Posted on by tonytomeo

Improvise While Flowers Are Scarce

61123thumbMuch of the color in the garden through autumn and winter is provided by foliage. Some foliage turns color as the weather gets cooler. Some had been blue, gray, gold, red, bronze or variegated all year, and just happens to get noticed more now that there is not much other color provided by flowers. There are a few flowers that bloom now or even later in winter, but not nearly as many as there were in spring and summer.

Coral bark Japanese maple and red twig dogwood display colorful defoliated stems as the weather gets cooler. The colorful berries of firethorn (pyracantha), cotoneaster and toyon will ripen about the same time, providing bright red color until the birds get them. Otherwise, there might not seem to be much more to cut and bring into the home to substitute for cut flowers, and add to all the colorful foliage, twigs and berries.

Well, this is where things get less horticultural, and more creative. All those old flowers and flower stalks that should get pruned off, and maybe a few old leaves, might be good for more than compost. Blooms of hydrangea, Queen Anne’s lace and lavender can be cut just as they begin to deteriorate, and hung upside-down to dry. They lose much of their color, and shrivel somewhat, but are nice options to fresh flowers.

Old flower stalks of New Zealand flax and lily-of-the-Nile have striking form once plucked of tattered flower parts and seed capsules. New Zealand flax stalks are tall and straight. Lily-of-the-Nile stalks are like star-bursts on sticks. If the natural color lacks appeal, they can be spray painted! Seed capsules of red flowering gum (eucalyptus) dry in loose clusters with stems that are long enough to arrange like cut flowers.

Pine-cones, magnolia grenades (seedpods) and sweetgum maces (seedpods) that fall from their stems can be drilled, and attached to sticks. There are no substitutes for real flowers, but there are no limits to creative and even weird alternatives.

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Coneflower

71129Known more as a medicinal herb, and by its Latin name, coneflower or Echinacea, is a delightful prairie wildflower that works just as well in refined home gardens. It blooms in summer and again in autumn, although autumn bloom can be inhibited if plants are not groomed of deteriorating stems from the previous bloom. Like related gaillardia and rudbeckia, coneflower is a nice cut flower.

Flowers start out like any other daisy flower, but then fold back with the long ray florets hanging downward around the more rigid centers of darkly colored disc florets, forming cones. Flowers can stand almost three feet high, mostly on unbranched stems. Many popular varieties stay lower. Leaves and stems are somewhat hairy or raspy. Old varieties were mostly purple or lavender. Newer varieties can be orange, yellow, red, pink, white or green. Big plants can be divided after autumn bloom, or in spring.

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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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White Trash

P71018Long before my white supremacy garden (https://tonytomeo.wordpress.com/2017/09/21/white-supremacy/), I noticed that some white flowers were inferior to their more colorful counterparts. Brent (to the left in the picture in that other article I just cited) is often pleased to remind me of it. Only a few flowers are at their best in white. I, of course, am pleased to remind Brent of them. Then, he reminds me that black flowers are very rare, as if that makes them special. I then remind him that most black and dark flowers are pollinated by flies, so must imitate the fragrances of what flies are attracted to.

Callas, lilies, gladiolus, camellias, oleanders and dahlias all excel in white. They are at least comparable to their more colorful varieties. White callas, gladiolus and oleanders are actually superior to those more colorful. Some but not all varieties of rose, hydrangea, wisteria and tall bearded iris are exquisite in white as well.

Then there are plants like bougainvilleas, crepe myrtles, geraniums and angel’s trumpets that are less impressive in white. Bougainvilleas and crape myrtles just are not quite as bright in white as they are in their vibrant pinks and reds. White geraniums and angel’s trumpets are relatively weak, and white geraniums do not drop faded flowers efficiently.

Many white flowers do not even try to impress. They throw their pollen to the wind and let it do the work. Color is for flashy flowers that want to attract pollinators. Pyracantha and photinia flowers, for example, are neither colorful nor big and flashy, but are very numerous. They are somewhat fragrant, just in case some sort of pollinators happen to be interested. Other wind pollinated flowers do not even offer that much.

