It is pretty but pervasive. Actually, I do not really find scarlet pimpernel to be all that appealing, but this is how someone who reads my gardening column in the Santa Ynes Valley News describes it. Embarrassingly, she requested that I discuss scarlet pimpernel while it was more of a problem back on June 7, but I only recently read the message. By now, it is already dying back for autumn, and is completely deteriorated in dry and hot exposed areas. It will be back next spring, and will bloom with tiny peachy orange flowers so that it can throw tiny but ridiculously abundant seed by summer before anyone notices. Flowers can be other colors in other regions. The sprawling stems can spread more than a foot wide, and can get up to about ten inches high if sprawling over other weeds. The tiny and soft leaves are arranged in opposing pairs. Scarlet pimpernel may not seem like much of a threat now that it is deteriorating, but new seedlings will be profuse early next spring, and can compete with seedlings of more desirable plants.
Control of scarlet pimpernel is not easy. If application of herbicide is an option, it does not stick to the foliage of scarlet pimpernel very well, even with a wetting agent. Hoeing eliminated larger plants, but does not kill the seed that the larger plants have already tossed. Scarlet pimpernel starts throwing seed so early that it must be pulled as soon as it appears in very early spring. Like I said, it is not easy. The small plants are not even easy to see. The process must be repeated at least weekly for a while, just because some seedlings will emerge after the first batch is gone.
Fortunately, scarlet pimpernel is not very vigorous. If it comes up through mulch, only a few plants will survive, and they will be easy to pull. They do not compete with other more vigorous plants well either. Many simple ground covers will simply shade it out, although it can mingle with and ruin some of the finely textured ground covers like baby tears and thyme.
I am sorry that I do not have any more information about scarlet pimpernel than is commonly known. I am speaking primarily from experience, and my experience has not been as bad as with other more aggressive weeds. Scarlet pimpernel always seems to be around, but is not so much of a problem that I am too worried about annihilating it completely.
Big Trees
They are the biggest. Giant redwoods are revered for their age and size. It was not always like that.
Many of the biggest giant redwoods were killed merely for bragging rights. Whoever discovered the biggest got to arrange to get it cut down, and then pose on the stump for photographs. Some trees were cut down just so the rings could be counted. Many felled trees were just left to rot where they fell. It was not practical to transport the lumber out of the remote regions of the Sierra Nevada where the trees lived. That was at a time when ‘sportsmen’ shot from trains into herds of wild buffalo, only to pose with the biggest dead carcass they could find in the aftermath, and then leave all of the deceased to rot on the prairie.
So, at about the same time in history that the related coastal redwood was being harvested so indiscriminately for lumber, the biggest of the giant redwoods were killed primarily for sport. Even in regions from which lumber could have been transported from, no one could figure out how to get such massive giant redwoods onto the ground without fracturing the lumber within. Because their wood is so brittle, smaller giant redwoods that were harvestable were simply cut and split into shakes, grape stakes, and fence posts and rails. Young and healthy specimens of the biggest trees in the World were used for the smallest and most unglamorous forms of lumber.
The biggest of the giant redwoods are of course protected now, mostly within national parks. They are quite accessible to those who want to visit and admire them. I got this picture with one of my esteemed colleagues in front of the General Sherman tree in wintertime back in the early 2000s.
Six on Saturday: Redwoods Again
Redwoods are such interesting trees. There is always something to write about them. I happen to live and work within the native range of the coastal redwood. I often work with very big redwoods, both in the wild, and in landscaped areas that were formerly wild. There are no other trees that are comparable. The giant redwoods in the Sierra Nevada are bigger, but they are also very different.
1. In most home gardens and landscapes, trees that get cut down get recycled into greenwaste and firewood. Not many are big enough to get recycled into lumber. Even fewer are big enough to get milled into big timbers. This milled redwood lumber is drying before getting milled again into timbers and smaller sizes of lumber that will get used to repair and remodel some of the historical old buildings. A bit of pine lumber is also obtained from the big ponderosa pines nearby.
