No. I think @stephane_rave will know what that is, it looks like a nitrogenfixer to me though… Which i like. Because i like to grow trees that i can chop and drop to féed mycélium and soil life while providing shade to keep the soil moist without having to drag plant material about.
I think it’s rather depressing écologists keep pushing this narrative that i’m destroying nature by promoting soilbuilding on a very small part of the world i am allowed to grow plants on. I promote great diversity have water standing everywhere leave wasps in my hoophouse, build things for solitary bees. Etc,etc.
We need to plant trees if we want to take up CO2 like crazy. We need to plant forêsts for rain, against soil érosion, for shade, to lower températures, to have fruit, nuts, birds, wildlife. But when you do…
Hohoho not those trees, they bring nitrogen destroying this rare species. Why can’t écologists propagate thèse rare species and spread them in all places which are degraded they can buy up for cheap with all thèse governement funds and public money funds they get!
Having said all that. Stephane said Robinia is a thirsty tree. Guess it ain’t right for you.
But if Mimosa grows, if you can propagate it from rootcuttings and use it as chop and drop shrub here and there, why not?
Cuttings grow in there. There’s a heatcable with sensor promoting growth. North side of house…
Did you look into shrubs like goumi? Goji? Sea berry
Anyway. Do you know PFAF? Plants for a future…
They sell books and have a great website.
Plants for your food forest is a good source.
But it’s UK based. I agree with Stéphane looking south of you is clever. Maybe hé knows where to buy all those trees.
I only know these guys.
I got spiky weeds all over the garden. I want spiky weeds or other types of plants. A tree is a tree, I can always chop it down down the road. It can mess with the subsoil? No idea, probably. This plot was tilled annually, I do not think there is much life in it.
Very tempting all of those varieties. I think all my budget will go towards a water well and a pump for irrigation.
I planted a lot of fig, loquat (Eriobotrya japonica) and hibiscus cuttings. I plan to stake more on the ground in the upcoming weeks.
Maybe I can plant cuttings from the olive trees too? Maybe avocado, pear, apple or almond right?
Sounds like you need some low water, high tonnage chop annuals to get the soil jump started. I’m not familiar with majority of the plants talked about. If it was here I’d want something like sorghum sudan or millet. Low water needs. Maximum growth of biomass to put back on the soil to get the soil going again. Sorghum sudan is good for multiple cuttings/grazings too. I don’t know what plants would be best for your context.
I’m going to do similar at my place. Syntropic methods are very interesting. It’ll be fun to follow along with you and see this grow!
Yeah i don’t oreder,order,order either. I try to get as much for free as i can anyway. Especially from what’s around and what my friends/clients and collegues have in their garden. Boy if i wouldn’t be talking to people about trees like ALL the time, nothing would happen.
Two weeks ago i was out with a client getting grafts at a collegue 20 km on with a client/beekeeper who knows another beekeeper who gives crafting courses. The collegue knew of a tree that has late apples, like at christmas they’re red and hanging in the tree. The farmer was there and we had an hour talk about everything from hedges to grafting to the climate changing to subsidies and how expensive everything becomes and he going to get retirement and how lucky he is his son takes over. He ended up showing us lots of trees we took grafts from. Coming week we’ll be visiting the grafting beekeeper who’s got rootstock.
I mean, the grafts were free, the diesel not, the time was well spent, the colleague got inspired to plant a hectare of trees coming autumn before he retires too.
I’m telling you because as apples and fruit cost an arm and a leg at the moment people are very keen to have their own fruit on the go. If you know how to do this bull shit it will be very handy skill to sell trees in years coming. Demand will rise dramatically.
Prices of oil and gas are never coming down anymore, the third world is industrializing, we’ll have to share and producers are sick of the wests wars and are teaming up through BRICS. a third of farmers seem to retire in 5 years in France, youth want to be busy with computers and live in the city. Governments are at war with farmers worldwide to punish these evil polluters that grow our food. ETc,etc…
Back to topic. Many people have like one plant that does great at their farm in their garden, one has a good chance with a fig, the other a self fertilizing kiw anoother one a yard full of old pear races… I try to duplicate these, vegetative or through seeds if their viable. And collect them and when i’ve cracked the code of that variety i keep doing it. Make no mistake. EVERY VARIETY IS DIFFERENT. to multiply them you have to break the code of that variety.
The internet is full of people who read up on species and take one example they find with somebody telling very sure THEY KNOW HOW TO DO IT and there is no other way. Those people Richard, they are EVIL people, because they ignore the first rule of Hugo. Every variety is different. ( i try to make joke). They show that on a video how easy it is and then the comments is full of people who say they’re going to do it. 1% do and most fail.
