Horticulturists are by nature, nonconforming. I happen to find it difficult to conform to what makes us nonconforming. Trends are fleeting. Old technology that has worked for decades or centuries is still best. Although I am not totally against chemicals, I find that almost all are unnecessary for responsible home gardening. Pruning is underappreciated, and fixes many problems.
Chrysanthemum paludosum goes into the garden early here.
In cooler climates, where winters are too harsh but summers are just right, Chrysanthemum paludosum is a warm season annual. Locally though, it gets planted about now like pansies, stock and Iceland poppies. Chrysanthemum paludosum does just fine through late winter, and does even better as the weather gets warmer in spring. It can be replaced with real warm season annuals as weather eventually gets too warm and dry (lacking humidity) in summer. In cool and damp places, it can survive through summer. Chrysanthemum paludosum develops into six inch wide mounds of rich green and finely textured foliage adorned with small white daisy flowers with yellow centers.
Dormant blackberry canes are now available with other bare root stock.
One of my favorite modern California impressionistic paintings depicts suburban gardening of the post agricultural period in the Santa Clara Valley. It is a finger painting that I made in kindergarten at Bucknall School in about 1972 or 3, to illustrate some of my favorite features of my grandparents’ garden in Santa Clara. To the left is a vertical brown stripe below green squiggles with black spots; the avocado tree. To the right is a similar image with red instead of black spots; the cherry tree. Between and below these, and lacking a vertical stripe, is a flurry of green squiggles with more black spots. These are blackberry canes.
Blackberries are not at all ‘low maintenance’ since they require rather intensive specialized pruning. Most of the work that they need gets done during summer; but bare-root blackberry plants become available and get planted this time of year with other bare-root plants. Blackberries produce fruit on biennial canes which grow during their first year, and then bloom and fruit during their second year before dieing out.
Once the tough roots are established, there is no shortage of fresh new canes to replace the old canes. In fact, surplus young canes can be dug and divided with roots to propagate new plants during winter. Because they have a way of spreading outward, blackberries should not be planted too near to neighbors’ fences without root barriers to keep them contained.
The most popular blackberries locally are ‘trailing’ types such as ‘Boysen’, ‘Marion’ and ‘Olallie’, which are also known as ‘Boysenberry’, ‘Marionberry’ and ‘Olallieberry’. Less common ‘erect’ types, such as ‘Arapaho’, ‘Chickasaw’, ‘Choctaw’ and ‘Navaho’, are more tolerant to cold winter weather, so are more popular where winters are more severe. Hybrids of trailing and erect blackberries are ‘semierect’, and are generally treated like trailing types.
After they get planted in winter, trailing and semierect blackberry canes can do whatever they want to through their first year. In their second year, canes should be trained onto trellises or wires until they have finished fruiting in summer. When the fruit is finished, these canes should be cut to the ground.
Some of the canes that were growing on the ground below the trellises while all this was going on should now be trained like the canes that were just removed. For trailing types, about ten to fifteen of the best canes should be selected, trained and pruned to about six or seven feet long. About half as many canes of semierect types should be selected and pruned about a foot shorter. All remaining canes should be cut to the ground. (A few of the smallest remaining canes may be left intact through summer to be divided for propagation in winter.)
Side branches grow from the pruned canes through late summer and early autumn. At the end of the following winter, these side branches should be pruned to about a foot long. New growth from these stems blooms and fruits during the following summer. Again, when fruit is gone, the spent canes get cut to the ground so that the process can be repeated.
Erect blackberries do not need to be trained onto support. Canes that develop during their first year can be cut to about two and a half feet tall in the middle of summer. Resulting branches should be cut about a foot long in winter. During the following summer, these fruiting canes should be cut to the ground as fruit is depleted. New canes can then be pruned like the previous canes were.
The weather here made national news on Sunday night. It was apparently quite a storm, with unusually windy wind. A few trees fell in the neighborhood. The roads were messy with debris. The electricity at home was disrupted. Otherwise, to me, it did not seem like a particularly bad storm. After all, this is winter.
