Diseases in Goldfinches
16 years ago
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- 16 years ago
- 16 years ago
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Please list your most disease resistant roses..
Comments (29)I don't know if Chinas and Noisettes grow as far north as you seem to be, but my Louis Philippe, Ducher, Spice, Champney's Pink Cluster, Old Blush, Prosperity also my Kordes and Drift roses all survived last summer with no BS, no Chili-thrips, and no Canker...which killed off most of my HTs and Modern roses.... I am getting more Drift and Kordes, and also Biltmore roses, to see how resistant they are.....seems the newer roses are being bred better than some of the older ones....sally...See MoreCatnip used as Pest Repellent
Comments (22)Thanks to Alfie for clarifying the difference between catmint and catnip; saved me the trouble! Since I have to fence my catnip to allow it to survive the depredations of my own and the neighborhood cats, I have but one plant. However, since the cats care nothing for lemon catnip, and because it self-sows with the same gleeful abandon as the regular sort, and because I much prefer its aroma and taste in tea to the standard (which to me smells like skunk, although I confess I do not find that scent--at a reasonable distance!--terribly off-putting), I have masses of that around, duking it out in one wild corner with the lemon balm, equally enthusiastically self-sowing calendula, and several mullein plants that I encourage for their medicinal properties as well. ANYhow--my point is this: if plain ol' catnip is a good 'skeeter repellent, seems my lemon catnip would be even better, as it has that citronella-like scent, same as lemon balm. We, happily, have not too many mosquitoes this year, but I will sure give it a try tomorrow for the ravenous black flies that have plagued our area the last couple of summers. I have little hope, though, since the lemon balm did not faze them...CK...See MoreSunflowers
Comments (4)I've done it and while it is fun to have them growing there on the property, and fun to harvest the seedheads, unless you plant hundreds of them, you aren't going to harvest enough seeds to make much of a difference when it comes to filling up your feeders. If you have deer visiting your property as we do, they have a tendency to eat the plants....flowerhead (often before it blooms), leaves, stems, etc. This is a problem every year, but is a much more serious one in drought years. I've also found sunflowers attract a lot of pest insects. I used to grow them just inside my garden fence and finally stopped because of all the pest insects they attracted. Now, if I grow them at all, I plant them several hundred feet from the garden. When I grew them, I would just cut the huge seedheads and set them on a shelf or table in the barn to dry. (This will work well as long as you don't have rodents or squirrels visiting the barn to eat the seeds as they dry.) After the seedheads air dried, I stacked them on a shelf. In the winter, I would take one seedhead outside and place it on the ground. The birds picked it clean in minutes. At the rate of one or two large flower seedheads per day, my harvest lasted maybe a month. You can remove the seeds from the seedheads if you want to put them in a feeder, and it isn't hard. Just rub your hand back and forth over the dried seedhead and the seeds basically fall out. Some years, when I planted sunflowers with smaller seedheads, I left the plants standing because they were in an out-ot-the-way area where no one really noticed them, except perhaps for our dogs in the fenced dog run. The birds harvested the seeds as they wished. Of course, that means all the seeds were gone long before cold weather even arrived. Sometimes the deer harvested the dried seedheads and are them as well. The sunflowers that grow the really huge seedheads often need staking or the wind can really beat them up. I only staked them when I was growing them to form the walls of a sunflower house for the kids, and I used 6' tall green t-posts to stake them. Economically feasible? Maybe if you planted an acre or two you might be able to raise enough to fill your feeders all winter. A small patch won't produce enough to make a dent in your feed bill. Your mileage may vary, but for me, they weren't worth the trouble when it comes to producing seeds. Dawn...See MoreSick American Goldfinch?
Comments (3)Thanks, Claire. I know we're seeing fledges now, but not goldfinch. I love when they visit, though! You've reminded me to put out our new birdbath, so thanks for that!...See More- 15 years ago
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