Posted on by tonytomeo

Vines Have Unique Personalities

English ivy clings with aerial roots.

Boston ivy and creeping fig are good aggressive vines for freeway overpasses and sound-walls. They are resilient to harsh exposures and pollution, and help to muffle the sound of traffic. Boston ivy provides remarkable foliar color in autumn before defoliating in winter. Creeping fig provides thick evergreen foliage that overwhelms any graffiti that it can reach.

However, their aggressive behavior that is such an advantage on freeways is precisely why they are not so practical for home gardens. Boston ivy gets around so efficiently because it grabs onto surfaces with ‘holdfast disks’ (modified tendrils) that damage paint, stucco, wood and just about anything that is not built like a freeway. Creeping fig is at least as destructive with clinging aerial roots, as well as constrictive stems that can crush smaller plants, fences and anything else that it might grab hold of.

Most vines are aggressive in nature. They exploit trees for support, and then compete with them for space. Some are complaisant enough to mingle relatively peacefully with the trees that support them. Less honorable vines have no problem overwhelming the canopies of their supportive trees. Creeping fig and other related figs are known as ‘strangler figs’ because their constrictive roots and stems crush and kill the same trees that help them get above the forest canopy.

Such behavior needs to be considered when selecting vines for home gardens. Bulky and potentially constrictive wisteria vines that would tear lattice apart can be quite appealing on sturdy arbors or trellises. Lattice could instead be adorned with docile Carolina jessamine, lilac vine, mandevilla or even regularly pruned passion vine. Star jasmine and the various trumpet vines work nicely to obscure chain link fences. With regular selective pruning, pink jasmine, honeysuckle and potato vine work well on rail fences.

Climbing roses and bougainvillea do not climb on their own, but can be trained almost like vines. Some varieties stay small enough for low fences and trellises. Larger types are proportionate to larger fences and arbors.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 3 Comments

Horridculture – High Fences

It is unfortunate that, regardless of the excellent climate and excellent soils, such minimal space within the Santa Clara Valley remains conducive to gardening.

Tony Tomeo

P90522There is no doubt that fences are useful for a variety of functions. They exclude deer from the garden. They confine livestock. For suburban homes, they enclose a relatively safe space for children and pets. Fences should be designed according to their intended functions. Those designed to exclude deer might be as simple as coarse mesh on posts. Those enclosing backyards might be more refined and compatible with the landscape.
Over the years, conformity to modern suburban and urban landscapes, as well as modern architecture and lifestyles, has changed the standards of how fences are designed. Low picket fences do not adequately obscure the scenery that adjacent and often dissimilar landscapes contribute to a view. Where common vegetable gardens might have been, most of us want private outdoor rooms, with a distinct style of landscape.
It seems that everyone wants privacy nowadays. Those who have no need for privacy will…

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Posted on by tonytomeo

Hopbush

Hopbush makes a nice small tree.

Johnny jump up and jumping cholla have no more than amusing names in common with hopbush, Dodonea viscosa. Neither a dangerous cactus nor a docile annual, hopbush is an elegantly upright and evergreen shrub. It is very popular for both informal and formally shorn hedging. With pruning, it can become a small tree with handsomely furrowed bark.

Hopbush has potential to get about as tall as a two story house, particularly with pruning for tree form. Conversely, with only occasional pruning for hedge form, it is just as happy to stay just six feet tall. Trees with single and straight trunks fit nicely into narrow spaces. Trees with a few irregular trunks that lean outwardly are more sculptural for larger areas.

The narrow evergreen leaves are about two or three inches long, with light bronzy color. ‘Purpurea’ has purplish bronze color, but does not grow as vigorously. Most hopbush are female, and generate interestingly papery seed. Bloom and seed production are variable though, and some specimens become male. Roots should be complaisant with concrete.

Posted on by tonytomeo

Streets Might Benefit From Shade

Proportion is important for street trees.

Shade has become less of a priority for modern urban gardens than it still is for older and more spacious suburban gardens. Significantly less sunlight reaches the ground of such confined gardens among taller and shadier homes and fences. Even where shade might be desirable, space for shade trees might be minimal. Streets are the primary exception.