2. Limbs, foliage, bark and parts of the redwood trees that can not be milled into lumber get chipped. Chips get used as mulch in landscaped areas. After taking this picture, I realized that it is not really a pile of chipped redwood, but is instead chipped wood waste. Chipped redwood is typically green with foliage. Oh well, you get the idea.
3. The Ewok Village of ‘Star Wars IV – Return of the Jedi’ was in a redwood forest near Fortuna. This is not really an Ewok Village.
4. It is a Redwood Canopy Tour. People (not Ewoks) can be seen on a platform in the yellow rectangle just above and to the right of the center of the picture. Someone on a zip line can be seen in the white rectangle just below and barely to the left of the center. It looks crazy to me, but many of my colleagues do crazier things at work.
5. Most of us have seen pictures of massive redwood trunks. Most of us have seen pictures of redwood forests. Not so many of us have seen what the foliage looks like.
6. This perennial pea has nothing to do with redwoods, but needed to be included as a token flower for this week. Besides it is cool. It is softer pink than the bright purplish pink that is so typical, and is blooming very late.
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/
Here are a few links for some of my brief articles about redwood:
https://tonytomeo.com/2018/08/17/dawn-redwood/
https://tonytomeo.com/2018/08/12/general-sherman-tree/
https://tonytomeo.com/2018/08/04/albino/
https://tonytomeo.com/2018/08/04/six-on-saturday-bits-and-pieces-ii/
https://tonytomeo.com/2018/07/14/six-on-saturday-redwoods/
https://tonytomeo.com/2018/05/12/six-on-saturday-tree-ring-circus/
https://tonytomeo.com/2017/10/15/redwoods/
https://tonytomeo.com/2017/10/05/big-tree-in-a-small-town/
Horridculture – Agave
When they became a fad in the 2000s, it was one of the very few fads that was actually sensible for California. Agaves certainly are not for every landscape, and certainly do not suit everyone’s taste, but they are ideal for the climate here. In some regards, they are more practical than the more popular of the native specie that tend to be scrubby looking and short lived. Agaves really should have become trendy a long time ago.
The problem with the fad, like so many other fads, is that it caused the object of desire to be overly popular for a while. Many agaves consequently got planted into situations where they did not belong. Landscape designers often forced them into the gardens of clients who did not know what they were, or did not even like their bold style. To show them off most prominently, designers often put the agaves next to walkways, driveways and doorways, rather in the background.
Those who know agaves know that they belong in the background because of their nasty foliar teeth! Technically, they are neither thorns not spines, but they are so wicked that they are known by both terms. These teeth are remarkably sharp and stout. Next to walkways and doorways, they can inflict significant injury to anyone unfortunate enough to bump into them. Next to a driveway, they can puncture tires! The foliar teeth of agaves are so dangerous that they do not belong anywhere in the gardens of homes where children or dogs live.
What is worse about those that are too close to walkways and such is that they grow! Landscape designers are notorious for installing small agaves that grow large in tight spots, merely because they were so cute and innocent when they were small.
Premature Color
Halloween is my all time least favorite of the fake holidays. I will not elaborate on this now, but will say that the appearance of Halloween decorations as soon as the Fourth of July decorations were outdated on the fifth makes me dislike Halloween even more. Halloween is an autumn pseudoholiday. It is not meant for summer!
Autumn foliar color, or fall color, is known as such because it happens in ‘fall’ . . . or autumn. It is not meant for summer any more than Halloween is.
This little Japanese maple did not get the memo. Perhaps it thought that no one would notice if it got an early start. It was a nice bronze in spring and the early part of summer, and somehow managed to maintain good color without roasting when the mild weather so suddenly became more seasonably warm a while back, but is now turning this nice pinkish red as if it is done for the year. This picture is slightly more than week old, so this little tree has been slowing down for a while already.
I can not complain. I am actually impressed that this tree did not get roasted when the weather changed earlier. Japanese maples are susceptible to scorch in our arid climate, and the ‘lace leaf’ cultivars are the most sensitive. More resilient foliage, including English laurel cherry, got roasted.
