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Know The Time To Conserve Water

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Automated irrigation is certainly not perfect.

In the wild, plants take water when it comes as rain. Native plants and plants that are from similar climates might be happy to get almost all of their water through winter, and almost none through summer. However, lawns and many other plants want some degree of water through summer. This is why most landscapes are irrigated.

Obviously, irrigation is unnatural. The main disadvantage is that it uses water that must be taken unnaturally from natural sources, which are often, and are presently depleted. The advantages (even during a drought) is that irrigation can be applied where needed, as needed, and when it is most appropriate.

Irrigation systems can be designed to deliver more water to plants that need it, and less water to those that are less consumptive. Watering by hose can of course be similarly tailored to the plants. The volume of water applied can be increased through warm and dry summer weather, and decreased or discontinued through winter.

Automated irrigation can be set to operate very early in the morning when no one is likely to be out in the landscape. The water gets used when the need for water in the home is minimal, so fluctuation in water pressure should not be a problem. If it operates early enough, irrigation can finish before anyone gets out to see it.

Furthermore, early morning also happens to be the best and most efficient time to apply water. Less water evaporates while the air is cooler and more humid. Therefore, more water soaks into the soil. Evapotranspiration (evaporation from foliage) is a bit subdued, so plants cycle through their own moisture a bit slower.

Many plants can just as easily be irrigated in the evening. This would allow even more time for water to soak in before the sun comes up. However, the problem for some plants and lawn is that moisture lingering on foliage all night long can promote the proliferation of all sorts of fungal diseases, including mildew.

Drip and similar irrigation is still the most efficient, simply because water is applied directly, with minimal evaporation. Broadcast irrigation from lawn sprinklers, especially fine mist, is much more susceptible to evaporation. Water evaporates as it gets sprayed through the air, and as it lingers on any wet surfaces.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 13 Comments

Horridculture – Bucket of Bolts

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They started out nicely.

Radishes seemed like a good idea back when I sowed the seed in the garden. I had not grown any in many years. I thought that the particular location would be cool enough to inhibit bolting, even though it was starting to get close to the end of their season here. They are definitely a cool season vegetable here, with brief seasons in spring and autumn. Some linger through winter.

The seed germinated efficiently. The seedlings started out well. Radishes are small roots that mature in only about three weeks. Technically, they were right on schedule. I happened to get a few tiny radishes from the batch. However, after the seed were sown, but before the radish roots developed, the formerly cool spring weather warmed suddenly enough to stimulate bolting.

The elongation of floral stalks was visible within the foliar rosettes of most of the individual radishes while they were still quite dinky. Initially, I thought it would be no problem. There were a few good radish roots, which was all I needed to brag to my colleague down South about. Those that bolted would sort of be palatable as radish greens. Bitterness does not bother me much.

Now, because so few of the radishes were pulled for their roots, too many are growing as greens, and they evolved from merely bolting to blooming. The flavor evolved from normal bitter to almost icky bitter. I will not be sharing these with anyone. I can not leave them in the garden to get shabby either. Besides, I want the space for something else. I suppose I will freeze some.

After all the effort, I got only a few small radishes, some decent greens, and mostly bitter greens. Perhaps I will try radishes again in autumn. This radish trial was a ‘FAIL’.

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Yes, we have no radishes.
Posted on by tonytomeo · 11 Comments

Smokebush

00624Cliche is barely avoidable regarding smokebush, Cotinus coggygria. It provides rich foliar color from spring until autumn, with uniquely billowy bloom through summer. Then, it provides exquisite fall color until winter. Then, it provides sculptural form of bare stems until spring. Smokebush ‘has it all’. . . almost. All the spectacle distracts from a lack of floral fragrance. Will anyone ever notice?

Foliage is rich purplish bronze, bright greenish yellow or olive green through spring and summer. Formerly common old fashioned cultivars with olive green foliage are now rare. Nowadays, most are rich purplish bronze. Fall color is fiery yellow, orange and red. The round leaves are about one to three inches long. Purplish to pale pinkish plumes of smoke-like bloom are a striking contrast.

