Polish plantlife and similar flora where you live.

PF my garden, garden PF.

Photos
1. Cherries,
2. apples,
3. Blackcurrant, totem pole, peach tree. I have to move these, as you can see the peach tree has grown too tall and now is weak because of lack of sunlight and the blackcurrant is not doing to well either.

4. My grapes, i planted this last Spring, it was an off cut of someone else's, and those little beady things, I am told are grapes.

Yes, this could be the worlds most boring thread I will try to put some boobs in it every now and again to liven it up :)

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Cherry (Prunus spp.) - Do pigeons eat all the cherries before they're ripe. This can be a common occurence when there are pigeons around. Other birds eat them but are usually a little more patient. The only real answer is strategically placed netting. The Romans actually deliberately caught birds for food using the Mountain Ash tree (Sorbus aucuparia). Aucuparia actually means bird catcher.

Apple (Malus domestica) - Remember to pick off the underdeveloped apples at the end of the season or they stay on the tree and can go rock hard and even host pests and diseases. The tree will produce more fruit if you do this. Another good idea, if your apples are too small, pick about half of them off long before they are ripe. The remaining apples can then grow bigger as there is more water and energy available to them. Very small apples are pretty much useless, and it's better to have a few larger apples than lots of small ones.

The stuff in the third picture, I don't know about. The totem pole looks like a conifer that may very well be dead. Dead trees can still harbour wildlife, so I'd be inclined to leave it alone and shift operations elsewhere. An old peach that seems to be past it's use by date should actually be removed. It too will harbour wildlife, but not always the kind of wildlife you want - pests and diseases may be lurking there. The easiest thing to do is get a new tree and plant it somewhere else.

The final picture is of a vine. As with the apple, it may be a good idea to thin out the grapes when they are still small. Remove a load of bunches so that the others can grow more instead. It should be in as warm and sunny a position as possible. If this means moving it, then wait until winter, then dig it up and move it. Winter is also the time to remove branches - cut it back to a manageable size. It flowers on the current year's growth, so don't worry about cutting too much off. To prevent damage by heavy bunches of grapes weighing the branches down, make sure it has something to grow on, either wires or a trellis. You will notice how it grows tendrils that wrap around anything available to support itself.

So some of the crucial things to think about are: members of the rose family (roses, apples, pears, plums, peaches) don't like to grow in the same spot as another member of the rose family has recently grown in.

Cutting back for most deciduous plants should be done in the winter. For fruit trees, cutting too much can result in a year without flowers or fruit. Ornamental plants are usually better cut back at the end of flowering.

I'm sure there is more worth mentioning, but I'm off now to have a game of Scrabble. I look forward to more plants and more pictures.

No, ah a few little nice birds have a nibble as you said but most come out beautifully. And there are many cherries on both trees.

They are delicious sweet cherries, I can't eat the sour cherries, way too sour for me.


i love it, i want to know this type stuff too, it gives a much better appreciation of it all, a historic perspective.


I will do, thanks.


One of the problems is that the two apple trees produce too many big juicy apples, making it too heavy.
I had to tie it to another tree last year to keep it up, i will cut the branches this year to stop it from toppling over.

i bought some tree antiseptic, so the wounds don't go septic.
The local kids help and i give it to people to make apple jam, yum yum!.


I left the end of the garden completely wild for the fairies (What i understand to be wild life :), it used to be chest high grass, now it is nettles.


Sorry the photo doesn't show it well enough.
It is a very young, very tall peach tree, a few years away from having fruit.
I need to clip it down and move it into the sun, said someone else and it makes sence.


Interesting, this is the first time this off cut will (hopefully) produce grapes, but the rest of it was growing rapidly.
I have put up a Trellis for it to grow up, crawling plants need something to grow on, right?.
Well it looks a lot happier, even since yesterday.


Roses are linked to them? wow, How come the rest produce fruit?.


what about evergreen trees?. I have to cut about 40 thin, too tall, evergreen trees, that's why I bought the tree antiseptic.


Ah, I need to cut one of the apple trees, it is way too heavy when the apples are ripe.
What do you suggest?, I was thinking of putting in a crutch but to be careful not to cut into it.

Thank you very much Osiol, i will add to this and try to describe conditions a bit better. great!.

pawian, are you growing oranges? in Poland? how do they taste?.

I don,t think its a boring thread at all , well not for those of us with gardens we care about....

I too have apple trees , five of them actually , that produce enough apples to feed the whole village.. I must get organised this year to remove all the apples and store them properly so i can eat them through the winter and find a way to distribute the rest to people that don,t have any...

I also have a pear tree , three black cherry trees , and like you Sean a grape vine , a huge thing that i need to move as the barn its attatched to is falling down , i did wonder when was the best time to move it....

I am not much of a garden expert , but i love being in the garden and doing stuff , mostly with the help of various garden books...

Does anyone know the Polish name for the budlia bush , as i would like a few of them to attract butterflies to the garden....

garden? I have got some forest ....

Ah , a natural garden , thats great...

