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Change of Format

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This blog is now two months old; so it is about time that I start to recycle old articles instead of writing so many ‘elaborations’. The articles are probably more interesting and relevant anyway. They will be from the same time last year, or previous years. Like I have been doing with new articles, the old articles will be split into two separate postings. One will be the main topic. The other will be the ‘plant’ of the week. So, one new article and one old article split into two postings each week leaves only three days for ‘elaborations’. Redundant articles will be omitted. Eventually, I will refrain from daily postings. Also, I will try to keep my ‘elaborations’ brief. I know I tend to get carried away with this. Alternatively, I may recycle another article each week, leaving only one day for ‘elaborations’. I will figure this out as I go along.

While I am taking the time to post something that has nothing to do with gardening, I should also mention that one of my main objections to writing a blog is that so much of what I write about is specifically for the climate in which I live, and not necessarily applicable to other regions. My articles are written for newspapers between San Francisco and Beverly Hills (in Los Angeles County). However, since starting this blog, I have found that not only do the newspapers that I write for already share my articles with newspapers in other regions, but that people who read my articles in other regions are already as aware of regional differences as I am. People in Australia seem to be as interested in reading about autumn during their spring as I am interested in reading about their spring during autumn. People seem to know how much of the information that I present is actually useful to them, and can distinguish information that is not accurate for their respective applications. Now, I feel much better about posting my articles, as well as writing about whatever I want to write about.

If you are wondering how the picture of Rhody above is relevant to the posting, it has no relevance. He just had a way of getting you to read my blog earlier, so I tried it again, and it worked.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 5 Comments

Incense Cedar

71108In the west, the incense cedar, Calocedrus decurrens, was made into cedar chests or paneling for cedar closets as a substitute for the more traditional Eastern redcedar (which is incidentally a big juniper). The wood is supposedly aromatic enough to repel moths from woolens and furs. The evergreen foliage is very aromatic as well, so is sometimes used for garlands at Christmas time.

Old trees in the wild can eventually get nearly two hundred feet tall, with somewhat narrowly conical canopies. Yet, hundred year old trees that were planted in urban gardens during the Victorian period are not half as tall yet. Some are quite narrow. The rusty brown bark is deeply and coarsely furrowed. Branches can sag downward and curve back upward, which looks rather disfigured. Flattened sprays of scale-like leaves resemble those of arborvitae. Incense cedar is native to the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 7 Comments

Arborists Are Physicians For Trees

71108thumbBefore the storms of winter get here, it might be a good time to make arrangements to get some help for big trees that need it. Smaller trees that can be reached from the ground may not need anything that we can not do ourselves. It is the big trees that have grown beyond our reach that may need professional help if they have problems. They are unsafe for us DIY garden enthusiasts.

Once late autumn and winter weather patterns start, storms can break limbs and destabilize trees. Identifying problems and executing necessary remedies can limit such damages before they happens. Disproportionately heavy or structurally deficient limbs can be pruned to reduce weight and wind resistance. Obtrusive limbs can be pruned for clearance from roofs and anything else.

Trees are the most significant and influential features of our gardens. They shade and extend their limbs over our homes and gardens. Not only can they cause serious damage by dropping limbs or falling, but they can also change how our home and garden are affected by their shade. They are worthy of proper maintenance, even when it is necessary to procure the services of an arborist.

An arborist is a horticulturist who specializes in arboriculture, which is the horticulture of trees. Arborists are essentially tree physicians, who evaluate the health, stability and structural integrity of trees, and make recommendations for maintenance, or to repair problems. Most municipalities require an ISA Certified Arborist report in order to issue a permit to remove an unsalvageable tree.

The ISA is the International Society of Arboriculture. Certified Arborists have passed an examination of their arboricultural expertise, and maintain their credentials by continued involvement with ISA educational seminars, classes and workshops. More information about the International Society of Arboriculture and local certified arborists can be found at the website, www.isa-arbor.com.

Arboriculture is not the sort of thing that gardeners should be expected to perform. It is completely different from the sort of mowing, shearing and pruning that they do. Sadly, much of the damage that arborists find in trees was caused by improper arboricultural procedures. Arboriculture also has the potential to be very dangerous to someone who lacks adequate training and equipment.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 8 Comments

Colors

P71029+Remember the movie from 1988? I don’t either. I never saw it. Gang violence is not my idea of a good time. The title ‘Colors’ refers to the use of distinguishing colors by the gangs of Los Angeles. Gang members wear colors that correspond to their respective gang affiliation.