The largest of smokebush grow at a moderate rate to more than fifteen feet high and wide. Most cultivars are more compact. They get wobbly in the ground if they grow too vigorously. Aggressive pruning during winter improves stability and enhances foliar color for the next season. However, minimal pruning of stable plants promotes bloom. Smoke tree wants full sun, but is not demanding.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 6 Comments

Bronze Is The New Green

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Color like this needs no bloom.

Bronze foliage will never actually replace green foliage. Even if there were enough variety of plants with bronze foliage to do so, too much bronze would look dreary. Bronze is just another option for foliar color in landscapes with significant vegetation. It is distinct from simpler green, and contrasts nicely with gold, blue, gray and variegated foliage. Some bronze foliage is variegated too.

There is all sorts of bronze foliage. Some is brownish bronze. Some is reddish. The most popular bronze foliage is rather purplish. It can be evergreen or deciduous. Annuals, perennials, shrubs, vines, trees and houseplants can provide bronze foliage. Most plants that provide bronze foliage are variants of plants that also provide bloom or fruit. Some are common. Others are rather rare.

Bronze foliage is not an advantage to plants that produce it. The most efficient foliage is green. Gray or bluish foliage has the advantage of reflecting some of the harsh sunlight that could scald it in severe climates. Otherwise, foliage that is a color other than green reflects more of the useful sunlight than it should. Incidentally, dark foliage also absorbs more of the sunlight that can scald it.

This is why many bronze plants are noticeably less vigorous than their greener counterparts. Although it would not be an advantage in the wild, diminished vigor makes some bronze plants more adaptable to compact home gardens. For example, the brownish bronze ‘Summer Chocolate’ silk tree will not get half as high and wide as the common silk tree. It can fit nicely into a cozy atrium.

Cultivars of purple leaf plum, Japanese maple and Eastern redbud are more familiar complaisant bronze trees. ‘Ruby Lace’ honeylocust is still quite rare. Bronze shrubbery includes smokebush, Chinese fringe flower, elderberry, barberry and ninebark. New Zealand flax, canna, houseleek, ajuga, mondo grass and coral bells are popular bronze perennials. Cordyline is a larger perennial.

Bronze foliage adds a bit more color than typical green foliage. In the right situations, it is appealing bold.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 2 Comments

Silver Lining

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This little silver dollar tree did well with a second chance.

Among the more than seven hundred species of Eucalyptus, nomenclature gets confusing. It certainly does not help that some species have multiple common names. Eucalyptus cinerea is a rather distinctive species with at least two equally distinctive common names. The problem with these names is that, although sensible in Australian, they are not so sensible to Californians.

‘Mealy stringybark’ is a name that must describe something of the physical characteristics of the species. The bark is rather stringy, but no more stringy than that of so many other species. The glaucous foliage might be described as mealy in Australian English. ‘Argyle apple’ is a weirder name. Again, it must make sense in Australian culture. I just know it as ‘silver dollar tree’.

A few years ago, I acquired a severely disfigured and overgrown #5 (5 gallon) specimen of silver dollar tree, along with three comparable specimens of dwarf blue gum, Eucalyptus globulus ‘Compacta’. They were about to be discarded from the nursery where I found them. They got canned into #15 cans, and coppiced back to their distended lignotubers. All regenerated nicely.

Two of the blue gums found appropriate homes. One remains here, and was coppiced again last year. The silver dollar tree stayed late too, but happened to get planted into a landscape last autumn. It is developing into such an appealing tree that one would not guess that it had experienced such neglect and subsequent trauma. The exemplary silvery gray foliage is so healthy.

As it regenerated after getting coppiced, the strongest of the new stems was bound to a stake to form a single straight trunk. All smaller basal stems were pruned away after the first season. The little tree cooperated through the process, and now lives happily ever after. I still do not know its name.

