North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Ginda Fisher <list@ginda.us>]

On May 24, 2008, at 7:03 AM, Alan Haigh wrote:

> How is it that the subject of poke-weed, a definite non-fruit, has  
> excited members to such numerous response and there was not a  
> single reply to my question about Asian pear frost hardiness?  I  
> know a lot of you grow this fruit and I'm wondering if any of you  
> has some ballpark figure for its' relative spring frost hardiness.

My guess is that no one has a good answer for you.  I often get no  
replies to a very specific question, and I've noticed the same when  
others ask specific questions.

Whereas lots of posters have experience (one way or another) with  
poke weed.  Personally, I find it a scary-looking weed and remove it  
when I find it.  Then I wash my hands.

Except for my red currants, most of the garden is looking good this  
spring.  All of my spring apple grafts took.  This year I tied the  
twigs in place with grafting rubber (similar to a cut rubber band,  
came in a kit with a knife and some grafting compound that I bought  
when I first tried grafting.) and then covered them with a little  
parafilm.

I've tried using nothing but parafilm in the past, and gotten very  
poor success.  It doesn't hold twigs firmly enough, I think.  I had  
poor success with T-budding, too, but have no guess at my problem  
there.  I've had decent success with other stuff to cover the graft  
when I tied the twigs with rubbers, but I've never used anything else  
that was as easy to handle and as successful as the parafilm.  I find  
wax and grafting compounds very hard to handle, and I've had poor  
success with masking tape and similar.  Probably the next best thing  
I tried was strips of stretchy plastic bags.  The parafilm wasn't  
cheap, but the amount I bought will probably last the rest of my  
life, so I expect I'll keep using it.

Ginda