Author: Bert Cregg

Utility arborists: Give ‘em a break

One of our semi-recurring themes on the Garden Professor’s is our WOW’s or “Why Oh Why’s”.  As in “Why oh why do nurseries continue to sell invasive plants?”  Today, I’d like to turn things around a bit and look at a group of people that are often maligned by the public but, in fact, are getting a bad rap and could use a break; utility arborists.

 


Right tree, right place?

Utility arborists face a nearly impossible and unenviable task.   The goal of every electrical utility is to provide safe, uninterrupted power to their customers.  What do their customers do in return?  Plant large, fast growing trees under powerlines.  This invariably necessitates line-clearance pruning and, in some cases, tree removal.  So who takes the wrath of the neighborhood?  The oblivious homeowner who planted a row of Norway spruces under the lines? Or the trained professional arborist that does the trimming?

 


Betcha can’t top this…

Among the arborists with whom I interact, utility arborists are often the best trained and the most professional.  They have to be.  An amateur pruning around electrical lines suspended 50’ in the air in a bucket lift is virtually guaranteed a Darwin Award nomination.  Arborists can’t even win when they try to do the right thing.  Many utility forestry programs utilize directional pruning as an alternative to topping or removing trees.  When done properly, directional pruning allow trees to coexist with powerlines and enables neighborhoods to continue to benefit from large trees.  A survey by Mike Kuhns at Utah State a few years ago, however, found that homeowners actually preferred the look of a topped tree to a tree that had been directionally pruned.  Granted, directional pruning isn’t always pretty but it’s vastly preferable to topping or removal.

 


The utility arborists I know are dedicated and ‘tree people’ in the best sense.  If they lived in a perfect world, the right tree would always be planted in the right place.  Since it’s not they have to rely on techniques like directional pruning to help ensure safe and uninterrupted power.  So give ‘em a break.

The Garden Professors Go Wild!

It’s ‘Wildlife week’ on the Garden Professors.  One of the most common questions that we get when speaking to garden groups is, “What can I do around my home to promote wildlife?”   My stock answer used to be, “Throw a party!”, but only a handful of people ever got it so I’ve backed off of that one.  Anyway, since the subject of gardening and wildlife comes up so often we’ve decided to dedicate a week to the topic.

Questions about wildlife (the animal kind) always take me back to my undergraduate forestry days at Washington State University and Dr. Zamora’s Wildlife Management course.  Even though I’ve always been more of a plant person than and an animal person, I found this to be a fascinating course.  In fact, assembling the winter browse twig ID collection was one of my proudest undergraduate achievements.  Doesn’t seem like much; but try wandering the Palouse hills in the dead of winter and see if you can indentify 50 browse species without the benefit of leaves, you’d be proud too!  In addtion to a notebook full of mounted twigs and a mild case of frostbite, I took away from the course several key principles of wildlife management that have stayed with me over the years.

What do wildlife need? In general, all wildlife need four basic elements: food, cover, water, and space.  The specific types and amounts of these elements, of course, will depend on the type of wildlife you wish at attract.  Homeowners can provide or enhance these elements through plants or through other, non-living means.   Important non-living components include feeders, bird-baths or other water features, piles of rocks or sticks (provide cover for small animals), salt, and standing or fallen dead trees (provide habitat for cavity-nesting birds and mammals).  Plants can provide both food and cover.  Important plant components in designing for wildlife include evergreen conifers for cover, summer fruits and berries, fall fruits and seeds, winter fruits and seeds, flowers that provide nectar, and trees that provide nuts and acorns.

