Kostas

Hello all!

As some of you requested to see pictures of my garden,i thought i would open a seperate thread where i will also be informing of photo updates of my garden. The whole process of creating this garden of mine as well as current photos of it can be seen here on Palmtalk,the International Palm Society's forum. This is mainly a palm,cycad and fern garden currently containing only a single ground planted Ensete ventricosum plus another potted one as far as bananas go. The rest of the plants belong mostly to the groups mentioned above.

I hope you like it!

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Jack Daw

You see, Konstantinos, that's what I'm talking about. Very nice. I'm officially adding this thread to my favs and hope to see it updated regularly.

Btw. I was surprised to see trachys in that nursery. Do you grow many trachycarpuses in your area? Isn't that more of a temperate and wet climate liking palm?


What about citruses, I haven't seen any, but do you grow them? Or just buy some locally at the market?

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Thnx to Marcel, Ante, Dr. Chiranjit Parmar and Francesco for the plants I've received.



Zeitgeist - Corporatocracy 101 (~2hrs)

Zeitgeist - Moving Forward (~2.5hrs)

Kostas

I am glad you liked it so much Jack!!!

As it can be seen from the 8 pages span my thread has in just the first 1,5years of creating this garden,i tend to update pretty regularly

Trachycarpus fortunei are relatively commonly sold in various sizes in Greece. At the dry parts of Greece,with the insufficient irrigation usually provided by the owners(shops or the county usually)and under our blazing summer sun without any shade,they cant reach their full potential. But at the wetter parts of Greece which usually are also cooler/colder,they do reach their full potential and grow to be awesome! Pyrgos has a great climate that is both hot(its almost always at the top 10 warmest areas of Greece) and wet with 1m of rain annually distributed in 9months of the year. In this climate,Trachycarpus do great in the ground,especially if not planted in all day full sun as they tend to yellow at their leaf edges at the peek of the summer heat. They love water and my garden has lots of it below ground as ground water is only 1-3m below the soil surface and i think my Trachycarpus have already found it and should be pretty much independent now and hopefully may cope even better with our summer sun than last year when i first planted them as recently transplanted from the ground palms. Their root growth has been amazing the past year and they have already made a well developed root boss.
The Trachycarpus at the nursery i am showing pictures of were recently transplanted from the ground and were seeing full sun all day long so werent in top condition but their trunk width and shape was good while most trunked Trachycarpus sold and seen in Greece has much thinner trunks. Trachycarpus fortunei is the only Trachycarpus sp. sold in Greece....

Pyrgos is a Citrus growing area actually so there are lots of them arround! My property had between others 4 Citrus trees in it before starting my garden. 1 died by itself,maybe during the worst winter ever in Pyrgos with a single night of -3,6C while the rest were fine after that with only thin branches damaged. I dug them out all though,giving them to my uncle to plant in his yard as i dont like grafted trees at all,as well as hybrids,so i got rid of all such trees and plants that my property contained. I also got rid of extreemely ungly prunned trees and only retained an Olea europea,a Ziziphus sp. tree and a Yucca elephantipes. The Olea is badly prunned but i hope to fix that gradually in the years to come and make it have natural looking branching again. Ziziphus has had its top damaged or cut at some point from what i can see but its acceptable in appearance and a species i like so this stays....I will be moving the Yucca to a neighbors yard soon as it wants to branch low and i dont have a place where it can do that without annoying other plants and i dont like to keep cutting the new branches it contiuously grows...

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''To try,is to risk failure......To not try,is to guarantee it''

Kostas

New updates and photos have been added to my Pyrgos Garden thread!

Enjoy!

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''To try,is to risk failure......To not try,is to guarantee it''

BB73

Που ειναι;Δεν βρικα τιποτα στο gallery η στο thread

Jack Daw

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Thnx to Marcel, Ante, Dr. Chiranjit Parmar and Francesco for the plants I've received.



Zeitgeist - Corporatocracy 101 (~2hrs)

Zeitgeist - Moving Forward (~2.5hrs)

Kostas

Thanks Jack for placing an easilly visible link!

A link to the first page of my topic is posted in my first post in this thread but i guess it wasnt very easilly visible.

