Heide Braley's Blog

I learned about the Che Tree or Mandarin Melon Berry (Maclura tricuspidata) several years ago and was able to purchase my own plant to grow in my yard. The nursery where I purchased mine had grafted the tree onto the roots of the Osage Orange tree rootstock to prevent it from growing invasively from roots. We have lots of Osage Orange trees that grow freely around our property in Maryland and I have a female tree that produces fruit without seeds. 


When I read that the Mandarin Melon Berry tree r...

Have you ever been driving through a neighborhood and noticed a stunningly brilliant yellow tree with distinctive fan-shaped leaves? Or maybe you have heard of taking gingko biloba supplements for helping various ailments. Well that is what happened to me and so I started looking into what kind of a tree it was and if I could plant it on our property. But that was years ago and I never acted on getting seedlings or seeds until the fall of 2023.
I was taking a walk in a neighboring town and notice...

Sidewalk covered in Mulberries
One of the fun and nostalgic rites of summer is the arrival of the ripe red mulberries as they first show up dropping their fruit onto the sidewalks and driveways of our town. I am sure they are dropping their fruit onto the lawns and fields, but you never notice them until suddenly you are walking over them and you look up to see the dark fruit hanging in masses above your head. Unlike a lot of other dark berries, mulberries won't stain your fingers, so you don't h...

Green gooseberries are a common type of berry from the large family of Ribes. My first encounter with them was when I was a child in Washington state visiting a friend of the family. He had long rows of gooseberry plants along with blackberries and raspberries growing in his backyard. The gooseberries were so beautiful in the sunlight as the light passed through their translucent skin. I must have happened to visit just as they were ripe as I remember the flavor to be be tart but sweet. Years la...

Have you every seen a beautiful hydrangea in bloom at a friend's house and wished you had one in your yard? You could probably ask for a cutting of one of the branches if you dared, and try rooting your own plant that would be an exact replicate.




The Hydrangea, is a common flowering shrub found often beside older homes on the East Coast. It is also known as hortensia, but it is actually a genus of over 75 species of flowering plants native to Asia and the Americas. The most commonly planted hydra...

Kieffer Pears
The Kieffer pear is a tree that was gifted to me several years ago. I have very little to do to keep the tree looking good and producing fruit beyond giving it a yearly pruning in the winter. Only recently did I find that you can propagate the cuttings from a Kieffer Pear. Now granted, they are not nearly as easy as a willow cutting which just seems to want to root as soon as you try, but with some trial and error, the Kieffer pear cuttings will root over time.
The Kieffer pear is a ...

How many times have you seen an old cherry tree and wished you could have such a tree in your own yard. Just imagine going out in the summer and picking your own fresh cherries. Well you can! Ask the owner of the tree if you can take a few cuttings for yourself. Most of the time, the tree needs to be pruned in the winter while the tree is dormant to be ready for spring growth. Those cuttings normally just get tossed away as compost. 
Look for pencil-sized thickness in cuttings about 6 to 8 inches...

How many times have you seen an old cherry tree and wished you could have such a tree in your own yard. Just imagine going out in the summer and picking your own fresh cherries. Well you can! Ask the owner of the tree if you can take a few cuttings for yourself. Most of the time, the tree needs to be pruned in the winter while the tree is dormant to be ready for spring growth. Those cuttings normally just get tossed away as compost. 
Look for pencil-sized thickness in cuttings about 6 to 8 inches...

Beautiful Muscadine Grapes

I have been growing grapes for almost fifteen years now from cuttings I found while walking through my neighborhood. There was an old delipidated house along the creek that was slowly sinking into the water, but this house had a short fence with grape vines rambling over and around the old metal bars. One day in late October, as I walked my normal route, I realized that a neighbor had done a lot of pruning to the old vine and left the cuttings to dry up and rot away. So...

I think there are lots of people that are like myself that want to start their own plants from a cutting. There is something intriguing about taking a dormant stick and watching life spring from under the seemingly dead bark. On the same hand, I have found such disappointment from watching a potentially alive stick do nothing more than rot away gradually before my eyes.



Although the hardy kiwi is becoming more popular in nurseries, I think the vine is still a newcomer to most gardens, at least in...