Zinnias, Johnny Appleseed and Clematis...........

My Martha Stewart zinnias from last year were short and had multiple little blooms on them as if they were designed to be a border plant.  The genetics did not hold as you can see this is a large bloom and it is on a tall stem now this year.  The hybrid breeding of the blooms lasted only one year.

I was watching a PBS special a few weeks back and they were talking about the guy Johnny Appleseed.  I don't know if his legend is well known around the world, but in our early days of this country he traveled throughout our country planting apple trees.

First he took the seeds from  apples and planted them to get tree sprouts.  Genetically, no apple seed will reproduce the parent tree.  In fact the apple seeds from apples will produce many different kinds of apples, all of them inferior apples.  The apples are generally sour.  Johnny Appleseed was praised in our history books as doing such a good deed for our country by creating orchards everywhere with his self grown trees.  It was stated that he actually traveled into unsettled areas and stayed for a few seasons to get things established then moved on to other areas.

The show stated that all of his apples were bad, sour and were not really fit to be eaten.  He instead is credited for getting the nation drunk, as most all of the apples went into hard cider by the early settlers and it created a lot of problems in the country with too much drink.

On a rare occasion one seed can put out a good apple.  For example the Red Delicious apple was discovered in Winterset, Iowa many years ago.  When you take a branch sprout from the tree and graft it onto another base apple tree you can get another Red Delicious apple.  There is a concrete tree in Winterset honoring that first tree.

I know you are wondering were this PBS fanatic is going with this but I am headed to another thing I learned on a garden show a few weeks back.  The clematis plant puts out seed in the fall.  If you collect the seed, dry it for a couple of weeks, then store it in a paper envelope over the winter, you may plant those seeds in the spring to grow new clematis.   The garden show then explained that the chances of getting the same color of plant as the parent plant are slim to none.  You should get a large variety of colors of clematis plants.  I think that would be a fun experiment for us to try. 

Heat headaches and muscle aches from lifting and mowing continue to plague me but I am going to make it.  I rest on Sunday and that does mean rest.  It is suppose to cool down to the 80's and I can foresee a trip to the Iowa State Fair coming soon.     Thanks for stopping by...........

A footnote to boot, if you ever see me spell clematis with a y, it is because I knew this couple who's last name was Clymer.  Clymatis no, clematis  yes........