Posted on by tonytomeo · 17 Comments

Six on Saturday: Color of Profusion

Tulip is the only single flower of these Six this Saturday. The other five are dinky flowers that are colorful in their natural profusion. Even tulip is more colorful with at least a few friends, as it bloomed in its landscape. Flowering quince shows only three flowers in this closeup picture, but it actually blooms more comparably to forsythia or spirea.

1. Tulipa X hybrida, tulip is of an assorted batch, but seems to be the same color as all of the others. Such batches typically contain a preponderance of varieties that happen to be overly abundant when they are mixed, but are not likely to be completely homogeneous.

2. Spirea prunifolia, bridal wreath spirea could have bloomed more fluffily if it had been in a sunnier situation. This specimen has been in partial shade in the storage nursery for too long as it waits for reassignment to a real landscape. I remember it only as it blooms.

3. Ceanothus thyrsiflorus, California lilac is the same that I posted a picture of here two weeks ago, but neglected to remember until now. It is the only of these six that is native. It could have been installed intentionally into its landscape, but it more likely grew wild.

4. Chaenomeles speciosa ‘Orange Storm’ or ‘Double Take Orange’ flowering quince has a pair of cultivar names, which is two more than I can identify for the other five of my six. I can not determine if one is more correct than the other. It is pretty, but a bit overrated.

5. Forsythia X intermedia, forsythia was with the bridal wreath spirea and ‘Double Take Orange’ flowering quince in the storage nursery for a long time before assignment to the landscape that it now inhabits only last winter. It has not grown much, but blooms well.

6. Loropetalum chinense, Chinese fringe flower is pretty enough to be an illustration for the gardening column. I may feature it next week or the week after. If I do so, it must be within its bloom season. When it became a fad several years ago, I was not so keen on it.

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 · 7 Comments

Horridculture – Bad Pollarding

Actually, this does not even qualify as pollarding. It looks as if this tree, which was one of a few similarly damaged Acacia melanoxylon, black acacia trees, was in the process of being removed when the crew who was removing it left for the day. It would not have been so bad if they had returned to remove it and the others completely. They did not. This was the finished product. It and the others were almost twenty feet tall in this condition. They were about twice as tall prior. This sort of hack job is what gives pollarding a very bad reputation. It also demonstrates why proper pollarding should not be so vilified that arborists do not learn how to do it. Very obviously, this is not proper. Because they could not be salvaged, all of these trees were cut down a few days after I got this picture.

Pollarding can be done for a variety of reasons, and has been done for centuries in various cultures. It is still respected technique in many or most cultures. It stimulates vigorous growth that can be fodder for some types of livestock, including silkworms who consume the vigorous foliage of pollarded white mulberry trees. It can prevent some trees from producing troublesome pollen or fruit, such as old orchard olive trees that were retained as homes and their respective gardens were constructed around them. It can enhance autumn foliar color for some types of deciduous trees, such as the old Schwedler maples that were formerly common as street trees in San Jose. It stimulates growth of vigorous cane stems that are useful for basketry, fences, trellises or kindling. Locally though, it is considered to be as egregious as the technique pictured above, which is why no one here learns about it.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 7 Comments

Six on Saturday: Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus has a bad reputation. Regardless, the worst of the genus and its only cultivar that I am aware of inhabit my gardens. Four less offensive species inhabit a landscape at work. Actually, several species of Eucalyptus are not only appropriate for home gardens, but are also naturally very well adapted to local chaparral climates. Their bad reputation is an unfortunate result of the bad behavior of merely one of hundreds of species, which happens to be the second of these Six. Eucalyptus camaldulensis, red gum allegedly also contributed to that reputation, but more so in Southern California than here, as it is rare locally. Half of these six show sessile juvenile foliage, rather than petiolate adult foliage. Pictures of high foliage were taken from significant distances.

1. Eucalyptus globulus ‘Compacta’, bushy blue gum is my least favorite eucalyptus, since it is a contrarily runty cultivar of an otherwise grand species, but here it is in my garden.

2. Eucalyptus globulus, blue gum is too grand for my garden, though, so can not develop a natural form. It is pollarded for its aromatic juvenile foliage, but has a few adult leaves.

3. Eucalyptus cinerea, silver dollar tree, which is not the same as silver dollar gum, may be confused with silver mountain gum, since their botanical names are interchangeable.

4. Eucalyptus pulverulenta, silver mountain gum is very distinct from silver dollar tree. I find their confusion to be annoying. Botanical nomenclature is designed for simplicity.

5. Eucalyptus sideroxylon, red ironbark grew from a small root sucker with merely a few roots. I got it from a stump in another landscape, and am impressed by its performance.

6. Eucalyptus citriodora, lemon gum is delightfully aromatic, and, as its name suggests, is rather lemony. Its foliage will soon be too high on lanky bare trunks to reach, though.

