Sharing Plants

Posted on October 27, 2012 by tomkarwin

The fall season is both the best time for planting, and an excellent time for gardeners to share plants.

Plant and cutting exchanges, which are popular in the Monterey Bay area, invite gardeners to bring plants or cuttings from their garden to swap for plants or cuttings offered by another gardener.

That seems like a fair trade, but because plants vary greatly in size, condition and desirability, a really balanced exchange would be difficult to achieve.

Still, these exchanges often succeed without even requiring a contribution. They work because plants propagate naturally on their own: the gardener does not incur a significant cost, and still reaps the satisfaction of giving something of value to another gardener.

Cheap thrills!

Propagating plants for sharing require a significant investment of time: growing plants from seeds or cuttings and then giving them away could amount to a generous gift of the gardener’s time. However, opportunities exist for sharing plants with little effort.

For example, if your daffodils or irises need dividing, you could very well end up with a surplus of bulbs or rhizomes that you could share.

Another example: plants might self-propagate in your garden to the point that you have more than you want, and would prefer to reclaim the space for other plants.

In my garden, Pig’s Ear (Cotyledon orbiculata) and Japanese Anemone (Anemone hupehensis) had grown too large. With the help of a friend, we uprooted dozens of each plant for others to propagate.

Succulent Cotyledons can be propagated most easily from tip cuttings.

Japanese Anemones are best propagated from root cuttings taken in the late fall or early winter. We lifted them rather early, but we saw vigorous new white shoots on the roots, and felt that they would re-root quickly in a new environment. This plant produces beautiful pink or white blossoms, and grows so readily that it’s almost invasive.

Plant society sales offer another sharing opportunity. While these are not free exchanges, they typically offer plants at below-market prices. And the gardeners who grow these plants gain satisfaction from sharing both their plants and their enthusiasms.

Watch for opportunities to share plants with your friends and neighbors. You will both grow from the experience.

The Web has very helpful information resources for plant propagation.

Wikipedia – Plant Propagation (often my first stop)

Plant Propagation.com

Stover’s Nursery

North Carolina State University

YouTube also offers several short video recordings (often simply produced) on aspects of plant propagation.

Cacti of the Sonoran Deseert

Posted on October 20, 2012 by tomkarwin

After a few days in the Sonoran Desert, my head is filled with thoughts of cacti.

I attended the annual meeting of the Garden Writers Association, attended by writers from many parts of the United States. This year’s meeting convened in Tucson, Arizona, which is within the upper part of the Sonoran Desert’s 120,000 square mile area, most which is in Mexico.

We locate Tucson in our southwest; Mexicans see it in their northwest.

The meeting included talks to inspire writing or teach up-to-date written and multimedia communication, numerous awards for outstanding writing, photography, videography and graphics, many exhibits by garden-related vendors, and bus trips to twelve public and private gardens in the Tucson area. Visit ongardening.com for more of my travel notes and photos.

For me, the primary effect of this occasion was exposure to the distinctive plant life of the area, especially the Cactus family, almost all members of which are native to the Americas.

The most prominent local cactus is the stately Saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea), which grows in the wild only in the Sonoran Desert. I saw specimens of about thirty feet high, but it can reach up to fifty or seventy feet.

Other cacti widespread in the area include the Cholla (Cylindropuntia spp.), Beavertail (Opuntia basilaris), Hedgehog (Echinocereus spp.), Fishhook (Ferocactus wislizeni), Prickly Pear (Opuntia spp.), Night-blooming Cereus (Peniocereus spp.), and Organ Pipe (Stenocereus thurberi).

According to Sunset’s Western Garden Book, these cacti could be grown in the Monterey Bay area, but we see them infrequently. This presumably reflects local gardeners’ preferences: with such a wide range of plants that thrive in our moderate climate, gardeners have many spineless horticultural options.

There are, however, important environmental conditions other than temperature that affect the growth of plants. Plants that grow in the harsh conditions of the Sonoran Desert have evolved to adapt to the desert climate, characterized by a biseasonal rainfall pattern (late summer and early winter), and daily temperature ranges of about thirty degrees.