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Silver dollar tree produces strikingly silvery foliage.
Posted on by tonytomeo · 23 Comments

Wasps!

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Dead wasps are the best wasps.

Wasps, hornets and yellow jackets that get established within landscapes or buildings are a serious problem. They are not so easily avoided like those out in the wild are. They are aggressive to people and pets who get too close to their nests, and attack with painful stings. Such behavior is unacceptable within the publicly accessible landscapes at work.

There are a few species of wasp, hornet or yellow jacket here. We do not get sufficiently acquainted with any of them to actually identify them. Our priority is eliminating as many of them as possible from the landscapes. Some get trapped. Others get evicted from the few nests that we locate. It is unpleasant work, but it is better than others getting stung.

Wasps, hornets, yellow jackets, or whatever they are, become more of a problem later in summer. They are just getting started for now. We were surprised to find two subterranean nests in a landscape that is in the process of being cleared for renovation. More surprisingly, they were only eight feet apart. Whomever they were, they should have been more territorial than that.

Since they are just getting started, there were not very many to get aggressive when we got too close to them. There were scarcely enough to follow as they entered and emerged from their nests. They were surprisingly easy to kill. The first nest was quite small. The second nest was a bit more concerning. We dug both out as the last few visible insects were dying.

The picture above shows a few waffle-like layers of the larger nest. Empty cells were likely left by the adult insects that were flying about and trying to defend the nest. Other cells are full of larvae that would have matured to many more of the same!

Posted on by tonytomeo · 19 Comments

Six on Saturday: Bark

 

Rhody said, “Cornus florida bark is rough.” He likely intended to say, “Dog would bark, ‘ruff!’.”

This is not about Rhody though. It is about these six pictures of bark of some of the more significant trees that I work with. All are native here. Only the sycamore was installed intentionally into a landscape. All of the others grew wild. There are so many interesting trees here that it was not easy to limit these pictures to just six. I actually took more pictures that were omitted.

Furthermore, a picture of Rhody is not included.

1. Platanus racemosa – California sycamore is bigger and bolder than other American sycamore. Trunks of mature trees are massive and gnarled, with this distinctively blotchy gray bark.P00613-1

2. Pinus ponderosa – Ponderosa pine is the grandest of pines. The massive trunks seem to be comparable to those of Douglas fir. Bark often flakes in bits that resemble jigsaw puzzle pieces.P00613-2

3. Quercus agrifolia – Coast live oak is second only to valley oak in regard to grandeur. Unlike valley oak, it is evergreen. Smooth gray young bark eventually becomes darker and furrowed.P00613-3

4. Pseudotsuga menziesii – Douglas fir is the majestic State Tree of Oregon, and a main timber crop there. Locally, it mixes with various ecosystems. Corky bark is rather finely furrowed.P00613-4

5. Acer macrophyllum – Bigleaf maple is the most imposing maple of the West. As the name implies, the leaves are bigger than those of any other maple. Bark gets sort of checked with age.P00613-5

6. Sequoia sempervirens – Coastal redwood is the grandest of all, and it happens to be the tallest tree in the World. Also, it is the state tree of California. The ruddy bark is distinctly fibrous.P00613-6

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/

Post Script: For the first time, I am violating the recommended limit of six pictures to include this extra (but unnumbered) picture of Rhody for those who would be otherwise disappointed.P00613-7

Posted on by tonytomeo · 2 Comments

Fan Aloe

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Some aloes should have more fans.

most aloes are tough perennials that do not need much water. Unfortunately, they do not have many fans. Maybe that is why fan aloe, Aloe plicatilis, makes it’s own. The plumply succulent leaves are distichously arranged, which is a fancy way of saying that they are either to the left or to the right, flaring out to form foliar fans.

Individual leaves are just as distinctive as their arrangement is. They are not tapered and pointed like those of other aloes. Instead, they are about an inch and a half wide from end to end, with weirdly blunt tips. They get almost a foot long. The soft gray color contrasts nicely with coral flower spikes that bloom at the end of winter.

