Green Thumb Friends(Garden & Plant Lovers)

[Shadow]

So I keep two outdoor gardens, I collect rare cactus(my friend is super into it and raises them, gives me deals on super cool rare ones), rare indoor potted plants along with hanging plants & my screened porch area. Here's some pics of some of my faves...

White Fusion Plant aka Calathea White Fusion aka Calathea Lietzei

Variegated Monstera Albo aka Monstera Borsigiana Albo Variegata

In my garden last summer...those are all my tomatoes 🙂 

Heirloom Carrots from my winter garden recently

Pothos and Christmas Cactus

Bridgesii x Pachanoi, Sharxx Blue x Roseii 1, Peru Blue 3 x Sharxx Blue, Weka, Churchill amongst others. 

 

Just some of the planted things I got going on around the property...what about y'all? 🙂 

 

[Fish Folk]

I love this! I really need to work on my outdoor gardening. It's hard, raising a bunch of boys, to find time to keep up with gardening outside. I do enjoy summer tubbing, and have had some beautiful flowering plants the last two seasons...

 

 

[Shadow]

On 12/19/2023 at 2:35 AM, Fish Folk said:

I love this! I really need to work on my outdoor gardening. It's hard, raising a bunch of boys, to find time to keep up with gardening outside. I do enjoy summer tubbing, and have had some beautiful flowering plants the last two seasons...

 

 

Its never easy with IRL responsibilities. Just lucky my only child is now graduated university and living in Chicago, so I got plenty of free time nowadays. I guess getting started early wasn't such a bad thing after all...lol!

Also...amazing flowering plants!

[Fish Folk]

Don't want to hijack your thread with unrelated connections, but @Guppysnail shared some impressive emersed growth from Aquaponics plants she's set up. They'd be appropriate to share here again, IMHO. She has glorious indoor growth! I do think that Aquaponics is going to become a major thing in the near future of the hobby. There are a lot of good reasons to keep fish that way. My friend, who designs Aquaponics setups, really never changes water on his freshwater tanks. He just tops things off now and then. Plant roots sort out chemical buildups wonderfully, along with micro-fauna. 

[Shadow]

On 12/19/2023 at 8:54 PM, Fish Folk said:

Don't want to hijack your thread with unrelated connections, but @Guppysnail shared some impressive emersed growth from Aquaponics plants she's set up. They'd be appropriate to share here again, IMHO. She has glorious indoor growth! I do think that Aquaponics is going to become a major thing in the near future of the hobby. There are a lot of good reasons to keep fish that way. My friend, who designs Aquaponics setups, really never changes water on his freshwater tanks. He just tops things off now and then. Plant roots sort out chemical buildups wonderfully, along with micro-fauna. 

Yea, I am planning on using all the Hawaiian Pothos I have propagated into the fish room along with some node clippings from my main Monstera plant, but not my rare ones lol. I can't remember which plant I have in one of my tanks, but it has grown out of the water above the light and has little purple flowers sprouting off it. Its soooo cool!

[Guppysnail]

My emersed growth comes if necessity.  My tap runs average 25 ppm nitrate and over winter 40 ppm.  
 

I use houseplants that can tolerate wet feet. The majority are fast growers but I throw in things like anthurium and inchplants for a fun color pop. 
 

Here are a few of mine. Every tank has as much emersed growth as I can stuff into it 

[Shadow]

On 12/19/2023 at 9:03 PM, Guppysnail said:

My emersed growth comes if necessity.  My tap runs average 25 ppm nitrate and over winter 40 ppm.  
 

I use houseplants that can tolerate wet feet. The majority are fast growers but I throw in things like anthurium and inchplants for a fun color pop. 
 

Here are a few of mine. Every tank has as much emersed growth as I can stuff into it 

I LOVE IT!!!!! It's basically what I want to do to the back of several of my tanks plus I am adding more plants around the fish room to give it a natural, jungle vibe. Thanks for sharing!! Really is super impressive and I agree @Fish Folk, this def seems the future of our hobby and one I can fully get behind!

[Fish Folk]

@Guppysnail what is the brand / size / source of those lights you use along the wall? They look good.

[Shadow]

On 12/19/2023 at 9:15 PM, Fish Folk said:

@Guppysnail what is the brand / size / source of those lights you use along the wall? They look good.

