Upside-down growing

I was poking through old photos and came across this oddity:upsidedowntrees

What you are looking at is Japanese maples (Acer palmatum) being grown hanging upside down. I saw this year ago at a nursery in Japan. (You are also probably looking at a disaster of girdling roots in those tiny plastic pots, but that’s another topic) When I asked about them, I was told that they are weeping forms, and grown this way temporarily before being planted in the ground right-side up.
Looking at the image, it makes me think that the particular variety grown here might have a mutation that makes them negatively gravitropic, and so respond to the pull of gravity in the opposite way a normal plant would. (For more on that see my earlier post on gravitropism in corn) Growing them upside down would allow them to produce a fairly normal branching pattern, and then once plants, new growth would, presumably, cascade down from the established trunk and stem.
Anyway. That’s your oddity for the day.
Joseph Tychonievich

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Linda Chalker-Scott

Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott has a Ph.D. in Horticulture from Oregon State University and is an ISA certified arborist and an ASCA consulting arborist. She is WSU’s Extension Urban Horticulturist and a Professor in the Department of Horticulture, and holds two affiliate associate professor positions at University of Washington. She conducts research in applied plant and soil sciences, publishing the results in scientific articles and university Extension fact sheets. Linda also is the award-winning author of five books: the horticultural myth-busting The Informed Gardener (2008) and The Informed Gardener Blooms Again (2010) from the University of Washington Press and Sustainable Landscapes and Gardens: Good Science – Practical Application (2009) from GFG Publishing, Inc., and How Plants Work: The Science Behind the Amazing Things Plants Do from Timber Press (2015). Her latest effort is an update of Art Kruckeberg’s Gardening with Native Plants of the Pacific Northwest from UW Press (2019). In 2018 Linda was featured in a video series – The Science of Gardening – produced by The Great Courses. She also is one of the Garden Professors – a group of academic colleagues who educate and entertain through their blog and Facebook pages. Linda’s contribution to gardeners was recognized in 2017 by the Association for Garden Communicators as the first recipient of their Cynthia Westcott Scientific Writing Award. "The Garden Professors" Facebook page - www.facebook.com/TheGardenProfessors "The Garden Professors" Facebook group - www.facebook.com/groups/GardenProfessors Books: http://www.sustainablelandscapesandgardens.com

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