DH asked me the other day if I could make money off of my houseplants by propagating them. I said, "OH Yeah, I could!" I just need a greenhouse to keep them during the winter months. I was thumbing through my Charley's Greenhouse catalog, and they have plant cloners, I can't afford any. They would eventually pay for themselves, I know, but right now we're kind of destitute. I then went to my hydroponics wish book. I found a hydroponics store in Paso, I still need to get there one of these days, but I know they exist, that's a plus.
I have been researching plant cloners pricing for some time now, going from this website to that. They are about as expensive as anything, some cost more than my car did. Anyway, I thought there has to be a way to make one. I made a protein skimmer for my salt water aquarium, how much harder could this one be? So I head on over to Google and ahve a looksee. Every site I found either wanted me to buy their plans, book, or setup or was a forum for illegal medicinals. Those guys sure know how to grow their plants! We gardeners should take a lesson from these closet growers, because they have some nice homemade hydroponics setups. I was impressed and scared by their ingenuity. Imagine what they could do if they tried to patent their setups, they would make a mint!
Back from the rabbit trail. I went to about 7 different cannabis fan sites to get plans for a homemade cloner. I just want to grow some Hoyas to sell, that's it. I know big government knows a lot more about me now than I do myself. They probably host those sited just so they can get IP addresses. The jaws are closing in on me, lol. I finally today found a tutorial which did not mention whether I needed male and female plants and how large of a bong to get. I'll take all the informative stuff I gleaned from the cannabis sites and this one and make myself a cloner. I'll let you know how it goes, and whether the feds come pounding on my door looking for pot. I'll even post pictures and a tutorial of my own.
This Bud's (Not) For You
International Plant Trading
After years of trading plants and seed via postal routes, I have finally considered trading internationally. Not to say I have never done it, well yes I have never done it legally. Out of ignorance I did send some cuttings over seas once. but now I am considering doing it legally. I know Australia is really stuffy about their flora and fauna coming in and out, that is why parrots are so expensive here and shot over there. I think importation should not be so hard to do that it means a depression or over flow on either side. Let's face it, cockatoos are pests and shot by farmers in Australia. Over here they are kept as pets. Why not allow the supply meet the demand? PETA and CITES have really gone overboard on the control of importing. However I am not shipping birds, but a few seeds to a fellow gardener in Australia, who I know beyond a doubt will not be planting them out in the wild, nor will they ever see the outside of a pot.
While on or side of the pond, many pelt bearing animals are being starved because there is no demand for the fur. They are over populating then maraud farms for their chickens and other livestock. I remember the bear we had in our back woods, he ate over $300 worth of chicken dinner before we could get the phone number from animal regs for the county trapper, it took two days for the trapper to finally catch the bear. He could not be relocated, so was killed a few feet from my back door. The poor thing had a broken jaw and was 150 pounds under weight. Now that is cruelty to let animals get that skinny, even wild animals. While I understand he had a broken jaw and couldn't hunt, Why was he somewhere where a car could hit him, because it would have taken a really hard impact to break a bear's jaw. He would have had to be looking for food.
What about the mountain lion in the creek? He is also skinny, so skinny that I won't let my children walk down there unless they are in a large group and with an adult. Or the one which was walking through San Luis Obispo, our county seat, a few months ago. It wasn't doing anything, just walking around, but it got some buck shot between the eyes for just trying to find some food. That is cruelty. Fur bearing animals are no longer hunted, and now are facing many diseases, like mange, and rabies. This is all done in the name of humane treatment of animals. It is ignorance pure and simple. These animals need to be put down if they are obvious not healthy. They need to be put down if their food supply isn't meeting the demands of the species. This is for the better of the whole species. We could always send the pelts to other countries which are going to be freezing come winter because they have lost their homes in earthquakes fires and tornados.
It's well known the smaller the area an animal lives in, eventually through the generations the animals get smaller. Look at Shetland ponies, and the pygmy elephants of Borneo. They probably got stranded on their islands and instead of starving, bred themselves into smaller animals. This is also true of animals in larger areas, they get bigger. Reptiles are an excellent example, they continue to grow all their life. I have a feeling that Noah only needed one kind of cat and one kind of dog to take along on his boat, selective breeding did the rest. In some cases it doesn't have to be generations. Look at gold fish, a gold fish in a bowl will always stay the size it can safely be in such a small space, but you put the fish in a large pond and it is the size of a nice koi in no time. It doesn't take a degree to figure this out.
We see the same kinds of adaptation in humans, fairer skinned people are from areas where there is less light, darker skinned people from more sunny and hot areas. The needs of the community was adapted in the genetics of the whole. A fair skinned person will either get darker or die of heat stroke in Africa, while a darker skinned person will turn pale in a more northern area. There is no difference in what makes us human. Who cares about skin color, though except maybe Darwin who said that black people were more primitive examples of humanity. This smacks as bigotry. But then he was trying miserably to prove a case he had no proof of, of which he later recanted. It is still being taught as fact, no longer a theory, but fact! We are all human and have been human since the beginning of the world, or at least six days from the beginning of the world, but that's another argument.
Anyway, off the rabbit trail. I am also trying to legally import some aloes from South Africa. Never mind that these seedlings have never been in habitat, nor their parents for that matter, I still need a book's worth of paperwork to import them and about $200 in fees. No wonder so many people say forget about the papers and send plants illegally anyway. It's not like I'm asking for the whole population of one kind of aloe. I just want a few plants. Each plant is going to end up costing me about $20 each, for seedlings no matter! I'll never be able to make that money back, unless I can find some super cheap, super good fertilizer which causes them to grow by leaps and bounds without causing mutations.
So I ask, is thinning of the population of one species beneficial to the colony as a whole? Yes it is! That is the only logical answer. PETA and CITES need to take a number in the line that gives out common sense and accommodate. That's all I have to say.
Aloe'v It!
The plant of the month was Aloe, and the slide show was on Namibian succulents, which include many of the mesmebs, Pachys, and many Aloes we see today. For all those who don't know their geography, Namibia is to the west and north of South Africa. It is a desert climate which has both winter and summer growing succulents.
When I arrived, having had my fill on the sorriest Burrito Supreme I had ever had, (note to self never eat at Taco Bell in SLO again) and after paying my Verizon bill, I was greeted with about 80 people sitting and nattering waiting for the big show. I got my free plant for my first visit, it was an Oreocereus. I was seconds away from getting a Mexican Fence Post! I then proceeded to the sales table and picked up a few gems.
Now the Aloes, I'm not sure of the names on any of them, I was sitting in the back and couldn't hear as well as I would have liked. I tend to be hard of hearing.I don't know why this picture is sideways, it was uploaded right side up. Anyway if you can turn your screen sideways, it is a picture of a pair of clumping aloes. The one in the back has a story, apparently it had rotted out and is not supposed to be a tree form aloe.
A nice variegate. Aloes tend to turn red while in the sun. I love the red toothy ones.
If any of you are aloe growers, you know that Kelly Griffin hybrids are about the best of the best and people would sell their first born to get one of the nicer ones. This is one of his newer hybrids. It also has a pup, I wonder if I can talk Nick into selling it to me. Probably not, but I can dream. The interesting thing I learned about KG hybrids are they tend to be crossings of winter and summer growing aloes, which means they may bloom twice a year. 
Well I hope you all enjoyed the show, I know I did.
