guildfordcycads

I’m in Zone 9b (Arizona, USA). I need a privacy screen against my 6′ block wall in my backyard. I am putting in a shed or Sauna and need to hide the structure from the neighbors (it’ll be taller than the block wall and be visible from the street- hence, needing a screen).

I had bamboo previously, and generally enjoy it. I’m looking for fast growing, heat tolerant bamboo that is non-evasive and very easy to maintain. I need it to eventually grow to about 10′ or taller. I’ll have about 3-4′ between the wall and the shed for it to grow in. It’ll get plenty of sunlight from morning until about 1-2pm. It’ll also be on an automatic drip watering system.

Questions:
– What’s the pros/cons of using an above ground planter box vs planting directly in the ground?
– Once it grows and fills out, it’ll be between the block wall and the shed. How much maintenance will I need to do, if any, or can I just let it grow between the two without access to it?
– which bamboo specifically would fit this application, and can I grow it from seed?

Thank you for all your help!

Is this a pollinator or a parasite?

My neighbor has various of these bushes, they sprout everywhere on my property, is this plany invasive? Is there any use for it? What is it? I am trying to start a mini food forest and see if this plant is useful or harmful.

I’m excited to get into permaculture but it’s very intimidating and I know nothing about gardening so I decided to choose something simple – potatoes. I grew them in bags and followed a youtube tutorial but the yield was pitiful, the only potatoes I got were less than half the size of the seed potatoes. Feeling discouraged and wondering if anyone might know what was going on:

Details:
– I used 5 bags, they were fairly big, but only 2 actually produced potatoes, and they were very small
– All plants grew quite large.
– I added soil when the plants reached 15cm in height
– I found curl grubs in only one bug Idk if that’s bad, but that doesn’t explain the other two that didn’t produce
– I tried using my wee as fertilizer for some bags and not others, the 2 that produced I didn’t fertilize but they had smaller plants which is weird, I read too much fertilizer can prevent tuber forming, but that doesn’t explain why there were so few potatoes and they were all so small
– I had loose soil but in one of the bags soil there was a lot of mycelium growth which made it more firm, but this was actually one of the bags which produced.
– I followed guidelines for when to plant and waited a bit over 3 months to harvest, some of the seed potatoes had started to rot and of the newly grown potatoes there were a couple which had a chunk missing which makes me think something was eating them, but it’s weird that there were only 2 like this and every other potato was whole and the bags that didn’t produce literally had 0.

Did I miss something obvious or does anyone have any ideas or suggestions? am still keen to experiment and dive further into the world of permaculture.

Found this wonderful project in Namibia! This man is developing his land into a food forest and trying to inspire his village to change from broom swept dirt to water harvesting self stainable community! Please support his channel. He’s doing fantastic work!