Lina,

Great article! Lots of useful information. How about posting your AV websites here so we can check them out?

Your Buckeye is beautiful!

FYI- The 'Buckeye' series is named for the great state of Ohio-the Buckeye State.

Linda ...a proud Ohioan

This post was edited by whitelacey on Sat, Feb 22, 14 at 1:00

Linda
I never knew that!!! My Buckeye Colossal just bloomed for the first time. Its leaves formed a tight rosette, as Polina described above. The variegation is very slight, barely noticeable. I had not even realized it was variegated until you told me all Buckeyes are variegated. What is a "Buckeye," anyway?
Ohio is a great state! Good, hard-working people. Lots to recommend it.
Joanne

Joanne, buckeye is a North American tree or shrub related to the horse chestnut, with showy yellow, red, or white flowers. It's OH State tree, a symbol of OH state - look here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ohio_state_symbols. About variegation - keep your plant in place where is cooler temperature and less light (I keep them on the bottom shelf on the side, not under the light fixture), give them (plant with variegated leaves) less food. You'll see the difference in a while.

This post was edited by 1beautylover2012 on Sat, Feb 22, 14 at 3:04

Joanne,

Here's the Hort kicking in- Buckeye is the common name for the genus Aesculus. There are about 13-19 species included in the genus and as Lina says, there are shrubs and trees forms included in the genus. They are quite hardy here and are quite beautiful. The fruit, also called a buckeye, is a glossy reddish capsule about as big as a ping pong ball. The section of the seed that is attached to the capsule shows a large whitish scar-like the eye of a buck. Buckeyes are considered to bring good luck and some casinos here regularly hand them out to patrons!

Linda

Very interesting! Thank you for posting. I do wonder what type of manure she uses. I had the notion to add some and had difficulty finding anything that seemed suitable.

Back when I used soil (and had nicer plants), "cow manure" was part of the mix.

Diana in PA

Diana,

I use bagged cow manure for some of my plants. Back when I had horses I used that manure but only for outside plants.

Linda

I trying to find the bagged cow manure, but then read that it was primarily compost anyway. That is, of course, what I'm referring to. I'd love to know names, etc.

I had a barn full of old horse/sheep manure but sold it (whole place). We still have sheep manure here and my mom used that to great effect outdoors but my husband never bothered. Chicken manure is much stronger, BTW. I did take some of barn stuff up to a cemetery plot where the plants were doing poorly and the improvement was immense. (This is a bit off the AV topic. I don't think we want to try sterilizing it in the microwave!)

If I asked nicely, I could probably still get manure from the barn . Nobody seems to want it.

Back to the subject though. I once had Buckeye Butterflies and while it was pretty, I thought the foliage was kind of dull looking. It was well variegated so maybe a change in my mix would have helped.

Diana

HI
Thanks for the info on the meaning of Buckeye and the links.
J

Diana,

I know in the 'olden days' some people used chicken manure with great success for their violets. I don't know how you would sterilize it and what the amounts would be. It would be interesting to look into if you had access to chickens.
I'll check out my manure bag tomorrow and see if I can get you any info.

Linda

They are selling pelleted chicken manure. Actually the chickens from those big farms produce so much waste that they pay the farmers subsidies to use it as fertilizer. I was looking for the old Hoffman cow manure but it looks like it may not be much use.

I'm not thinking about raw chicken manure :). I have no idea what form the farmers use, although I could certainly find out in a flash since I know someone. They use weedkillers and inject fertilizers - very different than most imagine.

I do wonder if the soil would have made a difference in that Buckeye foliage though. My plants were growing well at the time. That one just looked dull to me.

Diana in PA

Fish emulsion works great for variagated plants. It stinks though!

As far as I remember - Pat Hancock has a special recipe for winning plants - it includes dehydrated cow manure, greensand, bone meal and something else including a local peat based soil mix she buys in OH stores. But after mixing she lets it rest for several months - so whatever ammonia it has - is evaporated.

Here is a link that might be useful: dehydrated cow manure

I have found several recipes from Pat Hancock. Either she has changed from time to time or she is like the cook who doesn't really give away her secrets :).

They are really quite different. Some use Promix and some don't. Probably some are older versions. The old dehydrated cow manure wasn't strong enough to hurt anything. I doubt there is ammonia in the pelleted stuff either (not like that fresh - whew!).

Diana

Diana,

Do you remember where you found the soil recipes? I did a search and didn't come up with much.

Linda

It's been awhile. I'll wait until I'm on the other computer and see if I saved any of them. I did find a place where she recommended fish fertilizer though.

I just tossed mine because it was so old and I've had some plastic bottles disintegrate. Can you imagine that one?

Diana

Pat Hancock probably shared her recipe in AVM may be 30 years ago. Polina is our best source.

I couldn't find the multiples now either. It was about 3 years ago and a lot of the web resources are gone.

Pat Hancock is probably just like the rest of us and has to adapt from time to time. I agree that Polina is the most current one - not arguing there.

Diana

If she's at our next meeting, I will see if I can some info.

Linda