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Thread Agave

Agave generally excel in chaparral climates.

Many species of Agave and Yucca should probably be more popular here than they are. Several are endemic to desert or chaparral climates. Once established locally, they may survive without irrigation. Occasional watering through summer only improves their foliar color and vigor. Except for gophers that might attack from below, not much offends them.

The primary deterrent to their popularity is their dangerous foliar spines. Many species of Agave and Yucca grow too large to not become obtrusive within compact home gardens. Consequently, their striking but hazardous foliage can be difficult to avoid. Fortunately, a few species such as thread agave, Agave filifera, remain proportionate to home gardens.

Thread agave develops rounded foliar rosettes that are less than three feet wide and two feet tall. Evergreen leaves retain silvery impressions of adjacent leaves. Although growth is generally slow, vigorous floral stalks may grow rapidly to ten feet tall during summer, to bloom during autumn. Pups begin to replace original rosettes prior to monocarpic bloom.

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Pups Of A Horticultural Nature

Pups are copies of their parents.

Pups of the most familiar type are canine. Most are puppies of domestic dogs. Some are foxes or wolves. A few are seals, otters or various other animals. Garden variety pups do not get much consideration though. They develop into new progeny of plants rather than animals. Unlike animal pups, they are genetically identical clones of their single parents.

Pups of the horticultural sort generally develop from subterranean stems, such as corms, tubers or rhizomes. Most emerge from formerly dormant buds. Some grow adventitiously from roots. Pups appear as basal sideshoots against or close to their parent plants. They efficiently disperse their own roots to eventually survive as new and independent plants.

Most plants that produce pups are perennials. Some are so proficient with the technique that they grow into substantial colonies of genetically identical clones. For some, it is the primary method of replication. They actually prefer to replicate vegetatively than by seed. Some trees and woody plants do the same, but their clones lack the same classification.

For many perennials, propagation by division is merely the separation of pups from their parent plants. Most types of banana trees eventually generate a few surplus pups. Some types generate an abundance of pups to share with anyone who wants them. Separation of their pups is very similar to division of the smaller rhizomes of canna or lily of the Nile.

Individual rosettes of various species of Agave and a few terrestrial species of Yucca are monocarpic. In other words, they die after blooming only once. However, instead of dying completely, most generate several pups prior to bloom. Some produce pups excessively! Such pups can be difficult and hazardous to separate, but can replace their own parents.

Mediterranean fan palm is one of only a few palms here that generates pups. That is why it develops multiple trunks. Surplus pups can survive separation to grow as distinct trees. However, because of their densely fibrous roots, separation of intact pups can be difficult or impossible. Sago palms, which are not actually palms, are more compliant to division, even for rootless pups that develop on their stout trunks.

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Six on Saturday: Canna Diss

Searching online for information regarding Canna can get discouraging for anyone who objects to the idolatry of Cannabis. It does not help that Canna indica is one of the more common species of Canna. Search engines seem to believe that they know more of what I want information about than I do. Well, I happen to enjoy my ten or so Canna. In fact, I grow way too many of them.  Three cultivars are particularly numerous here, even after giving most of them away to friends and neighbors. If installed directly into a landscape, rather than canned, there would be enough for a row almost exactly a hundred feet long! That would be with one foot spacing!

1. Gophers ate almost all of three of the four original Canna here. I canned the surviving rhizomes within only ten #1 cans. All three cultivars are now generating vigorous shoots.

2. Canna rhizomes are so extremely discounted at the end of their season that I violated my rule that forbids the purchase of new plants. It is very late, but they are growing well.

3. ‘Red King Humbert’ rhizomes cost less than a dollar each. Three got canned into each of ten #5 cans. They only need to grow enough before autumn to survive through winter.

4. Canna flaccida, or what I hope might be Canna flaccida, was dug and recycled after it had started growing last spring. New foliage emerged through its damaged older foliage.

