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Blue Marguerite

60907Most blue flowers are blushed with purple to some degree. Except for lily of the Nile, true blue flowers are quite uncommon. Even with their yellow centers, the tiny daisy flowers of blue marguerite, Felicia amelloides, seem to be too blue to be real. They are almost expected to fade to lavender. Bloom may not be as full as it was a month ago, but continues as long as the weather is warm.

Mature plants are usually less than a foot and a half tall, and not much wider, with a symmetrically rounded form. The branches are rather fragile, and can be broken by something as trivial as a clumsy cat. They really are not strong enough for bouncy dogs or children. Yet, their tiny oval leaves are just raspy enough to deter deer. Unfortunately, blue marguerite plants live only a few years.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 23 Comments

Trout and Cabbage

61012No; this is not a recipe. It is two brief stories about my first fishing trip and the first vegetables I ever grew.
My first fishing trip was at Silver Lake, past my grandparents summer house in Pioneer. I was just a little tyke. I think I had just a small cane with a hook on a string tied to it. I doubt that I was expected to catch anything with it. I sat on a bare granite shore with my Uncle Bill behind me to keep me from falling in, and my hook on a string in the water.
‘Fishy’ took the hook almost immediately. He was a slippery and shiny trout who startled everyone around with his eagerness to grab onto the hook in order to come home with us. I pulled him up so that my Uncle Bill could take him off of the hook. However, to my surprise, my Uncle Bill explained that Fishy had to go back into the lake because he was too small! I was baffled. I told my Uncle Bill that Fishy could not bee too small because he was bigger than any other fish in my grandfather’s aquarium!
Of course, Uncle Bill then explained that the objective of fishing was not to relocate fish from the uncomfortably cold lake to the cozy warm aquarium. As he continued to explain what the real objective of fishing was, it became very obvious that the lake was the best option for Fishy! Uncle Bill put Fishy back in the water, where he happily swam away. I am pleased to say that I never saw Fishy again.
Shortly afterward, my grandmother gave me a six-pack of cabbage seedlings that I planted in a neat row below my mother’s kitchen window. I was so pleased with them. I watered them and talked to them and sometimes just petted their waxy leaves. They grew quite large, and started to crowd each other.
Then, one day while I was out playing with my pine cones and favorite dirt on the patio, my mother came out with a paring knife and walked by without saying anything. To my HORROR, she returned with a severed cabbage! I totally freaked out! Of course, my mother explained to me that the objective of growing the cabbages was to eat them, and that they were the same vegetable that I liked so much in a cooked form. That was not much consolation. If I had known that, I would have planted them up at Silver Lake so that they could live happily ever after with Fishy.
Well, I did not eat any cabbage with supper that evening. By the time the second cabbage was murdered, I was able to eat it. I did not want it to die in vain; and it really was quite good. So were the third, fourth and fifth cabbage.
The last cabbage was the runt of the litter, so my mother allowed me to care for it all through winter. When it got muddy from splattering rain water falling from the eave, I washed it with soap, which is how I learned that plants do not like soap. As the weather warmed in spring, it bolted. The outer leaves got rather crispy, and a floral stalk stretched upward from the center. It bloomed with small yellow flowers and even made little seed capsules. I do not know if it ever made viable seed, because I did not collect any. By the time it deteriorated and died, I knew that it had lived a full life, so was not too sad about it. The funeral was brief before it was interred behind the apricot tree.
In the end, I ate neither the first fish I ever caught, nor the first vegetable I ever grew.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 12 Comments

Propagation Is No Big Mystery

Layer_(PSF)All plants propagate. Otherwise, they would go extinct. They all have the potential to propagate by seed or spores. However, some are more efficient at vegetative propagation from stems or roots. Of the later, a few propagate by seed so rarely that it is a wonder that they can evolve, since vegetatively propagated plants are clones, or genetically identical copies, of the original plants.

A single coastal redwood can live for thousands of years. Before such a tree dies, it clones itself by producing adventitious stems from its aging root system. These stems mature into new trees that can live for thousands of years more, only to repeat the process indefinitely. There is no opportunity to generate and share any slight genetic variations that are necessary to natural selection.