As autumn progresses, some of us get to gloat about our colors. New England gets the most and best colors, with a full range of reds, oranges and yellows, as well as browns and burgundies. The Appalachian Mountains to the south seem to go lighter on the reds and burgundies, concentrating more on oranges. The upper Midwest around Minnesota excels at the rich reds, with yellows confined to groves of cottonwoods. The lower Midwest does well with clear browns alternating with yellows, and even some oranges. The Rocky Mountains have a good range of color, with more gold than the Appalachians Mountains, but it is not as spectacularly concentrated. The bright colors contrast more with evergreens.

Here on the West Coast, we have yellow. . . . and redwoods . . . and palm trees. The bright yellow cottonwoods are quite flashy farther inland and in Nevada, where they grow along creeks and rivers that flow through the southern deserts. The only orange and rusty red we get from native specie here is from poison oak. Cottonwoods, willows, sycamores, box elders and even the bigleaf maples all turn yellow; and only when the weather is just so. Box elder foliage is more likely to shrivel and turn tan. Sycamore and willow foliage usually gets rather shabby.

To get the bright oranges and reds that everyone else in American enjoys, we plant exotic (non-native) trees; and there are not many choices that color reliably in our mild climate. Sweetgum is probably the most reliable, and the most variable with its color. Pistache and flowering pear are the second best choices, although flowering pear has a serious problem with fireblight here. Gingko colors very nicely, but is limited to yellow, which we already have a bit of.

While everyone else is posting pictures of their autumn color online and bragging to Californians about it, our color is only beginning to develop here. The most reliably colorful of the exotic trees seem to be doing well; but the natives and some of the exotics are defoliating prematurely, without much color at all. Honeylocusts have dropped most of their foliage while it is still lemon-lime green. Box elders just look sickly. Cottonwoods drop leaves as soon as they turn yellow, leaving only green leaves up in their canopies. The English walnut in the picture is the best color I could find.

It happens this way sometimes. This year, it might be a result of the unusually warm weather so late in summer, after the weather had already started to turn milder. It is impossible to say for certain. We take what we can get. We are not known for autumn color here.

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Posted on by tonytomeo · 10 Comments

Planned Obsolescence

P71028For my exquisite 1979 Electra, planned obsolescence did not work out so well. It was probably a grand Buick for that time, and one of the last with tail fins! It was elegant. It was big. It was steel. It was made to last ten years or 100,000 miles . . . and that was it. Seriously, as much as I enjoyed that car, it did not want go to much farther than it was designed to go. It limped along for almost 20,000 miles more, but was not happy about it, and was really tired and worn out by the time it went to Buick Heaven.

Planned obsolescence used to mean something completely different in landscaping. Yes, we all know what it means now; that many of the so called ‘sustainable’ modern cultivars last only a few years so that they need to be replaced sooner than older cultivars. What it used to mean is that fast growing plants were used to get a landscape established quickly, while more desirable but slower plants took their time growing. As the more desirable plants matured, the fast growing plants could be removed.

For example, a large condominium complex was landscaped primarily with Norway maples and flowering pears. These trees would eventually grow to be proportionate to the buildings and the spaces that they shade. To provide shade sooner, and to help the landscape look established by the second summer, common cottonwoods were incorporated into larger areas. Their placement was not as important as it was to the maples and pears, but was strategic enough to avoid the other trees and buildings as long as possible. The intention was to allow the cottonwoods to be the prominent trees in the landscape only temporarily, but to remove them as the maples and pears matured. It was a practical technique used by landscape designers for as long as anyone can remember.

Sadly, few modern ‘gardeners’ understand this concept. The cottonwoods did not get removed when they should have been. They overwhelmed and crowded the other trees, and caused them to be disfigured as they grew. The cottonwood roots broke pavement and ruined lawns. Then, after all the damage and destruction, . . . the cottonwoods died, like cottonwoods do. Now the landscape is shaded by healthy but distorted maples and pears. The plan did not work very well.

