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Six on Saturday: Before Winter

Autumn is the season for planting. For portions of the landscapes that lack irrigation, we must wait until the beginning of the rainy season. By the time the rainy season ends next spring, new plants should be outfitted with irrigation, or sufficiently established to need none. Now that the weather got rainy, as well as windy and messy, planting is facilitated by a sale at one of our suppliers. We normally do not purchase much, but the prices were too good to ignore. I did not get enough pictures, so added random pictures, such as the shabby bearded iris foliage. The important details of #5 are difficult to distinguish.

1. Scout at least tried to cooperate for a picture, which is more than Rhody does. He just does not know how to cooperate. He was too wiggly to get a picture that was not blurred.

2. Cedrus atlantica ‘Glauca Pendula’, weeping blue Atlas cedar is an oddly limber trophy tree that my colleague here had wanted for a while, but could not justify procurement of.

3. Pinus strobus ‘Nana’, dwarf Eastern white pine was not planned, but like the weeping blue Atlas cedar, was unusually affordable. There are eight in a row. Mugo pine are next.

4. Iris X germanica, bearded iris start growing prior to shedding old foliage of last year, so now look shabby. This is the pallid white and potentially feral iris in the new iris bed.

5. Wind is messy! Those two diagonal trunks just above and to the right of the middle of this picture were not diagonal earlier. Those headlights to the lower left are on a bridge.

6. Rain is messy also! This is a spillway of a drainage pond at work. While the sycamores and other deciduous trees continue to defoliate, it can get partially clogged and flooded.

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/

These four pictures below are not affiliated with the Six on Saturday above, but at the request of one of his most enthusiastic fans, were added to compensate for the lack of a picture of Rhody, the star of my blog. I had assumed that he was being uncooperative with my attempts to get a good picture, but he reminded me of what his fans really want to see. Can you guess what the last picture shows?

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Coffee

Coffee was more popular as a houseplant decades ago.

The White Raven Coffee Shop, the best little pourhouse in Felton, has an interesting but old fashioned houseplant on the counter. This group of four small but rapidly growing coffee trees, Coffea arabica, was a gift from a loyal customer.

Mature plants can get to thirty feet tall in the wild. Fortunately, coffee trees are easy to prune to fit interior spaces. Pruning for confinement is actually better than relocating big plants outside, since they do not like cold weather and are sensitive to frost.

Like various species of Ficus, coffee is appreciated more for lush foliage that happens to grow on a tree that can be trained by pruning to stay out of the way, overhead or in other unused spaces or corners. The simple remarkably glossy leaves are about two and half inches long or a bit longer. The very fragrant small white flowers are almost never seen among well groomed houseplants, and only rarely and sporadically bloom among less frequently pruned larger trees in greenhouses and conservatories.

The half inch wide coffee fruit, which is known as a ‘cherry’, is even more rare than flowers among houseplants because of the scarcity of both pollinators and pollen (from so few flowers). Those fortunate enough to get flowers sometimes pollinate them with tiny paintbrushes or clean make-up brushes to compensate for a lack of insects about the house. The resulting bright red or somewhat purplish cherries barely taste like cherries and only make two coffee ‘beans’ each; not enough to bother roasting and grinding for coffee, but great for bragging rights.

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Deciduous Trees Are Not Necessarily The Messiest

This weird Euphorbia is one of the few small evergreen trees that drops no foliage.

Contrary to popular belief, most deciduous trees, those that drop all their leaves in autumn, are not as messy as most evergreen trees. There are of course a few exception; such as cacti that lack foliage completely, or Italian cypress that drop their finely textured foliage straight down within a very narrow drip-zone, where it decomposes and disappears unnoticed. Very few leaves fall from a big silver maple through winter, spring and summer, so that almost all of the raking is done when almost all the leaves get shed in autumn. However, a big Southern magnolia generally drops leaves throughout the year, so that raking is always necessary.

The problem is that when deciduous trees get to be messy, they are very messy. Also, they get to be messy at the worst time of year, when their leaves mix with rain to clog drains and gutters. Unraked leaves become hazardously slippery when they get wet and start to decompose. It is amazing how something that can be so appealingly colorful through autumn can so quickly become such a nuisance.