5. ‘Wyoming’ was recycled from the same landscape, and at the same inconvenient time. Like the others, it will recover prior to winter dormancy, and then be ready for next year.

6. Canna bloom is about as appealing as the foliage is. Ours bloom bright yellow, orange or red. Others bloom with pastel yellow, pastel orange, pink or very pale yellowish white.

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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Naked Lady

These naked ladies are not shy.

While so many flowers are finishing their bloom and leaving their drying foliage behind, naked lady, Amaryllis belladonna, is just beginning to bloom, naked of any foliage. Clusters of a few to several bright pink flowers stand on bare stems about two feet tall. Individual flowers are about two and a half to three and a half inches long, and resemble lily flowers. Foliage only appears after flowers deteriorate, and lasts only until weather gets warm late in spring. The strap shaped leaves are about a foot to a foot and a half long. Through summer, the two or three inch wide bulbs are dormant and bare, and seem to be dead with their tops visible at the soil surface, but retain fleshy roots below. They should therefore only be dug and divided if they get too crowded or need to be moved.

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Irish Moss

Irish moss is darker than Scottish.

It is not actually moss. It is of the same family as carnation. Of course, any distinguishing characteristics of its family are difficult to recognize. Iris moss, Sagina subulata, has such exceptionally fine foliar texture and diminutive bloom. Its slim leaves are not much longer than a quarter of an inch. its tiny white flowers are barely wider than an eighth of an inch.

Irish moss is a luxuriantly dense and richly evergreen ground cover for confined spaces. It works well within small atriums and big pots that contain sculptural plants that lack low foliage. It is a popular accessory for Japanese maple and citrus within tubs. Since it gets no more than two inches deep, Irish moss can fill in between pavers and under benches.

However, Irish moss dislikes how pavement enhances harsh exposure. Although it does not require shade, it appreciates a bit of partial shade while the weather is warmest after noon. Also, it craves somewhat frequent watering to compensate for locally arid warmth. Scottish moss is the cultivar ‘Aurea’. It is lighter chartreuse green, but otherwise identical.

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Ivy Geranium

Ivy geranium cascades splendidly from planters.

Venice in Italy is an ideal situation in which to demonstrate the potential of ivy geranium, Pelargonium peltatum. Because garden space is so minimal, potted plants that cascade from balconies above the canals are quite popular. Ivy geranium cascades so splendidly that some eventually reach the tops of downstairs windows from their upstairs balconies.

Ivy geranium can sprawl over shrubbery to seemingly climb a few feet high. Otherwise, it is unlikely to stand much more than a foot and a half high on the ground without support. If cascading over the edge of a planter, upward growth may be only several inches high. In window boxes, it obstructs minimal sunlight. However, it may hang six feet downward!

Ivy geranium propagates somewhat easily by cuttings of the almost succulent stems, but not as easily as zonal geranium. Its lobed, rounded and quite fragile leaves are about an inch long and two inches wide. Sporadic but continual bloom becomes more profuse for late summer and autumn. Flowers might be white, pink, red, lavender, purplish or striped.

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Montbretia

Bright orange montbretia is quite reliable and resilient, but can easily become a weed if not groomed of fading flowers.

Once they get into the garden, montbretia, Crocosmia X crocosmiiflora, may never leave. They sometimes survive the demolition of their original garden to emerge and bloom in the garden of a new home built on the same site. Bulbs (actually corms) multiply surprisingly efficiently to form large colonies that should eventually be divided if they get too crowded to bloom. Ungroomed plants sow seeds that may be invasive.

The one or two inch wide flowers are almost always bright orange, but can sometimes be reddish orange, yellow or pale yellow. The branched flower stems are two or three feet tall or a bit taller, and stand nicely above the grassy foliage. The narrow leaves are about half and inch to an inch wide.

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Sweet Flag

Sweet flag might enjoy wasteful watering.

