Thursday, January 31, 2008

Seedlings and Exotic Cuttings

Here's a new garden challenge for me: growing a curry leaf tree. I know almost nothing about this tree, but was given cuttings by a colleague who hoped I could get them to grow with hopes of having a fresh source of leaves for cooking. This plant is a native of India and can be grown from seed or cuttings.

So far, the cuttings look healthy enough, especially considering that they travelled a great distance to get to northern Saskatchewan (lets just say that border services of several countries were duped and should not be reading this). I dipped them in rooting hormone and put them in a slurry of vermiculite and water. I've sprayed the tops with fungicide (No Damp solution). They are under bright lights in a humidity dome. If anyone has some tips, let me know.

Strawberry "Pikan" seedlings - the pink flowers and medium sized fruits sounded appealing:

Osteospermum sinuata "African Sun" germinated fast and furiously:

"Red Robin" dwarf tomato made an abundant-looking cluster of fruits:

A touch of local culture: a birch bark basket made by a local elderly Aboriginal woman who gave this to resident-lawnmower-man. I believe the lace-type parts are made out of spruce roots, which are dyed different colors. This is quite a pretty little basket.

4 comments:

Clayton said...

I really like my Dairy Queen mini GH for starting cuttings. Some old pictures on my blog show starting Blue Honeysuckle cuttings in the larger Jiffy pellets.
What your doing should work as long as they don't dry out.

Gardenista said...

Clayton - what a good reason to go to Dairy Queen! For that matter - I think I've seen slushy containers that might work well for these purposes.

Lisa at Greenbow said...

What a nice collection of plants you have going. Curry...hmmmmm I often wondered where it came from, tree, root etc.

I love the basket you are a lucky lady to have such a treasure.

Lisa at Greenbow said...

What a nice collection of plants you have going. Curry...hmmmmm I often wondered where it came from, tree, root etc.

I love the basket you are a lucky lady to have such a treasure.