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''To try,is to risk failure......To not try,is to guarantee it''

SoBe Musa

Woow Kostas that was a beautiful journey of you Garden...working hard.... i know i dont'n have to tell you it will be all100% worth it...
Thank you for posting...keep us post please.
Thanks

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Jack Daw

It's gotta look great, Europe-wise, he lives in one of the best climates out there.

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Thnx to Marcel, Ante, Dr. Chiranjit Parmar and Francesco for the plants I've received.



Zeitgeist - Corporatocracy 101 (~2hrs)

Zeitgeist - Moving Forward (~2.5hrs)

harveyc

I'm sorry I missed this thread until now. However, Konstantinos, if you don't mind, I'd like to know the reasons for you comment made back in May that you do not like grafted trees at all. I do a lot of grafting and enjoy both the activity and the results very much and would like to understand your reasoning.

Beautiful job at designing your garden!

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Jack Daw

Kosta mentioned it somewhere already, he doesn't like unnatural interference in his garden... that's why he was interested in naturally occuring and propagating bananas, not into the nurtured and artificial ones commonly used in agroproduction.
That probably goes for trees and other plants as well.

I would very much like to see an expert video on grafting citruses and plants like that, Harvey, if you have the time and are feeling better, would you maybe be so kind to make a thread/video of you grafting some trees?
You know, like the one on how to mail naners.
I would appreciate it a lot.

There are tons of videos on youtube, but usually you can't see whether the method is good enough and whether the grafts survive.

__________________
Thnx to Marcel, Ante, Dr. Chiranjit Parmar and Francesco for the plants I've received.



Zeitgeist - Corporatocracy 101 (~2hrs)

Zeitgeist - Moving Forward (~2.5hrs)

harveyc

Most of our gardening is not natural as we're interfering with nature by planting non-native species. I'd like to know what it is specifically about grafting that he finds objectionable. We find a seedling that produces a superior quality fruit and, if we want to repeat the results, we graft. Some grafting occurs in nature on it's own, though it's not very commonly witnessed.

I have some photos of some of my chestnut grafting at Correia Chestnut Farm - American Grown Fresh Chestnuts From Our Family Farm to You; large hand-harvested Colossal chestnuts, recipes, instructions for roasting chestnuts, chestnut roasters, chestnut knives but maybe I'll do a video ones of these days and try to avoid cutting myself. It doesn't happen very often but seems more likely if it's being recorded for others!

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Dalmatiansoap

I just know that I would like to know more about grafting

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Jack Daw

Now I don't know if it's Kosta's case, but from what I know...

Your post is correct, but you can simulate a natural habitat that is viable and can proliferate without anybody being present (sometimes the end result is leaving the place be and go on its own) and don't have to worry in case of frosts, storms, droughts... because such plants and their natural dispersion in the space, their habitat... is highly resistant and can/usually regenerates more rapidly than most of the human aesthetic arrangements and sometimes displaced plants (for the particular climate, area or conditions).

There are many gardeners and even farmers here, who like letting the nature be on its own and interfere as little as it is possible, whereas what they value is the plants' natural ability to create an effective and productive habitat that in turn offers (sometimes it's even the intended goal) desired/acceptable home for a very wide variety of fauna or just serves as a natural getaway for people in the cities (imagine having a forest behind your house...).

Because the end-result is not likely to be a production farm, sharing traits such as yield, fruit quality is generally not necessary and is considered unnecessary intrusion into the nature's work. May it be in the form of grafting, selection or other processes fastening the natural development.


I would like to see you not cut yourself and graft something nice... c'mon.
Thanks for the link as well.

__________________
Thnx to Marcel, Ante, Dr. Chiranjit Parmar and Francesco for the plants I've received.



Zeitgeist - Corporatocracy 101 (~2hrs)

Zeitgeist - Moving Forward (~2.5hrs)

Kostas

Thank you very much all of you for your replys!

Emily,
Thank you very much for your kind comments! I appreciate them very much!

Jack,
I am glad you think so! I think it will look pretty good and decent too but it will need some years for that...Indeed I have one of the best climates in Europe but...there are better around!(Crete,Cyprus,Canary Islands...) I love our high precipitation though and my shallow water table as it should enable most of my plants to eventually become independent of irrigation all year long which is a goal of mine!


