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Cape Honeysuckle

51118It may not bloom profusely, but cape honeysuckle, Tecoma capensis, blooms sporadically at random times throughout the year, and often while not much else is blooming. The bright reddish orange flowers contrast nicely against glossy evergreen foliage. Some blooms are slightly more reddish, while others are slightly more orangeish. A somewhat more compact cultivar blooms with light yellow flowers.

The long and limber stems of cape honeysuckle can not decide if they want to grow as vines or as shrubbery. They can be tied back and espaliered against a fence or trellis, or pruned and left to stand on their own. Large plants can get higher than the eaves. Overgrown thickets of stems can be cut down to the ground at the end of winter. They can regenerate and resume blooming before summer.

The narrow tubular flowers are about two inches long. They develop in terminal trusses, but only a few within a truss bloom at the same time. Shade inhibits bloom. Fertilizer seems to inhibit bloom by promoting vigorous vegetative growth. Fortunately, these vigorous shoots eventually bloom as vigorously as the grew. The four or five inch long leaves are pinnately compound, with five to seven small serrate leaflets.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 23 Comments

When It Rains It Pours

51118thumbFor those who do not remember ancient history, this wet stuff that fell from the sky recently is known as “rain”. It used to be more common, particularly through winter. It has an unfortunate way of getting everything exposed to it quite wet. It makes soil muddy. Yet, rain has many attributes. It is composed of water, so provides much of what irrigation systems have provided for so long in the absence of rain.

Most of us have already been using less water around the garden than in the past. Some plants have suffered, and a some may have died. Surviving lawns are probably not as green as we would like them to be. Just when we think that the garden can not get by with any less, the weather takes over. Even sporadic rain mixed in with mostly sunny weather provides significant moisture.

Not only is more moisture falling from the sky, but the plants and lawns that want it become less demanding through autumn and winter. Evergreen foliage loses less moisture to evapotranspiration (evaporation from foliar surfaces) because it is exposed to less sunlight during shorter days, and because the air is cooler and more humid. Deciduous plants drop their leaves, so do not lose moisture.

Even plants that are sheltered from rain by eaves will need less water because of the cool and humid weather, and shorter days. Some potted evergreen plants that are disproportionately large relative to their pots will likely want to be watered between the rain, only because their roots are so confined. Potted deciduous plants may need their soil moistened if the weather stays dry long enough for the soil to get dry.

Automated irrigation systems need to be adjusted for the changing weather. Some systems may need to be adjusted a few times. By the time the weather gets reliably rainy and cool later in winter, some irrigation systems can be temporarily disabled until the weather gets warmer and drier in spring. Not only does this conserve water; it also makes over-watering and soil saturation less likely.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 11 Comments