The Sonoran Desert also includes plants from the Agave, Palm, and Legume and other families. The large Legume family includes many varieties of peas and beans, plus alfalfa, clover, lentils, lupins, mesquite, carob, soy peanuts, Locust trees, wisteria and the green-trunked Palo Verde (Parkinsonia aculeate), which grows throughout the Tucson area.

I have had no cacti in my garden, but the friends who hosted my visit gave me two specimens: a hybrid Echinopsis ‘Los Angeles’, which will grow to about eighteen inches, and produce pink flowers in late spring and early summer, and a Echinocereus morricalii, which also will grow to about eighteen inches and blossom in May in bright magenta.

Many cacti would not fit easily in my garden, but these small plants will fit fine and provide gorgeous flowers. Travel could broaden our gardening tastes!

More coming soon

Interesting Weeds

Posted on October 6, 2012 by tomkarwin

Yes, even weeds can be interesting. Here are two examples.

First, I’ve written about the “weed seed bank” that exists in all gardens. This inventory of dormant seeds lurks in the top few inches of soil, waiting for life-giving sunlight, air and moisture.

The weed seed bank results from earlier generations of weeds that dropped their seeds under the plant, projected them a few feet away or cast them to the winds for wider distribution. Such seeds might also be brought to the garden as the undigested part of a bird’s meal, tracked in on a visitor’s clothing, or imported with a plant from a friend or the local nursery. Whatever the source, they are part of every garden.

The weed seed bank might be called simply the seed bank, because it includes wildflowers and other garden-worthy plants as well as weeds. Abandoned gardens eventually sprout their hidden wealth of weeds and wildflowers.

Weed seeds can remain in the soil, ready for germination, for several years. Gardeners are wise to use mulch to discourage the germination of weeds and help realize “low maintenance” gardening.

Dormant seeds can be amazingly long-lived under the right conditions. Earlier this year, Russian scientists reported their discovery in Siberia of seeds that a squirrel had buried in the Early Pleistocene era, about 31,800 years ago. The seeds soon were frozen in permafrost and didn’t thaw until retrieved by the research team. With great care, scientist Svetlana Yashina cared for the seeds, which germinated and produced a flowering plant and a new generation of seeds.

The plant is the Narrow-leaved Campion (Silene stenophylla), once known by mammoths and wooly rhinos. An evolved form of this plant grows today in Arctic regions. The genus Silene includes many species, including several wildflowers of Europe and elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere.

The story of bringing this prehistoric plant into blossom raises the possibility that more plants could be recovered from frozen seeds in Siberia, the Arctic and the Yukon, and the intriguing prospect for the gardeners to grow prehistoric weeds and other plants. Examples of other specimens include the Sago Cycad (Cycas revoluta) and the Maidenhair Tree (Ginkgo biloba). Both of these plants, which are distant relatives, have fossil histories from more than 250 million years ago, and are available today as young plants.

***

A second example of interest in these lowly plants involves harvesting them for the dinner table. Dandelions and purslanes are only a beginning. A new cookbook, Foraged Flavor: Finding Fabulous Ingredients in Your Backyard or Farmer’s Market, by Tama Matsuoka Wong, with chef Eddy Leroux, describes many culinary and nutritional benefits of several common weeds. Ms. Wong’s website, Meadows and More, offers more details and an extensive weed identification section.

For more about the prehistoric Narrow-leaved Campion (Silene stenophylla), including pictures, browse to the article in Discover magazine.

Another interesting ancient plant is the Amborella trichopoda (no common name), which has been called “the most primitive living flowering plant.” It may be the earliest of the angiosperms: flowering plants that emerged about 130,000,000 years ago. A useful article about this plant is available on Wikipedia. This Arboretum at the University of California, Santa Cruz is the only place in the United States that is growing this plant for botanical study. For a 1999 article on the Arboretum’s work with this plant, click here.

For more information on the book, Foraged Flavor, browse to the New York Times article.

Ms. Wong’s website, Meadows and More, has a wealth of information on culinary uses of common weeds, and an extensive series of weed photographs, with expert identifications.

For identification of weeds that are common in California, visit the Weed Photo Gallery on the University of California’s Integrated Pest Management website.