So I promised myself no more plants for now!

Well it just can't be! I was over to Little Tree Nursery for a visit and to have a look at their selection of plants. They do a great job with prairie apple varieties on Ottawa 3 dwarfing rootstock but I have not succumbed to getting any yet. Maybe this year. But while there we talked about propagating Edible Blue Honeysuckle and I thought I should come home and try some now as it is the best time. (I have done some before) So I looked on Google to see if I could find a recipe for organic rooting hormone - mostly since they often have ingredients from around the home. The simplest one is to make a juice from soaked willow pieces about an inch long in a quart jar having strained out the pieces after 24 hours. But the new one I found was to boil 2 cups of water and add 2 tablespoon of honey, cool it down and store in an airtight container. It lasts about 2 weeks.So I made it up and this evening set a number of cuttings as a trial.
The plants I am trying are the EBH, Chokecherry, and Apricot. The tray is one I built from a hint on Mike McGroarty's web sight somewhere. He does have some good ideas. Or a lot of.........................

Anyway I dipped everything except one row of honeysuckle in the honey solution and watered everything in. Time will tell!

 

Finally the weeds are slowed down

Yesterday I started at 6:15 am and weeded through all of the Honeysuckles and Columbines and Clematis! What a big job as the dandelions had gotten so big. Now I expect to run through all the rows without much challenge. Here is a look at the two main EBH nurseries.
Front here has 119 plants as one seedling did not make it through winter and the back of the nursery which is 3 - 4 years has about the same number of plants. There seemed to be good flowering so we will see if there is seed set very soon. As observed by Craig over at My Edible Blue Honeysuckle Orchard , I have not observed tame bees in the/on the blossoms. The larger wild bees are the most common pollinator that I see but I am guessing there are Mason Bees as well. I had hoped to get some Mason Bee homes made this year but I am overwhelmed with outside work at this time of year! Since my seedling production was at an all time low, the additions to the nursery will be limited.

This little nursery only has 36 plants but it is a mix of Russian and Japanese seedlings so should be good for some inter-crosses in a year.

Found these at a garden centre today

Marketing at its' best. These are Polar Jewel and its partner Polar Night in one pot so there is for sure pollination. I still have not been able to find who selected the Polar series or where they are coming from. If your reading this and know, please leave a comment.

They had Berry Blue, Tundra and Borealis as well.

Leaves and stuff

Well the weather is finally encouraging growth here and flower buds are swelling. There was good survival in the seedlings so that was good. I have been surprised how some of the smaller seedlings actually heaved out of the hole enough that if it stayed dry they would not survive! I packed them in deeper and they should be fine.
I have found some unusual leafing happening in one of the seedling groups where the seed came from Fialka Edible Blue Honeysuckle.

Here is the normal green plant. The group is split about 50 -50. I am very interested to see how this turns out. This is the only group where I am picking up anything unusual.

New post over on A Prairie Journal

Just to point you over to my main blog for some notes on how spring is going here.

Some mouse damage

 There is some damage in my Edible Blue Honeysuckle seedlings from the mice. Thankfully not a lot. Waiting for the snow to go and the water to disappear.

Planting and growing

So today I planted a few seeds again to set in a different environment to see if they will germinate better. The plants which have grown look very nice. Here's a look.

Note the growth of moss on the peat pellets. This is one of the problems of using peat under lights. There is just too much life left in some of the material. I started using plastic spoons (cheapest you can find) as they have a good space and the cupping helps to keep the water and light from fading the ink.