Hello Everyone, I am an amateur gardener primarily interested in trees and butterfly gardening - plus a bit of everything else. Hurricane Gustav knocked down just about every tree in my yard. Thirteen big trees (70-80 feet) and several smaller ones. Afterwards, we cut down the survivors as we feared a repeat. The ones we cut down were all pins, as were the majority that fell. Now, I am slowly replanting trees. I like usual trees - gingkoes, eucalyptus, fruit trees etc. I'm 38yo and in Baton Rouge, La USA. My main hobbies are reading history, reading fantasy, reading anthropology/sociology and even reading a bit of politics. I also enjoy target shooting. This is where you take your expensive firearms and shoot up inexpensive paper just to see who is better! I enjoy this hobby quite a bit so if you do too, please drop me a line. I love CZ firearms most of all, but own a range of other types. I am currently without a shotgun and will be remedying this soon. When I can, I like to canoe in a kayak - this DOES make sense and I suspect that boaters not into motors will know what I mean. South Louisiana is ideal for this activity. Nice to have met you. Jeremy
Hi Panoply and a hearty welcome to the GardenStew community! You have quite a varied list of hobbies, very nice Hope we can make your visits here even more informative.
Jeremy it's great to have you here with us at GardenStew. A warm welcome to you from Scotland. My eldest son loves to kayak too and has done a lot of paddling for charity over here. He's also done some sea kayaking in the waters around the Isle of Skye.
WOW! Thank you all! It was very kind of you all to write. I've a Yankee (no offense), a Malay, an Irishman and a Scottish woman. Very international! KK Ng, and I thought that WE had bad heat and humidity! I bet you'd find our summers a pleasantly cool change! Eileen, ask your son what canoeing in a kayak means. It is basically taking a kayak and doing what you would normally do in a canoe! No whitewater for me, thanks! A kayak draws much less water, has less freeboard and can turn on dime - very handy in flooded cypress swamps where you are basically kayaking in a forest. Thanks Again, Pano PS: Happy Mardi Gras!!! PPS: Drawing water = it needs less water to float and freeboard = you are MUCH closer to the water. A few inches! I'll never forget the time I saw an alligator, saw him sink down and, thinking he'd swum off, paddled over where he sank (I had to go that way). He had only sunk to the (shallow bottom)! He took off and his tail whacked my kayak sending it tilting madly. My heart was in my throat!
Hi and welcome from Idaho. We have only been in Louisiana one time. More of a drive through but we did take the time to stop at St. Martins Parish and take a swamp tour. I enjoyed that tour more than any place we've been. And, yes we saw several alligators, one was 8 feet long! I loved the cypress trees, moss, birds and other animals. There is no way that I would be in a kayak though! I would like to go back though during the spring. We were there in November.
Hi and welcome from an "almost" neighbor in SE Texas (over by Beaumont). Looking forward to seeing what all you grow over there.
Hi Jeremy, welcome to GardenStew from north central Texas. My hubby is a member of SASS....that's where they dress like cowboys, go by aliases and shoot at metal targets for points. Good luck replacing the trees, do you do any veggie or flower gardening?
There is a Pakistani lurking over here too, situated right on the coastline of Karachi city! So welcome to GardenStew! By the way, I read in your first post that you are into firearms too - Very nice, as I also am a bit like that, (I'm actually a doomsday prepper in my free time). That's why I joined this community, as I was always interested in meeting other people who can grow their own food! However unlike most gun owners, I do not go hunting animals and birds... I'm strictly focused on self defense, and thus mostly restricted to target practice only. Another thing I found very interesting is that you like CZ, this (to me) is a bit strange, as most CZ arms we get in my area are of 30 caliber (7.62 mm), conforming to the Soviet Tokarev rounds. While in your part of the world 9 mm is more popular. Or do you use the 9 mm versions of CZ? Just curious... Anyway, you've indeed picked a great community to join! Everyone over here is very nice, extremely helpful, deeply supportive too, as well as very knowledgeable about plants and tree. So I am sure you will make many new friends. Therefore feel totally at home, and jump in without any hesitation!
Gday Jeremy, and welcome. I also like trees. I have a bit to do with one genus you mentioned, the Eucalypus spp. I don't recommend them for an area that is prone to storms. I've seen much damage caused by both limbs breaking off in storms and even their whole trunks snapping. The exception to that is a tree that is perhaps my favourite tree in the world, Eucalyptus ficifolia, the red-flowering gum: so beautiful in growth form (small for a Eucalypt, and casually sprawling), foliage (their specific epithet is named for their large leaves. Specific epithet means the last part of their botanical name - so ficifolia, which means leaves like a fig tree), and flowers. Replanting is a great opportunity to plan. Planning is so important when planting trees. I remove a lot of trees in my work, and it's because they have been planted in the wrong place. Trees that aren't thriving are also often victims of having been planted in the wrong environment.