Nocturnal flowers that rely on nocturnal pollinators might be big and fragrant, but are mostly insipid pale white. Some are slightly blushed with yellow or pink. They are not bright white only because they do not actually use the brightness of their white to get noticed. They instead use ultraviolet or infrared color that is invisible to us. Many of these seemingly bland flowers have rather flashy patterns of stripes, spots and blotches that are only visible to nocturnal animals and insects who can see ultraviolet or infrared light. Many flowers that are active during the day use this technique in conjunction with visible color (that we can see) as well. Regardless, it does nothing for us, since we can not see it.

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Society Garlic

71025Some flowers are better left in the garden rather than cut and brought in. Society garlic, Tulbaghia violacea, looks like it would be an ideal cut flower, with nice bare stems. The aroma suggests otherwise. It smells something like a strongly aromatic combination of onion and garlic. Even in the garden, it might be a good idea to keep it at a distance. Deer and rabbits do not mess with it.

Society garlic is sometimes known as pink agapanthus because it has similar foliage and flowers, only much smaller. The tiny flowers are really more lavender pink than pink, and bloom in round clusters on stems about a foot and a half tall in late summer or early autumn. The narrow leaves are only about a quarter of an inch wide, almost grassy, but more rubbery like those of agapanthus.

Mature plants form dense clumps of foliage at least two feet wide. Variegated plants stay much smaller, but are also very likely to revert to green (non-variegated) growth, which if not removed, overwhelms and replaced variegated growth. Society garlic is very easy to divide for propagation. It likes full sun or slight shade. Although somewhat drought tolerant, it prefers regular watering.

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Dago Pansies

P71007You can say what you like about nasturtiums. My landscape designer colleague, Brent Green certainly did when he named them ‘dago pansies’. They are still one of my favorite flowers, and just might be my favorite, even though none are convincingly white. They were my first. I discovered them when I was very young. They were growing near an old English walnut tree in my great grandfather’s garden. He noticed that I liked them, so found some seeds underneath to send home with me.

I did not know what to do with seeds, so I poked holes into the ground and dropped the seeds into the holes just like my great grandfather showed me to do. A few days later, small round leaves appeared where I had put the seeds. The leaves expanded and looked just like those of the nasturtiums in my great grandfather’s garden. Yellow, orange and even a few red flowers were blooming within a month. I was so impressed when the flowers first appeared, but was then briefly saddened when the first flowers to bloom faded.

I say that I was ‘briefly’ saddened because of what happened next. Where the flowers had been, I discovered what appeared to be the same sort of seeds that my great grandfather had given me! I still did not understand how these things worked; but I took the seeds and stuck them into the ground in other areas . . . anywhere I thought nasturtiums would be nice. They grew, bloomed and provided more seeds, which I took and planted elsewhere . . . and everywhere! To this day, my pa considers nasturtiums to be invasive weeds because of how they overwhelmed the garden that he thought was his.

In my kindergarten classroom, we had ‘color boards’ on a wall. Red, yellow and blue were the tree primary colors. Orange, green and purple were the secondary colors. There were also boards for pink, brown, black, white and gray. We could bring small disposable artifacts from home for our teacher to tape to the various boards. The artifacts were mostly bits of fabric, colored paper, pictures from magazines, Legos, buttons, or really anything we could find that could be taped to a wall. Of course, I had to bring yellow, orange and red nasturtium flowers, and a green nasturtium leaf. Our teacher probably did not want to tape them to the wall, but did anyway. They turned brown, but stayed there. I bragged about them for the rest of the school year.

I still grow descendents of those old nasturtiums. I also try new varieties just because I enjoy them so much. I still like the classic ‘Jewels mix’ because they have every color. They are smaller than wild nasturtiums at first, but are more prolific. After a few years, they revert to the common yellow and orange. Renee’s Garden Seeds at https://www.reneesgarden.com/ has some very interesting varieties, including a few old classics. The climbing types do not bloom as much, but are fun anyway. I probably have not tried them all yet, but I would if I could. I have history with dago pansies.

Posted on by tonytomeo

Dwarf Pampas Grass

71004Modern garden varieties of pampas grass found in nurseries are generally non-invasive. Their flowers are described as ‘sterile’, and therefore unable to produce seed. What that really means is that they are exclusively female, and unable to produce seed without male pollinators. However, they have the potential to be pollinated by naturalized pampas grass, and sow a few hybrid seed.

