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Coffee

Coffee was more popular as a houseplant decades ago.

The White Raven Coffee Shop, the best little pourhouse in Felton, has an interesting but old fashioned houseplant on the counter. This group of four small but rapidly growing coffee trees, Coffea arabica, was a gift from a loyal customer.

Mature plants can get to thirty feet tall in the wild. Fortunately, coffee trees are easy to prune to fit interior spaces. Pruning for confinement is actually better than relocating big plants outside, since they do not like cold weather and are sensitive to frost.

Like various species of Ficus, coffee is appreciated more for lush foliage that happens to grow on a tree that can be trained by pruning to stay out of the way, overhead or in other unused spaces or corners. The simple remarkably glossy leaves are about two and half inches long or a bit longer. The very fragrant small white flowers are almost never seen among well groomed houseplants, and only rarely and sporadically bloom among less frequently pruned larger trees in greenhouses and conservatories.

The half inch wide coffee fruit, which is known as a ‘cherry’, is even more rare than flowers among houseplants because of the scarcity of both pollinators and pollen (from so few flowers). Those fortunate enough to get flowers sometimes pollinate them with tiny paintbrushes or clean make-up brushes to compensate for a lack of insects about the house. The resulting bright red or somewhat purplish cherries barely taste like cherries and only make two coffee ‘beans’ each; not enough to bother roasting and grinding for coffee, but great for bragging rights.

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Deciduous Trees Are Not Necessarily The Messiest

This weird Euphorbia is one of the few small evergreen trees that drops no foliage.

Contrary to popular belief, most deciduous trees, those that drop all their leaves in autumn, are not as messy as most evergreen trees. There are of course a few exception; such as cacti that lack foliage completely, or Italian cypress that drop their finely textured foliage straight down within a very narrow drip-zone, where it decomposes and disappears unnoticed. Very few leaves fall from a big silver maple through winter, spring and summer, so that almost all of the raking is done when almost all the leaves get shed in autumn. However, a big Southern magnolia generally drops leaves throughout the year, so that raking is always necessary.

The problem is that when deciduous trees get to be messy, they are very messy. Also, they get to be messy at the worst time of year, when their leaves mix with rain to clog drains and gutters. Unraked leaves become hazardously slippery when they get wet and start to decompose. It is amazing how something that can be so appealingly colorful through autumn can so quickly become such a nuisance.

Leaves of deciduous trees somehow seem to be better for composting than those of some of the evergreen trees. Anyone with a Southern magnolia knows how slow the foliage is to decompose. Foliage of camphor, bay, carob and various eucalyptus certainly decompose slower than various maple, ash, poplar and birch. Many of us outfitted with green waste bins or curbside collection of green waste prefer to recycle the less desirable evergreen foliage, and compost primarily deciduous foliage. Those of us who do not compost but need to rake under large or many deciduous trees may fill bins for several weeks, or leave very big piles of leaves at the curb.

Small leaves, such as those of most elms, or finely textured compound leaves, such as those of silk tree, jacaranda or locust, may not need to be raked if they fall onto lower shrubbery or ground cover. Small leaves or the small leaflets of disintegrating compound leaves simply sift through the lower plant material to decompose below. However, large elms may produce such an abundance of foliage that some may need to be removed. Maple and other large leaves are not so easy to ignore. They can shade lawns, ground cover or bedding plants, so need to be raked as they fall.

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Honeybush

Bold color, texture, form and scale.

Where winter weather is cooler, honeybush, Melianthus major, is likely to be deciduous. If so, it annually sheds all growth that is above ground. It can not bloom where deciduous because only growth of a previous season can bloom. That is no problem here. Dark red floral spikes bloom boldly about two feet above jungly evergreen foliage for early spring.

This silvery gray foliage can grow taller and wider than six feet, even if deciduous during winter. Foliar texture is both luxuriant and elegant. Pinnately compound leaves are more than a foot long with serrate leaflets. Evergreen plants are tidier with grooming to remove deteriorating older foliage as new foliage replaces it. Deciduous plants are always fresh.

