Posted on by tonytomeo · 10 Comments

FLUX

P80523This unhappy native white alder, Alnus rhombifolia, had been deteriorating for quite a while. White alders do not last long even in the wild. A few nearby have already been removed. This one is next. They were nice and shady when the landscape was new. Nicely maturing sycamores and a bigleaf maple can take over for this one now.

As bad as it looks, this nasty stain had nothing to do with the imminent doom of this tree. It developed only recently, and very quickly. It is not nearly as bad as it looks. If the tree were not to be removed, it could survive with this problem for quite a while. Other healthier trees can live with it for many years or indefinitely, and some actually recover.

It is ‘flux’. More specifically, it is slime flux, which is also known as bacterial wetwood. The obvious symptoms are this unsightly bleeding and staining. A less obvious symptom is the swelling that caused the fissure in the bark from which the unsightly fluid is draining. The fluid can smell nasty!

Furrows in the bark develop naturally as the trunk expands over many years. They do not penetrate through the bark into the cambium below.

Fissures are fractures that penetrate through the bark and into the cambium. The fissure in these pictures developed so recently that the orange interior of the bark has not oxidized to tan or gray yet. The fissure is about six inches long, and slightly lower than a doorknob.

Even for healthy trees, there is no remedy for slime flux infection. It can only be left to do whatever is going to do. It can accelerate internal decay, but is otherwise not as detrimental to the health of an infected tree as it would seem to be.P80523+P80523++

(The article from my weekly gardening column that is typically posted on Thursday was posted yesterday, which is why this article, which is more appropriate for Wednesday is posted today.)

Posted on by tonytomeo · 10 Comments

Not So Fruitless Cherry Trees

P80520The ‘politically correct’ designation for them now is ‘flowering cherry’. We all know what it means, but it is not quite as accurate. After all, they all flower. Fruiting cherries can not make fruit without flowering first. The old fashioned designation as ‘fruitless cherry’ is more accurate, but not so appealing. Besides, after half a century, the work of these two deteriorating old fruitless cherry trees has not been in vain.

We are not certain what cultivar they are. I think of them as ‘Akebono’ because that is what I am familiar with. However, those who have been acquainted with them longer know them as ‘Yoshino’. The tree structure seems to be more similar to that of ‘Akebono’. The bloom seems to be more similar to that of ‘Yoshino’. My Mother happens to like ‘Akebono’, so if she ever asks, I know what to say. However, I would tell my Pa that they are ‘Yoshino’ because that happens to be the middle name of his newest son in law, who he gave my baby sister #5 away to. It does not really matter what their name is. They are some of the most important trees in the neighborhood.

You would think that with all the very old and very big redwoods here, that these puny and decrepit flowering cherry trees would not be all that important. Some of the redwoods are hundreds of feet tall and hundreds of years old. They will still be here for a very long time after the flowering cherries are gone. Flowering cherries can last for centuries where they are happiest and pampered in old gardens in Japan, but rarely last half a century here, even in the best of conditions.

However, everyone in the neighborhood knows these cherry trees. There are only a few people who can remember before the trees were planted in the late 1960s. They are spectacular in bloom, particularly with the dark green backdrop of the rest of the landscape and redwoods. The picture below shows a close up of the bloom about a month and a half ago. One can imagine the entire canopy of the trees covered with this bloom before new foliage appears. It was even more spectacular years ago, before the canopies started to deteriorate and die back. There is not much left of them now.

They really are as bad as they look in the picture above. The closer of the two trees is just a stump with that silly little stub on top to make it look even more disfigured. I could not cut off the stump because some of the minimal remaining viable stems originate there. It does not matter much. There is no way to repair these trees, or make them any prettier. Either of the trees could die at any moment. We are ready to plant at least one replacement, although we will likely only plant one. The objective is to restore the bloom that was there before, but we know that there is no replacement for the trees that those who are familiar with are so fond of.

I have worked with MANY trees through my career, including a few that are (or were) very cultural significant. I was very disgusted by the lack of respect for a group of historic redwoods that used to be outside the old City Hall in Sunnyvale before the mall was build around them, over the area that used to be downtown. I inspected the big old coast live oak at the Scott Residence in Scott’s Valley, where the founder of the town resided. Again, I was saddened by the lack of concern from people who live there now but know nothing of local history, and care even less. At the Winchester House, I witnessed idiotic mislabeling of the historic California fan palms flanking the driveway, as well as blatant lies about their history. Well, I could write another article about this rant. These not so fruitless flowering cherries do not fit into this category anyway.