Streets, and associated curbs and sidewalks, are generally the sunniest situations within modern urban neighborhoods. They collect and radiate ambient heat that warms nearby homes and gardens, even if the weather is already unpleasantly warm. Cars that park on pavement without shade are vulnerable to the most heat, which accelerates weathering.

It is an unfortunate waste. Sunshine that is useless and undesirable on streets would be useful within gardens. Although sunlight is not transferable from one situation to another, it might be partially abatable with shade. Streets are certainly no place for gardening; but the space above them may have potential to accommodate the canopies of shade trees.

Street trees are simply trees that flank streets and other roadways. Most are shady. A few are merely visually appealing. They may inhabit parkstrips, treewells or gardens that are adjacent to sidewalks. Many municipalities prescribe street trees for most of their streets. Conforming street trees are standard accessories for streets within new residential tracts.

Of course, street trees must be appropriate to their particular applications. They must get tall enough for clearance above the largest of vehicles that use the roadways below. For commercial districts, some must also stay above storefront signs. Contrarily, a few street trees must stay below aerial utilities. Street lamps, high or low, require clearance as well.

Size and form are not the only considerations. Roots of street trees must be complaisant with infrastructure. Mess should be as minimal as practical. The most complaisant street trees might stay too small to attain adequate clearance or provide much shade. The most visually appealing might be too messy. Selection of appropriate street trees necessitates significant research regarding every potential option.

Posted on by tonytomeo

Campground

The timing of this recycled article (at the time) was somewhat disconcerting.

Tony Tomeo

P90519There happen to be quite a few campgrounds in the region, with one about a quarter of a mile upstream from where this picture was taken, and another less than three miles past that. Both are primarily used by school age children. The vast redwood forests with creeks flowing through are ideal for such campgrounds.
This is a campground too. I know it does not look like it. It is located between a creek and an industrial building, the eave of which is visible in the top right corner of the picture. The herd of dumpsters that is barely visible at the bottom of the picture might include a dozen dumpsters at at time. (I tried to get both the eave and the dumpsters in one picture.) There really are two rows of barbed wire on top of that fence behind the dumpsters.
Nonetheless, it is a campground. You see…

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Felton League

This old article is irrelevant to horticulture or gardening, but is reblogged here now for consistency with the reblogging of all of the other articles from that time. It explains the source of the few articles that are shared from my other blog.

Tony Tomeo

P81007

When I started posting my weekly gardening articles here, along with a few other odds and ends, I reserved the right to occasionally post articles or information that is not directly related to horticulture. I do not do it often, but I will do it now, in order to briefly explain another blog that I started today.
Felton League
It will feature articles and insight about the distinguished small group of displaced or socially marginalized people and their friends in Felton in California. In other words, it will be about our homeless Community.
In about 2013, at a time when the homeless were more openly persecuted and assaulted, and evenly violently attacked, Felton League began as an informational forum on Facebook. We had been discouraged by the portrayal of the homeless in other so-called ‘community’ groups. Disparaging pictures, often contrived, were shared openly for the amusement of haters. This is…

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Posted on by tonytomeo · 18 Comments

Six on Saturday: Rhody’s Rhodies 2022 – Pretty In Pink

There are too many rhododendrons here. Working with them in a landscape situation is very different from growing them on the farm. The farm generates hundreds of primary cultivars, with hundreds of others to potentially introduce. Thousands of plants grow in cans on much of forty acres. Ideally, most develop an abundance of floral buds, but then leave the farm prior to bloom. Here, only a few hundred rhododendrons bloom well and mature within their landscapes with no intentions of ever leaving. These are mostly pink with one that blooms pinkish red.

1. Mothers’ Day Rhododendron blooms reliably for Mothers’ Day annually, regardless of how early or late other neighboring rhododendrons bloom. No one knows its real name.

2. Now that I see this one in this picture, I do not remember if it was more rosy in color. It seems to be a simpler but bright pink now. I am not so proficient with analyzing color.

3. This one also seems to be a bit different from how I remember it. I thought that it was more like watermelon red, rather than reddish pink. This is why I will not choose colors.

4. Oh, I should remember the name of this one. My colleague grew it! I delivered it years ago. It looks like ‘Rocket’ but I do not believe that it is. I should have saved the old label.