Of course, if naturalized pampas grass (Cortaderia jubata) are already in the area, a few tame dwarf pampas grass, Cortaderia selloana ‘Pumila’ will not make much of a difference anyway. They have the same elegantly cascading foliage and boldly fluffy flowers in the middle of summer, but on a smaller scale. The long and narrow leaves might stay less than five feet tall. The white flowers might stay below eight feet tall. Unfortunately, the leaves can easily cause nasty paper cuts!

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White Supremacy

winchesterMany people have a favorite color. I learned how seriously some people can take their preference for a particular color when I was in high school, and taking care of the yardwork for a few homes in the neighborhood. There were three tract homes next to each other. One was grayish blue, with a silvery blue Sedan deVille in the garage, and a garden of blue flowers. The middle house next door was soft amber yellow, with a buttery yellow Oldsmobile 98 in the garage, and a garden of exclusively yellow flowers. The house next door to that was iron oxide red, with an exquisite rich red Electra in the garage, and a garden of, you guessed it, red flowers.

The blue garden was the most challenging because true blue is not easy to find, and the big hydrangea kept trying to bloom pink in the slightly alkaline soil. Yellow was the easiest. There is no such thing as too many marigolds; and I really like nasturtiums! Red was my favorite because it included a few white flowers to contrast with the rich dark shades of red. Between the dark green juniper hedge and the deep red petunias, I grew a row of white petunias. A few white pansies got mixed with two shades of red pansies. I grew my first white geranium there, with several shades of pink and red. I really liked the white flowers.

Then I went to school with Brent. He was from a neighborhood with a purple Bonneville and an orange Caprice with a small dent in the driver side tail flank (which I can explain in another essay). Brent loves color! To him, white is only good for brightening dark areas or highlighting other colors. I can not argue with him. He is a landscape designer. I am primarily a grower. He knows a lot more about color than I do.

Well, by the 1990s, while I was growing citrus trees (which, incidentally bloom primarily white), ‘white gardens’ became a fad. How annoying! I always liked white; but loathed fads! I had this thing down long before it became a quaint coffee table book! It was mine! Brent thought that it was funny, especially since my garden had very little white in it. I would not give up my brightly colored nasturtiums and geraniums that I had taken with me to every home I lived in since childhood. I grew sunflowers, and yellow and orange gladiolus in front because they looked so good on my old apartment building. Too much white just would not have been right.

Eventually, I moved my blue lily-of-the-Nile and roses from a side yard that was not visible from out front, and planted only white flowers around a big white oleander tree. I had callas, daisies, iris, dahlias and white lily-of-the-Nile. There was not a lot of bloom at any one time, but there was enough for me to brag to Brent about. I had such attitude about it that Brent said it was more than a mere ‘white garden’. He said it was my ‘White Supremacy Garden’! Oh my! Take a look at the picture above. That is Brent and me back in the early 1990s. I am on the right. When we were in school, Brent would sometimes get marked absent at our night classes.

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Baker Creek Seeds

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The problem with growing the same reliable plants that I have been growing for so long is that I rarely get to try something new. Seriously, my rhubarb was in the garden long before I was born, and will be around long after I am gone. I will probably never grow a different variety of rhubarb. The same goes for my lily-of-the-Nile, geraniums, many varieties of bearded iris, all nine apple varieties and all fourteen fig varieties! Sustainability can be such a bother. Only on rare occasion, I grow something from seed that I do not already have available. I do it in moderation; and I do not feel too guilty about it.

California is the best place in America for gardening, but ironically, we do not have as much variety of vegetable seed to choose from as other regions do. We can get all sorts of weird kale and heirloom tomatoes, including some that were recently developed to exploit the heirloom tomato craze; but if it is not a hip new fad, we might not have access to it. (Yes, ‘new’ ‘heirloom’ varieties) I still get my favorite simple and common vegetable seed from the local hardware store like I did when I was a little kid. There is not much in between. Most vegetable seed here is either very simple and common, or hip and trendy.

Baker Creek Seeds is one of my favorite seed suppliers, both for the formerly common varieties that I grew up with, as well as varieties that might be common in other regions, but not available here. I know it sounds silly, but we just do not have much variety of collards, okra, beets and turnip greens to choose from. The catalog of Baker Creek Seeds, which can be found at rareseeds.com, has it all. If you can not find it in their catalog, you probably do not need it. Although I cringe to say so, Baker Creek Seeds has more heirloom varieties than any other supplier I can think of.