Leaves of deciduous trees somehow seem to be better for composting than those of some of the evergreen trees. Anyone with a Southern magnolia knows how slow the foliage is to decompose. Foliage of camphor, bay, carob and various eucalyptus certainly decompose slower than various maple, ash, poplar and birch. Many of us outfitted with green waste bins or curbside collection of green waste prefer to recycle the less desirable evergreen foliage, and compost primarily deciduous foliage. Those of us who do not compost but need to rake under large or many deciduous trees may fill bins for several weeks, or leave very big piles of leaves at the curb.

Small leaves, such as those of most elms, or finely textured compound leaves, such as those of silk tree, jacaranda or locust, may not need to be raked if they fall onto lower shrubbery or ground cover. Small leaves or the small leaflets of disintegrating compound leaves simply sift through the lower plant material to decompose below. However, large elms may produce such an abundance of foliage that some may need to be removed. Maple and other large leaves are not so easy to ignore. They can shade lawns, ground cover or bedding plants, so need to be raked as they fall.

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Horridculture – Bad Guys

Gads! Another three year old reminder of why I can not work with so-called ‘landscape’ companies.

tonytomeo's avatarTony Tomeo

P91211Roots hold up trees. That is part of their job. They grow along with the trees they support, and disperse as necessary to maintain stability. Trees grown within the confinement of cans (pots) or boxes, and then installed into a landscape, are typically staked temporarily until their roots adequately disperse and stabilize. Once unnecessary, stakes and bindings must be removed.

Mature palms that get relocated are supported temporarily by guy wires. They are just too big to be supported by stakes. Because palm trunks to not grow any wider as at they grow taller, they are not damaged by the sorts of bindings that would damage the fattening trunks of other trees. Like stakes on other trees, guy wires must be removed as they become unnecessary.

Although they can be appropriate in unusual circumstances in which stakes would not be practical, guy wires are rarely used on trees that are…

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Honeybush

Bold color, texture, form and scale.

Where winter weather is cooler, honeybush, Melianthus major, is likely to be deciduous. If so, it annually sheds all growth that is above ground. It can not bloom where deciduous because only growth of a previous season can bloom. That is no problem here. Dark red floral spikes bloom boldly about two feet above jungly evergreen foliage for early spring.

This silvery gray foliage can grow taller and wider than six feet, even if deciduous during winter. Foliar texture is both luxuriant and elegant. Pinnately compound leaves are more than a foot long with serrate leaflets. Evergreen plants are tidier with grooming to remove deteriorating older foliage as new foliage replaces it. Deciduous plants are always fresh.

‘Antonow’s Blue’ is a bit bluer than the straight species. ‘Purple Haze’ is slightly purplish, with a slightly finer foliar texture. Some notice that the rich fragrance of honeybush bloom resembles that of honey. Also, some notice that the foliar aroma can be rather grungy. All parts of honeybush are toxic. Honeybush wants regular watering and abundant sunlight.

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Frost Damage Makes Its Appearance

Frost damage of canna looks shabby.

Exotic plants are not native. They are from someplace else. Yet, most plants within most home gardens are exotic. Most are capable of tolerating the more extreme climates from which they originated. Some tropical or subtropical plants actually prefer milder climates. After the recent cool weather, some vulnerable plants exhibit symptoms of frost damage.

Vulnerability is relative though. Honeybush and elderberry can be mostly evergreen with minimal chill, or deciduous with more pronounced chill. Both tolerate more chill than they can experience here. What may seem to be frost damage of specimens that are normally evergreen could be a normal deciduous response to slightly abnormally cooler weather.

Frost damage is also relative. Partial defoliation of Mexican lime might happen annually after minor frost, so may not be alarming. However, such seemingly minor damage could involve stems or entire trees. Luxuriant canna foliage that so instantly becomes unsightly after minor frost can be more alarming. However, dormant rhizomes are safe until spring.

The simplest means to avoid frost damage is to not grow plants that are susceptible to it. Obviously, that is quite limiting. Besides, plants that were not susceptible last winter may be susceptible this winter or sometime in the future. Weather is annually variable. Some susceptible plants can grow in pots that are portable enough to relocate to winter shelter.

Small but immobile plants that are vulnerable to frost damage may appreciate temporary shelter during frosty weather. Any sort of sheeting or cardboard suspended by any sort of stakes and strings should be adequate. Ideally, the sheeting should not touch the foliage below. Incandescent Christmas lights under such sheeting radiate a slight bit of warmth. Frost occurs only at nighttime locally.