What will this Japanese maple look like in autumn? I can not predict. It would be nice if it held the premature color through autumn and defoliated on schedule in winter. It might defoliate as prematurely as it colored, leaving it bare part way through autumn. The bark could scald if too exposed while the sun is still high and warm. The weather will determine what happens next.
The Bad Seed
This salvia would probably look badder without it. Yes, that’s badder and not better. I mean, if all these slightly unsightly seeded stems were cut back, then the even more unsightly deteriorating foliage below would be more prominent. When one looks at it that way, the bad seed suspended above does not seem all that bad.
It is doubtful that the ‘gardeners’ who ‘maintain’ this site put that much thought into it. They are, after all, the same who ‘maintain’ the firethorn that is pictured in this article from June 27 (The Wrong Plant In The Wrong Place https://tonytomeo.com/2018/06/27/horridculture-the-wrong-plant-in-the-wrong-place/ ). There were probably too busy botching something else to notice that this salvia is in need of botching as well.
There is some unpruned black sage nearby that displays similar but smaller seeded structures on more irregular and arching stems, rather than vertical stems that stand upright. They too are somewhat appealing in a weirdly sculptural sort of way. They might stay like that until winter, when they will likely get pruned back as they deteriorate in the weather.
Sunflowers are commonly left after bloom just because finches and other seed eating birds like them so much. They do not get cut down until the birds are finished with them. To many, this is the main reason for growing sunflowers.
Another excuse to be lazy about deadheading spent blooms is that many will provide seed that can be collected for the next season, or merely allowed to self sow and naturalize. Leaving open pollinated vegetables out to go to seed is a common practice. For example, the last few radishes to be pulled might just be left to bolt, bloom and go to seed. Cosmos tends to throw its seed whether we want it to or not.
Six on Saturday: Out With The Old
The planter box downtown has been neglected for too long. ( https://tonytomeo.com/2017/11/04/my-tiny-downtown-garden/ ) I really must make some time to clean out the debris and a little bit of trash. There is nothing as interesting as when the concrete slurry was dumped into it by whomever was installing the tile in the bathroom of the adjacent building, but there are some odds and ends. One of the six trailing rosemary plants that was trailing so nicely over the southern edge is missing . . . as in someone cut it back to a stump. Someone dumped out an old dead houseplant right into the middle of the planter box, leaving an upside down pot shaped wad of potting soil, as if no one would mind. Right next to that, someone left a potted kangaroo paw, as if I might want to plant it into the planter box. It is all dried up and mostly dead . . . and I really do not like kangaroo paw enough to want to grow it there. Well, perhaps it is better to show you the drama than to write too much about it.
1. This is the potted kangaroo paw that someone left in the planter box. Anyone who does not notice how sloppy all the dried foliar debris on the ground around it is will be sure to notice how unsightly this dried kangaroo paw is. The pile of discarded potting soil was already bashed up and spread out before this picture was taken. I will probably plant the kangaroo paw somewhere else, just in case it survives. I do not want it here. The pot is nice.
2. It has a name; Anigozanthos ‘Kanga Yellow’. Doesn’t anyone use species names anymore?
3. Right next to my planter box is a tree well with a London plane that has not grown more than a few inches in the past few years. When my nasturtiums really get to blooming and seeding, I sweep some of the seed into the tree well, where they bloom just as prolifically as they do in the planter box, but a bit later. I make it look like an accident. There is also a busted up houseleek in there. It grew from a piece of mine, and will regenerate when the rain resumes in autumn. It sort of looks like an accident too.
4. Just to the west of the slow London plane is one of a few old Southern magnolias that will be removed. They are disfigured and somewhat unhealthy, so are not worth salvaging as the pavement of the surrounding roadway, sidewalk and curb get replaced. Even if we wanted to salvage them, they would not likely survive the process. It is sad to see them go, but they were good street trees for a very long time, and certainly lasted longer than they should have been expected to. Southern magnolias commonly displace pavement. I really would not mind if the ailing London plane were to be removed as well, just because it it too pathetic to work around, but the tree huggers are intent on preserving it. When the magnolias get replaced with new redbuds or tupelos, the London plane will look odd, and will eventually get too big and break the new pavement. Oh well. My planter box and this tree are actually on Nicholson Avenue, not on Tait Avenue or Bayview Avenue.
