Seeds and Weeds!

It has been quite the year here for the Eastern Redbud (Cercis canadensis) trees, they are laden with seeds unlike anything I has seen before. I grew up with Eastern Redbuds so this is a longtime. The trees over the garden and along our drives are dark brown with seeds. Wish I could sell them by the pound I could make some money.

I'm worried that one of these trees will drop seeds all over our garden, pulled up nearly 100 seedlings in the shade garden this spring. This tree is about 1/3 the size of the tree to the left both are over the edge of the garden. Anyone else experiencing a huge seed year for Eastern Redbud?


Now for the bad stuff Field Bindweed a morning glory invasive invaded our garden about 3 years ago, it came here in a load of top soil. I no longer buy top soil instead we get organic compost which heats up as it matures and the weeds die off, at least I hope.

 Today I dug up two 16 ft rows in the garden and hand picked this 4 gallon bucket of bind weed roots.

I found an interesting page on controlling Field Bindweed, you can till it up every two weeks for up to two years and 95% of it will die off, but your can't plant either.

 This photo was taken at eye level on one of Meg's Pea trellises.

Here are two tidbits on  Field Bindweed I got from the page linked above:

 Field bindweed can be spread by seed, root fragments, farm implements, infested soil adhering to the roots of nursery stock, root growth from infested areas, and by animals. Field bindweed has a deep root system that competes with crop plants for water and nutrients. Vines climb on plants and shade crops, cause lodging of small grains, and make harvesting difficult by clogging machinery. Dense field bindweed infestations may reduce crop yields by 50 to 60 percent. Land infested with field bindweed is reduced in value.

Field bindweed can develop extensive above and below ground growth soon after germination. A single plant six months after germination produced 197 vertical roots, each at least 4 feet long for a total of 788 feet, while growing in a large container. Plants had 34 horizontal underground roots coming from the tap root, which averaged 4 feet in length and gave the plant 136 additional feet of growth. These 34 roots produced 141 new shoots which established as individual plants. 

So for the record our weed problems in the garden here are pretty intense. We have field bindweed, Japanese bamboo grass, acorns(oaks), redbuds, mimosa, pokeweed and partridge pea just to name a few. 

Just so you know if the stalks of Swamp Sunflower touch the ground, they will take root! The Obedient plants are about a foot tall, those Swamp Sunflower stalks are 12 foot long.

 Here are some seeds to get excited about my first camellia seeds, I found two pods about the diameter of a dime on my Camellia sasanqua 'Tsumaorigasa'. Each pod had two seeds as shown above. Looked up how to plant and them and planted them the easy way by poked them in the ground and I placed a small stake to mark them. I read each seed will produce an hybrid camellia bush, it could be years before we see any blooms.

Our 12 year old toadlily is going strong. I liked this photo taken this morning and wanted to share it. Note: they do not show like this all day in the garden you have to get the light right.

 

We are down to 3 cyclamen flowers right now. I think at one point we had close to 15 blooming at one time. I found some cyclamen corms at Southern States the other day one of the corms had a small bloom poking out of the bag! 

Cyclamen if you turn it up to look at it from the bottom up! 

I also planted in the garden today. Planted garlic, red onions, white onions, rape, mustard and lettuce.