing photo attachments post after you guys wandered off the topic just a little... Laughing

mark, I've altered your forum title after Moosey gave me the 'all clear'. Sorry it took so long Smile

I've worked the last two weekends for my stocks and shares job. I don't think I'm going to do any non-moosey weekend work anymore. I've had a hellish week of corporate backstabbing and intrigue and was feeling disillusioned and appreciated - 10 minutes on the moosey forums has altered my priorities and sorted me out. Thanks everyone Smile

17 Jun '07 2:47 am

I appreciate your sense of humor. All that back stabbing must really wear you out. Yesterday was my last day of school. One of my students came by with an enormous music box to play a bit of a Pink Floyd song. It's the one that compares myself and my colleagues to bricks in the wall and admonishes us to "leave those kids alone". When he finished, I sighed and told him it was the opportunity for "dark sarcasm in the classroom" that I would especially miss over the summer.

29 Jun '07 1:38 am

Eggy my condolences! Welcome back to the fold.
Mark I love the Hortisexual title that was funny...I want one of those shirts!!
Ive got a twisted sense of humor and would looove it.
<--- reminding herself NEVER to plant that bamboo!!!
By the way banana trees are just as bad and just as hard to remove!

29 Jun '07 5:27 am

I'm glad you appreciated the "hortisexual" humor; I was beginning to think living in Berkeley all these years had warped me to the point where I wouldn't be able to go out into polite society any longer. I actually got the line wrong though, it just says "Hortisexuality". The picture is great though, showing one large, smiling flower leaning over sideways on the ground basking under a somewhat sinister looking smiling sun. These are images from the art work of Bullwinkle, a local sculptor working in sheets of rusting metal from which cut outs are made usually of cartoonish figures.

I had no idea that banana could also be so invasive. Fortunately I'm not able to provide one with enough regular water to tempt me to grow it. Naturally I like the big folliage.

1 Jul '07 4:21 am

Just an FYI DONT plant philodendron either! They get monsterous and will grow under around and OVER your house. Killing them HA its like day of the living dead...Ive ran over it with a lawn mower, axed it out, poured gasoline on it and burned it...no luck comes right back. Cant figure out how to get rid of it. So I just keep it cut back and at bay. If you let it grow omg the size!

This is a small one the trunk can get as big as the top of your leg. They dont need alot of water and god aweful smelling when you cut it. They will send out runners and grow UP your house.
This is another one of those I wouldnt grow because if I wanted to be a lion tamer I would have been in Sigfried and Roy!

1 Jul '07 5:22 am

I've seen larger ones of these growing in glass houses and around here as foundation plantings. The larger, vining & climbing ones I find enchanting though perhaps not enough to want to feed it my house. The ones you see growing around here are runty by comparison. Even the really old ones with the thigh-thick trunks seem to remain compact and the leaves less impressive than they could be. I think while they will survive here, they really want more humidity and heat than the bay area offers.

I've got to tell you this one has been on my wish list a long time and would have been in my garden if I hadn't convinced myself that it would never in our area become the gargantuan, vining climber I envisioned.

Given you experience with them it sounds like maybe I should be glad. You've at least made it a little easier to come to terms with not having it in my garden. Thanks Angela.

1 Jul '07 5:42 pm

Hi, Eggy, and thanks for the very nice way in which you admonished us!! I'll try to stay on topic in the future! Very Happy

I don't envy you the back-stabbing, etc., but isn't gardening (even just reading about it) therapeutic? I just LOVE this website!!

gordonf

5 Jul '07 10:59 am

Off subject us? NEVER ....lol....what was the subject?! Vegetation in the brain cavity is the last stages...we then start sprouting and rooting and eventually flowering...

Mark try it in your garden it may do just fine and stay with in handlable size.
I know in South Louisiana and South Florida it would be a monstrous mess....and Im not in the mood to go frond to hand with it...

Cant hurt to try it Mark.

6 Jul '07 4:55 am

When I think of growing it I picture it coming out of bed near the house and climbing via wire support like a vine up to the deck above the carport and espalliered out along the two story stucco wall. With my climate it would never happen in my lifetime. Like I say, established plants I see around here have really thick trunks but a short stubby things, no bigger than a VW bug and just as squat. But I'm over it. I'm growing a variegated x Fatshedera lizei in a couple of large sconse planters whose job it will be vine around the deck. Nice folliage and safe.

Hortisexual Plant fetishists...

Oh, Boy!

Thanks Eggy.

Good to hear from you again Angela.

Fortunately we don't have what it wants.

Thanks for the Humour!

Thanks but no thanks, Angela.