Posted on by tonytomeo · 18 Comments

Six on Saturday: Moving Day

A neighbor family relocated to a new home a short distance away. The former home needs such major repair that it may instead be demolished and replaced. For now, it remains abandoned. I collected a few plants from the abandoned garden so that some could be relocated to the new home. So far, only two Philodendron selloum and one Mexican fan palm went. The rest remain here, and may actually go to other homes.

1. In all my career, I have never seen a trunk of a palm shrivel from desiccation like this. All of the now absent roots were desiccated also. I seriously doubt that this queen palm will survive.P00418-1

2. It got canned anyway. Without significant roots, it certainly did not need all this medium. It only got a #15 can so that the shriveled trunk could be buried, sort of like a weird palm cutting.P00418-2

3. This lemon tree was almost left behind because it is so mutilated. It looks a bit suspicious too, sort of like shaddock understock of a formerly grafted tree. Actually, it is ‘Ponderosa’ lemon.P00418-3

4. The smaller of two Mexican fan palms got canned into a #5 can until it starts to produce new roots and foliage. Actually, only the queen palm and the big Mexican fan palm got larger cans.P00418-4

5. This bigger Mexican fan palm got a squat #20 can because the trunk is wider than a #5 can. There are not very many roots in there yet. It got left here to divert traffic around the garden.P00418-5

6. These three Philodendron selloum were all I originally wanted to salvage. One lacks foliage for now. The other can that seems to be empty contains bare tubers of an unidentified heliconia.P00418-6

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/

Posted on by tonytomeo · 5 Comments

Blue Spruce Stonecrop

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This stonecrop seems to be coniferous.

It may not be as useful as those marketing it say it is, but blue spruce stonecrop, Sedum reflexum ‘Blue Spruce’ is a nice grayish component to pots of mixed perennials. It contrasts nicely with golden foliage, and looks great with the chartreuse foliage of closely related ‘Angelina’ stonecrop. The limber stems cascade a few inches over the edges of tall urns and hanging pots.

The succulent leaves are quite small, and as the name implies, look like plump blue spruce needles. The succulent stems do not stand much higher than six inches before flopping over. They do not get much wider than high initially, but have a sneaky way of rooting where they touch the ground to cover more area. Yellow flowers bloom just above the foliage in summer.

What blue spruce stonecrop does not do well is uniformly cover large areas of hard or dry soil. It can spread nicely, but is patchy, with thin spots and thick spots. It is really only reliable as ground cover over small areas. It prefers to be watered occasionally, even though it does not need much water. It also likes relatively loose or friable soil, even though it does not need rich soil.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 3 Comments

Succulents Know Recycling and DIY

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Scraps of succulents can mix nicely.

There are all sorts of succulent plants, ranging from finely textured small stonecrops to huge suguaro cactus. Because aloes and agaves are succulents, the closely related yuccas, such as Joshua tree and Spanish bayonet, are commonly considered to be succulents as well. Even begonias and impatiens could be considered to be succulents.

Succulent plants are some of the most distinctive plants available. Foliage can be various shades of green, as well as yellow, red, blue, orange, purplish, gray, bronze, nearly black or variegated. Leaves may be thick and fleshy like those of jade plants, or thin and neatly arranged in tight rosettes like those of aeoniums. Cacti have no real foliage, but some have flashy flowers.

Except for the larger sorts of cacti and some yucca, most succulents are very easy to propagate. Jade plants and iceplants grow very easily from stems simply stuck wherever new plants are desired. Aloes and hen-and-chicks grow just as easily from pups (sideshoots) separated from parent plants. Technically, even leaves can be rooted, and will eventually grow into new plants.

Because scraps from pruning can be used as cuttings, there is rarely any need to actually take cuttings from desirable growth. Where more Hottentot fig (freeway iceplant) is needed on a freeway, it simply gets ‘plugged’ (as cuttings) from scraps of debris from where established growth needs to be cut back to an edge. There is much more debris than can be used!

Pots of mixed succulents are ridiculously easy to grow simply be filling pots with potting soil, and then plugging bits of various succulents. All sorts of contrasting colors and forms can be mixed. As plants grow, those that dominate can either be pruned back, or given more space by removing slower plants. The removed plants need not be wasted, but can be plugged somewhere else.

Small succulents are just as easy to plug into informal walls of stacked stone or broken concrete. Some small succulents actually stabilize loose stone. Their docile and finely textured roots are not likely to do any damage.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 19 Comments

Horridculture – Slim Waists

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If I put a spider plant in the pot on the right, I may never get it out.

Clay pots have been around for a very long time. It is impossible to know for how long exactly. It is logical to say that they have been around long enough to evolve into the perfect shape for their function. Although the dimensions and proportions are variable, the basic design characteristics of the simplest and best engineered clay pots can not be improved on.

Clay pots are circular from above and below for a few reasons. Such a shape is easily formed on a potters’ wheel. It is more structurally sound than a form with flat sides and more corners. The space within is evenly distributed around the vertical center, without more remote corners. Although roots will circle within, there are not so many corners for them to congregate in.

