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Six on Saturday: More Bad Recycling

Recycling can be a bad habit. We accumulate more material here than we can use back out in the landscapes. Some gets shared with friends and neighbors. Of these six, all but the Agave (#4) grew from seed, so are not cultivars. Although the Agave grows from genetically identical pups, no one know what species it is! Fortunately, around here, we are not too discriminating.

1. Liquidambar styraciflua, after pruning to compensate for severed roots, has only a few twiggy branches, but is more than sixteen feet tall! What a homely sweetgum! Was it worth recycling?

2. Liquidambar styraciflua grew from seed where it could not stay. It is twice as tall as the eight foot bed of the pickup is long. The roots are now contained in a squatty #15 (fifteen gallon) can.

3. Cornus florida, flowering dogwood, was significantly more prolific with seed than the sweetgum. We wanted to recycle just a few seedlings, but got eighty four. Each cell contains a seedling.

4. Agave of an unknown species was removed from one of the landscapes a few years ago, but has been trying to regenerate since then. We dig and can the pups, but cannot give them all away.

5. Phoenix dactylifera, date palm, grew from seed in a compost pile. There are about seven of them. It is impossible to predict which will be female, or what the quality of their fruit will be like.

6. Acer platanoides, Norway maple, might be invasive, even here. A few that grew from seed in one of the landscapes were therefore removed, but not discarded. I used them as understock for the much more desirable and noninvasive ‘Schwedler’ cultivar last year. The scions, which are above the yellow tie, did not take. I must now try again, or pollard them so they produce no seed.

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

Burro’s Tail

Burro’s Tail is old fashioned, but can also be contemporary.

Back when big spider plants or Boston ferns suspended in fancy beaded macrame were all the rage through the 1970’s, burrow’s tail, Sedum morganianum, was an unusual but also trendy succulent perennial for sunny spots in the home or sheltered and slightly shaded spots in the garden. The refined foliar texture and light bluish green color contrasted nicely with the big and deep green leaves of comparably trendy philodendrons. The thin stems are too limber to stand up, but cascade excellently. Plants in the garden that get pruned back while dormant in winter can easily get two feet long through summer. Without pruning, big plants can get longer than six feet. Pruning scraps and even the small but plump leaves can be rooted and grown into new plants. It is impossible to prune or even move burro’s tail without dislodging some of the leaves anyway. Watering should be regular but not excessive, but then minimal for plants in the garden through winter.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 2 Comments

Potted Plants Need Work Too

Most potted plants would prefer to be in the ground, . . . if possible.

Potted plants can be a problem any time of the year. Some want more water than get. Most get too much water or do not drain adequately. Large plants get constricted roots if pots are too small. The roots of some plants get cooked in exposed pots that collect too much heat from sunlight. Besides, too many pots just seem to be in the way in otherwise useful spaces on decks, patios and anywhere else trendsetting landscape designers want to put them.

Now that the weather is getting cool and rainy, potted plants are not as active as they were during warm weather. Many are dormant. Although few demand the attention that they got during warmer weather, plants still need to be tended to appropriately through autumn and winter.

Cool season annuals, which are also known as ‘winter’ annuals, should get groomed as long as they are performing in the garden, just like warm season annuals get groomed through summer. Deteriorating flowers should be plucked from pansy, viola, primrose, Iceland poppy, calendula, dianthus, stock, chrysanthemum and cyclamen because they can mildew and spread mildew to developing flowers and foliage. Unplucked cyclamen and calendula can develop seed which diverts resources from bloom.

Pots that are out in exposed areas will not need to be watered while they get enough water from rain. The problem is that many that do not drain adequately can get too much water from rain and stay saturated. Dormant and defoliated plants do not need much moisture at all. Even evergreen plants do not need as much as they do while active during warm weather, because cool and humid weather inhibits evapotranspiration (evaporation from foliar surfaces).

Potted plants under eaves also need less water while the weather is cool and humid, but need to be watered nonetheless because they are sheltered from rain. Plants in hanging pots typically drain and dry more efficiently, so probably want a bit more water. Even a few sheltered small plants in the ground may occasionally want to be watered during rainy weather if they do not extend enough roots where they can get moisture from rain beyond the sheltered area. Sheltered plants are actually the most likely to be neglected because watering does not seem so important when it is raining.