Now, such planned obsolescence is simply impractical for trees. Even if those maintaining landscapes were reliable enough to follow through with such plans, modern tree preservation ordinances would prevent them from getting permits to remove temporary trees. Planned obsolescence can work with smaller shrubbery and perennials in home gardens, but those of us who use the technique must follow through with our plans so that things do not get too crowded.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 3 Comments

Firewood

P71027Heating homes has certainly changed. It has gotten much more efficient and less polluting. Homes are much better insulated than they were only a few decades ago. Heating systems use much less fuel, and produce much cleaner exhaust. That is partly how more than a million people who live in San Jose now make less smog than when there were half as many.

The unfortunate part of that efficiency is the decline in popularity of traditional fireplaces and stoves. Burning wood is now politically incorrect, and at times, even illegal. ‘Spare the air’ days are strictly enforced when air quality gets unpleasant.

In San Jose, building codes do not allow fireplaces to be build into new homes. Only homes that were build with fireplaces or stoves prior to the ordinance are outfitted with them. Fireplaces that are damaged by earthquakes are often removed instead of repaired.

Tending a fire does not fit into modern lifestyles very well anyway. If someone stays home long enough to do so, he or she is too busy with other work. Tending a fire simply is not considered a common household chore anymore. Fireplaces do not have thermostats, so do not maintain the sort of consistency in temperature that so many of us have become accustomed to.

Those of us who still use our fireplaces (when permitted) must procure firewood. There are no more deteriorating orchards to supply it. We can not grow our own because permits are needed to cut down trees that are big enough to make firewood. Permits are only granted for trees that must be cut down for other reasons. The need for fuel is not good enough.

Consequently, it becomes necessary to purchase expensive firewood. To some of us, it is still worth it. We can either purchase mixed firewood from a tree service, or get it from a firewood cutter in the Santa Cruz Mountains. There always seem to be more trees that need to be cut down than are needed for firewood.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 8 Comments

Anatomically Correct Horticulture

P71026Certain fruits and vegetables were so much more palatable before studying botany. Knowing what they really are sort of puts a damper on things.

Real fruits, including those known as vegetables, are no problem. We all know what they are, and they have the seeds to prove it. Just like flowers reward pollinators with nectar, many plants use fruit to get animals and people to disperse their seeds. Therefore, the fruit is designed to be eaten.

The majority of vegetables are fine too. It seems natural to eat leaves, stems, roots and even flowers. Things get a bit weird with petioles of rhubarb, celery and cardoon, since the leaves are not eaten. Cinnamon bark and saffron stamens also seems a bit odd. What about maple syrup? Is it a vegetable too?

Then there are fruits and vegetables that are not what we think they are.

You will never look at a potato the same way knowing that it is a subterranean stem known as a stolon. If it is looking back at you, it is because it has eyes, which are actually modified axillary buds, which only stems are equipped with. It it were a modified tuber or or a tuberous root like most of us think it is, it would not have these eyes.

Pineapple might be watching too, with its many eyes. Each eye actually represents a flower. What we think of as a pineapple fruit is actually a densely crowded collection of distended and fused flowers. Does that mean it is a vegetable like broccoli or cauliflower?

Strawberry is sort of fruity; but only what we think of as strawberry ‘seeds’. They are actually single seeded fruits known as ‘achenes’. Really, those little black things are outfitted with everything that they need to be classified as fruit. The red part of the strawberry is only a ‘receptacle’ for the achenes.

Everyone knows that fig trees do not bloom. So, how do they make fruit? Well, they technically don’t make any visible fruit; but they do bloom. What we think of as a fig fruit is actually a weird inside out inflorescence, with minute flowers on the inside. Each species of fig is pollinated by a particular species of minute wasp that enters the inflorescence through a very small hole at the end. Minute achenes about the size of strawberry achenes are the crunchy bits in ripe figs. To make figs even more unappealing, some wild figs contain the eggs and larvae of the wasps that went inside to deposit their eggs before dying there. Yum. Most garden varieties attract the wasps, but lack the necessary floral parts for the wasp to want to leave their eggs there. They therefore do the job of pollinating without dying inside.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 5 Comments

Butterfly

P71022Before you send me a comment about it, I am already aware that this is a very bad picture. It was taken with my primitive telephone because it was convenient at the time. This tired looking butterfly might not have waited for me to get the camera. It passed away, seemingly peacefully, right there on the hood of the old Chevrolet. It did not seem to be injured in any way. It probably simply expired like butterflies do after breeding. It is a natural process that the butterfly did not seem to be too distressed about. It gets no obituary because I am not qualified to write one. We are not sufficiently acquainted. I do not even know the specie of this butterfly.

