Guest Post: In the Garden with Nathan, Part Three

Here are Parts One and Two!


So instead of a single plant photo, today I thought I would send you a plant combo that I really like. The leafy plants in the front are Melianthus major and the small trees that are just coming out of dormancy in the rear are Manihot esculenta, aka Cassava. The Melianthus will grow to form a nice tropical looking hedge between our neighbor and the Manihot will grow a little taller adding a different texture and height. I really like both of these plants and have them all over, but together I like them even more. My large Melianthus by the sidewalk has become impregnated so I am looking forward to collecting lots of seed from it.  The Manihots were similarily free in that the mother tree that I bought several years ago seeded and I found little babies all over the front yard, so I dug them all up, pampered them through the winter to give them a robust head-start and am now planting them in the ground. Pretty fun stuff.

This is one of my succulent propagation areas on the back deck. It's more shaded back here which allows the soil to stay moister and the cuttings to put out roots easier. I'll usually keep those cuttings back here for a couple of months so that they can get a robust root system going and then move them out into a sunnier place so that they can really start growing. I did up these cuttings last weekend. They should be overfilling their pots by mid summer. I'll start some more seeds on some other plants next weekend and place them next to these guys.