I cringe at the term ‘heirloom’ because I do not like fads or crazes. Baker Creek Seeds does it differently though. Their heirlooms are legitimate and documentable, with nothing to prove, even if some of them look like the ordinary modern varieties. The tomatoes do not need to be blotched, striped, wrinkled, black, purple, ugly, or whatever it takes for them to be marketed as ‘heirloom’, although a few of them are. Some were developed by the Amish. Some were developed by Early American settlers. Some Baker Creek Seeds are heirloom in other cultures, but new introductions here. You just need to take a look at what they have.

All of Baker Creek Seeds are ‘pure’. This means that they are NOT genetically modified. This is their ‘Safe Seed Pledge’:

“Agriculture and seeds provide the basis upon which our lives depend.  We must protect this foundation as a safe and genetically stable source for future generations.  For the benefit of all farmers, gardeners and consumers who want an alternative, we pledge that we do not knowingly buy or sell genetically engineered seeds or plants.  The mechanical transfer of genetic material outside of natural methods and between genera, families or kingdoms, poses great biological risks as well as economicc, political, and cultural threats…”

This makes their work significantly more difficult. Any seed that fails to meet their strict standards can not be marketed. Sadly, some heirloom corn varieties are no longer available because they became contaminated by pollen from genetically modified corn. While so many unscrupulously exploit the ‘sustainability’ fad with products that are contrary to sustainability, Baker Creek Seeds is the real deal. They can be found at rareseeds.com.

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The Colors Of Karma

0407160708aThe statute of limitations allows me to discuss this now. It happened thirty years ago, in the spring of 1987. The famous landscape designer, Brent Green, was my roommate in the dorms at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. As the bearded iris started to bloom, Brent immediately noticed a bed of uniformly pink bearded iris off the edge of a lawn in the inner campus. He watched it bloom from beginning to end, and occasionally updated me on the progress. During the process, he convinced me that these iris were very rare. Neither of us had ever seen pink bearded iris before. We had no idea that they could easily be purchased from mail order catalogs or nurseries.

Late one warm spring night, Brent telephoned me from a landscape design lab where he had been working late. Back then, we answered a telephone when it rang. Before I could wake up enough to think about what I was doing, or just say “No.”, Brent convinced me to bring something that he needed from our room to the lab. Without thinking, I got dressed, grabbed his designated duffel bag and got on my way. I was sort of concerned that the duffel bag seemed to be empty. I figured that whatever was in it was very lightweight.

By the time I got to lab, Brent was in the lobby, and his associates were leaving. Brent did not seem to be interested in whatever was in the bag. He just thanked me for bringing it as we waked out as if to go back to the dorms. I was puzzled. As we walked, Brent explained that he only needed the bag, and confirmed that it really was as empty as I suspected. I was even more puzzled. I asked why he woke me up in the middle of the night to deliver an empty bag across campus. Well, in the few minutes it took for us to get this far into the conversation, we had arrived at the bed of pink iris. You can imagine what happened next.

Yes. Brent dropped the bag on the ground and began to stuff it full of all the bloomed-out iris rhizomes he could grab! Suddenly, I was very awake, and protested. He explained that now that the iris had finished blooming, they would be dug up and disposed of. What else could I do? I knew he was correct. I did not want to waste the iris. I also realized that panic would only draw attention, and that delaying the process would only increase the likelihood of getting busted. I pulled up as many rhizomes as I could hastily grab as well, and stuffed the bag until it was full. Brent was feeling rather satisfied as we walked back to the dorms. I was mortified.

The rhizomes got split and groomed, and eventually went into our mothers’ gardens. We each got about half. The following late winter and early spring, Brent would check in on his when he would go south for the weekend. I would check on mine when I would go north. They grew well, and fattened up to bloom. The stalks came up. The buds swelled. Then, finally, and with much anticipation, they bloomed! They were magnificent! They were glorious! They were spectacular! They were purple and yellow! WHAT?!?! Where was the pink? What happened? This is NOT FAIR! Wait a minute, . . . Could it be karma?

Thirty years later, we still grow these two bearded iris. They are known simply as ‘Karma Purple’ and ‘Karma Yellow’. We do not know their real names. A few years ago, they were joined by a nice tall ‘Karma White’, which was supposed to be a rusty red that I ‘borrowed’ from a neighbor. Neither Brent nor I have ever grown a pink iris.