Horridculture – Bad Name

51104Junipers have a bad name. So do eucalypti. Too many of the wrong types were planted back at a time when they were too trendy. Those that were planted into inappropriate situations grew up to cause problems. The names of all junipers and eucalypti are now synonymous with those problems, even though there are many types of both genera that are quite practical for landscape purposes.
Get over it.
There are many junipers and eucalypti that are very good options for some landscape purposes. They need only minimal watering once established, and many will survive with none at all when mature. Some types of juniper grow as very low and very dense ground cover. With proper pruning, others can develop as exquisitely sculptural shrubbery or even small trees. (Just do NOT shear them!) Because of their very complaisant roots, some of the smaller eucalypti work very well as street trees.
I am certainly not promoting either junipers or eucalypti. They will not work for every application. I am merely saying that they should not be automatically dismissed because of their names. They were once overly popular for a variety of reasons, and those reasons are still valid.
However, I will say that there are a few species and varieties of each that are worth avoiding. They are likely what originally justified the bad reputations that are now shared by all of their relatives. For example, blue gum eucalyptus that was planted as a timber crop so long ago really is MUCH too big and messy for home gardens. Even where space is sufficient, there are probably better options.
Some of the current fads are also worth avoiding, or at least questioning. Some are very likely to earn a ‘bad name’ in the future, either because there will be too many of them, or because their faults will become evident as they mature. Because so many get planted within such a short time, many that mature at the about the same rate will develop their faults at about the same time.
For example, crape myrtle is such a useful and complaisant tree that it has been planted too commonly for just about every situation in which a tree is desired. It is resilient. It is complaisant with concrete. It blooms spectacularly. It colors splendidly in autumn. It really is an excellent small scale or medium tree for small garden spaces or near utility easements. It works very well in narrow park strips where larger trees would displace concrete. Yet, despite all the attributes, it is not good for everything, and does not get big enough to become a substantial shade tree, as it so commonly gets planted for. In the future, there will be so many crape myrtles in so many of the wrong situations that they will be considered to be too common.
Queen palm is another example. It used to be somewhat uncommon and respected. Through the 1990s, big box stores were selling them like junipers and eucalypti decades earlier. They happen to be very appealing palms that are more practical than the formerly more common Mexican fan pale, but have become so common that they were very often planted into situations that they are not appropriate for. Those that are under utility easements will need to be removed when their canopies start to encroach into utility cables. Because they are palms, they can not be pruned around the cables. Those that are able to mature will outgrow the reach of those who maintain their own gardens, or typical gardeners, necessitating attention from more expensive tree services. Like crape myrtles, they will also lose their appeal in the future.70222

Posted on by tonytomeo · 17 Comments

Zinnia

81121The same cooling weather that is initiating fall color is what finishes the zinnias that bloomed so colorfully through summer. Like tomatoes, they can stay out in the garden until they succumb frost if they continue to perform, and if the space they occupy is not needed for something else. There should be no guilt with replacing them sooner. After all, they are technically warm season annuals.

Some of the more popular types of zinnias are identified as Zinnia elegans or Zinnia violacea. Most are known merely by their variety name. They have been bred so extensively than it is difficult to assign any of them to particular species. Most are susceptible to mildew if crowded or watered from above. They want full sun exposure and rich soil. Seed can be sown immediately after frost.

Zinnias are crazily variable. Some get more than three feet tall. Others are less than a foot tall. They can bloom in every color except blue. Some resemble other types of daisies, with distended centers. Others are as fluffy as African marigolds. Some bloom with small but profuse flowers. Others have fewer but bigger flowers that are wider than three inches. Most are excellent cut flowers.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 8 Comments

Fall Color Is More Foliar

71122As zinnias, petunias, cosmos and other warm season annuals fade in the cooling weather, we might add a few chrysanthemums or marigolds for color through autumn, or we might go straight for pansies, violas or other cool season annuals that will provide color through winter. In the locally mild climate, there is always potential for some sort of colorful bloom. Mild weather has advantages.

It also has a few disadvantages. It is what limits the variety of apples that can be grown here. It limits the potential for bulbs that will naturalize. It is why we do not even bother with maple sugaring. Although mild autumn weather promotes colorful bloom of cool season annuals, and allows some of the warm season annuals to bloom right into winter, It subdues the color of deciduous foliage.

Sweetgum, Chinese pistache, flowering pear and ginkgo are the most reliable trees for autumn foliar color here, even in the mildest of autumns. Sweetgum and Chinese pistache exhibit the most impressive range of vibrant colors. Flowering pear can be comparable, and often displays deep burgundy red as well. Ginkgo exhibits only bright yellow, but it is probably the best of bright yellow.

There are a few more choices. Fruitless mulberry, tulip tree, black walnut and the poplars turn nice yellow if the weather is right, but they do not get quite as bright as ginkgo. If it gets cold enough, Chinese tallow turns rich purplish burgundy. Red oak turns a nice uniform brown. Most cultivars of crape myrtle can get as colorful as sweetgum, and also provide colorful bloom through summer.

Of course, it is very important to learn about the distinct personality of a particular tree before adding it to the garden. After all, no tree is perfect. Sweetgum eventually drops messy and prickly seed pods. Roots of both sweetgum and Chinese pistache can be aggressive with concrete. Flowering pear is susceptible to fire blight. Then there are a few trees that are colorful in autumn, that also have other benefits. Persimmon trees that are grown for their fruit turn the most fiery orange in autumn!

