Posted on by tonytomeo · 2 Comments

Japanese Black Pine

Japanese pine is more proportionate to confined urban home gardens than more common species.

Not many large specimens of Japanese black pine, Pinus thunbergiana, can be seen around the Santa Clara Valley. They can get taller than a hundred feet on straight trunks in their natural range on the coast of Japan, but locally, rarely get more than a quarter as tall on leaning and irregular trunks. They just are not quite as happy in the dry air here (minimal humidity). They are purported to be more tolerant of smog than most other pines that were so sensitive to the nasty smog of the 1970’s, but are more likely to become infested with insect pathogens as they get old.

With their angular and somewhat open growth, and classic pine foliage and cones, Japanese black pines are one of the more distinctive pines. Since they do not get too large, they can work well as sculptural specimen trees in small garden spaces and atriums. Even if they grow up above the eaves, their leaning trunks and outstretched lower limbs with rough gray bark are as distinguished as those of larger trees.

The paired somewhat stiff needles are about three or four inches long. The small but stout cones stay green through most of their first year of development, and then turn brown as they mature and open to disperse their seed in the second year. They are only about two inches long, but can become annoyingly abundant among aging trees.

Advertisement
Posted on by tonytomeo

New Zealand Tea Tree

Frequent shearing might interfere with bloom.

Bloom should probably be most profuse for late spring or early summer. In actuality, New Zealand tea tree, Leptospermum scoparium, blooms whenever and however it wants to. Now that it seems to be blooming prematurely, it might continue to bloom in phases until autumn. Minor bloom phases might even continue randomly through autumn and winter.

Floral color is white, pink or red, including deep ruby red. The tiny flowers are sometimes sporadic but sometimes quite profuse. A few cultivars have plump double flowers. Foliar color is olive drab green or bronze green. The finely textured evergreen foliage is slightly scratchy. Its tiny leaves have pointed tips. The fibrous brown bark is handsomely shaggy.

New Zealand tea tree works very well as a blooming informal hedge. Frequent shearing of formal hedges compromises both bloom and natural form. Elimination of lower growth exposes appealingly sculptural trunks supporting little trees. Some modern cultivars will not reach first floor eaves. Some reach second floor eaves. All demand sunny exposure.

Posted on by tonytomeo

Rocky Mountain Juniper

Rocky Mountain junipers get rather large.

Hollywood juniper had formerly been the only popular juniper of tree form. As it became less popular during the past few decades, cultivars of the once obscure Rocky Mountain juniper, Juniperus scopulorum, became more popular. Also, a few more modern cultivars became available. Now, the once overly common Hollywood juniper is quite uncommon.

Rocky Mountain juniper is naturally rather grayish for protection from the harsh exposure of the high elevations which it inhabits. Cultivars are grayer, bluish or silvery, and mostly develop symmetrically conical form. Old specimens that were initially conical eventually grow as small trees with rounded and relatively dense canopies, perhaps on bare trunks.

‘Skyrocket’ and ‘Blue Arrow’ are very narrow like Italian cypress that grow only fifteen feet tall. ‘Wichita Blue’ and ‘Moonglow’ are stoutly conical. ‘Blue Arrow’ and ‘Wichita Blue’ are bluish green. ‘Skyrocket’ and ‘Moonglow’ are silvery gray. Established specimens do not require much water, but develop better foliar color with warmth and occasional watering.

Posted on by tonytomeo

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.

Posted on by tonytomeo

Silver Mountain Gum

Silver mountain gum is remarkably glaucous.

The strikingly glaucous juvenile foliage of silver mountain gum, Eucalyptus pulverulenta, is likely more familiar within floral design than in home gardens. Actually, it is uncommon within home gardens, although quite popular as cut foliage among florists. Its paired and sessile leaves are oval or bluntly cordate (‘heart shaped’), and about an inch or two long.

Adult growth is rare, even among established trees. However, small white flowers bloom from the axils of juvenile leaves that are a year old. (Juvenile growth of most species can not bloom.) Bloom might continue from spring until autumn, as blooming stems sag from the weight of younger distal growth. The aromatic and evergreen leaves stiffen with age.

Low and shrubby specimens with a few trunks may not get much higher than fifteen feet. They have potential to get twice as tall though, particularly if pruned up onto bare trunks. Lignotubers expand below the trunks. Strips of old bark shed to reveal fresh matte brown bark. Incidentally, the Latin name of this species often transposes for Eucalyptus cinerea.

Posted on by tonytomeo

Pittosporum eugenioides

Pittosporum eugenioides leaves have distinctively wavy margins.

Large shorn hedges or informal screens are the more popular functions of Pittosporum eugenioides. It works like a modern and more relaxed option to privet. What few garden enthusiasts know is that it can alternatively be allowed grow into a small tree, either as a standard (on a single trunk) or with multiple trunks. It grows rather efficiently to more than twenty feet tall and about half as broad while young, and as it matures, can eventually get about thirty feet tall and broad.