It seems that everyone is aware that the flowering cherries will be gone soon, and they understand why. No one questions the need for removal. It is saddening anyway. Yet, it is also gratifying to know that these trees are appreciated and respected as much as they are. Those who know them appreciate all the work they put into making their lives a bit more colorful and happier. For half a century, these flowering cherries have been doing what they were planted to do. They had a very good and fruitful career.P80414

Posted on by tonytomeo · 13 Comments

Jumping Juniper!

P80519KOh, the stigma of juniper never gets old! No matter how many cool new cultivars get introduced, and how many specie get rediscovered, they are still though of as those nastily prickly ‘tams’ that were too common in the 1950s. Even some of us who really like junipers dislike tams, not only because they share their stigma with all other members of the genus, but also because they really are nasty and prickly, and not as useful as their overuse would suggest. Are they deep ground cover or shallow shrubbery? They might work for a few years, or maybe many years, but they eventually crash into each other or other plants and pile up into a dense thicket that can not be pruned without being deprived of all dignity.

In the neighborhood where I primarily work, we have a ‘do not plant’ list. Such lists typically cite specie that are notoriously invasive, such as pampas grass, blue gum eucalyptus, Acacia dealbata and English ivy. In regions where fire is a concern, specie that are notoriously combustible, such as cedar, cypress, rosemary and manzanita, are also cited. Almost all of the specie on our list are there for good reason. I mean, we can figure out why they are undesirable in the neighborhood. Then there is juniper. No specie are cited; just the entire genus. Juniper.

Perhaps the eastern red cedar, Juniperus virginiana, is too likely to become an invasive exotic here, so the entire species was condemned. Perhaps junipers in abundance are just too combustible. The ‘do not plant’ list provides no explanation.

There are a few mature junipers in the landscapes that were installed before the list was compiled. A hedge of such junipers was recently removed because it was in the construction zone of buildings being renovated. It was no loss really. They were quite disfigured after decades of reliable service. However, at one end of the hedge, there were two much younger junipers that were added relatively recently to replace one that had been removed to facilitate access to subterranean utilities. They might have been added after the ‘do not plant list’ was compiled. No one really remembers. The list was compiled a few years ago, but distributed only recently.

Before the landscape was demolished, we took a few plants that could be dug up, and canned them back at the nursery for use elsewhere in other landscaped areas. We could not just leave the two small junipers to die. We dug and canned them too. Now they are back in the nursery, with no hope of finding a home back in the landscape from which they came. They happen to be nice specimens, and are certainly NOT tams. No one remembers what species or cultivar they are. They happened to match the original hedge remarkably well, which is rather impressive considering how modern cultivars have replaced most older cultivars.

I happen to have three canned junipers already. They are North American natives. Two are eastern red cedar, Juniperus virginiana, with two very distinct personalities. The other is the Juniperus communis ‘Compressa’, which is a compact cultivar and the closest I could get to the common juniper. Apparently, the common juniper is not so common in the natural form. I already do not know what to do with these three, although the common juniper can stay canned indefinitely.

These other two displaced junipers will probably go into a landscape pretty soon, while they are not yet root-bound. They just can not go any place close to where they came from.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 23 Comments

Six on Saturday: Rhody

 

Not the terrier!

These are six of the many rhododendrons that have been blooming in the landscape for a while now. Some of the pictures are a week or so old. I do not remember when I took them. The rhododendrons did well this year, and their bloom has been lasting quite nicely. I should be pruning them next week, but can not get started until they finish. Some are very big, and some are sloppily overgrown. As much as I enjoy them in this landscape, I miss working with them on the farm. I can remember delivering the smaller rhododendrons in this landscape several years ago. Some of the bigger specimens are about as old as I am. I think I recognize a few of them, but can only positively identify the one in the first picture. ‘Annah Kruschke’ is the most popular cultivar, not only because it is so reliable, but also because it is not too bothered too much by the arid climate of the Santa Clara Valley and other regions that are somewhat farther inland.