They look like the ones I just installed on my fish rack...got the idea from TM Aquatics. Not sure if they are or not, but these are great and super inexpensive, also easy to set up. 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C73LHNNP?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

 

[Fish Folk]

Alright @Shadow . . . you will be elevated to incontrovertible LEGEND status if you can figure out a way to get citrus trees to thrive in a quasi Aquaponics setup. Prove that your thumb is permanently green. I want to try this so bad!

 

[Shadow]

On 12/19/2023 at 9:44 PM, Fish Folk said:

Alright @Shadow . . . you will be elevated to incontrovertible LEGEND status if you can figure out a way to get citrus trees to thrive in a quasi Aquaponics setup. Prove that your thumb is permanently green. I want to try this so bad!

 

My friend, I think that is quite outta my wheelhouse. I have successfully grown a few types of citrus trees on multiple properties, soil types, but from my memory they are not ones to like having their roots wet and they require a healthy amount of light. Would def need to have a light above bright enough for them to thrive, otherwise they won't flower or at least have them last on there long enough to become fruit. Might be a nice question for @TropicalAquaculture7. 🙂 

[Guppysnail]

I use these. I have smaller for my lower tanks on the bottom @Fish Folk

[Fish Folk]

Technical Paper added for NERMs to download on the CARE Forum:

"Small-Scale Aquaponic Food Production"

"Keep it secret! Keep it safe!"

~Gandalf

[Shadow]

On 12/20/2023 at 3:40 AM, Fish Folk said:

Technical Paper added for NERMs to download on the CARE Forum:

"Small-Scale Aquaponic Food Production"

"Keep it secret! Keep it safe!"

~Gandalf

Hell yea! Thanks, my friend! Downloaded and saved for my future co op property my friends & I are starting locally. 🙂 

FYI, in saying that...citrus does hate wet roots confirmed by my orchard owning friend locally for satsuma mandarins native to here. 

BTW if you and @Guppysnail want to try some of the best citrus there is...DM y'allz addys and I will priority mail you two some of my satsumas off my trees. 🙂 They ripen in the winter and are best after the first freeze which we had a week ago. 

 

This is just one of them at my Uncle's place 😂

They are more BUSHES than trees but they produce the sweetest and most tasty citrus there is. I make marmalade out of it as well. 

[Fish Folk]

@Shadow WOW! Those look awesome. Yeah . . . wet roots . . . not good . . . drat! I may DM you about that. Did anyone take you up on your shipping experiment with those Neocaridinas yet? Maybe there's a way to pack a couple in the box?

Marmalade . . . all I can think of is this scene from Paddington . . .

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fish Folk

[Tanked]

I wish I was as lucky with aquarium plants as I am with some of the terrestrial plants.  This year's gardens were a mixed bag. The quick freeze we had this time last year, killed all of my potted trees, and  the water feature outside my window did a little too well.  The Horsetail left the stream bank and spread into the Blood Grass/Sedum bed. The birds added a few other tall grasses.  The Peppermint blanket, barely visible in the picture is going to make a lot of tea this winter.  The surviving  2" piece of Water Primrose that you can't see growing in the stream bed became a 8 sq. ft. blanket. These were both failed experiments to reduce algae in the pond and the aquariums.  The Four-O'clocks in the last picture outdid themselves they grew to 3' tall for the first time, and crowded out the Hibiscus.

My neighbor decided to cut down his contribution to what I call the green wall in the background.  The Hummingbirds won't be happy, but it will be interesting to see what changes take place.    Mind you, except for the Horsetail, I'm not complaining.  Seeing how nature wants things to be is part of the fun.

 

 

[Tanked]

On 12/21/2023 at 2:21 PM, Tanked said:

The quick freeze we had this time last year, killed all of my potted trees

On New Years Eve. this year, the local gardening columnist decided to do a weather review for the year.  On 12-22-22 Southwest Ohio was hit by a "BOMB CYCLONE!"😱  We had a 52 degree temperature drop in 12 hours.  20-30 degree swings aren't unusual, but +44 down to -8 was too much.  That explains what happened to my Bonsai.   The rest of the year we had a mild spring, dry July, and a wet August.  I was still picking vine ripened tomatoes the week before Christmas this year, so I'm not complaining too much.