Posted on by tonytomeo

Horridculture – Well Done Stakes Are Rare

Embarrassingly, I have bound disfigured trees to straighten their trunks after they are already installed and actively growing in their landscapes (no longer within nursery production). It is risky, and requires attention to detail, but can be effective if done properly. Of course, that sort of binding, although cringe worthy, is very different from neglect such as this.

tonytomeo's avatarTony Tomeo

P81128++

Stakes are temporary. That is what so called maintenance ‘gardeners’ do not seem to understand. Stakes should not stay any longer than necessary, so need to be removed sooner than later, depending on their function. Stakes that are left too long can interfere with the healthy development of the trees and vines that they were intended to help.
Nursery stakes are used either to straighten the trunks of developing trees, or to support climbing vines. They must be removed when the trees or vines that they worked for get installed into the landscape, or as soon after installation as possible. Some flimsy trees may need their stakes for more than their first year.
The problem with leaving trees bound to their nursery stakes for too long is that they rely on the stakes for support as they grow, so do not put much effort into supporting their own weight.
The…

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Mediterranean fan palm

The strikingly silver Atlas Mountain palm.

Not all palms are trees. Some lack trunks, so develop more as shrubbery. Some develop many slender stems, like bamboo. The thin canes of most rattan palms sprawl onto other vegetation for support, as vines. Mediterranean fan palm, Chamaerops humilis, develops multiple stout trunks, but grows so slowly that it can function as big sculptural shrubbery.

Old trunks can eventually get as high as twenty feet, and generally lean randomly. If they get too tall, smaller and more vigorous trunks can replace them. (An arborist can remove the bulky and thorny old trunks.) New trunks develop from basal pups, which can can get too densely foliated without occasional thinning. Removal of such pups might be difficult.

Mature trunks might be as wide as ten inches, with dense coats of basal petiole fiber and thorny petiole stubs. Thorough grooming can eliminate the stubs. However, petioles that suspend the evergreen palmate leaves are outfitted with the same wickedly sharp teeth. Leaves are about two feet wide. Atlas Mountain palm, Chamaerops humilis var.(iety) argentea has strikingly silvery foliage, and grows even slower.

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Chimney Clearance Must Be Maintained

Modern homes lack old fashioned fireplaces.

Even as autumn weather cools, smoke rising from a simple old fashioned brick chimney is a rare sight nowadays. A smoking stovepipe is rarer. Modern building codes forbid the installation of new fireplaces or wood stoves within most municipalities here. Modern air quality ordinances severely limit the use of existing fireplaces and wood burning stoves.

Furthermore, existing fireplaces and wood stoves are neither as popular nor as common as they had been. After an earthquake, a faulty chimney is likely to justify removal rather than repair. An unused wood stove wastes too much space. Old orchards that generated inexpensive firewood as they relinquished their space to urban development are extinct.

There are a few advantages to these modern trends though. Modern homes consume so much less energy for heating than older homes because of efficient insulation. Insulation of older homes retains heat that fireplaces generate, so that less wood is needed. Almost every surviving chimney has a spark arrestor. Modern roof materials are noncombustible.

Nonetheless, vegetation that gets too near to a chimney that is in use can be hazardous. Even if clearance was adequate last winter, trees, vines and large shrubbery grew since then. It does not take long for such vegetation to overwhelm a chimney, or encroach a bit more than it should. It does not take too much vegetation to be hazardously combustible.

Clinging vines like English ivy and Boston ivy sometimes climb up and then over the top of a chimney. Although not especially combustible, they will burn directly over a fireplace or wood stove. Just like gutters do, vines can accumulate leaves that fall from deciduous trees to become more combustible. Birds or rodents can build combustible nests in them.

Evergreen trees and big shrubbery are similarly combustible over a chimney. Deciduous trees are generally not as hazardous. Conversely, cypress, pine, cedar, eucalyptus, large junipers, and ungroomed palms are very combustible. Eucalyptus foliage will burn while fresh, if it gets hot enough. The other trees tend to accumulate very combustible detritus.

Posted on by tonytomeo

FINALLY! We have RAIN!

