Be your OWN Project Manager...Big Mistake or Feasible with Dedication?
Patrick McDonald
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
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Jeffrey R. Grenz, General Contractor
4 years agoRelated Discussions
It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 3
Comments (40)Pls8xx, "One thing that has been on my mind the last few weeks is how important it is to me that a zinnia have a short compact plant form. I grow in a sand/clay mix rather than topsoil. It will hold plants upright fine when dry, but when wet the soil looses its strength and the tall plants become vulnerable to wind knocking them over." You have made a good case that you do need zinnias with a more compact plant habit. Last year, we had a very violent storm with high winds of 50mph and it blew down literally dozens of my zinnias. I had concrete re-bar tomato cages around a few of my more critical "breeders" and they were protected. But many of my big zinnia plants snapped off at the ground and many more lost their basal branches and some lateral branches. Interestingly, some of my big bushy scabiosa flowered zinnias and most of those F1s with a "scabi" parent came through just fine, with amazing resistance to the high winds. As is usual in a high wind storm here, for a period of hours we lost our electrical power, our telephone land line, and our cable connection. I studied the wreckage in my zinnia patch to see "what went wrong" structurally with my zinnias. As is usual for me, there were some surprises. I plan to apply what I learned from my "crash investigation" to make better decisions about plant structure this year. For one thing, I had planted a lot of Burpeeanas, from both Burpee and from Stokes. I had a lot of "out of the seed packet" Burpeeanas and some F1 hybrids from crosses that I made between Burpeeanas. (Incidentally, your picture of the "original" red Burpeeanas shows just how nice that Burpeeana bushy look can be.) To my amazement, some of the most disastrous structural failures were in my Burpeeanas. They have what I refer to as a "candelabra" stem structure, with basal branches coming out from the main stem at a 90 degree angle. Even though the stems look thick and strong, there is a kind of "joint" at the attachment point. Some of the basal branches that were in contact with the soil had actually sprouted roots and were apparently in the process of becoming independent plants. It's almost as if the stem joint was "willing" to detach from the main stem. But even higher up, those branches that cantilevered out from the main stem at a 90-degree angle seemed inherently weak. In almost all cases, the branches broke at their attachment points to the main stem. The plants that seemed resistant to branches breaking off had their branches leaving the main stem at a much more acute angle, like 45 or even 30°. So their branches were headed upward at the attachment point. For whatever reason, those branches seemed much better attached, even if the plant habit was more generally upward than outward. Despite the fragility of the Burpeeana plants in high winds, I plan to continue growing them and selecting the best flowers and plants. I will just be looking for stronger attachment points for their branches. If you want to emphasize compactness in your zinnia breeding, you can start with some strains that are already compact and cross some other zinnias with them. I personally have quit crossing the lower growing zinnias because I don't like kneeling and bending over to do my cross pollinating. I've always had a tendency toward lower back pain from my gardening, and a lot of bending over just aggravates it. However, short zinnias are interesting looking and fascinating in crosses, so I am thinking about constructing some really high raised beds that might bring those short zinnias up to a more comfortable working distance. There are some short zinnias that you can cross with tall zinnias that will produce some intermediate compact F1 hybrids, and the F2s from them should sort out into a wide range of plants that you could pick from for further breeding. Three of the shortest are the Thumbelina zinnia, the Zinnita zinnia, and Zinnia Short Stuff. Here is another view of Short Stuff and here is another seed source: Short Stuff at New England seed. Some taller but still very compact zinnias are Zinnia Swizzle cherry and ivory, Zinnia Swizzle scarlet and yellow, Zinnia Dreamland hybrids, Zinnia Magellan mix, and I just found that Zinnia Peter Pan mix is apparently still available. By crossing some of those compact zinnias with other zinnias you should have the basis for creating several new strains of compact zinnias, with various degrees of compactness. MM...See MoreIt can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 26
Comments (125)Hi Mister.Guy, " I was extremely satisfied with soda-bottle "half-gallon" DIY pots, by cutting the top off at the label, slitting the cone top up for drainage, and stuffing them upside down back inside the bottle with some holes cut in each of the little bottle "feet"." I also used the bottoms of 2-liter soda-bottles as pots. I am a little confused by how you made yours. I just cut the top off and drilled drainage holes in the bottom of the feet. This is an old picture of one being used to grow a zinnia from a cutting. I really liked their indestructability, transparency, and the fact that they didn't cost anything. But I quite using them because they were prone to tipping over, and their circular cross section didn't have as much root volume as square pots. I don't know if it is feasible for you to post pictures, but if you could, pictures of how you prepared the soda-bottle pots would be helpful. From what you said, I wondered if you had figured out a way to solve the tipping problem. "In the summer, temperature and humidity has been a real hassle for me, and I've seriously considered a dedicated outdoor greenhouse/shed for plants. " How about just growing the Summer zinnias in-ground in the garden? For many people, a greenhouse is too hot in the Summer to be habitable by plants (or people). "Fortunately, with zinnias, you get several tries a year, even out in the yard, if you're fast with the green seeds, and I have four or five beautiful large plants in the yard I am gathering seeds from to try a new less eco-friendly, death to anything but plants approach in my indoor growing space." Yes, I agree wholeheartedly with that. But I am curious about the details of your "new less eco-friendly, death to anything but plants" approach in your indoor growing space. I think we are thinking in a very similar way on the indoor growing of zinnias. I fought a running battle with thrips all last Winter. I look forward to bringing some more powerful weapons against them this Winter. Perhaps we should discuss our various problems and solutions for growing zinnias successfully indoors. I don't recommend indoor zinnia growing because it isn't easy, but if you are doing it, then we may have a lot of things to talk about. ZM...See MoreCan you top this list? KD mistakes......