Well, this is probably more information than any of us need for our home gardens. It is only relevant to demonstrate than many plants are happy to propagate themselves vegetatively, or are at least conducive to simple vegetative propagation techniques. This is why most nursery plants are grown from cuttings, which are merely pieces of stem stuck into media and forced to grow roots.

For those of us who are not in the nursery industry, there is a more practical way to propagate a few copies of certain favorite plants. Sprawling groundcovers and vines like iceplant, knotweed, jasmine and ivy know all about it. So do many low growing succulents. Their lower stems develop roots where they lay on the ground, and grow into new plants. The process is known as ‘layering’.

Some low shrubby plants that might not layer naturally might be coerced to do so simply by getting a few of their lowest stems buried just below the surface of the soil, with a few inches of the tips sticking up. It helps to scratch off a patch of bark about a third of the way around the buried section of stem, and apply rooting hormone. Sturdy stems can be held down with rocks if necessary.

For most plants, layered stems can be buried about now, left through winter, and should be ready to be separated from the parent plants by next summer, just after any new growth matures. New plants will of course need to be watered generously until they develop enough roots to be self sufficient. Most plants with pliable stems that reach the soil can be layered. Junipers, euonymus, euryops, marguerites, boxwoods and carpet roses are some of the more popular candidates.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 2 Comments

Schedule Adjustment

P80624Something that I neglected to consider about the first year anniversary of this blog is that what was new is now old. The articles from my weekly gardening column that were new when posted last year are now a year old. That necessitates an adjustment to scheduling.
Recent articles get posted on Mondays and Tuesdays. Each article gets split into two separate posts. The first part on Monday is the main article, which is about a specified horticultural topic. The second part on Tuesday is about the featured species. Older articles from the same time a year earlier get posted in the same manner on Thursdays and Fridays. That format worked well until now. Articles that were new in the beginning of September of last year are scheduled to be recycled now, for the beginning of September this year.
Obviously, there is no point in posting the same articles twice. ‘Flowers Might Be Getting Scarce’ and ‘Fernleaf Yarrow’ were already recycled earlier, before I noticed that they were two of the first articles posted a year ago. The simple solution would be to back up a year, to recycle articles from 2016 instead of from 2017. However, those articles were already recycled on Thursdays and Fridays. Therefore, the schedule will be backed up even farther, to recycle articles from the same time in 2015. I am trying to keep this simple. Of course, no one should notice. The articles are appropriate to the season regardless of what year they were written in.
What might get noticed is that a few extra articles will be added to the mix. This will only continue between about now and the beginning of November, which was when I started recycling articles last year. Because the blog started in the beginning of September, and I started recycling year-old articles in the beginning of November, there are articles from September and October (between about September 1 and November 1) of 2016 that have not yet been recycled. I want to use them up just to that none get left out.
This is probably way more explanation than anyone needs, particularly since it is mostly in regard to something that should not get noticed; but it will explain the few extra articles between now and November. If I get a bit of time later today, I might add the first of the superfluous articles tonight.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 33 Comments

Six on Saturday: Again – Not My Garden

 

There are just too many cool things blooming in my colleague’s garden to not get some more pictures. Some may seem to be redundant to others that were shared earlier, as well as to some that have not been shared yet. The unknown salvia and lion’s tail are finishing their bloom, as it the know what time of year it is. The weather may not seem like that of late summer, but they know otherwise. I got these pictures while I could. African iris and African daisy are oblivious. They bloom whenever they want to, and African iris can even bloom a little bit through winter if it chooses to. Autumn sage, as the name implies blooms best about now. Of these six, only the four O’clock will deteriorate in autumn and die back through winter. The salvias will get pruned back anyway.