Posted on by tonytomeo · 15 Comments

Big Trees Are Bad Houseplants

P81111By ‘big trees’, I don’t mean the various ficus trees that can grow up to the ceiling, and be quite happy inside. I am referring to the shade trees that live out in the yard, or forest trees that live beyond that. They are outside for a reason . . . or actually, several reasons. They are too big to bring inside. They probably would not like the climate inside. No one wants to rake fallen autumn leaves inside. Well, you get the point.
Unfortunately, on rare occasion, big trees that are outside end up partly inside by falling or dropping limbs onto the homes that they provide shade for. Just like trees seem to fall onto certain types of cars more than others ( tonytomeo.com/2018/11/04/trees-hate-cars ), trees seem to fall onto certain types of homes more than others. The difference between the homes that trees seem to dislike and the cars that they seem to dislike, is that there are actually reasons why some types of architecture is more susceptible to falling limbs or trees.
First of all, just as some trees seem to avoid falling on cars, some seem to avoid falling on houses.
Coastal redwoods in landscape situations are remarkably stable. In my entire career, I have inspected only three that have fallen. One had a massive pair of trunks that split apart and fell away from each other. Although they were on the fence line between two closely set urban homes, and there was almost no place for them to fall without destroying one home or another, they did the seemingly impossible. They literally fell onto the property line. One trunk fell out into the street. The other fell back into the backyards of the homes behind. The fence was pressed into the ground. The landscapes were seriously damaged. Gutters were stripped from both adjacent homes. Otherwise, there was NO structural damage to any of the homes. I am still amazed at how minimal the damage was!
The massive coast live oak two doors down from my former home in town was just as talented. It sprawled out over its associated home and the front yards of the two adjacent homes. It was so broad that I would not have believed that it could have fallen down without destroying one of the homes. Yet, it did exactly that . . . as I watched from my dining room. During a windy storm, it fell right toward me, and landed squarely in the front yard next door. It broke a few rafters on the edges of the eaves, and tore the gutters off, but that was the worst of the damage. It somehow found the best spot to fall where it would cause the least amount of damage.
Not all homes are so fortunate.
Victorian homes though, do not seem to be targeted by trees as much as others are. Most are closer to downtown, away from tall or very broad forest trees. Many are on somewhat narrow parcels that can not accommodate disproportionately large trees like the coast live oak in the picture above. Broadly sprawling trees tend to be too low to extend their limbs over the roofs of taller two story Victorian homes. Although taller than most other types of homes, two story Victorian homes do not occupy as much area as other homes, so are not such big targets.
Low profile homes of ranch architecture, or similar types of architecture, are more likely to be damaged by falling limbs or trees. Many happen to be located in suburban or rural areas, closer to bigger and broader forest trees. Their wider parcels can accommodate larger trees. Their roofs are low enough for trees to extend limbs over. Because they tend to be on a single level, they occupy more area, so are larger targets.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 11 Comments