Harvey,
I am glad you like my garden design!

About my dislike for grafted trees,it's pretty much what Jack said and I have mentioned elsewhere in my thread on Palmtalk: I don't like them because grafting is unnatural,you don't get pure seed of the plant you want but rather from the rootstock tree,plus it's an unneeded messing with nature. I know how to graft too,my grandfather and father taught me but I just don't like grafted trees. I know it's fun doing it but I hate the result!
The only grafted trees in my possession are Olea europea(100s) which were grafted with different variants of the same species when quite small. This is somewhat acceptable to me but if I could do it from the start,I would make sure to use non-grafted trees with the desirable characteristics. The same I will do when I plant any more in the future!
I of course also have no problems with graftings mother nature does but they differ from the ones humans do!The only graft I would ever make would be to fix an important(ie irreplaceable/difficult to replace and look good/natural, tree brach that broke off for some reason,back in place :-)
It's by no means necessary for all others to share my opinion,this is just me! Its true that grafted trees offer some advantages which stem from rootstock selection but they also have their problems such as graft aborting under severe stress,burning over or below graft point(need grafting again),inability to produce pure seeds of the graft species,etc these aren't everyday issues but do can happen. Personally,I would however prefer to just not grow something than to graft it on something else but that's just me!
No offence intended in any of the above,this is just my opinion and I respect
everyones opinion on the subject :-)
Apart from grafted trees,I don't like hybrids and human made variants/cultivars. I do make an exception here for edible bananas which I don't mind growing them although I still prefer to keep the cultivars seperate from my pure species gardens. I consider them a fun grow as they are easy to grow,fast and nice to watch grow and nothing is at stake if something goes wrong for some reason. Plus they have really nice inflorescences,fruit without needing hand pollination and produce edible fruit as a bonus which is good when someone is considering permaculture(and I am!). Another thing that makes me consider the edibles is that if I plant a pure species banana and a neighbor plants an edible or a basjoo,I will be risking hybrids and will have to be protecting the flower and hand pollinate to get pure seeds and I wi have a load of cycads to hand pollinate to want to mess yet with another plant requiring that!
So,although i am against hybrids and cultivars,edible bananas are ok with me,especially since they can't spread or take over and mess up any pure species native habitats as other hybrid plants can do...
Again I respect everyone else's opinions as well :-)

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''To try,is to risk failure......To not try,is to guarantee it''

harveyc

Thanks so much, Kostas, for taking the time to help me understand your philosophy on these subjects. I make no judgment on your opinions but simply find it interesting to understand different people's points of views, especially when you also tolerate the views of others.

Some of my grafted chestnut trees look very natural and graft unions are no longer noticeable after a few years. Of course, it helps me a great deal to provide a uniform product to my customers and they know what to expect when they buy a particular variety from me. I have enjoyed growing some seedling chestnut trees but was very disappointed with the quality of the fruits and eventually removed them. I have seen some very good chestnuts from seedling trees else, where, and I took cuttings from these trees and grafted them onto my seedling rootstock trees!

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Jack Daw

Yeah, precisely for that you have one of the best climates. Water resources in the region are very important, not only the warmth in the climate. Precipitation is important as well.
When I was looking for a new, suitable place to live for more years, I used this map... (find attached below).
Have a look at that and you will find out, how good climate you have, not only Europe-wise, but globally. Another similar is only in Brazil, Africa, ... (regarding the precipitation and underground reservoirs).

Attached Images

Map world underground reservoirs.pdf (7.96 MB, 8 views)

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Thnx to Marcel, Ante, Dr. Chiranjit Parmar and Francesco for the plants I've received.



Zeitgeist - Corporatocracy 101 (~2hrs)

Zeitgeist - Moving Forward (~2.5hrs)

Kostas

Thank you very much for your replys Harvey and Jack!

No problem Harvey,glad to be of help! Its always good to know both views of a subject!