So no boobs? ha ha ha thanks :)


Black cherries?, what's the difference in taste?.

I am showing my true colours now, i am a city boy.
I want to learn, this is my first attempt and so far so good.
Well I did live in the country for a bit but my knowlege is lacking.


Any simple straightforward books for dummies you could recommend would be appreciated.


Do you know a good way to cut evergreen trees about 2 metres lower?.
The trees trunks are too slim for their height, they have been in competition for too long.
Last winter the heavy snow, made a lot of them sag and I had to cut them because they were hanging on the power cable.

They are in a line along my garden, about 40 of them, next to the forest that goes on for miles and miles, as does wildrovers, he mentioned it before, i think?.

But any plants you could tell us about would be appreciated :)
And mushrooms, tell us about the mushrooms, when time comes.

I am happy youz are into this:)

Roses do produce fruit, commonly called rosehips. They contain a lot of vitamin C, but I think that unprepared, they're inedible. I have tried syrup made from rosehips and it was delicious.

Rosaceae (Rose family):
Prunus: cherry, peach, plum, almond (wiśnia, brzoskwinia, śliwa, drzewo migdałowe)
Malus: apple (jabłoń)
Pyrus: pear (grusza)
Rosa: rose (róża)

In Poland and the UK (and generally in this part of the world), there are native cherries, native crab apples and native roses. There may be pears native to Poland, but the fruiting species and varieties all originate from other parts of the world.

Another plant family with a lot of edible species as well as ornamental garden plants, is the carrot family, Apiaceae, also known as Umbelliferae or umbellifers. This includes carrot, parsley, celery, beetroot, turnip, swede, caraway and others. The last time I cooked barszcz, I noticed that almost everything I put in it was a member of this family.


My guess is that Buddleia in Polish is Buddleja. The j-spelling is also used in English nowadays.

If nobody asks me about anything specific, in my next post I will talk about some of the plants that are native to Poland.

I think black cherries are sweeter than the red ones , i prefer the black ones myself , they taste just like the ones in a black cherry yoghurt , i try to eat as many as i can before the birds get all the best ones...

The gardening books i have are..... Peter seabrooks book of the garden.. The complete book of successful gardening by David carr and Hg witham fogg ( theres a name ) and .. Gardening for everyone by Emma callery...

I too am a townie , so i am having to learn the country life as i go along , sometimes the hard way....

The WWF has a system of ecoregions to describe the different arrangements of flora and fauna around the world. Poland has a foot in the Central European Mixed Forests (the south of the country, with similar highland habitats as in Austria, Czech and Slovakia and so on), and another foot in the Baltic Mixed Forests of Denmark, Germany and southern Sweden. Just touching Poland is the much more evocative Sarmatic Mixed Forest that stretches from the Baltic states and eastern Scandinavia and deep into European Russia, populated by bison, bears and fir trees.

In all of these manmade divisions of the natural world, the oak tree is an important feature. More precisely, the pedunculate oak, Quercus robur. Dąb szypułkowy. Also important are beech / buk / Fagus sylvatica, hornbeam / grab / Carpinus betulus and birch / brzoza / Betula pendula.

Much of the vast stretches of Scots Pine / sosna / Pinus sylvestris are an artificial addition to the landscape. It is a native tree as it is in the British Isles, but similarly to there, it was planted in huge numbers where naturally the dominant tree species would be oak. This coniferous plantation doesn't support the same diversity of wildlife as the native woodland would, although many of the ground layer plants continue to live on under a different tree canopy.

Another important feature I had always noticed in the Polish countryside is the vast number of small orchards. Poland seems to grow enough apples to supply the world (or perhaps they are more often used as juice to take the edge off shot after shot of Polish vodka). These orchards, along with small fields divided by hedgerows must play a vital part in Poland's wildlife. I want pictures!

I'm sure we have people here living in all corners of the country. When people say they don't so much have garden than forest, I would like to know what kind of forest. Whether you know what the plants are or not, I want pictures!


I wonder if Polish garden experts have such bizarre names as Bob Flowerdew, Bunny Guinness, Gay Search and so on.

Ha , type that into your computer....i bet you don,t get a gardener...!

What do you want to achieve cutting trees lower?
The best way to make a clear space for power cable is cut down trees - making clearing !


If you are sure of it.....it means trees are growing too close - you need to make a space for them cutting down some of the trees.


haw(głóg) - produces fruit rich in the vitamin C , eatable fresh, better in jar with sugar.
reed - during spring and summer eatable inside of the stem - white soft
stuff -fresh!
mulberry - not native Polish but grows here and there .....
larch - beautiful tree, great wood for wooden building - very resistant !


Autumn is the time for mushrooms but if you don't know about mushrooms ....don't try with a book .....


Why??????


not really, the real forest is at its best during cold winter.

Agreed....take a local expert with you , many of the deadly mushrooms look very similar to ones you can eat if not 100% sure for gods sake don,t eat em...