1. Annah Kruschke is not the best purple, but is the easiest to grow. The foliage is is very nice dark green and somewhat glossy. It has a nice stout form that does not get too sloppy. Thrip do not bother it too much.P80519
2. This one looks like Taurus, and is just as popular with thrip, but I can not positively identify it. Branch structure is not only open, but has gotten quite sloppy with age. These will be a challenge to prune back.P80519+
3. I will not even guess what this watermelon red rhododendron is. There are several of them here. Although the branch structure is somewhat open, it is not a sloppy mess.P80519++
4. This one looks more like a cultivar that belongs in the Northwest. It has a nice stout branch structure, and nice round trusses of bright pink bloom. Although happy here, these types are not so happy in chaparral climates.P80519+++
5. This is probably my favorite rhododendron here because it looks so much like one of my favorite whites, “Helen Schiffner’. I could do without the yellow blotches. The foliage and branch structure are somewhat shabby.P80519++++
6. Like #3, I will not even guess what this one is. Although I typically prefer plain white, I happen to like these sorts of flowers because the blackberry stains in each floret makes the white look whiter.P90519+++++
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 · 14 Comments

Drunk Stick

P80516Seriously, I am not making this up. ‘Drunk Stick’ is what the Spanish name of ‘palo borracho’ translates into. It is one of the few common names of the tree I know only as floss silk tree, Chorisia speciosa or Ceiba speciosa. Yes, it sounds crazy, but not as crazy as what the trunk and limbs looks like. One can speculate why it is known as ‘drunk stick’. I am not certain that I want to know.

The trunk in the picture is that of a small tree still in a #5 can. Larger trunks are no better. They are fat and green, and outfitted with these weird conical thorns. The thorns are not too terribly sharp like those of hawthorns or cacti, but they are terribly stout. Seriously! They are like made of wood! As the green trunk grows, it becomes distended, but only makes more thorns to cover the expanding surface of the bark. Even large trees are covered with these horrid things! Only the smallest limbs lack them, and even they have smaller versions. Drunk stick might be endemic to Bedrock, but Bamm-Bamm Rubble would not build his treehouse in one.

Why on Earth would anyone want this aberration of nature in the garden?! Well, it is interesting. After all, it got your attention. Several were planted as street trees in the medians of Santa Monica Boulevard through West Hollywood, to show off their weird trunks. On top of that, over the exteriors of their low and broad canopies, their fluorescent pink bloom matches their lime green trunks about as well as socks that Valley Girls (from the Santa Clara Valley of course) wore in the 1980s. Neither inebriation nor intimidation with a thorny stick is necessary to appreciate the uniqueness of the drunk stick.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 11 Comments

Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day May 15 – My Second (Yes, Another Sequel)

 

Just like in April, there is too much blooming here in the Santa Cruz Mountains above Los Gatos to easily select only a few pictures. Again, these pictures are from work instead of my home garden. We are in USDA Zone 9, on the coastal side of the Santa Cruz Mountains, which is significantly less arid than the chaparral climate of the Santa Clara Valley below the inland side.

In the process of selecting pictures, I omitted most of any flowers that I have used or will use for other articles, as well as the new warm season annuals that will be more prolific later in the season. However, I might feature chamomile soon, and will post several pictures of rhododendrons on Saturday morning.