It grows slowly, but fan aloe is one of the few aloes that eventually grows into a big shrub with several sculptural trunks on a flaring base. In their native habitat in South Africa, old specimens grow as small trees more than ten feet tall. Branches that need to be pruned away can be rooted as cuttings after the cut ends dry out a bit.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 3 Comments

Summer Vegetables Like Warming Weather

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Summer Vegetables Like Warming Weather

Tomato, pepper and eggplant plants should be out in the garden by now. They typically get planted only a few weeks after the last threat of frost, so that they can start to disperse their roots early. Growth above ground accelerates as the weather gets warmer. Fruit develops and ripens through summer.

These three types of vegetable plants get planted as seedlings for two main reasons. First, when they go into the garden, seedlings are bigger and more established than seeds that need to take time to grow are. Secondly, the cost of the few plants needed for an average garden is not much more than the cost of seeds.

Now, zucchini, melon and summer squash can be done either way. Not many plants are needed, so the expense of seedlings is minimal. However, seedlings are a bit more fragile than those of tomato, pepper and eggplant. Seeds grow so efficiently that they get established almost as readily as seedlings do, so are just as practical.

Regardless of how they get planted, the weather has been so odd this year that there has been only minimal advantage to planting seedlings and sowing seed on time. Tomato, pepper and eggplant plants that were planted early may not be much more mature than what could be planted now. Harvest will be delayed either way.

Bean, cucumber and corn all grow best from seed. Seedlings take more time to recover from transplant than seed take to germinate and grow. Besides, so many plants of each type are needed that seedlings would be expensive. A single package of seed is cheap and goes a long way, so is probably sufficient for an average garden.

Corn is one of those vegetables that produces on a rather tight schedule. Seed that gets sown at any particular time matures at the same rate, so that all the fruit finishes at about the same time. This is why corn gets sown in phases. If timed properly, a subsequent phase begins to produce as the preceding phase gets depleted.

Winter squash, including pumpkin, are similar to summer squash, although they are more tolerant of unusually cool spring weather. They too can either get planted as seedlings or sown as seed. They take their time to produce fruit that ripens by autumn, so have more time to catch up.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 7 Comments

Horridculture – Spruce Up

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Even Charlie Brown would reject this little blue spruce.

No one wants to cut down this little blue spruce. What is worse is that no one wants anyone else to cut it down either. We all know it is ugly. We all know that it can not be salvaged. We all know that it really should relinquish its space to the healthy and well structured coast live oak next to it, in the lower left of the picture. Yet, it remains.

It was planted amongst a herd of gold junipers in about 1980 or 1981, shortly after the construction of the adjacent buildings. An abandoned irrigation system indicates that it was likely irrigated for some time afterward, although it is impossible to know for how long. Otherwise, it and the junipers were completely ignored for the last four decades.

When the vegetable garden was installed nearby, brambles, weeds and trash that had been accumulating for forty years was removed from the area. A few of the most decrepit junipers that were not worth salvaging were removed too. The young and feral coast live oak that grew next to the spruce should have been removed as well, but is actually in very good condition.

Furthermore, the coast live oak is a better tree for the particular application. It is native, so does not mind neglect. The spruce was never really happy there, which is why it is so puny and disfigured now, with the lower two thirds of the trunk bare of limbs and foliage. Obviously, the spruce should be removed so that the oak can continue to develop as it should.

We just like the spruce too much to remove it directly. Even though it would look silly if the bare trunk were exposed by the removal of the oak, the bit of foliage on top is so pretty and blue and familiar. I mean, it looks like we have a spruce in the yard; and everyone likes a spruce!

The plan is to subordinate it to the oak. As the oak grows upward and outward, the lower limbs of the spruce will be pruned away to maintain clearance. Eventually, the spruce will look so silly that the landscape would look better without it, and we will not mind cutting it down so much. It will be unpleasant, but it will be better than interfering with the development of the oak.