Every variety is different… No every plant is different, every soil type is different, every climate is different, every humidity level is different, the compost yoou buy this year is different the next, it depends on moon and season, the water is different, you are different from this year to the other, your knife, bacteria and diseases etc.
The conclusion at the propagation forum at permies was, there are people who take many cuttings and there are people who don’t. Because you’ve got to try how it works for YOU with the plant you have.
It’s amazing how easy i propagate rosemary from cuttings and for some people in USA it’s sheer impossible it seems.
Here’s my passive tree propagation station. Very boring now. Full of seeds, soil and seeds sucking up water, cuttings getting ready. It was a mad fruit year.
often the messages conveyed on plants are simplified to the extreme. I will do my best to explain in a not too long way:
@Hugo of course if you plant 2 Robinia on cultivated land you will not destroy the planet, this will even have a positive impact on biodiversity through diversification. But planting 1 ha becomes bad for the local fauna and flora ditto for Paulownia, Mimosa…
The major risk in making short rotation coppice in Robinia is that you promote the growth of the root system and dredging in a few years it will become unmanageable you will be invaded. You will not have a problem with Cercis, Genista… others who also fix the nitrogen.
Yes I agree that ecologists are too often in france people who say ‘we must not do this’ without giving another solution. I consider myself a bit radical environmentalist sometimes but always I try to propose an alternative what I do there.
For rare plants they are precisely rare because living in a very particular environment, often also rare and fragile. You can’t have rare plants everywhere, when I see the energy deployed to bring back wild orchids on my land it’s quite complex but we manage with patience (never fertilize the land, and impoverish it to the maximum by the export of grass cuts). It is much easier to grow a rare plant from Asia in a garden here, than in his country. Often the plant has become scarce because of climate change, if here there is more rain will be simpler for it.
For forests everywhere no this is not a good idea. Biodiversity is proportional to the area occupied by biome interfaces. A biome is an environment (forest, river, meadow…) biodiversity everywhere in the world is maximum on the periphery of these spaces (banks of a river, coast of an ocean, edge of a forest…). If you want to increase biodiversity, you have to increase the surfaces of these interfaces between environments. The hedge is very good as a biodiversity support because it is a kind of linear edge (forest/ meadow interface) and often it is long so it is a large interface area. It more it connects biomes so it is an ecological corridor (a highway for biodiversity).
Forests are the best solution in the world to capture CO2 when they are healthy otherwise as today in water stress they accelerate warming by releasing more CO2 than they absorb.
That is why we really have to be proud of the work of the specialists who are involved in assisted tree migration.
If Richard plant trees that are in constant stress you will have bad results but especially not be able to help the planet by entering a destructive spiral. On the contrary, if you start with more resilient things that anticipate climate change, you will succeed in starting again a virtuous circle with more humus, water, resilient plants…
If we go back to tree genetics, it has a limit. A Quercus robur with the best genetics from the south of France, will never be as perfermant in the dry as any Quercus ilex since nature has created this other species adapted to a drier environment. On the other hand combining the 2 is very good, if you take a Quercus ilex ssp rotundifolia from the foothills of the Atlas in Morocco, this tree can live with 30mm of rain only per year!
@Richard, the strategy of trying 1000 things to see what grows is an option… but planting trees that have proven themselves in your latitudes with of warm country food crops millet crops, sorghum … adapted to the dry will certainly be faster and less disappointing given the time invested. I allow myself to give you this feedback because I have already worked on large projects in Tripoli in Libya (tripoli green belt) where we left the desert that we transformed into a park of 700 hectares without irrigation.
In the list I give you there are things that pick up nitrogene, other persistent ones that make the most of winter water…
The simplest and cheapest way to get these plants is to collect seeds. For this I can only encourage you to visit the botanical gardens of your country and elsewhere in the fall. Even without knowledge you will often have the labels with the names of the trees you are looking for.
I can advise you as much as I know, in Spain where I sometimes pick up things: Iturraran Botanical Garden is located in the heart of the Pagoeta Natural Park near San Sebastian (north Spain) You will see thousands of species from all over the world! a paradise that is only possible because on a relief with a lot of rain from the ocean and no frost.
Otherwise I also get my supplies from these establishments:
also tries to get into circles of passion like GTS but version trees they will make you progress a lot. Talk to nurserymen like those I told you, in Spain they must exist, flee the garden centers that are only sellers of plants but do not know their culture. Everything is exponential you will, start simple with things that have been proven and that we advised you, then little by little you will increase the number of species, progress in your knowledge…but beware plants are viral they will take control of your brain at a time and you will become addicted as I am lol