Mock orange, Philadelphus lewisii, is finished blooming. I wanted to get this picture of it before it was completely gone. These flowers were in a shaded spot, so lasted a bit later than the others. They are extremely fragrant, and extremely white. They contrast nicely with their rich green foliage and the surrounding evergreens. This mock orange is the state flower of Idaho.5bd1Mock orange of a different flavor blooms sporadically and later. This one is Pittosporum tobira, or something like it. It happens to be a very old shrub, so might predate the modern garden variety, or might be a slightly different species. It does not look quite right, but I can not explain it in any manner that would interest anyone. It is fragrant too, but with heavier fragrance.5bd2Roses are finishing their first phase, but are already starting their next phase. Most of these are floribundas, which are not my favorite, but work very well here were they are so visible. Quantity is more important than quality here in this prominent spot. We want them to bloom more regularly than to make flowers for cutting, although some do happen to make nice stems.5bd3Clematis is still in the can because it was only recently purchased from a nursery to be added where others are not filling in on their trellis adequately. Vines are such a bother. Most are too aggressive and crush their trellises. Those that are not so aggressive do not fill in well enough. Clematis blooms nicely this time of year, but rarely does much more once summer gets warm.5bd4Peruvian lily or alstoemeria do quite well here, and are certainly happier than in the Santa Clara Valley a few miles away. There are three here. A pink one can be seen in the background. There is also a salmon pink one. All three are the sort that used to be grown for cut flowers, but are difficult to obtain now. Most garden varieties are lower and mounding with shorter stems.5bd5Chamomile can naturalize here, but this garden variety does not seem to seed so profusely. Actually, it does not seem to seed at all. I have not yet seen any feral chamomile. The foliage of this variety was bright yellowish chartreuse when it was new, and is now fading to light green. It blooms most of the time. By the time it gets too green, it can get cut back and start all over.5bd6Rhododendron is blooming all over. I took pictures of only this one flower because, as I mentioned earlier, I will post six more pictures of other rhododendrons on Saturday morning. I chose this particular flower because I also wanted to show how big the plant that produced it is. Other colors can be seen nearby. They are really happy here, even with minimal maintenance.5bd7This picture does not show off flowers as well as the rest of the pictures do, but shows how big the rhododendron tree is. Although it is not as broad as some of the others are, it is likely the tallest here. It is situated at least twelve feet below the bridge, and stands about twelve feet above it, so is at least twenty five feet tall! Even by my standards, it is a big rhododendron!5bd8Garden 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

Posted on by tonytomeo · 17 Comments

Fleabane

P80513Erigeron karvinskianus

Is it really supposed to be the bane of fleas? If so, why? I learned it as Santa Barbara daisy. Is it native there, or was a particular variety of it named for Santa Barbara? Is it a weed? Is it native? Is it a native of somewhere else in California that merely naturalized here? There are so many questions about this simple little flower that is growing wild under a cyclone fence at the backside of a motorcourt at work.

Whether it really is native or not, or whether it is a straight species or a selected variety of one, fleabane happens to do well in drought tolerant landscapes composed of native plants. It naturally spreads out to form shallow but wide mounds. If it gets cut back in its off season, it comes right back. Although it dies after only a few years, lower stems typically form roots and grow into new plants before the original one dies, essentially replacing itself before anyone notices.

If it is a weed, it is polite about it. Stray plants that appear where they are not wanted are easy to get rid of, and do not regenerate too aggressively to be managed. Those that happen to appear in out of the way situation can be left to bloom without much concern of profuse seed dispersion. Weed or not, it is preferred to other nastier weeds that it might prevent from growing simply by occupying the space.

It happens to grow in my planter box downtown. ( https://tonytomeo.wordpress.com/2017/11/04/my-tiny-downtown-garden/ https://tonytomeo.wordpress.com/2018/01/06/six-on-saturday-my-downtown-planter-box-again-and-up-close-this-time/ ) I certainly did not plant it. It was there long before my time, and remain, even if merely in a minor degree, just in case the person who planted it years ago ever stops by to check in on it.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 10 Comments

San Francisco Iris II – the Expected Sequel

P80512KIt is not as if the previous article about it was inadequate. https://tonytomeo.wordpress.com/2018/05/05/san-francisco-iris/ I really did not want to get into the habit of writing so many sequels. However, something happened to necessitate this update.

I found what seems to be a REAL San Francisco Iris, right here in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Except for being somewhat etiolated from the shade of the surrounding redwoods, it looks very similar to the San Francisco iris I picked on the Montara Peaks when I was in high school! This one happens to be a bit lighter blue than most, but is certainly well within the color range of the flowers that I remember. Most were probably a bit darker blue, but many were lighter, and some were very pale blue.

It is impossible to know if it was planted in this spot that had been landscaped in the distant past, or merely grew wild. It is right down the road from the more colorful cultivars that I got pictures of earlier. It only recently bloomed on rather grassy foliage that was easy to miss.

I know it does not look like much, but I prefer it to the fancier garden cultivars of the same specie, Iris douglasiana. (It is not the ‘San Francisco’ cultivar of bearded iris.) It is what I am familiar with, and exemplifies the species. Besides Montara, I remember it from San Bruno Mountain, Angel Island and Alcatraz. I might have seen it in the Oakland Hills and on Point Reyes too, but I am not certain if they really were the same.

