Thursday, May 3, 2012

It came through this mild winter with a teensy bit of tip damage...it is now, literally, a small tree! Hundreds of blooms and green fruits. Impossible for me from seeds for years (they'd sprout by the HUNDREDS then refuse to grow.....incredibly tiny seeds and seedlings...did not matter what soil, nutrients, time of year they just sat there). Jim Porter got me this one Spring 2011 from the USF Plant Sale, about 4 feet tall in a 3 gallon pot. I buried it in a 7 gallon Water Wise Container Garden, drilled about 3 inches from the bottom on the sides using a 3/4" paddle bit. I'd love to layer some branches to sell to recoup gardening costs plus plant a second one here as I LOVE the berries that taste like a mix of watermelon and cotton candy. A few weeks ago I priced a small bag of sphagnum moss at Lowe's and walked out empty handed. I gathered a garbage bag full of fallen Spanish Moss and roasted it in full sun a couple weeks, one week inside the black plastic bag, another week out. I soaked a big blob of it in my south rain barrel that has live duckweed in it, and today took out a big blob, let it drain, and layered three branches. I scraped each branch in 3 places with a knife, dabbed on some rooting hormone powder, wrapped it with damp moss then wrapped that with a clear produce bag tied tight at each end with string from scavenged mini-blinds. If all goes well I'll see roots inside the clear plastic in 4-6 weeks, sever and pot each branch then do a bunch more

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/jamaica_cherry.html

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