HOWEVER, on Saturday, even before the worst of the weather on Sunday, the wind knocked over my small ‘Ponderosa’ lemon, only a few hours after I posted a picture of one of its two developing fruit. It is a dinky tree in a #1 can, but its lemons are disproportionately large. As I mentioned on Saturday, I should have removed the lemons to divert resources to vegetative growth, but wanted to see if they would develop and ripen. The weather did it for me.
Now I am annoyed. I do not like to be one who complains about the weather. There is not much to complain about in that regard here. This is a pleasantly mild climate that lacks the sort of severe weather that other climates must contend with. The gust that blew over the small lemon tree was not nearly as strong as those that blew over trees within the surrounding forests and neighborhoods. I am just annoyed that after letting the lemons grow as much as they did, their effort will now be wasted.
The two lemons did not develop as they should have, but are still bigger than average ‘Eureka’ or ‘Lisbon’ lemons. I put them aside to ripen if they can. I doubt that they will. I can prune the small tree to remove the stems that had previously supported the two lemons, and make cuttings of them, to grow more small trees. Actually, I should have done this anyway.
Both alocasias and colocasias are striking foliar plants. Alocasias generally develop big leaves that point upward. Colocasias generally develop even bigger leaves that hang downward. Alocasias are generally more colorful, perhaps with striking foliar patterns. Also, most tolerate more shade than colocasias. Of course, these are generalizations.
Asian taro, Alocasia odora, resembles colocasias as much as alocasias. Its big cordate leaves may point only slightly upward, and might sag downward. They can grow two feet long and a foot wide, on petioles as long as three feet. Collectively, foliage can get more than five feet tall. It is bright but monochromatic green, similar to that of Kermit the Frog.
Asian taro is only occasionally available from nurseries. Small plants are too delicate for nurseries to market too many of them for too long. Their dormant bulbs are more likely to become available with summer bulbs. They can be wider than three inches! They grow slowly though, especially while weather is cool. Foliage may not appear for two months.
Spring bulbs begin to go into the garden during autumn to benefit from the chill of winter. Summer bulbs begin to go into the garden during late winter to avoid the chill of winter. Spring bulbs know to remain dormant through winter. Some summer bulbs do not. If they grow prematurely, they can be vulnerable to cool wintry weather. Late is better than early.
Frost is still possible within some climates. However, summer bulbs are now in season. That is because, like spring bulbs, they disperse roots prior to developing foliage. By the time they extend foliage in a month or so, the weather will not be so cool. Later phases of a few sorts bloom later to prolong bloom for the first season. They synchronize afterward.
That is because they establish themselves within the garden. Once they do, some types of summer bulbs become hardy perennials. Some might try to grow prematurely during subsequent winters. If they incur frost damage as established perennials, they can easily replace the damage. Ornamental gingers and cannas do so regularly in inland climates.
Ornamental gingers and cannas may eventually benefit from division. Even if they do not become too crowded, they can migrate where they are not wanted. Their surplus is easy to relocate or share while dormant for winter. Their foliage becomes shabby or dies back during dormancy anyway. Even if mostly green, its removal stimulates healthy refoliation.
Ornamental gingers and cannas also are oblivious to phasing. Gingers bloom only once for late summer or autumn. Cannas bloom randomly from spring until autumn. Gladiolus bloom only once like gingers, but are more conducive to phasing. Early planting allows early bloom. Late planting delays bloom. Unfortunately, they are much less sustainable.
If summer bulbs do not look like bulbs, it is because few actually are. Most are rhizomes. Dahlias, which, like cannas, bloom from spring until autumn, grow from tuberous roots. As the name implies, tuberous begonias grow from tubers. Crocosmias grow from corms. So do taros, which are large foliar perennials. Gingers and cannas are familiar rhizomes. Although alliums bloom as summer bulbs, they go into the garden along with earlier spring bulbs.