Drainage holes are at the bottoms because that is where water drains to.

Thick rims around the top edges of common clay pots enhance durability where it is most necessary, and also prevent pots of the same size from becoming wedged into each other when stacked. The weight of stacked pots rests firmly and vertically on such rims, rather than being diverted laterally to break wedged pots to pieces.

It would not be possible to stack clay pots if they were not tapered to be wider on top. Of course, they are tapered for a few reasons, just like they are circular and outfitted with rims for a few reasons. Tapered form fits the natural dispersion of the roots of most plants better. More importantly, tapered form facilitates the removal of firm root systems with minimal disruption.

So, after perhaps thousands of years of evolution to achieve the perfect form, who thought it was a good idea to taper pots inward at the top? The lack of a rim is not so important if pots are not so numerous that efficient stacking is a concern. Such pots can not be staked anyway. They do not get reused as much as common clay pots either, so do not need to be so durable.

However, that upper inward taper is a serious problem for plants that mature and develop firm root systems within. Such mature plants can only be removed from such pots only by tearing their root systems apart, or by breaking the pots apart. Such form is only practical for big pots that contain multiple small plants that, individually, do not get big enough to fill the pots.

For example, big urns of bedding plants or mixed perennials function more as planters than as pots. Bedding plants get removed and replaced seasonally, and even if the don’t, they can not get big enough to develop a solid root system that is wider than the inwardly tapered top of a big urn. Likewise, most perennials get removed from such big pots before they get stuck within.

Palms, agaves, yuccas and other more substantial perennials must not be allowed to live within an inwardly tapered urn long enough to develop a firm root system that can not be removed.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 8 Comments

Indian Hawthorn

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Indian hawthorn is an early bloomer.

Here on the West Coast of California, Indian hawthorn, Raphiolepis indica, was formerly popular as a foundation plant. The compact hollies that were used as such in the East never became very popular here. Back when rain gutters were prohibitively expensive, foundation plants diffused water as it fell from roofs. This limited erosion, and also inhibited splattering onto lower parts of walls.

Modern Indian hawthorn cultivars are now appreciated elsewhere in landscapes for profuse pink bloom in late winter or early spring. Sporadic bloom might continue through summer, with a minor secondary bloom phase in autumn. The most compact cultivars display slightly richer pink bloom, followed by mildly bronzed new foliage. At least one cultivar exhibits barely blushed white bloom.

‘Majestic Beauty’ is a cultivar that might be a hybrid with loquat. It can grow as a small tree more than ten feet high and wide. Other cultivars do not get half as big. Most get less than four feet high. They work nicely as low and plump hedges, but should be shorn after bloom. Full sun exposure and occasional irrigation should be sufficient. They are popular, because they are so undemanding.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 6 Comments

Cultivar Is A Cultivated Variety

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Most cultivars need to be cloned.

A plant ‘variety’ is a group within a species that exhibits distinguishing characteristics. A ‘cultivar’ is simply a cultivated variety. The first five letters of ‘cultivated’ merged with the first three letters of ‘variety’ to form the word ‘cultivar’. A variety should be self perpetuating to some degree, and may be naturally occurring. A cultivar perpetuates by unnatural means, and would go extinct otherwise.

Of course, the distinction between variety and cultivar is not always so obvious. Varieties of nasturtium were selected from plants that displayed desirable qualities. Seed of these varieties grows into plants that display the same qualities. However, without continued selection, some varieties eventually revert to a more feral state in only a few generation. They are not truly self perpetuating.

Most hybrid tomatoes are unable to perpetuate themselves naturally. Their seed is either not viable, or is very genetically variable. Genetically variable seed grows into plants that are very unlikely to produce fruit that is comparable to that which produced their own seed. Nonetheless, hybrid tomatoes grown from original (primary generation) seed are generally varieties rather than cultivars.

The distinction might be that they grow from seed. A plant that is cloned rather than grown from seed is a cultivar. Cloned plants can be grown from cutting, layering or grafting onto understock, but are genetically identical to the original. Some rare camellias grown now are genetically identical copies of original cultivars that were developed centuries ago. Their seed would not be the same.

Some cultivars developed from selective breeding. Others were random but appealingly distinctive plants in the wild or even in landscapes. Many originated as ‘sports’, which are mutant growths of otherwise normal plants. For example, some plants, on rare occasion, produce stems with variegated foliage. Cuttings taken from such variegated stems became popular variegated cultivars.

Seed from a variegated cultivar is very unlikely to produce more variegated plants.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 13 Comments

Gopher It!

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Honey badger don’t care. Neither does the gopher who did this.

Deer do not eat all plants. There are a few that are toxic to them. There are more that deer simply dislike. With a minimal bit of research, it is not difficult to find a few lists of plant species that deer are supposed to avoid. The problem with such lists though, is that deer do not read them. Only toxic plants are reliably safe from deer.

It would not be so bad if only deer were a bit more cooperative. They would be welcome in gardens if they ate only weeds that no one wants anyway. We all know that they can eat weeds, they just choose not to do so while they are in our gardens.