The bearded iris from my great grandmother’s garden will always be my favorite. https://tonytomeo.wordpress.com/2017/09/10/roots/ However, these San Francisco iris and I have too much history together to ignore.P80512K+

Posted on by tonytomeo · 25 Comments

Six on Saturday: Tree Ring Circus

 

When a tree falls in a forest and there is no one around to hear, it makes a big noise, as well as a mess, and it leaves some if its root in the ground. If a redwood tree falls in a forest, and there is no one around to hear, it is probably better that way. It wold be dangerous to be too close to a redwood when it comes down! They are so big and tall, and are typically so crowded amongst other trees, that they bring down tons of debris with them.

Falling redwoods are rare. They live for centuries or thousands of years. Yet, sooner or later it happens. In more modern history, after the ecology of the redwood groves was disrupted by extensive harvesting, redwoods sometimes get killed by forest fires. (Redwoods are some of the few trees in California that survive forest fires by being fire retardant, but can be killed if enough of the more combustible trees around them burn hotly enough. Extensive harvesting allowed more of the other combustible trees to mix into redwood forests than would normally be there.)

The one thing that redwoods do even less frequently than fall is die. Even after they fall, burn to ‘death’ or get cut down, they regenerate from their stump or roots. Sometimes, several or many genetically identical new trees that are all attached to the same root system develop around a dying parent before it falls. They sometimes do so after a parent burns or gets cut down. Eventually, the original tree decays, leaving a circle of new trees around where it once was. Outsiders often refer to them as ‘fairy rings’. To us, they are just tree circles or rings. Larger and more impressive circles might be known as ‘chapels’ or better yet, ‘cathedrals’.

They are impressive features in the forests. When the area nearby gets landscaped, they are typically ignored because they are so excellent that they can not be improved. There are not many plants that live in the debris of redwoods anyway.

1. This is a nice small but crowded chapel where I work.P80512
2. How does such a chapel get landscaped? It doesn’t. Ours happens to have a nice patch of azaleas nearby. This picture was taken earlier. Bloom finished a while ago.P80512+
3. These azaleas are just so excellent that I had to get a better picture to show them off.P80512++
4. Forget-me-not happens to be one of those few plants that does not mind light redwood litter, so we often let it grow and bloom if it shows up in a good spot.P80512+++
5. Columbine just seems to look good with redwoods for some reason, but it dislikes the litter. This columbine is in a nearby planter that does not get much litter.P80512++++
6. I can not explain the red freesias that bloom earlier in spring. There are yellow and purple ones too. No one knows where they came from, but they do not seem to be bothered by a bit of redwood litter.P80512+++++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 · 11 Comments

Deciduous Rhododendrons

P80509They are not a myth. They are quite real. So are the related and similar deciduous azaleas. There are certainly not as popular or as diverse as the familiar evergreen cultivars, but they have their place.

Like the popular evergreen cultivars, deciduous rhododendrons and azaleas have been extensively bred so that they are more spectacular than their ancestors in the wild. They lack the purples and blues of the evergreens, but they compensate with bright oranges and yellows that are uncommon among the evergreen cultivars, as well as reds, pinks and whites. Some of their colors are bright and fiery, while some are more relaxed. Compared to evergreen rhododendrons, the flowers of the deciduous rhododendrons are smaller, thinner, and suspended in smaller trusses. However, these smaller trusses are often significantly more abundant, and are flashier as they bloom before new foliage develops in spring.

Deciduous rhododendrons and azaleas are not grown for the foliar color in autumn, but where autumn weather is cold enough, their foliage can color somewhat well. It is mostly clear yellow, but can sometimes turn orange before falling away cleanly, leaving neatly bare stems through winter.

What deciduous rhododendrons and azaleas excel at that their evergreen counterparts can not compete with is their fragrance. Many are moderately fragrant. Some are VERY fragrant. It is rare that such showy flowers are also so fragrant. (Most flowers rely on one technique or another to attract pollinators.)

Now that the evergreen rhododendrons are blooming, our few deciduous rhododendrons are just about finishing. Visitors often ask about the fragrance, since they do not expect fragrance from rhododendron or azalea flowers, even though they can see little else blooming in same area. These flowers are so popular that we would like to plant more near windows of meeting rooms.P80509+(The article from my weekly gardening column that is typically posted on Thursday was posted yesterday, which is why this article, which is more appropriate for Wednesday is posted today.)