This is no ordinary daffodil. I realize that it looks just like the daffodils that I posted a picture of two Saturdays ago, and it could actually be the same variety, but it is quite distinct. I acquired this particular daffodil in about summer of 1986. It could have been a year or two earlier or later, and might not have been summer. The foliage was not completely shriveled as it should have been during summer, but it lasts longer in the coastal climate that I took it from. I really do not remember when I acquired it, but I know that it was a long time ago, about the summer of 1986.
Although we have not been acquainted for as long as I have been acquainted with my paternal paternal great grandfather’s rhubarb and my maternal maternal great grandmother’s Dalmatian iris, both of which I acquired prior to kindergarten, we have significant mutual history.
I ‘borrowed’ several large clumps of bulbs from an abandoned flower field to the east of my Pa’s home in Montara. The clumps were very overgrown and very crowded, but still in their original rows, as they had been arranged for cut flower production many years prior. Shortly afterward, all of the other bulbs were somehow and seemingly pointlessly removed from the field by an excavator. A monster home was built on the highest part of the field, with a view of the field, which remained completely uncultivated afterward. No one knows how or why all the daffodil bulbs were removed so completely, but none were ever seen again. The naturalized field of daffodils seemed like it would have been an attribute to the home.
Over many years, the bulbs grew at most of the homes that I lived in, until the last few years, after I left the last of them at a former home in town. Then, after bringing a few roses here from my old rose garden at a previous home, I noticed that a few bulbs came with them. I thought that they were fancier daffodils, but now that this one bloomed, it is obvious that they are the familiar daffodils from Montara.
Citrus ripen through winter. This ‘Ponderosa’ lemon is taking its time, probably because it is still growing. Individual ‘Ponderosa’ lemons commonly weigh two pounds, and can potentially get a bit heavier than five pounds. That is heavier than some of Rhody’s chihuahua friends. I doubt that this particular lemon will get much larger than it is now, but it is already bigger than an average ‘Eureka’ lemon. It is about as big as a baseball.
The problem with this fruit is that it is on a tiny lemon tree in a #1 can. It is one of two fruits. I should not have allowed them to develop as much as they have. I should have removed them when they first appeared in order to divert resources into vegetative growth, rather than fruit development. Now that they grew this much, I sort of want them to finish ripening. It would be a waste to remove them now. After they ripen, I can prune their stems from the tiny tree, and process them as cuttings to grow more new trees.
I would like to install this little ‘Ponderosa’ lemon tree into a landscape at Ponderosa Lodge. Not only is its name appropriate, but the weirdly huge fruit might be interesting to the children who come to ‘Outdoor Science’ school there. Contrary to the huge size of its fruits, ‘Ponderosa’ lemon trees do not grow very large or very fast. However, a mature ‘Eureka’ lemon already inhabits the garden there, and we recently installed a ‘Bearss’ lime. Another lemon tree would redundant. We would prefer to grow a more edible citrus within the limited space that is available, such as a sweet orange, Mandarin orange or kumquat. For now, we will just enjoy this tiny lemon tree with its huge lemons right here.
‘Crazy Great Ideas From Crazy Green Thumbs 6’ featured four sculptural tree specimens that had been relocated to Gilroy Gardens, which was formerly Bonfante Gardens, from the now defunct Lost World, which was formerly Tree Circus. While getting gasoline for Morgan in Scotts Valley, I stopped at the former site of Tree Circus for these six pictures. Not much remains to suggest that Tree Circus was ever there. Of these six pictures, only one shows real vegetation, which is a single London plane, Platanus X acerifolia, with a pair of trunks, which form an arch. (Incidentally, Crazy Green Thumbs sent me seed for poinciana and esperanza, which I featured for Six on Saturday almost two years earlier.)
1. Tree Circus Center now occupies the former location of Tree Circus, and subsequently, the Lost World. Progress can be so trivializing. Notice the emblem at the top of this sign.
2. The emblem depicts this last tree of the Tree Circus, which was a pair of trees that got grafted together and separated and grafted together. Notice the plaques to the lower left.
3. This upper plaque very briefly explains the history of Tree Circus and the Lost World, although without mention of what happened afterwards. Notice the other plaque below.