At this point the questions often turn to the importance natives versus exotics.  In light of Doug Tallamy’s book, Bringing Nature Home, many people assume that only native plants can serve these functions.  But there are several factors to consider here.  First, Tallamy’s discussion is largely focused on co-evolutionary relationships between native plants and native insects, and even here some of the reasoning is stretched thin (see Linda’s Feb. 12 post).  There is more to supporting wildlife on a broad scale than insect/herbivore interactions.  Non-invasive exotic conifers, for example, can certainly contribute winter cover, vertical structure, and edge effects.  And, while some animals have evolved very specific diets (think koalas and eucalyptus), many herbivores are generalists and in some cases even prefer to feed on exotics.  So, in thinking about wildlife it’s important to consider function and providing the elements animals need than to simply fixate on whether plants are native or exotic.  This is especially true on tough, disturbed sites where natives may be poorly adapted and unable to survive.  Habitat provided by an exotic will be preferable to no habitat at all.

Lastly, another factor to consider is whether attracting wildlife around your home is always a good idea.  Along with the wildlife we’d like to see, improving habitat may increase the likelihood of running into critters (skunks, raccoons, possums) that we’d rather not encounter on the way to take the trash out late at night. Also, in many parts of the country, people and their pets are encountering large predators such as cougars and bears with increasing frequency.  Obviously a lot of this is due to human encroachment into the predators’ habitat, but it may be prudent to consider a ‘defensible space’ strategy as we do for wildfires. Keep the elements that are likely to attract larger animals a safe distance from the house.  Stay tuned for more as ‘Wildlife week continues’.

NOTE: Thanks to my high school choir-mate and college soccer team-mate, Tim Schlender for the timely wildlife habitat cartoon.

Why do we have a Garden Professor’s blog?

As (relatively) young professors at major universities, Linda, Jeff, Holly and I are busier than the proverbial one-armed paper-hanger.  Every week is filled with the endless pandemonium of grant deadlines, students at our door, requests to review papers, committee meetings, speaking engagements that we agreed to 6 months ago and forgot about, calls from media, calls from growers, calls from homeowners, and on and on and on.  Then, in the middle of all this tumult and chaos, we decide, like we got nothing better to do, to start posting on a blog every week.  Pardon my French, but what the f*&@ were we thinking?!

 

Then I run across a web-link like this:

http://www.5min.com/Video/How-to-Care-for-your-Trees-Naturally-Part-12-177531642

and it all comes rushing back to me like a wave:  Exposing charlatans.  The fight against landscaping ignorance.  The battle of science against quackery and snake oil.

 

I’m actually having a hard time settling down long enough to write about this.  You know how you get that warm, flushed feeling you get right before you ask guy to step outside?  I’m getting there.  While I calm down, maybe we’ll let the readers take over.  We’ll make it our Monday contest – how many stupid things wrong can our blog readers find in this video?  Painful as it may be; watch the whole thing, it keeps getting better (or worse, depending on your point of view).  To keep things fair, only one item per customer.   In the meantime, I’ll just keep breathing into this paper bag…

A lawn alternative we can support: Conifers!

As many of the blog readers are aware, I do a lot of writing about conifers.  In the process I mingle with members of the American Conifer Society or ‘ACS’ for short -although some wag has suggested that ACS actually stands for Addicted Conifer Syndrome, such is the devotion of these enthusiasts for their beloved conifers.  A couple weekends ago I was privileged to attend the first ever ACS ‘Illinois Conifer Rendezvous’ hosted by Rich and Susan Eyre, owners of Foxwillow Pines nursery in Woodstock, IL.  Rich and Susan are a wonderful, enthusiastic couple and conifer addicts of the first degree.  Their nursery boasts one of the largest assemblages of rare and unusual conifers anywhere in the country.  The program for the ‘Conifer rendezvous’ included speakers and tour of the nursery.  The highlight for me, however, was the tour of a couple of local homes featuring outstanding conifer gardens; including the home of Rich’s 92-year-old mother Margaret Eyre.  Margaret is an incredibly energetic woman with a passion for hostas and philanthropy (see the Heifer International link on the Foxwillow Pine website http://www.richsfoxwillowpines.com/).  Margaret decided years ago to dispose of her lawnmower – no small feat since her house sits among homes with vast expanses of lawn typical of the sprawling suburbia that radiates from Chicago.  What to do without a lawnmower? Plant plastic turf?  Margaret had other another idea…

Margaret Eyre’s conifer haven sits like an oasis in the Chicagoland suburban sprawl

I didn’t get an exact count, but I’d estimate Margaret has about 80 to 100 specimens tucked away on a standard-sized city lot.  Most are dwarf or unusual conifers, though several are full sized trees.  No need for a lawn mower here.