1. Four O’clock, Mirabilis jalapa, are the same as those featured last Saturday in Six on Saturday, and in the following brief article about the individual plants that bloom with flowers of different colors. This one looks like a blob of mustard with a bit of ketchup that squirted out of a hamburger as someone bit into it. The rich red flower in the background that looks more like plain ketchup is on the same stem.P80908

2. Autumn sage, Salvia gregii, is a different cultivar of the same species featured yesterday. The picture that was posted yesterday was from a specimen in the landscape at the library in town. This picture is that of a cultivar of smaller stature but with bigger flowers. The zonal geraniums of questionable (pink, salmon, peach or whatever) color that were featured last week can be seen in the background.P80908+

3. Black and blue salvia, Salvia guarantica, looks just like this. . . or this looks just like black and blue salvia. I really do not know what it is. It sure is an exquisite blue though. The base of the plant is rather scrawny, almost as if it intends to grow only as an annual. It will get cut back like other salvias, but not as aggressively. If it regenerates from the base like it should, the old growth can be cut back later.P80908++

4. Yellow African iris, Morea bicolor, is sort of cliché. However, this is the only one anywhere around. Seriously, with all the many acres of landscape that my colleague maintains out there, this is the only one. The more common white African iris, Dietes iridioides, is lacking completely. (‘Dietes‘ and ‘Morea‘ are synonyms, but ‘Dietes‘ is uses more for the ‘iridiodes, and ‘Morea‘ is used more for the ‘bicolor‘.)P80908+++

5. African daisy, Osteospermum ecklonsis, looks something like gazania. There are plenty pictures of gazania as well, but I will use them for the next two weeks. This species of African daisy is shrubbier and more colorful than the sprawling types that were popular as ground cover back in the 1980s. It blooms more profusely, and with more vivid colors. I probably should have gotten pictures of the other colors too.P80908++++

6. Lion’s tail, Leonotis leonurus, will be featured in my weekly gardening column this week, which shows up here on Tuesday. I am no fan of orange, but I can not dislike this bloom. The color is as flashy as that of California poppy. I will never understand why this perennial is not more popular than it it. It has been available longer than some of the less impressive salvias, but salvias are trendy. They are related of course.P80908+++++

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 · 12 Comments

Autumn Sage

50909Perhaps in the wild, it blooms in autumn. Where it gets watered in home gardens, even if watered only occasionally, autumn sage, Salvia greggii, blooms all through summer as well. If pruned back severely over winter, it starts to bloom even sooner in spring. The tiny flowers are red, rose, pink, peach, very pale yellow, lavender or white. Some poplar cultivars have bi-colored flowers.

Compact autumn sage that does not get much more than a foot tall is uncommon. Larger cultivars get four feet tall and broad, with more open growth. Most get about three feet high and a bit wider. Without severe winter pruning, stems can eventually get twiggy, with sparse foliage on the exterior. The tiny aromatic leaves are less than an inch long, and visually resemble oregano.

Even though it is not native to California, autumn sage is popular for native landscaping because it does not need much water. Just like native sages, it attracts butterflies and hummingbirds.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 4 Comments

It Will Soon Be Autumn

71004thumbFrom the time they get planted in early spring, tomato plants are expected to perform a bit better than they did earlier in the season. They start out with only a few early tomatoes, but quickly become prolific. Production continues to increase as the plants grow all through summer . . . until now. Newer leaves on top are not staying so far ahead of fading leaves below.

While the weather is still warm, it is difficult to say how tomato plants know that autumn will soon replace summer. They do not seem to be intelligent enough to realize that every day is imperceptibly shorter than the one before. Nor do they seem to be sensitive enough to notice if the nights get slightly cooler. They just know, and they tell all their friends.

If zucchini plants have not started to fade and sag, they will soon. As weather cools, they no longer grow faster than the mildew that they tolerated all summer. Any fruits that are present now should have time to finish developing, but there probably will not be many more after that. (Zucchini fruits are eaten before mature anyway.) Other warm season vegetables are in a similar state.

Acorn, Hubbard, butternut and other winter squash grow through summer just like summer squash do, but are not harvested until the vines wither in autumn and winter. Unlike summer squash that continue to produce many tender juvenile fruit to replace what gets harvested through summer, winter squash plants put all their effort into one or two large ripe fruit.

Warm season vegetable plants still need to be watered as the foliage slowly deteriorates. They only begin to need less water as they lose foliage and the weather gets cooler. They may like to be fertilized one last time, but will not not need it again. Any last phases of corn will stay thirsty later than other vegetable plants because they deteriorate slower, and are rather thirsty anyway.