For that matter, gophers would not be such a problem if they ate only weeds, and aerated only soil that needs it. Instead, they seem to target the most important plants they can find, and excavate primarily in lawns. There is no effort to cooperate.

For as long as people have been growing vegetation, whether as agricultural commodities or in landscapes, people have been competing with wildlife of one form or another, or several others. Wildlife is no more cooperative now than it was many thousands of years ago. Some animals are even less cooperative than their ancestors were. Some are downright defiant!

Gophers have been known to push traps out from their tunnels, without springing the traps. Some will emerge from their subterranean tunnels to step over the tops of root cages that are designed to exclude them, just to get to the roots within. The gopher associated with the excavation seen in the picture above was not so defiant, but was certainly undeterred.

The foliage at the center of the picture is gopher purge. Although not planted here intentionally, it used to be planted around vegetable gardens to deter gophers. It has a caustic sap that is very irritating to gophers if they try to excavate through the roots. However, the picture clearly shows excavation to the left, to the right, and behind the gopher purge.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 16 Comments

Getting Behind

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Rhody misses his work. (This picture is from two weeks ago.)

All this time off from so much of my work has been great! I am developing a new vegetable garden where there had been only trash and bramble. I get to plant grapevines and a few fruit trees. When finished with that, I will work on grooming all the canned stock in the storage and recover nursery.

I do miss work though. It is also a bummer that while the landscapes are at their best and most prolific with bloom, there is no one here to see it.

Furthermore, there is concern with how the landscapes are neglected. Fortunately, most of what is out there does not even know that it is being neglected. Also fortunately, someone is allowed to mow the vast lawns, since they are the majorly important features that would not survive neglect for long.

Other facilities that I am not involved with are more important now. There is less wear and tear without anyone here. Consequently, there is less need for maintenance. Nonetheless, issues come up. The most important issues get dealt with. Some of the more minor issues get deferred.

Some of the guys of the Maintenance Crew come by occasionally as they work on projects around their homes. Some use the tools here. Some just drop of trash. Of course, Rhody thoroughly exploits such opportunities to catch up on some of his neglected work. He is very career oriented, and takes his work very seriously. The crew helps him with his tasks any way they can.

There is an old whiteboard in an office that has not been used since a system that uses telephones was adopted a long time ago. The tasks listed (below) for Allan were there more than two years ago. Jim’s tasks were completed and erased prior to that, but not added to . . . until recently. The guy who previously used the column to right no longer works here. It is Rhody’s now.

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We all have quite a bit of work to catch up on.
Posted on by tonytomeo · 27 Comments

Six on Saturday: TWIGS!

 

The Belmont Rooster posted pictures of red mulberry that really got my attention back on February 15. The trees are native on his farm, but not here. I only remember them as decoy trees that provided berries to distract birds from other fruit as it ripened in the orchards. Of course, those that I remember were planted. I neglected to get seed or cuttings from them while in Oklahoma. I have been craving them since.

1. $8.85! The Belmont Rooster spent some major funds to get this package to me. It must be important. I already know it is very important to me! I have been wanting this for seven years. P00411-1

2. TWIGS! I got two bundles of twigs! These are not just any twigs though. They are from red mulberry, Morus rubra. One bundle is from a female tree. The other is from a male pollinator.P00411-2

3. Cuttings were processed from the twigs. There are a dozen female cuttings, and sixteen male cuttings. These are male. I was informed earlier that the female twigs were starting to foliate.P00411-3

4. Plugged cuttings are not much to look at. Rooting hormone was applied, but is not visible on the bottom ends. Only a few popping buds are barely visible in the female cuttings to the right.P00411-4

5. White mulberry was the only mulberry that I was growing here. I got the cuttings for it from a client’s tree. I do not know what cultivar it is. I have not been very impressed with it so far.P00411-5

6. The Belmont Rooster sent these cuttings from Missouri, just to the left of the center of this picture. All of Missouri is within the native range of red mulberry, which is designated by green.P00411-6

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/

 

 

 

 

Posted on by tonytomeo · 2 Comments

Aleppo Pine

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Aleppo pine thinks it is native.

From coastal regions around the Mediterranean Sea, the Aleppo pine, Pinus halepensis, came to be right at home on and near the coast of California. Once established, it can survive quite happily on rainfall. Trees that get too much water can actually get too heavy with foliage, and may eventually get disfigured if limbs break.

Shade under an Aleppo pine is not too dark. The light and sometimes yellowish green foliage is rather wispy, comprised of thin paired needles that are about three inches long. The sculptural trunks almost always lean to one direction or another, and often divide into multiple trunks once they grow out of reach. Bark is light gray with light brown striations.

Young trees can get big rather fast. They tend to be somewhat conical, or at least upright, until they get to be about forty feet tall. Then, they tend to shed lower stems and develop irregular branch structure with rounded tops as their growth rate slows. Only a few old trees in ideal situations slowly get to seventy feet tall. Seedlings sometimes appear where they are not wanted.