5. ‘X’ marks the magnolias who are condemned to death. I know they need to go, but it is saddening anyway. They were fun neighbors.
6. Since there were no colorful flowers within my planter box, it was necessary to get this picture elsewhere. Brent might say this looks like the Academy Awards, with a bee on the red carpet rose. Well, I can not expect you to know how Brent thinks. You can omit ‘rose’, and think of ‘bee’ as ‘B’, and think of ‘B’ as a euphemism.
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/
Horridculture – DEATH
It is quite natural. Death, I mean. Every living thing does it at one time or another. Even the oldest bristlecone pines that live for thousands of years eventually do it. The Monterey pine in this picture did it quite efficiently. The three crows perched on top make it look extra dead. You know, not merely dead, but very dead. If this tree were in my own garden, I would be totally saddened by its death, but there is nothing that I could do about it.
The smaller dark objects suspended in the now dead limbs are pine cones. Monterey pine starts to produce pine cones at a young age, and of course, produces more with age and increasing size. As mature trees begin to deteriorate, they produce even more cones as they concentrate their resources into seed production for the next generation. This elderly tree knew that death was imminent. After all, death is natural.
Compared to other trees that are native to the neighborhood, such as valley oaks that live for centuries, and coastal redwoods that live for thousands of years, Monterey pines are ‘short-lived’. They live only a century or so, and may not live half that long in urban situations, particularly in more arid climates. They are endemic to the Monterey Peninsula, where they live within an ecosystem that, prior to urban development, naturally burned at least every century or so, before they got to be too old. In fact, their natural life cycle was directly relevant to how combustible the forests were, and how efficiently fires spread through them; but that is another topic.
The main concern here is that death is natural. The tree in this picture died a natural death. It can not be blamed on global warming, climate change, big industry, the President that we all seem to hate even though enough of us voted for him to become president, or my old car that, after almost half a century, is still not a hybrid. We can complain about death all we want, but we can never stop it.
Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day August 15 – Summer Weather Continues . . . Mostly
We were fortunate to have missed out on the unpleasant warmth that most everyone in the Northern Hemisphere experienced. It was warm here, but no warmer than is normal for summer. The only difficulty is that it got so warm so suddenly after such mild weather early in summer. Some of the flowers that were blooming at that time finished a bit earlier as a result of the weather.
Flowers that are blooming now are somewhat on schedule. Chrysanthemum does not see to have much of schedule, but that should be expected. Although I would guess that they are early, those who know better tell me that naked lady is right on time.
Those in other climates have no problem talking about the end of summer or even the incoming autumn already. I am not ready to give up on summer. I will likely be talking about it still in September. I can talk about autumn in October.
These pictures were taken on the Santa Cruz County side of the Santa Cruz Mountains above Los Gatos, closer to Felton. The climate is more coastal than the chaparral climate of the Santa Clara Valley, although both are within USDA Zone 9.
Naked lady started blooming about a week ago, just long enough for the first of the bloomed flowers to start deteriorating in the background. I thought this was somewhat early, but a colleague, who is incidentally not at all horticulturally oriented, informed me that this is exactly the right time for them. When I was a kid getting ready to go back to school, I remember them blooming in September in Montara, but that was many miles away, and in a somewhat different and more coastal climate.
Chrysanthemum is another flower that I think of as blooming later, and even into autumn. Yet, these have been blooming since late spring. There are different cultivars that bloomed at different times. These are the latest, but are already starting to deteriorate. Perhaps those that already finished will bloom for another phase in autumn. It is difficult to say. I think that they bloom whenever they want to here.