Pseudolarix amabilis Golden larch


Abies lasiocarpa Subalpine fir off of Margaret Eyre’s back deck


Mixing forms, textures, and colors provides a study in contrasts

In addition Margaret Eyre’s place we toured the home of John and Margaret Havlis.  The Havlis’ landscape is quite large – a couple acres – and shows what conifers and a little creativity can accomplish.

Conifer border around the Havlis backyard.  Note the winter deer protection for new specimens.

Recurved needles on Abies koreana ‘Silberlocke’


Microbiota decussata Russian cypress.  Conifers in this part of the garden are set of by hardscaping that imitates a dry creek-bed.

Big time Friday quiz

Got bogged down with various and sundry items earlier this week and missed my regular post.  I’ll do my penance by taking Linda’s spot on the Friday quiz while she heads out for a cross country meet (her son’s, not hers). 

The photo below was sent to me this week by a homeowner in Grosse Pointe, MI.  Two part question: 1) What is it? (not that hard)  2) How did it get so freakin’ big?

Deer Finale (and then we move on…maybe)

I believe I may have shared this with you previously…pardon the recycling.

But cogent to the discussion (and still  breathtaking in its absurdity…)

 

About $1000 worth of 10′ tall Arborvitae that were freshly dug, moved to a commercial job site, and then EATEN ALIVE before they were even planted. The remains (seen here) were shipped back to the wholesaler near Richmond. My guess is that deer evolution may be headed in the direction of longer necks.  In another epoch they’ll be…giraffes. Minus the festive coat pattern.

Oh Deer! Part 2

Last week Holly and I extolled the virtues of our dogs for helping to keep our gardens and landscapes relatively deer-free even though we live in areas with high deer pressure.  Of course, letting dogs roam your property is not an option for everyone.  So what are some other options to keep deer from turning your garden into a salad buffet?


My former grad student, Sara Tanis, shows off deer damage at her parent’s place near Ludington, MI

One of the most popular non-canine deer remedies is applying various deer repellants.  Typically I’ve been pretty skeptical of deer repellants.  Trying to stop hungry deer from chowing down on your garden is like trying to stop a high school football team from devouring an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet.  Recently, however, I saw some results from some colleagues at North Carolina State University on the effectiveness of various deer repellents in Christmas tree plantations that looked promising.  Deer damage is a major issue in Christmas trees; deer browse pressure can be very high on conifers since they may be the most palatable thing available to deer in the winter.  Research at NCSU and other studies (Wagner and Nolte 2001, Wildlife Soc. Bull.29:322-330) indicate that repellants that contain putrescent egg solids or animal protein can be effective at reducing deer damage.  Of course, no repellant is 100% effective.  If they’re hungry enough and don’t have an alternative, deer will likely overcome their fear of these scents and still come in for a nibble.  Also repellants need to be re-applied periodically to be effective.  Nevertheless, for gardener’s at their wit’s end and ready to resort to high velocity lead, repellants may be a better alternative.  Although Sara says lead works too!

Confessions of a Weather Channel Addict

My name is Bert and I’m a Weather Channel junkie.  It started innocently enough; sneaking an occasional peek at the local radar.  Then I found myself sticking around for the next Local on the 8’s just for the smooth jazz.  The progression from there was steady and predictable: Glued, trance-like, to the couch for re-runs of ‘Storm Stories’ and ‘When Weather Changed History’; setting my alarm 20 minutes early to catch ‘Wake up with Al’ so I could get my morning Stephanie Abrams fix.  My downward spiral was further enabled by weather.com.  I knew I needed help when I found myself checking the local radar to see if it was raining instead of just looking out the window.
Admit it.  If you’re a gardener or work with gardeners, you’re probably hooked too.  Hard to imagine a Saturday or Sunday morning that doesn’t start with tuning in to TWC or clicking on weather.com.  The local radar and weather warnings, of course, are indispensible.  We had a frost advisory in our area last night and I’m sure some folks will get an extra couple weeks out of their annuals if they paid attention and got them covered.


