It's all that stuff you've been reading on the Great Depression. I've been told that the sale of seeds for flowers rises in an economic boom and the sale of seeds for vegetables rises in recessions, that the ratio of flowers to vegetables correlates fairly closely to economic cycles.
You'd get along famously with my husband John, who has little use for plants that don't produce something edible. The people who owned our house before us planted lots of fruit trees and the area I live in has lots of things that grow wild like cherry trees, raspberries and the dreaded concord grapevine.
Although nothing reminds me of my youth more than popping a big fat concord grape in my mouth in the last daze of summer (with the smell of Welch's grape juice in the woods), they tend to get out of hand and grow like kudzu covering trees and brushes. The more you chop them down the more they sprout new hydra-like heads. I even cut down a bunch to make trellises for my garden. Now mind you these cuttings were far from green and I left them out in the sun for days before I stuck them in my garden for use. Not even a week went by and they started to grow! It was like having a tree grow out of your wood pile. (the wild cherry will do that- don't use it for stakes)
John planted blueberries one year, he put them in a very poor location and forgot about them. They failed to thrive. Meanwhile, I decided to naturalize a bank in the back of the house that I didn't want to mow anymore. Three years later it was covered with laurel, wild azalea and you guessed it...wild blueberries. They are smaller than the cultivated type but can be just as good.
You are right to get bees, if you really want fruit you have to have bees. My neighbors have hives. The problem I have is the critters get the fruit before we do. I have two cherry trees I get fruit off of and that is only because they fruit at the same time the mulberry trees do and the birds prefer the mulberries. We had an apricot tree and it never had a chance. The squirrels loved the seeds. In the morning it was not unusual to see two dozen squirrels in that tree and the munching sound was loud enough to be heard inside the house. It came down for the pool as well as the only good apple tree we had. Our plums always got mildew before they ripened....but this year we have a fine crop of pears and if I'm lucky the deer and the squirrels will leave me one or two. John has planted a peach tree, but i ain't counting on getting any of 'em yet.
We have an old apple tree halfway down the driveway and it's always fun to see a doe bring her fawns in to eat the ones that fall on the ground, that is the ones that the ground hog that lives next to it leaves them.
Me, I have a weakness for plants that attract humming birds. Trumpet vine, cardinal flower, bee balm, mimosa trees and those tiny coral bells....and, of course, I back it up with one of those sugar water feeders. Along my stream grows jewel weed and when that blooms it coincides with the migration south of all the ruby throats.
I used to have a pair of hot pink socks and if I wore them while gardening sometimes the hummers would buzz around my feet. The trumpet vine grows over the slider in the kitchen and if the light is right the hummers see a perfect reflection of themselves in the glass. This prompts them to hover in front of the glass for a while and then put on a territorial display where they fly in a big U-shape in front of the vine. They are constant entertainment.
Speaking of a weakness for books, I've got a book for you, "Edible Landscape". |