Frost protection can be unsightly, but it is less unsightly than frost damage. Fortunately, it is temporary during frost. If not too unsightly, most frost damage should remain until after the last frost date. It insulates other vulnerable vegetation within. Furthermore, premature grooming or pruning stimulates new growth that is more vulnerable to subsequent frosts.

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Curb Mongrel

Perhaps I should not complain. My pawpaw, American persimmon, elderberry and salmonberry were grown from seed because I prefer what grows wild within their respective native ranges.

tonytomeo's avatarTony Tomeo

P91208Fruit trees, with few exceptions, have been extensively bred to produce the quality of fruit that we expect from them. Some are consequently genetically unstable, or at least less genetically stable than their wild ancestors were. Even if they never mutate or try to revert to a more stable state, they are very unlikely to produce seed that can develop into genetically similar trees.

In other words, they are not ‘true-to-type’. Their seed might grow into trees that produce fruit that resembles that of one of their ancestors, or of a pollinating parent tree. It is impossible to predict what fruit will be like until it actually develops.

That may take a while. Some seed grown fruit trees start out with juvenile growth, and take a few years to mature enough to bloom and produce fruit. Some types of avocado trees grow tall and lanky for a few years before…

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Reassignment

Three years after this article posted, the surplus is getting to be embarrassing. Reassignable material that does not get reassigned immediately gets canned at the yard, and is now occupying a bit of space, and needs to be irrigated through most of the year.

tonytomeo's avatarTony Tomeo

P91207K

There is quite a bit of open space in some parts of the landscapes. It is not as if the landscapes are lacking much. There just happens to be a few spots where a bit more could be added. This expanse of healthy English ivy was already appealing, but lacked interest.

There is also quite a bit of spare plants out and about in the landscapes. It is not as if there is anything wrong with spare plants. There just happens to be too many of them. These cannas got overgrown and crowded within their original colony in another landscape, so needed to be divided and thinned out.

We are not a so-called ‘landscape’ company, which profits from the removal of some plants, and the installation of others. There is no incentive to dispose of as much vegetation as we could bill a client for. Nor is there any incentive…

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Six on Saturday: Bad Timing

The preponderance of white amongst these ‘Six on Saturday’ is merely coincidental, and might not be obvious anyway. Only #2 and #4 are actually white. Contrary to its cultivar name, #3 is really very pale yellow. As stylish as he might be, #6 is quite obviously gray. #1 bloomed with tiny white flowers earlier, but its berries are now as red as #5. Anyway, with the exception of #1, their timing is less than ideal. #2 and #3 are performing better than they have all year, but will not last for long now that the weather is cooling. #4 and #5, although slightly confused, should still bloom splendidly in season. #6 was not there in the morning.

1. Ilex aquifolium, English holly is doing nothing that it should not be doing at this time of year, but is rarely so prolific with its berries here. It might be more invasive if it were.

2. Brugmansia X candida ‘Double White’, double white Angel’s trumpet is likewise a bit more enthusiastic than it typically is, but at the wrong time, as autumn becomes winter.

3. Helianthus debilis ‘Italian White’, Italian white sunflower is blooming like the angel’s trumpet, at the wrong time. It grew slowly through summer to begin blooming this late.

4. Rhododendron, azalea of an unidentified cultivar is either very late or very early. This unseasonal bloom deducts from the bloom for the following season, but is rather minor.

5. Rhododendron, azalea of another unidentified cultivar bloomed even earlier, or not so late, as this is an older picture. The minor consequences are the same. This white is rad!

6. Kenny II waddled out to meet me as I went out to close the gates for the night, but did not seem to do so intentionally. He stopped waddling when he encountered me, so I left.

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 · 2 Comments

Yaupon

The unflattering Latin name does not suit the yaupon, which can make a tailored formal hedge of dense foliage, or a neat informal (unshorn) screen that may occasionally produce a few colorful winter berries.

Hollies are innately uncommon in California. Yaupon (holly), Ilex vomitoria, happens to be one of the least common. Ironically, because of its small leaves and dense growth, it is more tolerant to frequent shearing by maintenance gardeners who ruin other hollies. It can actually make a nice shorn hedge.

Hedged yaupon can eventually get up to the eaves of a single story. Unshorn plants can reach the eaves of a second story, and might display showy red berries about an eighth of an inch wide. The small and often randomly serrate leaves are only about half to an inch long, and maybe half an inch wide.