5. Of these Six, this is the only rhododendron that I know the name of, and is one of only a few that I may identify here. It is one of the most common cultivars; ‘Mrs. G. W. Leak’.

6. Most of our rhododendrons here are pink or purple. Only a few are red. This might be the darkest red here. I refer to it as ‘Taurus’, but it is not. Individual flowers open widely.

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/

Posted on by tonytomeo

African Daisy

Modern African daisies are surprisingly colorful.

Only a few decades ago, the only familiar African daisies, Osteospermum spp., were the sprawling and often sparsely branched ‘freeway daisies’ with blue-eyed white or rarely light purple flowers. They made nice blooming ground cover that could be planted in drifts for a bit of color among the deep green of Algerian ivy on expansive freeway embankments.

Modern varieties are shrubbier perennials with more profuse bloom of white, cream, pink, purple, pale yellow or pale orange flowers, mostly with blue or purple centers. Some yellow flowers have yellow or cream centers. Some of the fancy types have spooned petals like some types of cosmos or chrysanthemums. After the primary bloom phase in spring, a few sporadic flowers may continue to bloom through summer until the secondary light bloom phase late in summer. However, the old fashioned ‘freeway daisy’ types do not always display a second bloom phase. Varieties with variegated foliage are still rather rare.

Even though African daisies can survive in inferior soil with minimal watering, they perform best with good soil and regular watering. Plants in containers can not disperse their roots like they want to, so are are more dependent on regular watering. Fertilizer prolongs bloom.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 2 Comments

Watering Water Wise Plants

Excessive watering rots drought tolerant yarrow.

Native plants like coast live oak, valley oak, toyon, flannel bush, Western redbud and California lilac (ceanothus) are among the most resilient of plants as the weather gets dry and warm after spring. So are plants from similar climates, like bottlebrush, oleander, rockrose, grevillea, acacia and eucalyptus. They survive dry summers by dispersing their roots deeply into soil that does not get as desiccated as surface soil naturally does (without irrigation).

Ironically, these most resilient plants can also be difficult to work with while they are young. Because they rely on extensive root dispersion for survival, new plants that have not yet dispersed their roots can not survive long without regular watering. They only become tolerant to drought as their roots disperse into deeper soil.

However, because they are adapted to arid conditions, they do not like to be too damp for too long. Roots soon rot in soil that does not drain adequately between watering. They therefore need to be watered frequently, but not too frequently. Yes, that is as confusing as it sounds.

To make it even more confusing, these plants will need less watering as they mature and disperse their roots. Bottlebrush, oleander, contoneaster, hop bush, firethorn, grevillea and juniper can certainly tolerate more water than they really need; but wasting water is contrary to selecting drought tolerant plants to conserve water. Manzanita, coyote brush, rockrose, flannel bush and redbud may actually succumb to rot if watered too much. Even perennials like Pacific coast iris and yarrow can have problems.

Pine, oak, acacia and especially eucalyptus disperse their roots as soon as they can, so do not want to be confined in containers. It is therefore best to plant smaller young specimens than larger ones. #5 (5 gallon) eucalypti get established in the garden more efficiently than larger but more expensive #15 (15 gallon) trees. If #1 trees were available, they would be even better.

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Horridculture – Fake Environmentalism

Ah, the hypocrisy of NIMBYs. Actually, though, few of us consider how our lifestyles, regardless of how simple, affect the environment.

Tony Tomeo

P90515Fake environmentalism is a HUGE topic, so for now, will be limited to fake environmentalism as justification for the eviction of homeless encampments.
The yellow triangle in the picture above was the site of the Hero’s Camp, which was more commonly known as Ross Camp, and located behind Ross Dress For Less in Gateway Plaza in Santa Cruz. It is gone now. This satellite image was taken by Google Maps prior to the development of the Camp. I did not get pictures of the camp while inhabited, but you have likely seen enough other camps in the news to imagine what it looked like.
It really was as big as it looks, and really did exhibit all the problems that you hear about in the news, although not to such an exaggerated degree. Not everyone there used syringes to inject illicit narcotics. Not everyone there was an alcoholic. Not everyone…

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