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Garden Phlox

Garden phlox is more popular in other regions than it is here.

In eastern North America where it grows wild as a native, garden phlox, Phlox paniculata, is modest but classic perennial that gets more than four feet tall with pinkish lavender flowers from late summer through early autumn. Modern garden varieties are mostly somewhat more compact with pink, red, light purple or white flowers. Many have fragrant flowers; and some have flowers with lighter or darker centers. Butterflies and hummingbirds dig them all.

Locally, garden phlox probably looks best with slight shade or among other lush plants, only because humidity is so minimal. Otherwise, it would be just as happy out in the open. In well watered gardens with rich soil, it sometimes self sows a bit, but rarely naturalizes continually enough to revert to a more natural (wild) state like it can in gardens on the west coast of Oregon and Washington. Garden phlox can be propagated by division of mature plants either after bloom in autumn or in spring.

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Deadheading Conserves Resources

If not deadheaded, roses can put a lot of resources into production of seed and hips.

It takes quite a bit of effort for flowers to bloom. It takes even more effort and resources for pollinated flowers to produce seed and the fruiting structures that contain the seed. If the seed of certain aggressive plants get dispersed, we need to put even more effort into pulling up the seedlings. It just never seems to end!

Removal of deteriorating flowers, commonly known (even by those of us who missed that generation) as ‘deadheading’, can eliminate so much of this extra work. Not many plants benefit from deadheading; but most that do are really grateful for it. Others that do not care one way or the other simply look better without their deteriorating flowers.

It is of course impossible to deadhead large flowering trees or vast areas of ground cover. Regularly shorn hedges should never need deadheading because they never get the opportunity to bloom or develop fruit. Plants that are appreciated for the ornamental quality of their fruit should of course not be deadheaded.

Most roses get deadheaded as they bloom because the development of their fruiting structures, known as ‘hips’, takes enough resources to compromise subsequent bloom. Removal of these hips therefore promotes bloom. Only the few types of roses that are grown for their showy hips should not get deadheaded. Phlox, daisies, zinias, dianthus and all sorts of plants with long continual bloom seasons likewise benefit from deadheading.

Some types of iris that produce seed perform better with deadheading, not because they will bloom again during the same season, but because they can divert resources to vegetative growth (like rhizomes and foliage) that will sustain bloom during the following year. Most bearded iris (that do not produce seed) and lily-of-the-Nile do not seem to care if they get deadheaded, but are generally more appealing without their finished flower trusses.

Four o’ clocks can not be deadheaded without also removing developing flowers, so can only be allowed to bloom and throw their invasive seed all over the garden. It is easier to pull their seedlings later. We have a bit more control over crocosmia. Even though they do not need to be deadheaded, they are less invasive and more appealing without their scraggly brown stalks and seed capsules.

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Ferns Are For Distinctive Foliage

Oops, I neglected to post anything for today.

tonytomeo's avatarTony Tomeo

Rich green ferns provide distinctive texture.

Ferns are an odd group. They lack the color or fragrance of flowers, or the branch structure of shrubbery, trees or vines. Very few turn color in autumn. They provide only green foliage. Yet, as simple as this seems, the generally evergreen foliage that ferns provide is some of the most distinctive foliage that can be found in the garden.

With few exceptions, ferns are richly deep green. Only a few are lighter green or almost yellowish. The leaves, which are known as ‘fronds’, can be soft and papery, or coarse and tough. The fronds of most ferns are pinnately divided into neatly arranged leaflets; and many ferns have leaflets that are intricately lobed. Some ferns have leaves with more palmate symmetry. A few ferns actually have undivided leaves.

(Pinnate symmetry involves a central midrib or midvein to each leaf, or a central rachis…

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Horridculture – Opposite Poles

Utility clearance pruning is necessary, but should not be so idiotic.

tonytomeo's avatarTony Tomeo

P90904This is not about North and South. It is about a utility pole and a pole that remained from a redwood tree that was too close to it. One is there to support a variety of cables and a streetlamp. The other just wanted to grow into a redwood tree to join the rest of the forest. One has been deceased for many years or decades. The other was alive just recently, but is now only a stump.

The picture above shows how many cables the utility pole supports, as well as the streetlamp. When I did my internship in 1988, the arborists whom I worked with knew what each of the various cables were for; high voltage, lower voltage, cable television, telephone and whatever else was up there. Fiber optic cables have since simplified the telephone and television cables.

The picture above also shows how the unfortunate redwood tree…

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Thread Agave

Agave generally excel in chaparral climates.

Many species of Agave and Yucca should probably be more popular here than they are. Several are endemic to desert or chaparral climates. Once established locally, they may survive without irrigation. Occasional watering through summer only improves their foliar color and vigor. Except for gophers that might attack from below, not much offends them.

The primary deterrent to their popularity is their dangerous foliar spines. Many species of Agave and Yucca grow too large to not become obtrusive within compact home gardens. Consequently, their striking but hazardous foliage can be difficult to avoid. Fortunately, a few species such as thread agave, Agave filifera, remain proportionate to home gardens.

Thread agave develops rounded foliar rosettes that are less than three feet wide and two feet tall. Evergreen leaves retain silvery impressions of adjacent leaves. Although growth is generally slow, vigorous floral stalks may grow rapidly to ten feet tall during summer, to bloom during autumn. Pups begin to replace original rosettes prior to monocarpic bloom.

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Pups Of A Horticultural Nature

Pups are copies of their parents.