I have found that an expert is anyone Polish over the age of seven , it seems that even town dwellers know all about mushrooms , they are way ahead of us Brits on that score....

I wouldn't been so sure, there were cases that overconfident town dwellers had a one mushroom too many.....if you catch my drift ....!?

Fact, for Brits there is only one place to get mushrooms - shop ...

I live 20 miles from Cherry Valley. Every summer I pick cherries from their local orchards. Only one problem... more cherries seem to end up in my mouth, instead of in the cherry picking can, lol. I usually end up going home with a stomach ache by the end of the day. I still can't wait until the cherries are ripe next month.

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A rose by any other name would smell as sweet!.


In future, could you post a few photos to give us a better idea, please. I am google imaging these now.


And the willow is hugely popular here also.
They are important trees in folklore in Ireland.
Also they have many different medicinal properties which is similar to aspirin, if you know what your doing.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willow


Ok The first two photos will be of some of the forest around here. Hhhmm, i am just after checking and I am surprised that I don't have more of the forest in Autumn, the colours are glorious.


There are lots of orchards between Radom and Warsaw and around Lublin.
Around here there is mainly forest and mountains, with a mix of coniferous and deciduous.
There is no heavy farming but smaller holiday huts and some allotments here. Maybe that is why there are so few crows and pigeons, so they don't eat up all the cherries?.


Yes, they form the boarder of my plot.
I had tree surgeons around, they said it needed to be done.


Could you post photos of these,please.


I am not going to pick mushrooms without an experienced mushroom picker, which a lot of adults here are:)


Because I am interested in this and it is good when people of similar interest discuss a subject.


Why do you think that Ironside?.


Yeah :)
Those cherries look delicious :)

Ok, so the last two photos are of the common Broad-leaved Dock and the last one is of nettles.
I put these two together because it seems they always grow together, is there a symbiotic relationship between them?.
When I am stung by the nettles I rub the juices of the dock leaf to neutralise it.
I am going to get a recipe for nettle soup, just to try it, full of iron apparently.
Nettles Medicinal uses and food (Wiki)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stinging_nettle#Medicinal_uses

cool :)

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Which one do you recommend the most?.

Here are some plants that I know nothing about, except the fist one, yesterday I was told it is used as a tranquillizer. Looks like a daisy flower.

The last two photos are of the same flowering plant, just photographed it too late this year.

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Here goes....hopefully a forest pic...

DAM and blast...its too big...i shall have to chop a whole lot of trees down now....!

Yes, Wildrover do give us a glimpse of your little forest and post it on Aphrodisiac's picture contest as well. To all gardener's: I've found that the love of nature and experimentation is the best guide. Surround yourself with what you love. If it doesn't work; try another area. Typically, what grows best, is already established. I have a 1910 home with no landscaping... except, one lilac tree. My guide is what I like and experiment. My other home, I'm not going to develop.. It looks like a park and has a beautiful view of water and mountains. Despite, living in the city, I live in the last place to have space. So, enjoy your reprieve and space...

I am looking to get myself some plants for the flat when i move over. Do the flower stall folks sell pot plants and seeds and stuff or do I need to find somewhere else. And if so, what is a flower shop called? And what would you all reccommend for nice house plants, preferably fragranced and easy to care for :)

They ought to but it depends.


You'll see "Kwiaty" and a load of plants in the windows, easy to spot.
I think flower shops are much more popular here than in Ireland.

Potted flowers and seeds are easy to come by though.
These flowers, hiacynt po Polsku, are great for the flat, they come in many colours and give a nice fresh smell.


Come on WildRover, keep on trying :)

We have lots of the cherry and apple blossom trees where I live, we also have a little forrest and huge park which is always the best in Spring and early summer...I'll have to get in there and take some photos to add, maybe take a few snap shots of my parents garden, its in full bloom at the moment..

Check out this guys web page, he is fab.

channel4.com/food/recipes/chefs/hugh-fearnley-whittingstall/nettle-tagliatelle-recipe_p_1.html

I would love to see some pictures of other PF gardens and in Poland. So don't tease- do take a few pictures. When my father in-law came to visit in the US, two summer's in a row, he really loved to garden. He took back to Poland several seed packs of perrenials and vegetables to plant. I will see how his garden is going?

Nettle Tagliatelle recipe, wow, thanks, I will.
That sounds a lot nicer than soup.

I am curious, why this beauty around you could not manage to shape your personality in a positive way.

What about yourself me old flower? do you garden much?.

I want to have a garden very much and buy a small land in Black Sea coast close to İstanbul.

I and my wife are planning to built a house on it and have a beautiful garden with trees and flowers when we are retired.

I hear it is very beautiful there :)


Sounds nice, a little piece of paradise.

Have you any house plants or know anything about plants?.
I know next to nothing, so any information would be appreciated.

This is my friend working with the Bees. In the background you can see various vegetables.

I'll post some images of my plot tomorrow.

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Back garden a month or so past.

Cherry (culinary) in full bloom with Tulips. Various climbers on wire (Grape, honeysuckle and Clematis)

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