If unpaved drainage ditches and collection ponds were more common locally, sweet flag, Acorus gramineus, might be also. It can provide a nicely neat border for such waterways, where the ground is too steep and damp for mowing. It can migrate into muddy situations and even into shallow water. Its dense network of fibrosus rhizomes helps to retain mud.

‘Variegatus’, with elegantly elongated and variegated leaves, is the most popular cultivar locally. It is rare in nurseries, but occasionally shared by friends and neighbors who grow it. Propagation by division is very easy. Single shoots or clumps of shoots grow if merely plugged into damp soil or mud. ‘Pusillus’ lacks variegation, and develops stouter leaves.

Sweet flag aggressively excludes other herbaceous vegetation, but does not migrate too rapidly. Plucking shoots and plugging them elsewhere accelerates migration. The dense foliage might get a foot deep. Individual leaves are very narrow, like grass. The mundane bloom is easy to ignore and is uncommon where the soil is not often saturated or muddy.

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Six on Saturday: Agave Surprise

Several species of Agave inhabit the landscapes here. Only a few are identified. Some of those that are unidentified could likely be identified if their identities were important to us. For some, identification would be as simple as researching our records. I know what Agave attenuata is only because there is nothing else like it. #3 is likely a variegated and dwarf cultivar of Agave americana. #6 is the surprise of these Six. It is a familiar species that was formerly identified as another genus. Although its relation to the Family should be obvious in regard to physiology, it is not visually similar to others of the Agave genus. I still know it by its older and perhaps less accurate designation. It works for me.

1. Pups of an unidentified agave that was removed last year are a concern because others just like this continue to develop where the agave was relocated from a few years earlier!

2. The parent agave got removed and dumped next to a greenwaste pile after gophers ate its base, but somehow survived. It fell over only recently. Maybe other gophers found it.

3. Gophers also ate the base of this other unidentified agave, which, like the other agave, seems to have survived somehow. Fortunately, it did not leave undesirable pups behind.

4. Agave attenuata arrived as a big cutting with a long stem, and by odd circumstances. The severed stem generated a big secondary rosette, which is now generating four pups.

5. The pup to the lower right of this unidentified agave indicates that its primary rosette may be about bolt and bloom. Although most agaves are monocarpic, their pups survive.

6. Surprise! Fresh from 1985, tuberose, which was formerly Polianthes tuberosa, is now Agave amica. We just installed three, with two more still canned. I hope for many pups.

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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Six on Saturday: BIG News II!

Yes, this is a sequel to the BIG News of my previous Six on Saturday, which could qualify as a sequel to other Six on Saturday posts that were in regard to the original topic of the Gladiolus papilio. Well, at least there are fewer sequels about this topic than there are in regard to Rocky. No, not ‘that’ Rocky; although he has too many sequels also. Rocky is a raccoon. Actually, he or she is not a specific raccoon, but is any raccoon who necessitates relocation, and is unlikely the same more than once. Rocky likely return from relocation, but avoid areas in which they were trapped.

1. Rocky VI, or VII, or maybe VIII or more. I can not count them all. Heck, I do not know when we started counting. They might have been quite fashionable nearly a century ago.

2. African daisy may not seem special, but to me, they seem to be atypically colorful. The color range was limited to white and eerie shades of purple while we were still in school.

3. Phlox arrived in one of the more colorful landscapes just a few years ago, and politely proliferated. No one knows how it got here. It is perfectly white, and alluringly fragrant.

4. Bulbine caulescens, which lacks a common name, may seem to be no more interesting than African daisy, but is very special to me, because of who procured it a few years ago.

5. Gladiolus papilio from Tangly Cottage Gardening is, of course, the BIG news for these Six on Saturday. I noticed well budded floral spikes a week ago. They are now blooming!

6. Only a single new floral spike was observed last week. I should have investigated more thoroughly. There are actually several! A few are in full bloom like this. They are so rad!

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/