Comments (20)We have let HD management know of a couple of the problems as they occured. The rest had not happened yet. The Mgr called the KD up who then called us up. That's how HD mgt operates. The KD came to our home and noted the first few problems but he won't accept blame. He dislikes mistakes pointed out. His catch phrase is, "People are willing to live with worse situations and less 'get around space' than you just so they can expand their number of boxes (cabinet units)". He says people regularly live with 30" hallways. He has an answer for everything. His favorites are, "It doesn't appear in my folder, I don't have the missing wall noted in my drawing, You really can get out of the back door OK - see how I do it? (turns sideways), I don't have the appliance specs, etc." But he has blinders on and tells us nothing at all is problematic and his design is perfect. HD sent out a measure guy to take a look at the job and see if the design was feasible within the space. Measure guy told the KD that he needed to be to code with the width of the hallway and he also told him the oven cabinet was on top of the electrical switches. By that time we'd purchased a new window based on his design and had to move the switches. The KD told us he made the hall way to code but he did nothing to the design - it's hard to tell with all the fillers they use and he told us he pulled some out. The measure guy mismeasured the ceiling height, etc. Boxes had to be cut down. The measure guy who is a contractor out of HD wanted the installation job but we hired a woodworker from down the street. It seems to me the problems are both the KD and the measure guy's fault. I need to take another look at the language of what we signed. The design from HD is free. We paid in full for the Kraft Maid cabinets to complete that design. After we paid for the cabinets we were allowed to have a copy of the design to take to contractors. Our contractor likely should have really conemplated the design before beginning work. He thought the KD was an effective designer. He works with Premier Cabinets whose designers get it right all the time. The contractor has himself and 2 other employees so that he is juggling jobs which we don't mind. He's a wonderful woodworker and we have several custom areas. He'd get to another step with installation and say, "Well, that can't work!" Thank you all so much for your advice....See MoreIs it more cost effective to use a developer or design/build your own?
Comments (17)I like the comment about a better house, not bigger. We downsized last year and, although it's half the size of our previous home, I truly believe it lives bigger. We did end up buying property and building, and we drew up our own plan, taking it to an architect to tweak a little. (DH had designed our previous home, including all the construction blueprints; but this time he just wanted to get the layout done and then let the architect take over.) I think the reason it lives so well is the fact that we sat down together and discussed our daily activities and what we wanted in each room to make it work for us. We also considered the flow through the house and how it fit OUR preferences. This is our fourth house (3rd build), and I'm happy to say it's the best fit we've ever had---which is a good thing, since this is the house we will be retiring in and plan to age in place here. I don't have the breadth of experience to say whether developer or design/build your own will be more cost effective for you. I can say we definitely came out ahead with building our own (utilizing an architect and general contractor). Our builder was an acquaintance of ours who came highly recommended by friends for whom he had built a home about 5 years earlier. He stayed on schedule and finished right on time and within our budget. Of course, we stayed on top of the budget throughout the process and decided where we wanted to spend more money and where we could save money. We sourced a lot of items on our own, which also saved. We also found property in our desired area that had just been put on the market, which proved to be ideal for us and much better than any of the areas being developed in our area. It's very hard to find property in our desired area that wasn't already snatched up by a developer. If you're trying to stick to a budget, you do need to be able to discipline yourself not to splurge on everything when you're building---and, if there is something you want to upgrade, then you need to figure out how you're going to pay for it now (not over the next 10-15-20-or-30 years), such as by cutting back on something else. And, of course, allow a contingency for the unexpected. We did this by estimating line-item costs higher than we expected, thus building in a cushion . Of course, we were highly motivated because we wanted to own the house outright, with no mortgage, at the end of the build. Most of this would apply to a developer's house, as well. If you choose one before it's finished, then you could end up with the option of choosing some very expensive upgrades that could quickly put the house over budget. Hope you have success in your search for a new home. This site has some wonderful, knowledgeable contributors that can help you along the way. There are also a lot of beautiful homes with features that will inspire you to create a lovely home but also tempt you to start seeing a luxury as a necessity. : )...See Moreworthy
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