Pups of the most familiar type are canine. Most are puppies of domestic dogs. Some are foxes or wolves. A few are seals, otters or various other animals. Garden variety pups do not get much consideration though. They develop into new progeny of plants rather than animals. Unlike animal pups, they are genetically identical clones of their single parents.

Pups of the horticultural sort generally develop from subterranean stems, such as corms, tubers or rhizomes. Most emerge from formerly dormant buds. Some grow adventitiously from roots. Pups appear as basal sideshoots against or close to their parent plants. They efficiently disperse their own roots to eventually survive as new and independent plants.

Most plants that produce pups are perennials. Some are so proficient with the technique that they grow into substantial colonies of genetically identical clones. For some, it is the primary method of replication. They actually prefer to replicate vegetatively than by seed. Some trees and woody plants do the same, but their clones lack the same classification.

For many perennials, propagation by division is merely the separation of pups from their parent plants. Most types of banana trees eventually generate a few surplus pups. Some types generate an abundance of pups to share with anyone who wants them. Separation of their pups is very similar to division of the smaller rhizomes of canna or lily of the Nile.

Individual rosettes of various species of Agave and a few terrestrial species of Yucca are monocarpic. In other words, they die after blooming only once. However, instead of dying completely, most generate several pups prior to bloom. Some produce pups excessively! Such pups can be difficult and hazardous to separate, but can replace their own parents.

Mediterranean fan palm is one of only a few palms here that generates pups. That is why it develops multiple trunks. Surplus pups can survive separation to grow as distinct trees. However, because of their densely fibrous roots, separation of intact pups can be difficult or impossible. Sago palms, which are not actually palms, are more compliant to division, even for rootless pups that develop on their stout trunks.

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Props

Three years later, these trees are still doing well with their props.

tonytomeo's avatarTony Tomeo

P90901It has been almost a month since one of three small but sculptural and very prominent coast live oaks at work was destabilized by . . . well, children. They were climbing on it, as most good children should do. There were a few of them; and the tree is old and deteriorating. All three of the trees actually grew from the same rotten stump of a tree that was cut down decades ago.

I wrote about it at ‘Six on Saturday – Do Not Sit On Tree‘. The title will make more sense if you read about it.

To salvage the tree, I pruned off as much of the foliar canopy as possible. This eliminated some of the weight that the trunk needs to support, as well as decreased some of the resistance to wind, which exerts leverage against the compromised root system when wind blows. Sawhorses…

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Bad Pollard

As weird as this was and still is, and regardless of how inappropriate the technique is for the species, it has actually been effective. The tree continues to provide very aromatic foliage, without growing too large.

tonytomeo's avatarTony Tomeo

P90831KJust about any other arborist will insist that any pollard is a bad pollard. I am not any other arborist. I have no issue with pollarding certain trees properly.

Pollarding is severe pruning that removes all growth that developed since the last pollarding procedure, leaving only a main trunk and a few main limbs. It is done while trees are dormant in winter, and must be repeated either annually or at least every few years, before the resulting growth develops into major limbs. Pruning must be very thorough and neat, leaving no stubs.

Most new growth develops from where older growth had been pruned away during the previous winter, with only a few adventitious stems possibly developing on the main limbs or trunks. Distended ‘knuckles’ develop where this growth repeatedly gets pruned away and regenerates. All subsequent pollard pruning must be done only on the outside of these knuckles, not…

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Six on Saturday: Canna Diss

Searching online for information regarding Canna can get discouraging for anyone who objects to the idolatry of Cannabis. It does not help that Canna indica is one of the more common species of Canna. Search engines seem to believe that they know more of what I want information about than I do. Well, I happen to enjoy my ten or so Canna. In fact, I grow way too many of them.  Three cultivars are particularly numerous here, even after giving most of them away to friends and neighbors. If installed directly into a landscape, rather than canned, there would be enough for a row almost exactly a hundred feet long! That would be with one foot spacing!

1. Gophers ate almost all of three of the four original Canna here. I canned the surviving rhizomes within only ten #1 cans. All three cultivars are now generating vigorous shoots.

2. Canna rhizomes are so extremely discounted at the end of their season that I violated my rule that forbids the purchase of new plants. It is very late, but they are growing well.

3. ‘Red King Humbert’ rhizomes cost less than a dollar each. Three got canned into each of ten #5 cans. They only need to grow enough before autumn to survive through winter.

4. Canna flaccida, or what I hope might be Canna flaccida, was dug and recycled after it had started growing last spring. New foliage emerged through its damaged older foliage.

5. ‘Wyoming’ was recycled from the same landscape, and at the same inconvenient time. Like the others, it will recover prior to winter dormancy, and then be ready for next year.

6. Canna bloom is about as appealing as the foliage is. Ours bloom bright yellow, orange or red. Others bloom with pastel yellow, pastel orange, pink or very pale yellowish white.

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/

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Naked Lady

These naked ladies are not shy.

While so many flowers are finishing their bloom and leaving their drying foliage behind, naked lady, Amaryllis belladonna, is just beginning to bloom, naked of any foliage. Clusters of a few to several bright pink flowers stand on bare stems about two feet tall. Individual flowers are about two and a half to three and a half inches long, and resemble lily flowers. Foliage only appears after flowers deteriorate, and lasts only until weather gets warm late in spring. The strap shaped leaves are about a foot to a foot and a half long. Through summer, the two or three inch wide bulbs are dormant and bare, and seem to be dead with their tops visible at the soil surface, but retain fleshy roots below. They should therefore only be dug and divided if they get too crowded or need to be moved.