Yes,indeed,if the graft takes well,it can become invisible after some years as the trunk thickens. Most same species grafts take well enough for that to happen although there still is a tendency for the rootstock to sprout new branches just below the graft point after prunning which results in a trunk bulge in some cases(in olive trees). When they get a good age on them though,you cant notice anything in the majority of cases.
I understand the need for uniformity in your profession as most costumers want just that! Personally i wouldnt mind what fruit qualities it turns out to have,whatever and if it has,it would be seed grown,pure and mine so...i would just love it for what it is!
Out of curiosity,why do you prefer grafting on seedlings instead of just rooting branches from your source trees? Chestnut trees grow quite fast and you can take quite a few branch segments each year from which in turn,after rooting them,you can make even more plants! These would be clones of their source tree and non-grafted. The rooting phase takes some time but so does seed sprouting and seedling growth till grafting.
Grafting at a small age,as you do, makes for the best grafted plants btw and i am sure your costumers are happy with their trees from you!


Jack,
Thank you very much for the map! Its an interesting general water resource map but not detailed enough to take into account microclimates. Here is a weather station in Pyrgos if you want to check out the specific climate of my area! Our precipitation is close to 1m a year and we sometimes exceed it too! The ground water in my property is only 2-3meters below soil level in the end of our dry season(3 dry months,June,July,August with sometimes some precipitation is June if we are lucky) and about 60 cm or less in the heart of our wet season
Precipitation is very important for me too and i consider myself very lucky to have both a good enough microclimate to grow most of the plants i like and such high precipitation and shallow water table to sustain these once established even if i dont water them! Thats a very important factor for me and in buying my main house property,i will take into account precipitation and water table as well as temprature minimums of course. High precipitation and shallow water table coupled with a 9b or 10a climate are very hard to find in Attica where my main house will probably be but you can find even 10b with good precipitation in Southwest Peloponissos and in Chania,Crete(that may even be 11!)! I am considering it for South Peloponissos if its possible but if i were to move even more far in Greece,i would rather move to Costa Rica,Venezuela or Brazil and enjoy a proper wet tropical climate as i like it than trying to do with a mimic one here....Life is far cheaper in these places as well comparing to Greece...

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harveyc

Chestnuts are extremely difficult to root from cuttings. I'm a member of the scientific organization ISHS and have read papers about it and know some of the people who have experimented with it and success rates of 10% or less is common. Right now I am working with a person who is a hobbyist at tissue culture but quite an expert at it. He has been trying to clone some cuttings of a favored rootstock which I would then graft onto later as this clone is proven to be resistant to root rot and also compatible with many of the clones I would like to graft to. Some of my most favorite varieties would have roots which would be much more susceptible to root rot. Anyways, even my expert friend is having quite a bit of trouble trying to get this clone established in tissue culture and we may need to start over with less IBA. For now, I have been using seedlings of the same cultivar which is fairly uniform, but still not proven to have the same resistance to root rot as the parent. Further, even these seedlings sometimes sucker quite a bit and I'm hoping tissue culture clones would avoid this. One of the problems with the seedlings is that sometimes nuts have multiple embryos so they actually send up more than one shoot when germinated and it's difficult or nearly impossible to separate them once the problem is recognized.

I hope to be offering chestnut trees for sale before long through a nursery I'm establishing and some of these trees will be grafted to two varieties as some of the finest eating varieties do not produce pollen and require a pollinator. Most hobbyists/homeowners would prefer to buy just one tree rather than two trees to get a crop.

By the way, I have a chestnut tree with one limb grafted to a clone that is a seedling from a chestnut which came from Crete. It showed great promise the first year or two but not so well since then, unfortunately.

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Kostas

Thank you very much for your reply Harvey!

I didn't know chestnuts were so difficult to root from cuttings! Have you tried air layering and sucker rooting(bending the sucker and burrying it's middle part in the soil)? These generally work with most anything as the branch still feeds from the mother tree all the time needed to root.
I didnt know and would never thing you would have root rot issues with Chestnuts! Here they grow in the wettest of our mountain forests and enjoy it! Crete is pretty dry though and i don't think there is a chestnut forest on it so it wouldn't need rot hardiness to survive in most areas of Crete! Chestnuts usually grow in wet mountains here. They are part of vast mostly deciduous forests and are in a semi wild state. They are left alone and just harvested when their season comes! They are HUGE trees here!!!!
I wish you success with your business!!!

All the best,
-Konstantinos

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''To try,is to risk failure......To not try,is to guarantee it''