An often-overlooked feature on weather.com that I encourage gardeners and landscapers to use is the wind forecast.   If you go to your local hourly forecast and click on ‘details’, it provides an hour-by-hour forecast for local wind conditions.  This is a great way to plan any herbicide applications (e.g, Round-up or Weed-B-gone) you may be contemplating.  Doing a little planning and spraying when conditions are calm is one of the best ways to avoid off-target injury.

So clearly there are plenty of reasons to keep us hooked and tuning in, even if some aspects of TWC are getting just a little too predictable:

Studio anchor:  And now we go to Jim Cantore, who’s on the Outer Banks where Hurricane Holly is about to make landfall.  Jim, what’s the latest out there?

Cantore (braced against a gale but looking studly in his official Weather Channel raingear):  Well, just like the other 73 hurricanes I’ve been in, it’s raining.  And the wind is blowing really, really hard!

Cut back to studio anchor:  Thank you, Jim, for that insightful report.

The Weather Channel, live by it.

</d

Can cultivars be considered native plants?

One of the questions that arise in discussing native plants is the question of whether ornamental cultivars (e.g., ‘October golory’ red maple) can or should be considered ‘native’.  In short, my answer is ‘No.’

Here’s my rationale on this.  First, when we think about natives we need to put political boundaries out of minds and think about ecosystems. Political boundaries – a ‘Michigan native’ or ‘an Oregon native’ – are meaningless in a biological context.  What’s important is what ecosystem the plant occurs in naturally.  In addition to taking an ecological approach to defining natives we also need to consider its seed source or geographic origin.  Why is it important to consider seed origin or ‘provenance’?  Species that occur over broad geographic areas or even across relatively small areas with diverse environments can show tremendous amounts of intra-species variation.   Sticking with red maple as an example, we know that red maples from the southern end of the range are different from the northern end of the range.   How are they different? Lots of ways; growth rate, frost hardiness, drought tolerance, date of bud break and bud set.  Provenances can even vary in insect and disease resistance.

 


Native range of red maple

If we’re dealing with an ornamental cultivar, do we know the original seed source or provenance?   Sometimes yes, sometimes no, sometimes maybe.  Think for a minute how most ornamental cultivars come to be.  Some are developed through intentional crosses in breeding programs.  The breeder may or may not know the geographic origins of the plants with which they are working.  Or they may produce interspecfic hybrids of species that would not cross in nature.  Some cultivars are identified by chance selection; an alert plantsperson finds a tree with an interesting trait (great fall color) in the woods or at an arboretum.  They collect scion wood, propagate the trees and try them out to see if they are true to type.  If the original find was in a native woodlot and the plantsperson kept some records, we may know the seed source.  If the tree was discovered in a secondary location, such as an arboretum, it may not be possible to know the origin.

 

So, if a breeder works with trees of known origin or a plantsperson develops a cultivar from a chance find in a known location AND the plants are planted back in a similar ecosystem in that geographic area, we can consider them native, right?  As Lee Corso would say, “Not so fast, my friend.”  We still need to consider that matter of propagation.  Most tree and shrub cultivars are partly or entirely clonal.  Cultivars that are produced from rooting cuttings; for example, many arborvitae, are entirely clonal.  Cultivars that are produced by grafting, like most shade trees, are clonal from the graft union up.  The absolute genetic uniformity that comes from clonal material is great for maintaining the ornamental trait of interest but does next to nothing to promote genetic diversity within the species.  From my ultra-conservative, highly forestry-centric perspective, the only way to consider a plant truly native, it needs to be propagated from seed and planted in an ecosystem in the geographic region from which it evolved.  Few, if any, cultivars can meet that test.