Seed for broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale and certain other cool season vegetables can be sown in flats or cell packs now so that their seedlings are ready to go when the warm season vegetables relinquish their space in the garden. If space allows, seed for beet, turnip and turnip greens can be sown directly into the garden. Carrot seed should still wait for cooler weather.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 18 Comments

Horridculture – Drought

P80905It is a way of life in much of California. Many of us grew up with it, or at least believing in it. Many of us never heard the end of it. That is how it lost its meaning.
Drought is a weather condition. It might last one year or a few. Drought can even continue for several years. For us, it entails less than normal rainfall through winter, only because winter is when rain is supposed to fall here.
As a weather condition, drought is not permanent. There have been a many during the past few centuries of recorded history here, and a few of those have been in just the last half century that I can remember. They happen frequently enough that I can not remember the exact years that were drought years, although I can remember a significant drought in the middle of the 1970s. No drought lasts forever.
If drought lasts forever, or at least as long as anyone can remember, then it is not a weather condition, so is therefore not really a drought. It is ‘climate’.
The climate of much of California is naturally arid. San Jose and the entire Santa Clara Valley have a ‘chaparral’ climate, which is classified as ‘semi-arid’. Some areas near the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains get only about a foot of rainfall annually. Los Angles and the region around it in Southern California have a ‘desert’ climate, which is ‘arid’. Parts of the Mojave Desert get less annual rainfall than other climates get from a single storm.
Although droughts happen here, the limited availability of water is due to the natural climate, not weather. Those who came to California a long time ago knew how to use what was available. The problem now is that there are simply too many people wanting too much of a naturally limited supply of water. Way too many expect way too much.

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Creeping Myoporum

80912The familiar sandalwood, Myoporum laetum, that is such a resilient small tree or big shrub in windy coastal climates, might make the wrong impression for the less familiar creeping myoporum, Myoporum parvifolium. Creeping myporum does not get much more than a foot high unless it climbs over stones or other obstacles, and it might stay less than six inches deep in exposed spots.

The evergreen foliage is dense enough to prevent most weeds from getting through. The tiny and narrow leaves are only about half an inch or an inch long, perhaps a bit longer. Clustered white starry flowers that begin to bloom late in spring continue to bloom through summer. Although tiny, and neither profuse nor remarkably showy, they are a nice accent to the rich green of the foliage.

Creeping myporum prefers full sun and occasional watering. It rots easily if watered too much. Its other weakness is that it does not tolerate traffic well. Creeping myoporum is a low growing shrub with woody stems that can break if trampled on. Individual plants can get ten feet wide if they get the chance. They are typically planted much closer together so that they cover the ground faster.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 15 Comments

Groundcover Is Carpeting For Landscapes

80912thumbIf shade trees are the ceilings, and hedges and shrubbery are the walls, then turf and other groundcover plants are the floors of some of our outdoor living spaces. Except for turf grasses, most groundcovers are not as useful as hardscapes like pavement and decking, but they perform other functions in areas that do not get such use. Groundcovers inhibit weeds, erosion, dust and mud.

Turf grasses used for lawn are of course the most popular groundcovers, and are a separate topic from other groundcover plants that grow over unused or lightly used ground. Because they need not tolerate traffic, these other groundcover plants need not be as resilient, or as flat as turf grasses are. They can be perennials, vines or low sprawling shrubbery. Most, but not all are evergreen.

Groundcover plants work something like mulch, although most want to be watered. They inhibit weed growth by occupying the space that weeds want. Many hold soil together with their roots. They may seem like they would compete with other plants, but groundcover plants insulate the soil, which makes it more comfortable for other plants. Many retain more moisture than they utilize.

Gazanias and iceplants are two of the most popular perennial groundcovers. They tend to replace their own growth regularly as old stems decompose below new growth that spreads over the top. They therefore do not get very deep. Some gazanias eventually develop bald spots. When they get trimmed around the edges, the scraps can be plugged back into bald spots as cuttings.

Cultivars of myoporum, cotoneaster, ceanothus, rosemary, juniper and other low and sprawling shrubbery that make good groundcover must not be confused with cultivars that grow as upright shrubbery or even trees. There is a big difference between creeping myoporum that stays less than a foot deep, and shrubby myoporum that can get almost thirty feet tall! Also, vines used as groundcover, like ivy and honeysuckle, should be maintained as such, and not allowed to climb trees, shrubbery and other landscape features, like vines naturally want to do.