My brother lives in a fairly densely populated area in Yorktown , VA...NONE of his neighbors complain when he occasionally goes out in the back acre and shoots them dead as they contemplate which of his azaleas and daylily plants to decimate...ALL of the neighbors have many venison recipes that they get to use yearly.

I couldn't get myself to kill them, but I eat Venison quite happily. We have friends who hunt our Pennsy place and share the Venison with us! No complaints on my part.

I started up another walk-about thread for 2016, it just doesn't seem correct to me to post Snowdrops along the local river and similar as "other stuff we grow". Please, feel free to add your walks about the neighborhood.

I've been outside most of the afternoon and all evening pulling thousands of golden rain tree seedlings out of my flower beds. It is not difficult but there are so many of them. I'll be happy when this MG
garden tour is over.

Jim

And peacocks are just over-sized pheasants. Fire up the barbee!

OMG...you eat pea fowl????

I have put it off as long as I could. Out to the OPP to update pictures of all my mounted staghorns. I have been remiss in not keeping up with this. A necessary evil if I am going to maintain my website.

Can't wait to see them, Ken. My huge staghorn in the big oak tree has put up amazing new growth this winter. I've got to get out the real camera with the telephoto to get a decent picture of it.

The only ones I can allow to grow large are two rare ones and one that was rarely seen for sell when I purchased her five years ago, but now is more often found. I don't know what I will do with them now that they have grown large. They are more slow-growing than the bifurcatum (thank goodness) and won't get gigantic like the bifurcatum, but they are now getting pretty doggone large considering they have to be grown indoors during the fall and winter months. I have the P. Mickey's Rainbow and Mauna Loa which are really rare ones. Though I purchased the "French/Silver Staghorn", P. veitchii 'lemoinei' at the same time, I see it more readily for sale now.

By the way, Elaine, I no longer purchase or grow the "standard" P. bifurcatum. I now only purchase and sell the P. bifurcatum 'Netherlands'. This sub-variety grows more slowly and doesn't get as large as the standard. In my opinion, the 'Netherlands' has nicer shaped fronds.

SarasotaPatty said:OMG...you eat pea fowl????

No, I'm a vegetarian.

Ken, you've mentioned some unknown, to me, staghorns. Definitely going to have to do some research. I know what my evening reading will be tonight.

Alice, as you probably know, I grow a lot of tropical plants. In my opinion, few plants make better houseplants. There fronds are so different, so striking, that they easily become a focal point that draws attention. I wish they would flower - what a bonus that would be. Alas, these plants are so old in the pecking order that they actually precede flowering plants by about 200 million years. That's why they reproduce via spores rather than via seeds. Ferns were on the earth over 100 million years before the dinosaurs were roaming. You'll find some interesting reading about this family of plants.

I once grew an enormous bifurcatum but it was so long ago I don't even remember what happened to it.

How can you lose a 50 lb. plant, Alice?

Mine was huge, we didn't have a place sturdy enough to hang it and we made a number of long distance moves in those days. The last time we had a GH for the really big plants was in 1983. I usually donate my plants to charity plant sales when I move and I suspect someone picked up a really nice Staghorn that year. I don't remember having it after that. Strange but I do remember buying it at a nursery outside Orlando in 1971, Phil had a meeting down there and Disney World had just opened so we took our little boy to see Mickey, second son was not born yet. I also bought a Vanilla planifolia that day but I knew little about caring for needy tropical plants in those days. Heck, I am still learning.

We all are still learning, Alice.

I fully understand about dealing with gigantic stags. I had one when I lived on the Mississippi Gulf Coast that was mounted on a plank of 3/4" plywood that was 3x4'. She got so big and heavy that I had to use block and tackle to hoist her up under a tree. She had to weigh over 100 lbs. and it took two men to get her moved in and out (we got freezes even being on the Gulf). Finally I had to divide her and ended up with eight still large staghorns.

Here's how we do it in Florida for those huge staghorns....

Same here - the new fronds going straight up are 30in. long! This guy is very happy about the short, warm, rainy winter we've had.

Ah, the advantages of living in a sub-tropical climate. That fourth picture looks just like the huge stag that was divided by eight and weighed in at over 100 lbs.

Yikes, talk about monsters, I can only imagine what they look like on a stormy night. I love that Sarasota has the heavy spanish moss like we do here. It seems to be so skimpy in a lot of places in both GA and FL these days.