More Smoke

P81110KFire has always been a part of life in most of California. That is why almost all native flora benefits from it, and has developed an efficient system and schedule for not only living with it, but exploiting it.
Within a few years after a fire, the pioneer species are the first to regenerate. They are aggressive, but short lived. Some are annuals. Others are trees that grow fast and then die out as the slower growing but longer lived trees dominate. Some of the longer lived trees might have been there all along, since they have developed ways of surviving fire.
Big valley oaks and coast live oaks that live out in the open away from other forest trees can survive for centuries because the grasses around them burn off fast and relatively harmlessly. Giant redwoods and some pines survive by standing high above the more combustible fuel below. Coastal redwood survives for centuries by being less combustible than other species. Desert fan palms protect their single terminal buds inside their massive non combustible trunks, while their beards of old dead foliage burns hot enough to incinerate competing species. There are too many ingenious ways that plants survive fire and even use it to their advantage to write about; but the point is that they know what they are doing, and they know how to live with fire.
This system of ecology has been disrupted, but not just by people cutting down too many trees and starting too many fires. The problem now is that not enough trees are getting cut down, and fires are unable to burn that which relies on burning.
In this region, pioneer species and an unnatural mix of forest trees moved in where the redwoods were harvested. This makes what had been less combustible redwood forest more combustible than it naturally is. It will take centuries for the redwoods to reclaim their territory and crowd out more of the hardwood trees. Also, because the redwoods regenerate with many trunks from each individual trunk that was harvested, even the redwoods are more crowded and combustible than they would naturally be. While they are still relatively young, their foliar canopies are low and intermingled with the other more combustible trees. It is certainly not possible to cut down enough trees to repair the damage, but protecting too many of the wrong trees and outlawing selective harvest of second growth redwood only promotes combustibility of the local forests.
Other forests, whether formerly harvested or not, experience similar problems. Because they are not burning as frequently as they used to, they are not being regularly purged and restored, but are instead becoming more crowded and combustible than they would naturally be. Diseases and pathogens are proliferating in the geriatric vegetation, and vegetation that succumbs provide more fuel, which also enhances combustibility.
Although there are many (MANY) more fires that are started by human activity now than there ever was naturally, such fires can not burn the vast areas that naturally occurring fires had naturally burned. There are just too many of us living and working here. Forests that are deprived of fire continue to proliferate more combustible biomass. Again, there is no remedy to this. Fires must be controlled and confined as much as possible.
Paradise is gone now. It burned on Thursday. Our region more than two hundred miles to the south is gray with abundant smoke from the Camp Fire that continues to burn there. Two other major fires burn in Ventura and Los Angeles Counties, more than three hundred miles to the south of here. Paradise Park just to the south of here was protected from the much smaller Rincon Fire that filled the Valley with harsh smoke for days after it was contained. Sadly, for this region, this is all part of nature.P81110K+

I do not remember on what days these pictures were taken. The first picture at the top was taken toward the sunrise, just prior to sunrise. The second picture above was taken later after noon, probably on the same day. The two pictures below were taken in the evening, perhaps on the day after. P81110K++P81110K+++

Posted on by tonytomeo · 24 Comments

Six on Saturday: Tangly Cottage Gardening Journal

 

tanglycottage.wordpress.com is where you can find it. This is a blog about gardening, gardens, life, and of course, Skooter the kitty, in and around Ilwaco, in the very southwestern corner of Washington, where the Columbia River flows into the Pacific Ocean. Like so many blogs, it shares compelling insight about a culture and a region that might be very different from what one is accustomed to. Then again, it might be compellingly similar . . . or even unexpectedly familiar. You can decide for yourself.

I have been to Ilwaco only once, about twenty years ago. I spent the night in a campground there while driving from Silverdale, west of Seattle, to Saint Helens, north of Portland. It was certainly not a direct trip. That would have been a two and a half hour drive. I was on vacation, so drove around the Olympic Peninsula. I sort of intended on returning someday, but never did.

After all these years, it has been fascinating to read about the flora of the gardens of the region. When I was there, I was more interested in the native flora outside of town. Ilwaco still looks something like I remember it to look like, although I think that there is more landscaping downtown now.

A while back, I commented on Gladiolus papillio that was blooming in a planter box in downtown Ilwaco. I was impressed that it was such a reliable perennial species of gladiolus. I had been wanting to grow a species of gladiolus that was more perennial than than the common summer blooming bulbs that I am familiar with, but had not decided on which ones to try. Anyway, in response to my comment, the author of ‘Tangly Cottage Gardening Journal’ offered to send me a few of the bulbs! How could I refuse?

These six pictures are of those Gladiolus papillio bulbs that came from Ilwaco in Washington.