Peruvian lily is blooming for a second phase, which really is right on schedule. The main and most prolific bloom phase was in late spring. After those flowers finished and deteriorated, the finished stalks got plucked, leaving only a bit of vegetative stems sprawling on the ground, and a few unbloomed stalks that are blooming now. After bloom, the finished stalks will probably get cut in half, but not plucked. That technique removes the seed capsules and keeps the tall and lanky stalks from falling over, but also leaves a bit of foliage to help the lower vegetative growth recharge the system for bloom next year.
Rose blooms all summer. Some of the hybrid tea roses bloom in more obvious phases after their most prolific first phase. Floribunda roses like this one bloom so steadily that there is not much separation between phases. This particular rose is in a pot that was not likely watered enough through the earlier warm weather, so subsequent bloom was not expected. Some of the petals are a bit roasted around the edges.
Zonal geranium blooms about as steadily as floribunda roses do. They would bloom right through winter if there did not need to be cut back before spring. Some zonal geraniums put out quite a bit of new growth recently. It will be awkward to cut them back at the end of next winter. The stems that are fresh and new now will still be in good condition right through winter, so I will not want to cut them back like I should. The flower of this zonal geranium is the same color as the rose above.
San Marzano tomato is NOT what this tomato is. It was labeled as such, but looks more like common ‘Roma’. No one is complaining. There is certainly nothing wrong with it, except that it is not what was expected. Hey, this unknown tomato is the same color as the zonal geranium above, which is the same color as the rose above. All the other flowers above are from plants that are in the storage nursery at work. These tomatoes are in a colleague’s garden adjacent to the nursery.
Garden Bloggers all over America and in other countries can share what is blooming in their gardens on the fifteenth of each month on “Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day”, hosted by Carol Micheal’s May Dreams Garden at http://www.maydreamsgardens.com
General Sherman Tree
The biggest, tallest and oldest trees in the World are all native to California. The biggest trees are the giant redwood, Sequoiadendron giganteum. The tallest trees are the coastal redwood, Sequoia sempervirens. The oldest trees are the bristlecone pines, Pinus longaeva. The biggest and the tallest are two of only three specie of redwood in the World, and except for a few coastal redwood that live barely north of the Oregon border, both are endemic only to California. Most of us know that the coastal redwood is the state tree of California. However, some believe that California is the only state with two state trees, which are the two native specie of redwood.
This gives arborists from California serious bragging rights.
Most of the arborists whom I work with are very familiar with the coastal redwood. Not only is it the most prominent tree in the Santa Cruz Mountains, but it is also a common tree in landscapes of the Santa Clara Valley.
The other two specie are not nearly so common. Neither perform well in landscape situations, and certainly not locally. Even if they did, the giant redwood gets much too bulky to fit into urban landscapes, and the bristlecone pine is a bit too irregular for refined landscapes. Because they both live in somewhat remote regions within California, some very experienced arborists have never seen either of them in the wild. Of course, it is not something we talk about much.
I still have not seen bristlecone pine in the wild. The only specimens I have ever seen were bonsai stock that had not yet been cultivated as bonsai specimens.
In the late 1990s, I had not seen giant redwood in the wild either. I had only seen the unhappy specimens that were planted on the sides of roads between San Jose and nearby towns during the Victorian Period before the urban landscape had become so inhospitable to them. One of my respected colleagues who had seen many of the more interesting trees of California in his travels had not seen them either.
Fortunately, it was nothing that a good old fashioned road trip could not fix. Without much planning at all, we drove out to Sequoia National Park and met with the General Sherman Tree. There was too much snow to get very far, so we did not get similarly acquainted with the General Grant Tree farther up the road. It was one of the most compelling horticultural trips of my lifetime, right up there with going to see the native California fan palm, Washingtonia filifera, outside of Palm Springs, or the Joshua tree, Yucca brevifolia, outside of Palmdale. I know that the picture above is not a good picture of my colleague with the General Sherman Tree. It is from a time when cameras still used film. Getting pictures transferred to a compact disc was merely an option back then. The sepia toned picture below is even older, but it is not mine.
Tony Tomeo 