A tree with a view

My good friend Steve gave me a couple of Paw-Paw trees (Asimina triloba) during the summer. I have kept them in the pot until now, wanting to make sure they were kept watered and healthy during the hot season.

Paw-Paw tree (Asimina triloba) with a view of a little pond

Last week I took them out to my in-law's land where there is plenty of room to plant trees and searched for a good spot. I also had some young Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) trees to plant. My mother-in-law pointed me an area which already had a cluster of Persimmon trees growing. I don't know if the trees were planted together here many years ago (when my wife's ancestors settled the land), or if they grew here naturally. My mother-in-law had shown these to me in the past but I had never seen any fruit on them. This time around I saw a few fruits up on the tall skinny trees and I saw one smaller, squat tree that was absolutely covered in fruit.

Nearby Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) tree loaded with fruit

We decided that we would go ahead and plant the Paw-Paw trees here with the Persimmon trees. I like that these little trees have such a nice view. By the way, I took advantage of the loaded Persimmon tree.

Persimmon fruits

Persimmon seeds removed from fruit.
There's actually more seed volume than fruit volume and it was a lot of work to separate the two.

Persimmon cookies

I brought about 30 fruits home and laboriously separated the small amount of fruit from the large amount of skin and seeds and made one batch of Persimmon cookies using the recipe I've shared before. I only got 1/3 cup of persimmon out of the fruits I collected, so I had to modify the recipe. The end result was 14 delicious cookies and 110 seeds that I can now plant. Johnny Appleseed, there's a new seed sower in town.

That time of year...

It's once again that time of year when all of the plants have to be moved back into the greenhouse for a long winter slumber in semi-tropical conditions. Most of my plant collection consists of tropical and semi-tropical plants that can't take the cold Oklahoma winter weather. I keep my greenhouse thermostat at 60 Fahrenheit and it does a pretty good job of maintaining that temperature overnight during the winter, only falling lower when the outside temperature is down in the 20s for multiple hours. Prepping the greenhouse and then moving in all of the winter occupants is a pretty big chore which I knock out in two sessions of about two hours each.

BEFORE: Plumbago (Plumbago auriculata) in all it's glory

My greenhouse is pretty small - especially for the hundreds of potted plants I have. So I have to pack everything in tight, and in vertical layers. Some of the larger plants have to be trimmed back. This year our potted Plumbago really took off and was blooming something fierce last week, when I was moving all of the plants into the greenhouse. I saved it for last and finally took out the shears. After it's haircut it fit into the greenhouse pretty well, leaving just one tiny amount of floor space for me to stand in while I try to water all of the captive plants over the next 5 months.

AFTER: Plumbago (Plumbago auriculata) trimmed back and ready to pack into the greenhouse

Every year I make minor modifications to my greenhouse setup and where I place all of my plants. This year I decided to put my cacti and succulents (which can stay pretty dry over the winter) in the hardest to reach places. I think this will really help because it brings more plants which do need to be watered to more accessible locations and prevents me from accidentally watering something that would prefer to be dry. Also, some of those hard to reach places receive a little more light than other places and the cacti and succulents will like that. In previous years I had put my Plumeria plants on one of these high, sunny shelves. Since they drop their leaves over the dry winter, they really don't need to be in sunlight, so I have those scattered around in various places in the greenhouse this year.

Cactus rot

It has been a wetter than normal year in most of Oklahoma. My sister just got interested in succulents and cacti recently and has some of her plants out on her front porch for the warm season. When I was at her house a few weeks ago she pointed out one of her new cacti that was in bad shape. I'm afraid this plant was getting a lot of runoff from her roof and was just too wet. She mentioned it was actually her favorite and she was hoping it wasn't a goner.

The central growth had rotted and was just a black mushy clump with spines. However, it looked like there may be some salvageable growth that had not begun to rot - yet.

I gave my sister some instructions on what to do and then asked if she'd like me to do it. She was happy to hand it over. I took it home, donned some gloves, and carefully unpotted it. I separated the healthy green growth from the black mush and threw that away. I was going to set the green growth aside to let it callous before planting it again, but it seems to be without wounds and had roots attached, so I carefully repotted those growths. Important: I did not water the pot and I sat it aside in the greenhouse in a location where it will stay dry.

I will check this pot regularly over the next several weeks and hopefully not see any new rotting. Assuming all is well, I'll add some rocks to the surface of the soil again and take it back to my sister.