The weather is on a different schedule annually. Although the seasons remain stable, the rainy season does not begin promptly on the same date this year as it did three years ago when this article posted. Regardless of when the rainy season begins, it is a major event after the long dry season.

tonytomeo's avatarTony Tomeo

P80103+For those who do not remember what ‘rain’ is, it is, it is those odd drops of water that fall so mysteriously from the sky in other regions. We get it here too, just very rarely, and almost exclusively within a limited season centered around winter. Rain tends to be affiliated with storms. The last storm moved through here last spring.
Rain may not be much to look at, and is nearly impossible to get a picture of, but it adds up to become a very important commodity known as ‘water’. Some believe that California does not have enough water. We natives know that there is actually plenty of water, but merely too many people in need of it, and a few of those many who capitalize on that need. Anyway, I did not even try to get a picture of the rain that is falling so nicely now, but…

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Time Travel

DEVONACRES explained what really happened here in the comments below; which sort of blows the silliness of it all. Hey, no one is obligated to read the comments.

tonytomeo's avatarTony Tomeo

P81124KOne never knows what strange artifacts might be found out in public landscapes. It is amusing enough to find items discarded or simply misplaced long ago by former occupants of a home out in a private home garden. Public landscapes are even more interesting, since they collect debris and artifacts from many more people. Some landscapes have been doing so for a long time.
Besides litter, the most commonly found artifacts are sporting equipment. Frisbees, baseballs, tennis balls, soccer balls, volleyballs and such are commonly lost in dense vegetation. Golf clubs, baseball bats and tennis rackets sort of make one wonder. Chew toys are sometimes left by dogs who go after them, but then return with something they perceive to be more interesting.
Landscapes that are near roadways often feature car parts that might have fallen out of cars as they drove by, as well as a few that cars…

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Six on Saturday: WHITE

White is my favorite color! It always has been, long before it became a fad and a trendy coffee table book in the early 1990s. I do not care that it has become politically incorrect since then. Nor am I concerned with what Brent has to say about it. (He has not valued my opinion since 1986 anyway.) I realize that he is the famous landscape designer, and I am not, but I also know what I like in my own garden. I am quite pleased that there are so many white flowers at work, and even an exclusively white garden, at el Catedral de Santa Clara de Los Gatos!

1. Pelargonium X hortorum, the white zonal geranium at el Catedral de Santa Clara de Los Gatos, is blooming with smaller floral trusses because the weather is getting cooer through autumn.

2. Dianthus deltoides has the unappealing common name of ‘pink’, likely because most varieties bloom pink. Some bloom red. This is one of the best because it blooms so perfectly clear white.

3. Hydrangea macrophylla should be at el Catedral de Santa Clara de Los Gatos instead of the other ‘white’ hydrangeas that were relocated there last winter before deciding to bloom lavender.

4. Camellia sasanqua is blooming impressively well for the shade that it lives in. I do not remember the name of this cultivar. It might be a hybrid of Camellia sasanqua and Camellia japonica.

5. Rhododendron such as this are known as ‘azalea’. (There is no picture of Rhody.) This and ‘Coral Bells’ bloom about now, but not while the others bloom so abundantly at the end of winter.

6. Betula pendula is an old fashioned tree that still works well here. White trunks are striking among the dark green redwoods. We dig and can their seedlings to eventually replace aging trees.

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

Angel Wing Begonia

Begonia involucrata at Monte Verde

The simple pink or sometimes red or white flowers of angel wing begonia are not as flashy as those of other begonias, and are not abundant enough to provide much color. During warm weather, they are merely a minor bonus to the striking foliage. As the name implies, the big and angularly lobed leaves are shaped like wings of angels. Upper surfaces are glossy and dark green with irregular silvery spots. Undersides are even glossier and reddish bronze. With support, the lanky cane stems can get more than twelve feet tall. However, because older tall canes produce runty foliage, they are often pruned out to promote more vigorous and lushly foliated young canes.

Because they are sensitive to frost, and also because they are ideal houseplants, angel wing begonias are typically grown in containers. They like rather regular but not excessive watering, and rich potting soil. Abundant sunlight enhances foliar color; but harsh exposure roasts foliage. Partial shade is not a problem.