‘Antonow’s Blue’ is a bit bluer than the straight species. ‘Purple Haze’ is slightly purplish, with a slightly finer foliar texture. Some notice that the rich fragrance of honeybush bloom resembles that of honey. Also, some notice that the foliar aroma can be rather grungy. All parts of honeybush are toxic. Honeybush wants regular watering and abundant sunlight.

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Frost Damage Makes Its Appearance

Frost damage of canna looks shabby.

Exotic plants are not native. They are from someplace else. Yet, most plants within most home gardens are exotic. Most are capable of tolerating the more extreme climates from which they originated. Some tropical or subtropical plants actually prefer milder climates. After the recent cool weather, some vulnerable plants exhibit symptoms of frost damage.

Vulnerability is relative though. Honeybush and elderberry can be mostly evergreen with minimal chill, or deciduous with more pronounced chill. Both tolerate more chill than they can experience here. What may seem to be frost damage of specimens that are normally evergreen could be a normal deciduous response to slightly abnormally cooler weather.

Frost damage is also relative. Partial defoliation of Mexican lime might happen annually after minor frost, so may not be alarming. However, such seemingly minor damage could involve stems or entire trees. Luxuriant canna foliage that so instantly becomes unsightly after minor frost can be more alarming. However, dormant rhizomes are safe until spring.

The simplest means to avoid frost damage is to not grow plants that are susceptible to it. Obviously, that is quite limiting. Besides, plants that were not susceptible last winter may be susceptible this winter or sometime in the future. Weather is annually variable. Some susceptible plants can grow in pots that are portable enough to relocate to winter shelter.

Small but immobile plants that are vulnerable to frost damage may appreciate temporary shelter during frosty weather. Any sort of sheeting or cardboard suspended by any sort of stakes and strings should be adequate. Ideally, the sheeting should not touch the foliage below. Incandescent Christmas lights under such sheeting radiate a slight bit of warmth. Frost occurs only at nighttime locally.

Frost protection can be unsightly, but it is less unsightly than frost damage. Fortunately, it is temporary during frost. If not too unsightly, most frost damage should remain until after the last frost date. It insulates other vulnerable vegetation within. Furthermore, premature grooming or pruning stimulates new growth that is more vulnerable to subsequent frosts.

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Six on Saturday: Going Bananas

Bananas are getting to be a bit too abundant here nowadays. I certainly do not mind. All will go to good homes after winter. Coincidentally, to obtain one copy of ‘Golden African’ banana, I was about to violate my rule against purchasing any plants, when four pups of an unidentified banana became available. Because I expect fruit to be of inferior quality, I am not at all discriminating about cultivar. I can try ‘Golden African’ later if these four pups are somehow unsatisfactory. The smaller fruitless bananas that are producing pups were already here. So were the cannas, which are incidentally related to bananas. Ginger should have been included. Two species live here. (Links for 1, 2 and 3 are the same.)

1. Canna musifolia, which is one of three that grew from runty seed, produces this oddly striated foliage. It was too small in August to show with other foliage on Six on Saturday.

2. Canna musifolia, with scrawny pastel orange bloom and bronzed foliage, produces an abundance of seed, including one that grew into the seedling with striated green foliage.

3. Canna flaccida is not really Canna flaccida as I had hoped. Otherwise, it would be too genetically stable for this defiant specimen to add orange to its exclusively yellow bloom.

4. Musa basjoo may not be Musa basjoo either. Its identity is merely a guess. Of the two that stayed here, this one had three pups, shed one, but continues to fatten up these two.

5. Musa basjoo that initially lacked pups is more than compensating for the other’s loss, by producing two more pups. We could get six of these technically unidentified bananas!

6. Musa acuminata pups of unidentified cultivar arrived only recently. The smallest pup in front lacks rhizome, so is unlikely to survive. The other four are large and exemplary!

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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Autumn Foliage In Mild Climates

Minor chill initiates autumn foliar color.