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

More Sticks

Horticulture involves many sticks. Almost all are pruning scrap. Very few become scions for grafting, like the stick of ‘Beurre d’Anjou’ pear that I wrote about last week. A few more become cuttings, like these white zonal geraniums, Pelargonium X hortorum. These cuttings were processed from scrap of the same that formerly inhabited their same pair of big pots. The original specimens performed well within their pots for a few years, but were about to become overgrown if they had been left to grow for another season. They could have been pruned back and left to regenerate. However, because small specimens of lemon cypress, Cupressus macrocarpa ‘Goldcrest’ were added to their large pots, it was easier and neater to simply remove them completely and replace them with eight cuttings in each of their two pots. These cuttings should grow nicely and perform well for a few more years. Then, they can either be cut back to regenerate, or replaced with cuttings processed from their own scrap after their removal. Such processes cost no more than a bit of time and effort. I have been doing the same with a weedier bright pink zonal geranium that I have been growing since I was in junior high school in about 1979. I acquired the original sticks from a neighborhood garden debris dump, and have been growing them ever since then. I brought them with me to every home that I lived in through college, and then brought them back here when I returned. I acquired a similarly weedy but orangish red zonal geranium in about 1993, and have been growing it since then also. Zonal geraniums are underappreciated for their simplicity, practicality and, most of all, their sustainability. Once they inhabit a garden, there is no need for them to ever leave.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 19 Comments

Six on Saturday: Bluem

Blue is the rarest floral color. Furthermore, many flowers that appear blue are somewhat purplish, or perhaps more purple than blue. These six all look blue to me, although I can not see blue very well.

1. Iris unguicularis, Algerian iris has been blooming long enough for a third appearance here in four months. That may seem to be redundant, but it is my favorite for this week. I still do not know when to expect its last blooms. It is from Tangley Cottage Gardening.

2. Viola cornuta, viola exhibits more insect damage than I was aware of when I took this picture. Well, this is embarrassing. I do not select annuals at work, but I do enjoy taking credit for them. These bloom longer here than they would within the Santa Clara Valley.

3. Viola X wittrockiana, pansy also performs better here than in the Santa Clara Valley. These blue pansies alternate with white pansies, which I prefer; but I took this picture to conform to the blue theme. We have not yet found any color that is not appropriate here.

4. Hyacinthus orientalis, hyacinth blooms thinly on floppy stems in partial shade, but is impressively reliably perennial. We should probably move the bulbs while dormant, but would prefer to instead remove an unwanted bay laurel tree that shades their landscape.

5. Ceanothus thyrsiflorus, California lilac is both locally native and added to at least one of our landscapes. Unfortunately, it is not easy to accommodate. It grew too large for its particular applications, but is difficult to prune properly without removing its best parts.

6. Myosotis sylvatica, forget-me-not is naturalized here, but not too aggressively so. It is pretty near but not within cultivated landscapes, where it can benefit from supplemental irrigation without incurring damage from weeding, raking and other gardening activity.

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 · 1 Comment

Stick

‘Beurre d’Anjou’

Here it is. The stick! I paid $7.79 for it with delivery from San Leandro, and waited a few days for its arrival last Wednesday. Since then, it was processed into two scions and a cutting, each with two buds. The terminal bud of one of the scions is actually accompanied by a few smaller buds. The scions were grafted, and the cutting was plugged, last Thursday, less than a day after the Stick arrived. I am very pleased with the results, and hope to be even more pleased with their favorable performance in the future. Ultimately, the finished product will be at least one pear tree. More specifically, it will be a ‘Beurre d’Anjou’ pear tree, which is more often known as ‘d’Anjou’ or ‘Anjou’. It and ‘Seckel’ were the only two cultivars of pear that I wanted to acquire this winter. After obtaining scions for ‘Seckel’ pear from the Scion Exchange of the Monterey Bay Chapter of the California Rare Fruit Growers on the first of February, ‘Beurre d’Anjou’ remained elusive. Every pear tree that I could get scions from was either another cultivar, or not identifiable by cultivar. I really thought that the process would be simpler. I could have purchased a tree from bare root stock at a nursery, but that would have been comparable to cheating, and would have cost about $40. The well rooted quince understock for grafting was already here and waiting. I grew a few specimens of it from suckers of an established pear tree, and already used one for the previously acquired ‘Seckel’ scions. Because I was so confident that I would eventually acquire the only pear cultivar that I craved more than ‘Seckel’, I retained the biggest and best of this understock for these recently acquired scions of ‘Beurre d’Anjou’.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 15 Comments

Six on Saturday: Late Winter Color

Color is relatively scarce as spring bloom is only slowly beginning. A bit of winter bloom remains. Not all flowers bloom earlier here than in other regions. Some could actually be a bit later than expected.

1. Lemna minor, duckweed does not grow much during cool winter weather, but lingers until sloshed by rain. After surviving through a dry January, it finally succumbed to rain during early February. Its monochromatic green revealed this more vibrant color below.

2. Viburnum tinus, laurustinus is not among my favorites. I seriously do not understand why it is as popular as it is. Nonetheless, several feral specimens inhabit some of the less refined landscapes. I do appreciate how the white bloom of this specimen is not blushed.

3. Arctostaphylos X densiflora ‘Howard McMinn’ manzanita qualifies as a locally native species, but is actually an unnatural hybrid of two species that, although native close by, are not locally native. I should not be so critical. It performs well within our landscapes.

4. Leucojum aestivum, summer snowflake does not wait for summer to bloom. We know it as snowdrop because it blooms when real snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis, would bloom. There is no confusion since real snowdrop is very rare here. I have actually never seen it.

5. Iris X germanica ‘Rosalie Figge’ bearded iris is redundant to a similar picture two and a half months ago, but continues to bloom. I am beginning to wonder if it ever stops now that it has been doing so continually for so long. Fortunately, no one is bored with it yet.

6. Camellia japonica, camellia is a different unidentified cultivar than that which posted with ‘Rosalie Figge’ bearded iris two and a half months ago, so is not so redundant. Most camellias were not blooming then, and even now, many are only beginning their bloom.

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/