There is no rush to leave the office and shop when the weather is cold and rainy. We have been getting quite a few of the inside chores done. When we do go out in the rain, I do not like to take the camera out from under my rain gear; so I do not take many pictures. Besides, since most of my work involves pruning right now, I have not been working much around what is blooming or other interesting subjects.
1. Sitka spruce brought back from near Smith River within their native range are now happily canned in the recovery nursery at our shop. They look as if they were grown here, or are on a bench in a production nursery. They will eventually go out into the landscapes.
2. Staghorn fern that the same colleague with the Sitka spruce brought back from his grandparents’ home in Orange County are not so happy. They were desiccated on arrival. Now that they are getting much more rain then then need, they are just rotting. The specimen that is still attached to the plywood on the left is probably beyond salvage. The specimen that broke its wire and fell onto the deck to the right is only partially viable. The viable portion will probably be separated from most of the rotting necrotic portion when it is attached to a new slab.
3. Colorado blue spruce and a young coast live oak are adjacent to the deck where the Sitka spruce and staghorn fern reside. This is not a good picture, but shows how the young oak to the left is crowding the older spruce to the right. Their main trunks are only about two feet apart at grade. The spruce was planted back in the middle of the 1980s, and would be a more desirable tree, but is very distressed, and is not likely worthy of salvage. The native oak grew from seed within only the past several years, and is not particularly remarkable, but happens to be quite healthy and well structured. It is not easy to decide which tree to cut down. I sort of suspect that the oak will win, and the spruce will need to go. Those are cruddy box elders in the background.
4. Bucket of rain water is impressively full next to the spruce and oak . . . and other spruces and staghorn ferns. There is an open recycle bin nearby that is also full. It must have been somewhat dark rather early in the morning for the flash to operate when I took this picture. I do not know if it ruined my selfie or just made it more artistic.
5. Wild plum is still blooming in some spots. These survived all the rain rather well by delaying their bloom somehow. It will be raining again by the time you see this after midnight on Saturday morning, so this bloom will not last long. There may be others that bloom even later though, and with one exception, the flowering cherries have not started their bloom yet. That darkness in the background is the trunk of a big redwood tree.
6. Wild plum close up shows the detail of the blossoms, and the unfocused silhouette of the redwood trunk in the background.
This is the link for Six on Saturday, for anyone else who would like to participate:
https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/18/six-on-saturday-a-participant-guide/
The plums are blooming here too, although we had very different weather to you earlier in the week: 21 degrees and blue skies, which is unheard of in Britain in February. Now we have rain and grey skies back, which is not so much fun.
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Such variation in weather during spring bloom can damage developing fruit, or knock bloom off before it even gets started. Warmth is nice, and gets the bloom started, but then frost or rain ruins it.
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Actually a pretty neat selfie!
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Thank you. I am not in the habit of posting selfies. (Incidentally, ‘most’ arborists are notoriously vain.)
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Plums are also in bloom here : Here is one of mine https://twitter.com/frdvil/status/1101128511765532672?s=20
… but I don’t have a redwood behind…( sadly)
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Hey, that looks just like ours. Is it the American plum? Is it native there? American plum is not native here, but naturalized because it was used as an understock for so many of the orchards.
Redwoods are not for everyone. They are very big and very messy. They are so tall, that if you look this way, you can see what I mean. They are sometimes best in the neighbor’s garden. We do not have much choice though. They were here first, and they are not the sort of tree that is easily cut down. The specimen in the picture predates the primary harvest, which is sometimes a concern. Such trees were left because of defects, which translate into structural deficiencies for those of us who live and work around them now. We can find no problems with this specimen, and no one knows why it was not harvested. There are plenty of big trees that grew since the primary harvest, but we can recognize those that were already big trees a century ago.
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Hello, I don’t know if this plum is an American plum. I bought my house 20 years ago and there was already this tree. This wild plum is very productive and resistant. Plums are rather small, acid taste and orange flesh with red skin I love the beautiful earlier bloom ( the first in my area)
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Oh, if you are in Europe, it may not be an American plum, and may instead be a type of primitive prune (which is the same sort of thing), or a native European species. Of course, I did not consider your location. It might have been the understock of a tree that is now gone, just like so many similar trees in older gardens here.. In the Eastern half of North America, American plums grow wild. There is technically one species of American plum, but a few other very closely related species are referred to as such, just because they are so similar and ‘American’. They are not native here, but have become very common as naturalized exotic species. They were originally introduced as understock for other stone fruits, such as prunes and plums, and then grew from the roots of such trees after they were cut down.
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I’ve seen so many staghorn ferns in Australia that I’d come to think of them as subtropical. Yours are presumably pretty cold hardy. I’d love to be able to grow one here.
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Actually, they are not cold hardy here. Those in the picture are under saran and an eave. If it survives and gets moved out to a landscape, it will be brought back to the same protected spot annually for winter because it is too likely get frosted out in the open. In coastal parts of Orange County, where they came from, they can stay out all year. (Orange County is just south of Los Angeles County.) My colleague worked with one in Beverly Hills (in the Los Angeles region) that got about as big as a Volkswagen before it was removed . . . just because it was too big. It was divided into many new plants.
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I have my mother-in-law’s staghorn fern which is at least 30 years old. She was very proud of it and kept it in the garage for our semitropical winter. I found it likes liquid fertilizer every once in a while.
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Most epiphytic plants prefer liquid fertilizer because it provides them with the quick fix that they like. I mean, if they live up in trees, without soil to disperse roots into, they must be in the habit of grabbing the goods quick while they are available. Brent was told years ago that they like the potassium in bananas, so he drops a banana into each one, and two or three into the larger ones, every few months or so. To this day, I really do not know if bananas help.
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That makes sense. I’m glad I figured it out as I have been trying to keep her plant alive. I have too many wild animals to put a banana skin in one.
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Do not give them too much fertilizer though. Too much can roast the margins of the leaves.
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Ok, I’ll remember that.
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Your selfie tells a story of your amount of rain. Any flooding in your area? I like that wild plum, Tony.
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Pretty blossom.
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Thank you. I should have gotten more, but did not want to venture out.
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We got quite a bit of rain, and it never seemed to stop, but apparently, it was spread out enough to not cause flooding. The River came up pretty good, but nothing to worry about yet.
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Love the wild plum, it always spells Spring to me.
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That is why it is still there. I would prefer to remove it. It looks rather cluttered in front of that big redwood trunk. However, it is too cool in bloom, and so reminds me of the fruit trees of the Santa Clara Valley.
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I like the selfie, Tony.
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Thank you. I am not sure if I like it or not. I am not the artistic sort.
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How do you use something as big as a Sitka spruce in a landscape?
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In the redwood forests, big trees are no problem at all. Besides, I suspect that Sitka spruce will stay relatively small here like the Colorado blue spruce does.
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I hope the oak stays
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Both stay for now; and in the end, I believe that we will keep the oak. I would prefer the spruce, but I do not expect it to ever be happy there, even if we give it another year.
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It’s tough to have to take trees out
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I take trees out quite often, and most do not bother me. However, we will be taking out a pair of historic flowering cherries that will really be a sad event. I do not want to cut down the blue spruce here because I happen to like spruce, and I also know how long it took this sad specimen to grow like this.
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The flash adds and interesting dimension to your selfie in the water. The plum blossom is beautiful. It’s only when you take closeup photos of nature that you can truly appreciate its beauty
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Oh, as a native of the Santa Clara Valley, I appreciate the beauty of the plum even at a distance; which is why we have not cut it down yet. It reminds me of orchard trees.
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