Cuttings

I have never been very good at starting cuttings of any plants. I do try to get some going from time to time but it is not my forte and the point is that since I grow many things from seed I just don't need more of anything. This year I did want to get a few extra plants of the selected EBH which I kept while clearing out about 70 seedlings last fall. Shoot cuttings of active growth were stuck into a tray with seedling potting soil and kept under a clear plastic dome. I kept it in the east window of my garage so there was morning sun bu not the heat of the afternoon. When I finally removed the cuttings the was a callus on many but no roots.

What has amazed me is that the cuttings which took had a mass of roots!

This is plant number 51. There were 5 cuttings and they all produced this great mass of roots. It is a definite winner when it comes to propagation.
I tried 2 others as well and #29 did not root at all and #11 had one poorly rooted cutting. These were all in the same tray along with several other plants like Clematis, apricot and chokecherry. Since I do not need more plants this is not a great loss but I would surely like to improve my methods.

Last fruit of the season

When we harvested the EBH this past month there were 2 plants with Japanese source that seemed not to be all ripe so we left them till a week ago. Here are a few pictures. It was a small picking but good to get them. There were fruit on only one of my selections from last years clear out of 4 to 5 year old plants. Hopefully they will produce next year.

 

These 2 plants have rounder berries than do the Russian and Kuril types. One of the plants in particular could easily have been harvested by machine as the berries released very easy and did not bleed at the scar.

I did some pruning on one of the plants which I will post a picture of next week.

Season done for now. I have several lots of seed to plant and some cuttings to pot up or stick in the ground. But weeding continues for sure.

Another season nearly over

Well we did get three pails of berries from our EBH and the fruit was good with the rain producing good berry size. Very few plants had fruit this year and we are not sure why. Likely the particular group of seedlings left in the nursery. Next year should be a good one again with two new plots coming into their third year in the ground. With the rain two years in a row there has been exceptional growth and so the plants are tending to be very bushy. The interesting thing is that there are a number of plants to be discarded because they tend to be weak and sprawl. Good for the selection process as out they will go!

My wife is trying to make jam and jelly from the one lot of berries. So far it looks like this will work. By cooking the berries in some water she was able to extract a good amount of juice and still have the pulp in a slightly watery state and made jam as well. We will have enough for ourselves but no selling (or very little) this year.

There is a report about Haskap Days at the U of Saskatchewan over on my regular garden blog as well as a very good report over on Bernis Ingvaldson's Honeyberry USA - The Honeyberry Farm website. Follow the links.
Bernis is a good writer and we were pleased to have her stop in. Sorry now we did not get pictures! Thanks for dropping in Bernis.

So now it is weed and clean-up time as well as time to get some of the 70 or so pots planted if I can make space.


All words no pictures this time.

Will we get any fruit? Probably not!

Well it is ripening season here for the Russian Honeysuckle types and boy do the Cedar Waxwings know it. And their friends the Robins are lurking about as well. I thought I would try to see if we could go without nets this year but it looks like the harvest will be meager as these birds are out there early am to late pm. They do not quit and they are so bold. I can stand a fe feet from this arch and they will fly up and complain! There are around a dozen in our yard and they are very persistent. Not sure if I will bother with netting this year now at all. No jam or jelly for us! Boo Hoo! Netting is a big job and I just do not have time for one more job this summer.

Here is a look at the two new little nurseries of 17 month old plants from last year. 

Many had a couple of berries each and of course they are gone too!

Two views of nursery 1. Then the second nursery only has 36 plants and is in the old garden area.

I am always surprised at how well the little plants do once you get them in the ground.

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.