Colorful foliage is always present. After all, green is a color, even without any other color or variegation. Defoliation of deciduous foliage during autumn reveals evergreen foliage beyond, even if fading through winter. Immediately prior to defoliation though, deciduous foliage of quite a few species temporarily becomes spectacularly colorful autumn foliage.

Whether deciduous or evergreen, foliage that is most colorful during spring and summer contains chlorophyll. Regardless of how variegated, reddish, purplish, yellowish or other color it might be, it is also green to some degree. It could not be photosynthetically active otherwise. Colorful autumn foliage exhibits brighter color as its chlorophyll decomposes.

Autumn foliage is most spectacular where it is native, such as New England. Much more of it inhabits forests than home gardens. It is not spectacular within forests here because only a few sparsely dispersed native species produce impressive foliar color for autumn. Its naturally local scarcity likely contributes to its limited popularity within home gardens.

Locally mild weather also limits the popularity as well as the potential of autumn foliage. Many of the most colorful maples of New England merely turn blandly pallid yellow prior to hastily premature defoliation here. However, several other species develop exemplary foliar color in response to minor chill, and seem to be as happy here as in New England.

Chinese pistache, sweetgum, flowering pear and ginkgo are four trees that most reliably provide autumn foliage here. Crape myrtle is a smaller tree that is almost as reliable, and blooms splendidly for summer. Persimmon gets as colorful as Chinese pistache, with an abundance of fruit. Boston ivy is a vine with color that is comparable to that of sweetgum.

Of course, even the most appealing of plants are not perfect. Their innate characteristics are relevant to selection. For examples, trees occupy significant space. Ginkgo becomes bright yellow, but without any other color. Sweetgum produces obnoxiously prickly fruits. Flowering pear is susceptible to fireblight. Boston ivy clings to surfaces and ruins siding, paint and fences.

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Dracaena Palm

Dracaena palm is a foliar plant.

By the end of the Victorian Period, dracaena palm, Cordyline australis, had become very popular, both as small trees and as foliar plants. The largest specimens were only about twenty feet tall and half as wide. Removal of trunks that grew too tall for short foliar plants induced fresh basal growth. The drab leaves grew three feet long and three inches wide.

Cultivars with bronzed foliage became more popular after the Victorian Period, although not as common as the original. They grew slower and stayed smaller. The many modern cultivars of the past few decades stay even smaller, with even more impressively colorful foliage. Most are purply bronze or variegated with creamy white, pale yellow, pink or tan.

Modern cultivars generally mature efficiently, but then attain height too slowly to function as small trees. Some do not develop substantial trunks. They are therefore more popular for their delightful foliar color and texture. Many generate appealingly pendulous foliage. However, a few eventually develop sculptural form with exposed corky trunks and limbs. Removal of unimpressive floral panicles prior to bloom removes floral frass before it gets messy.

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Bower Vine

Bower vine bloom sporadically until cooler autumn weather.

Autumn needs to get a bit cooler before bower vine, Pandorea jasminoides, will be ready to stop blooming. It may not always bloom profusely, but it does bloom for a long time, beginning with warming spring weather. Flowers can be white, pink or white with pink throats, but are most often pink with burgundy throats. Even through late autumn and winter, the glossy evergreen foliage is appealing without bloom. Mature vines can climb more than fifteen feet high. Those with variegated foliage might stay somewhat smaller.

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Six on Saturday: Canna flaccida?!

Canna have been so extensively hybridized that very few modern cultivars are identified by species. They are known merely by their generic designation of Canna with a cultivar name. Canna flaccida is an ancestor of many hybrids, and the only species that is native north of the Rio Grande, but seems to be rare here. I want it! NOW! I should be satisfied with flashier modern cultivars, but I prefer simpler species, especially one from Florida.