Now that he or she is deceased, I ponder the beauty of these insects. They are so graceful and very colorful. They flutter about like animated flowers. Everyone likes them. Some of us grow flowers that attract them to the garden, and plants to sustain their baby caterpillars.

All flowers are designed to appeal to their pollinators of choice. Those that are pollinated by wind lack color, fragrance and other bling, but are very abundant. Those that are pollinated by flies smell like what flies like. Those that want to attract nocturnal pollinators are fragrant, luminescent (with ultraviolet patterns that are invisible to us), and open at night. Bee pollinated flowers use infrared patterns, and lots of other colors that bees like, and reward them with nectar and superfluous pollen. Well, you get the point. Floral structure, size, patterns, color, fragrance and schedule are all designed around pollinators.

It is difficult to say what butterflies like. They visit such a variety of flowers. Some have abundant pollen. Others have a bit nectar. Some are tiny flowers in dense groups. Others are larger composite (daisy-like) flowers. Butterflies can see both infrared and ultraviolet color, so it is hard to know what they see in flowers.

Some of the clustered small flowers that butterflies like are alyssum, fennel, goldenrod, phlox, Queen Anne’s lace, verbena, yarrow and of course, butterfly bush. They also like flower of the mint family, such as bee balm, lavender, oregano, rosemary and the various sages. Their favorite composite flowers include aster, calendula, cosmos, marigold, coneflower, zinnia and all the daisies and sunflowers.

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Lavender Starflower

71101It is really an evergreen shrub with limber stems; but lavender starflower, Grewia caffra, can work almost like a rambling vine. It does not actually climb or grip anything. Like the canes of a climbing rose, it can be tied onto a trellis or fence as an espalier. As a free standing shrub, the arching stems should be pruned selectively. Shearing deprives them of their natural form, and inhibits bloom.

Espaliered plants can reach the eaves. Free standing shrubs have the potential to get as high and wide, but take more time. Alternatively, lavender starflower can be trained as a small patio tree. The leaves look like elm leaves, with the same sandy texture. The lavender star-shaped flowers are as wide as a quarter. They are not abundant, but they bloom as long as the weather is warm. Lavender starflower does as well with full sun as it does in partial shade.

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Gutters And Chimneys Need Attention

71101thumbThere is no time that is best to clean the gutters on the eaves. They should probably be cleaned early before the debris within them gets dampened by the first rains. However, they will only need to be cleaned out again after more foliage falls. If cleaned only after all the foliage falls, they will be grungier, and there will be potential for some of the debris to flow into and clog the downspouts.

Most of the fresh leafy debris that fell recently is relatively easy to clean out. Debris that has been accumulating through the year will be more decomposed and settled in. Evergreen trees are somehow messier than deciduous trees. They drop smaller volumes of debris in autumn, but they drop the rest throughout the year. Deciduous trees drop all their foliage within a limited season.

That certainly does not mean that deciduous trees can not make a mess. All that foliage has to go somewhere. If the weather gets cool slowly, foliage falls slowly, and for a longer time. Some deciduous trees innately defoliate slowly, and may even wait all winter to finish. Fruitless mulberry, tulip tree and poplars typically defoliate efficiently, making a big mess that gets cleaned up once.

Flat roofs that lack gutters collect debris too. So do the spaces behind chimneys and in roof valleys (where the slope changes direction). Even if this debris does not interfere with the function of gutters and downspouts, it promotes rot in roofing material. Trees and vines that touch a roof are likely to be abrasive to roofing material if they move in the breeze, or hold debris against the roof.

Trees and vines must be kept clear of chimneys, not only because they can interfere with ventilation, but also because they can be cooked by exhaust from the fireplace below, and ignite! Fan palm beards (dead foliage that accumulates on trunks), pine, cypress, spruce and cedar are particularly combustible. Clinging vines can separate brick from mortar, which is another fire hazard.

Working on the roof and gutters is of course potentially dangerous. It might be best to get a professional for these sorts of jobs, especially if trees need to be pruned. While that is being done, there is plenty of raking and other gardening for us to do (without a ladder). Raking leaves is an important job too, since fallen leaves can shade out lawn, ground-cover and flowering annuals.