4. This lower plaque features illustrations of a few of the many sculpted trees of the Tree Circus, although woefully weathered. Notice the illustrations to the far right and far left.
5. This illustration to the far right shows the only other tree of the Tree Circus to remain at the site, although it is now gone. Notice the caption, ‘Protected for future generations’.
6. This illustration to the far left shows one of the Tree Circus trees that was exhibited in the context of ‘Crazy Great Ideas From Crazy Green Thumbs 6’ by Crazy Green Thumbs.
Mexican weeping bamboo is more appealing in abundance.
Like junipers, bamboos have gotten a bad reputation from only a few of their problematic specie. Many of the traditional running bamboos really are too aggressively invasive. However, there are many clumping bamboos that are much more adaptable to confined and refined garden areas. Even these complaisant bamboos remain uncommon though, both because of the unpopularity of bamboos, and because they are not so easily produced.
Mexican weeping bamboo, Otatea acuminata aztecorum, is certainly one of the more interesting of these clumping bamboos. Their limber inch and half wide stems are not nearly as rigid as those of most other bamboos are, and may bend down to the ground under the weight of their abundant and remarkably finely textured foliage. The four or five inch long leaves may be only an eighth of an inch wide. Both the stems and foliage move nicely in even slight breezes.
Established plants are somewhat resilient to neglect, but can get rather yellowish and will likely stay less than ten feet tall without regular watering. With regular watering and monthly application of nitrogen fertilizer, such as lawn fertilizer, during warm weather, they can get twice as tall. Old canes should be pruned to the ground as they begin to deteriorate. There should be plenty of fresh new stems to replace them.
It will be time to add warm season vegetables to the garden soon.
This article is recycled from several years ago, so the information about the class is no longer relevant.
Just as we are getting accustomed to winter, it is already time to begin to get ready for spring. The first of the six sessions of the Sustainable Vegetable Gardening class with Master Gardener Ann Northrup at Guadalupe River Park and Gardens will be from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. on February 10. Subsequent sessions continue weekly at the same time until the sixth session on March 17, in time for warm season vegetables to replace cool season vegetables.
Topics include: soil preparation, amendments and fertilizers; irrigation methods and systems; working with both seeds and seedlings; cultural requirements of specific warm and cool season crops and varieties that do well locally; and how to identify and manage common pests, weeds and diseases of vegetable crops in the Santa Clara Valley. Sustainable Vegetable Gardening emphasizes sustainable gardening techniques, such as mulching, efficient watering techniques, composting, integrated pest management and organic fertilizers and soil amendments. Participants will learn how to manage a successful and environmentally responsible food garden that will produce vegetables and herbs throughout the year.
Sustainable Vegetable Gardening will be at the Guadalupe River Park and Gardens Visitor and Education Center at 438 Coleman Avenue in San Jose. Admission is $72. Pre-registration is required and can be arranged by telephoning 298 7657. More information about this and other classes can be found at www.grpg.org.
Another reminder of the distant but eventual spring is that seed catalogues start to arrive. Some arrive by email as links to online catalogues. It seems that the best still arrive by mail though. I have yet to receive two of my favorite catalogues from Baker Creek Heirloom Seed and Park Seed. Baker Creek not only has some of the oldest heirloom seeds, including Early American seeds, but also some of the weirdest vegetable, herb and flower seeds from all over the world. Park Seed supplies the more contemporary traditional seeds that I grew up with, as well as all sorts of bulbs and plants.
It may be too late by the time their catalogues arrive, because the Renee’s Garden Seed Catalogue is already here! The online catalogue can be found at www.reneesgarden.com. Even though I typically do not like mixed seeds, I do like Renee’s Garden color coded mixes with the different types within the mixes dyed different colors. I simply separate the different seeds as I plant them. It is like getting two or three packets of seed in one.
I think I like Renee’s flowers as much as the vegetables. There is an entire page of sweet peas to choose from! I also like the selection of sunflowers, nasturtiums and morning glories. This last year, the delicate blue stars in the centers of the big white flowers of ‘Glacier Star’ morning glory were my favorite.
Tony Tomeo 