Well, it may be here already. Late last spring, at the worst time to dig Canna, I dug a big colony of it from a site that was about to be landscaped. Even after most were recycled to other gardens, the remnants were canned into two dozen #5 cans. One dozen contained three rhizomes each of ‘Wyoming’. The other dozen cans contained five rhizomes each of an unidentified cultivar with narrower green leaves and yellow bloom. That is enough to plant thirty-six linear feet of ‘Wyoming’ and sixty linear feet of the yellow sort! Now that they are blooming, the unidentified yellow sort seems to be the rare Canna flaccida. I do not know for certain, but it keys out accordingly. If so, it is much more than I hoped for!

Two other Canna that live here were omitted from these pictures because there are only Six on Saturday rather than eight. Without its billowy red bloom, the foliage of a cultivar that remains unidentified is indistinguishable from #1 anyway. ‘Cleopatra’ is normally a hot mess of color, but is sharing only green foliage at the moment. Its foliage is typically randomly striped with broad and narrow bands of green like #1 and dark bronze like #2. Its weird bloom is randomly blotched with bright red and bright yellow, like condiments that squirt out the far side of a hamburger, or Pikachu on the grill of a Buick.

1. ‘Edulis’ was a gift from a neighbor. I wanted it for its fat rhizomes, which are like small potatoes. The slender flowers are red. (‘Edulis’ is a group of many cultivars and hybrids.)

2. ‘Australia’ is one of very few plants that I actually purchased. It cost nearly six dollars! A neighbor of my downtown planter box requested bronzed foliage; but I still feel guilty.

3. ‘Musifolia’ may have inhabited one of our landscapes since its construction in 1968. It gets so tall that I bend it down for deadheading. It and ‘Edulis’ produce viable seed. The slender flowers are peachy orange. (‘Musifolia’ is a group of many cultivars and hybrids.)

4. ‘Pretoria’ lived with ‘Musifolia’, but in spring, was dug and canned for protection from gophers. Only four #1 cans of its rhizomes survive. The billowy flowers are vivid orange.

5. ‘Wyoming’ is recovering from relocation while actively growing last spring. Most went directly to new homes. The billowy and vivid orange flowers resemble those of ‘Pretoria’.

6. Canna flaccida remains unidentified. It arrived with ‘Wyoming’, so is also recovering from untimely relocation. The elongated foliage is simple light green. Flowers are mildly fragrant at night. Apparently, only one other extremely rare species of Canna is fragrant.

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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Foliar Color Goes Beyond Green

Foliar color can exceed floral color.

New England is famous for spectacular foliar color through autumn. Such color is merely seasonal though, and almost exclusive to deciduous vegetation. With few exceptions, its color range is limited to variations of yellow, orange, red or brown. It happens thousands of miles away, and is difficult to replicate on such a grand scale with locally minimal chill.

For smaller scale home gardens, there are many options for foliar color at any time of the year, regardless of chill. Some are deciduous. Most are evergreen. Colorful foliage might exhibit variegation or monochromatic coloration. Variegation might involve stripes, spots, borders, veining, or any combination of divergent colors. Some might entail a few colors.

Besides autumnal yellow, orange, red or brown, foliage can be pink, purple, blue or gray. Variegation can feature any of these colors, as well as white. The size and form of plants with foliar color ranges from small annuals and perennials to vines, shrubbery and trees. A few of such plants that are deciduous might change to different colors through autumn.

Various Hosta, Euonymus, Coprosma, Pittosporum, Hedera and Bougainvillea are some of the more popular plants with white or yellow variegation. New Zealand flax is popular for bronze, brown, gold or pink variegation. Canna can display evenly bronze or purplish foliage, white patches on green foliage, or neat yellow and pink stripes of varying widths.

Purple leaf plum and some cultivars of smoke tree, beech Eastern redbud and Japanese maple have the best purplish foliage. Other cultivars of smoke tree, as well as arborvitae, juniper, Monterey cypress and honeylocust, generate impressively yellow foliage. Agave and blue spruce contribute soft blue. Coleus impresses with various color combinations.

Whether deciduous or evergreen, most colorful foliage displays its best color while fresh and new in spring. For some, color fades through summer. Junipers that are gold through spring may be plain green by summer, particularly in dry conditions. Although light colors and variegation are appealing within shady situations, shade can inhibit such coloration.