The glossy leaves have appealingly wavy margins and distinctively pale midribs. The slightly fragrant flowers are only pale yellow, and are not abundant among young trees. Big old trees often bloom enough in autumn to be pleasantly fragrant. Stems and foliage are lemony fragrant when pruned or shorn. However, the common name of ‘lemonwood’ (or tarata) is not so common locally for Pittosporum eugenioides.

Posted on by tonytomeo

Hopbush

Hopbush makes a nice small tree.

Johnny jump up and jumping cholla have no more than amusing names in common with hopbush, Dodonea viscosa. Neither a dangerous cactus nor a docile annual, hopbush is an elegantly upright and evergreen shrub. It is very popular for both informal and formally shorn hedging. With pruning, it can become a small tree with handsomely furrowed bark.

Hopbush has potential to get about as tall as a two story house, particularly with pruning for tree form. Conversely, with only occasional pruning for hedge form, it is just as happy to stay just six feet tall. Trees with single and straight trunks fit nicely into narrow spaces. Trees with a few irregular trunks that lean outwardly are more sculptural for larger areas.

The narrow evergreen leaves are about two or three inches long, with light bronzy color. ‘Purpurea’ has purplish bronze color, but does not grow as vigorously. Most hopbush are female, and generate interestingly papery seed. Bloom and seed production are variable though, and some specimens become male. Roots should be complaisant with concrete.

Posted on by tonytomeo

Pygmy Date Palm

Other date palms are significantly larger.

Canary Island date palm is the largest local palm. Pygmy date palm, Phoenix roebelenii, although a species of the same genus, is one of the more diminutive palms. It might take many years to grow ten feet tall, and may never get twice as tall. Its pinnately compound leaves are only about two to four feet long. Thin leaflets are about five to ten inches long. 

Such compact stature is a distinct advantage for some situations. With sufficient sunlight, pygmy date palm is a delightful houseplant. It is also appealing within atriums and cozily compact gardens. For those who appreciate the aesthetics but not the large size of most palms, pygmy date palm is a practical option. It actually resembles a common date palm. 

Like all date palms, a pygmy date palm surrounds its single terminal bud with nasty long spines, which are specialized proximal leaflets. These spines are painful to interact with while grooming and pruning deteriorated old leaves and floral trusses back to their trunk. Unlike most other palms, mature pygmy date palms are not very conducive to relocation.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 4 Comments

American Dogwood

Before foliage develops, this American dogwood is a cloud of profuse pink bloom in a partly shaded and sheltered garden.

The state tree of Missouri produces the state flower of North Carolina, which are both the state tree and state flower of Virginia, but no so exploited by the state that it seems to be named for! The American dogwood, Cornus florida, is such a classic American tree that last year, young trees were given to Japan to commemorate the gift of Japanese flowering cherry trees from Japan a century earlier.

Profuse early spring bloom is not what it seems to be. Tight clusters of minute flowers would not be much to look at, but are surrounded by four big white bracts (modified leaves) that really put on an impressive show before green leaves develop. Many modern varieties have pink or nearly brick red bracts, and a few get variegated foliage as bloom dissipates. Foliage can get quite colorful just before it falls in autumn.

In the wild, American dogwoods are ‘understory’ trees that are happiest in forests of larger trees that shelter them from harsh sun exposure and drying wind. In relatively arid western climates, they want rich soil, regular watering and partial shade at least after noon. They are sensitive to reflected glare and wind, as well as alkalinity and salinity. (Too much fertilizer will roast the foliage.) Since American dogwood trees rarely get more than fifteen feet tall in cultivation, they are proportionate to sheltered atriums. Wild trees do not get much taller than thirty feet.

Posted on by tonytomeo

Flowering Apricot

Flowering apricot blooms before flowering cherry.

Even when weather is more typical for the local climate, many types of flowering apricot, Prunus mume, bloom during winter. Flowers seem to be a bit more resilient to wind, rain and frost than those of flowering cherry that bloom a month or so later. Nonetheless, they are delicate and share their white or pastel pink color with wintry landscapes only briefly. 

Although many garden varieties of flowering apricot are fruitless, some, particularly feral trees, produce fruit. Some of such fruit is desirable to those who utilize it. However, most is unpalatable without specialized processing. Flowering apricot works as understock for a few related trees, so occasionally grows from the roots of such trees after their removal. 

Flowering apricot is quite rare locally, which is why it seems to be so unseasonable as it blooms so early. Like flowering cherry and plum, it blooms on otherwise bare stems prior to generating new foliage for spring. Copious bloom of garden varieties is nicely fragrant. Flowers are nearly an inch wide. Mature trees are about ten to more than twenty feet tall, and almost as broad.