1. It is so excellent to get a package in the mail from such an exotic and far away place! It got here very fast. It was in my mail only two days after being postmarked on October 25.P81110

2. The contents of the package are even more excellent than the package itself! There were nearly fifty bulbs here! I planted them on the first of November, a bit more than a week ago.P81110+

3. The bulbs were planted in three groups of about a dozen, with two groups of about half a dozen between them. The first group is partly buried here because a bit of soil fell back into the hole before I got this picture.P81110++

4. This is how the same first group of bulbs looks completely buried. Aren’t they pretty? Never mind the calla. It is not vigorous enough to bother the Gladiolus papillio.P81110+++

5. This is the planting bed where the Gladiolus papillio bulbs were planted. They are up in back, in a row that extends from the left edge of the picture to the corner of the trellis with the espaliered camellia. The pinboard and mailbox in the top right corner of the picture are at the Post Office next door. I would have preferred to plant the bulbs in front of the Post Office, but there is no place to do so over there. I am pleased that these Gladiolus papillio were planted in a public space almost in front of the Post Office because that is where they originated in Ilwaco. As the proliferate, I intend to take a few to my downtown planter box in Los Gatos, and might even share a few with the lady who tends to the planter box next door to the Los Gatos Post Office.P81110++++

6. This is the Mount Hermon Post Office is next door.P81110+++++

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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Heavenly Bamboo

51111Good old-fashioned Heavenly bamboo, Nandina domestica, which can almost reach the eaves, can be difficult to obtain nowadays. More compact modern cultivars do not get much more than six feet tall, and some stay less than three feet tall. Foliage is airier in partial shade, but more colorful where more exposed.

As it begins to emerge in spring, new foliage is pinkish or reddish before greening. It slowly bronzes by autumn. Some cultivars turn ruddy or orangish, or even burgundy. Individual leaves are actually quite large, but are divided into many small, diamond shaped leaflets. Some cultivars have very narrow leaflets. Tiny white flowers bloom through summer. Bright red berries ripen through autumn.

Although unrelated, Heavenly bamboo grows like bamboo, with vertical canes developing from creeping rhizomes. Overgrown or deteriorating canes should be cut to the ground as they get replaced by newer canes. Otherwise, they become top-heavy and inhibit development of new canes. Foliage should not be shorn, since it is not much to look at without its naturally intricate texture.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 4 Comments

Fall For Colors Of Fall

51111thumbMild winter weather on the West Coast limits the choices for autumn color. So many of the trees, shrubs, vines and perennials that get so colorful where autumn weather is cooler do not get so colorful here. Mild weather also allows so many more evergreen plants and plants that do not get colorful in autumn to thrive here than in harsher climates. Consequently, the tougher and more colorful plants are not so common.

Fortunately for those who appreciate autumn color, there are a few choices that do not mind mild weather. The three most reliable trees for autumn color are sweetgum (liquidambar), Chinese pistache and flowering pear. All three turn yellow, orange and red. Maidenhair tree (gingko) is just as reliable, and turns bright yellow, but lacks orange and red. (‘Saratoga’ gingko turns pale yellow.)

If the weather is right, fruitless mulberry, tulip tree, black walnut and the various poplars display clear yellow foliage. Eastern redbud can do the same, but is a small tree. Smoke tree and crape myrtle are large shrubbery or small trees that can get as colorful with yellow, orange and red as Chinese pistache does. Japanese maples have the potential to turn yellow or even orange, but more often turn dingy brown.

Grapevines and wisteria are vines that can be somewhat colorful if they hold their foliage long enough to get noticed. Boston ivy, which is actually more closely related to grapevines than to ivy, is the most colorful of the vines in autumn. Unfortunately, it can be too destructive to paint, wood and whatever else it grabs hold of to be practical for home gardens. It works nicely on indestructible concrete walls.

Heavenly bamboo, which seems to have appealing but distinct foliar color for every season, turns richer shades of reddish bronze through autumn. Some cultivars turn rich brown. Others become more purplish red or burgundy. Unlike other autumn foliage that sooner or later falls through winter, heavenly bamboo is evergreen, so hold its color until it get replaced by another color in spring. Unfortunately, there are not many other evergreens that turn color in such mild weather.