Update on slow-motion projects!
Apr. 8th, 2023 10:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickAbout a year ago I mentioned in passing the theft-from-the-wild (land adjacent to a friend's childhood home, not state forest, but not sure of owner) of about twelve corms of Dutchman's Breeches, from a hillside containing thousands. People are strongly cautioned against taking plants from the wild for their gardens and I get that. Wild-gathered plants shouldn't really be put in gardens because a lot of the time, they die near-instantly.
If you're taking them for non-garden reasons, you probably still shouldn't do it. I am a bad person and I sometimes do wrong things. This is one of those times.
Anyway, I stole twelve corms from a hillside containing thousands to put them on a SIMILAR hillside (in the woods, with ample leaf litter and dappled shade and similar soil composition) about eight miles away from their original location. The target hillside is not visible from my house and there likely aren't any Dutchman's Breeches ON the hillside near my house because it used to be pasture long ago (there are bits of rusted barbed wire on some of the bigger stumps) and I expect the pasture effort killed the spring ephemerals back in the day. It hasn't been pasture for my entire life and the land has been wooded for at least the last sixty years. It probably could have Dutchman's Breeches on it, is where I'm going. It doesn't, but it... could. It... should.
Dutchman's Breeches spreads by ants moving the seeds around and it's unlikely that there will be any Dutchman's Breeches here in my lifetime if we are going to wait for the ants to get with the program. I, for one, am not going to wait on ants.
Anyway, so last year I sowed my corms or whatever. Bulblets? Something. Then it snowed six inches (in April) on them. Oh, well.
This spring, tho...
I don't know for sure that this worked. Corms are pretty reliable in year 1 even if conditions are not great for them. I'll have to see how they do for a few years before I know if it worked "for sure" or not. But, if they DO spread where they are planted, I have some other wooded hillsides of a similar stripe (I'm working with 550 acres of mostly-forested east-face-of-a-mountain plus some swamp) that could use some spring ephemerals on 'em. We shall see.
Also I'm going to look for a source for bloodroot. I've never seen any locally but maybe I can buy some seeds or something. I have shaded, moist woodlands by the score. I should be able to grow that in the woods.
Anyway, I'm off to play barberry. 'Tis the season!
If you're taking them for non-garden reasons, you probably still shouldn't do it. I am a bad person and I sometimes do wrong things. This is one of those times.
Anyway, I stole twelve corms from a hillside containing thousands to put them on a SIMILAR hillside (in the woods, with ample leaf litter and dappled shade and similar soil composition) about eight miles away from their original location. The target hillside is not visible from my house and there likely aren't any Dutchman's Breeches ON the hillside near my house because it used to be pasture long ago (there are bits of rusted barbed wire on some of the bigger stumps) and I expect the pasture effort killed the spring ephemerals back in the day. It hasn't been pasture for my entire life and the land has been wooded for at least the last sixty years. It probably could have Dutchman's Breeches on it, is where I'm going. It doesn't, but it... could. It... should.
Dutchman's Breeches spreads by ants moving the seeds around and it's unlikely that there will be any Dutchman's Breeches here in my lifetime if we are going to wait for the ants to get with the program. I, for one, am not going to wait on ants.
Anyway, so last year I sowed my corms or whatever. Bulblets? Something. Then it snowed six inches (in April) on them. Oh, well.
This spring, tho...
I don't know for sure that this worked. Corms are pretty reliable in year 1 even if conditions are not great for them. I'll have to see how they do for a few years before I know if it worked "for sure" or not. But, if they DO spread where they are planted, I have some other wooded hillsides of a similar stripe (I'm working with 550 acres of mostly-forested east-face-of-a-mountain plus some swamp) that could use some spring ephemerals on 'em. We shall see.
Also I'm going to look for a source for bloodroot. I've never seen any locally but maybe I can buy some seeds or something. I have shaded, moist woodlands by the score. I should be able to grow that in the woods.
Anyway, I'm off to play barberry. 'Tis the season!
