I get a lot of questions about a lot of different products and practices. New topics send me to the scientific data bases and that’s where I went for today’s posting. One of my garden writing colleagues asked me about colored glass rooters – glass containers in different colors that can be filled with water and a plant cutting. The conventional internet wisdom, according to my colleague, is that green and blue glass rooters are the best.… Continue reading this article “Does colored glass help root cuttings?”
Author: 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 an Emerita Professor in the Department of Horticulture. 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 group - www.facebook.com/groups/GardenProfessors
Books: http://www.sustainablelandscapesandgardens.com
Mystery pits revealed
I’d turned Friday’s picture on end to try to fool you…but to no avail. Deirdre and Gail both guessed woodpeckers, and yes, this is sapsucker damage:
Though some woodpeckers look for insects under the bark, sapsuckers drill neat lines of wells that fill with sap. The birds can then move down the line of wells, lapping up sugar water. (Kind of the avian version of lining up tequilla shots on the bar.) Healthy trees are generally not at risk of dying from drilling injury, though if the tree is completely girdled that would be a problem. … Continue reading this article “Mystery pits revealed”
Mystery pits
What am I?
Answer on Monday!
Update on root-rotted Cornus kousa
A little more than a year ago I posted a Friday quiz based on a failing Cornus kousa.The answer explained that our landscape has, in part, a perched water table that effectively rotted most of the roots of this poor tree over several years. Last spring we moved it to a different section of our landscape where we know the drainage is better, and I’ve been monitoring its recovery since that time.
Cornus kousa leaves in 2007
Cornus kousa leaves in 2011
We were gratified to see that the leaves this year are significantly larger than those of previous years. … Continue reading this article “Update on root-rotted Cornus kousa”
Quiz answers – more or less
I just got back from a 9 hour overseas flight, just in time to post the answer to last week’s quiz. So now you know…I wasn’t in the states. More on that later.
As many of you guessed, this is a fig tree (Ficus spp.) of some sort. I have horrendous taxonomic abilities anyway, but will cover my ignorance with the excuses that the tree wasn’t in flower, nor were there any signs in any of the little parks identifying the tree. … Continue reading this article “Quiz answers – more or less”
Three part plant quiz
I’m out of town this week, and taking lots of plant pictures. Here’s an interesting tree, quite common in the city where I’m staying:
Question 1: What kind of tree is this? (Genus is good enough – species might be hard to tell.)
Question 2: In what geographical region might I be staying? (The tree is native as far as I know.)
Question 3: What are these woody structures called, and what function do they play?… Continue reading this article “Three part plant quiz”
Answers to blue flower quiz
Paul, Joseph, Kandi and Derek are all, apparently, Puya fanciers. But! It’s not P. alpestris, but P. berteroana – a species whose flowers are more turquoise than sapphire:
Yeah, Kandi, check out those spines! Even taking pictures is deadly!
And Paul and Joseph were correct – the long green structures are sterile (they bear no flowers) and serve as bird perches. The nectar almost runs out of these flowers, and as the birds get a sugar fix their heads are covered in pollen.… Continue reading this article “Answers to blue flower quiz”
Friday quiz a few days late
The university’s server was down for scheduled maintenance over the weekend and I missed getting this posted. So you have until next Friday to consider this interesting flower from the Berkeley Botanical Gardens:
What is this plant?
And what is the function of these long, green horizontal structures?
Have fun
Exploding watermelons and exploding hysteria
One of our loyal blog readers passed on this interesting article about exploding watermelons in China. Seems that Chinese farmers have been overapplying a synthetic growth regulator which has led to the of proliferation of plump pepos (gotta love alliteration!). Of course the media has “blown” this out of proportion with action verbs like “explode” and “erupt”, when what’s actually happening is that the melons are merely splitting. (It’s a pretty boring video if you take time to watch it.)… Continue reading this article “Exploding watermelons and exploding hysteria”
A rant about urban farming
(I know this one will get me into trouble…but hey, if I don’t tick someone off I’m not doing my job.)
I have mixed feelings about the increased popularity of urban farming. On one hand, I love the idea that people are becoming more involved in producing their own food. But on the other hand, the naivety of many urban farmers is scary – because they assume that home-grown food is safer and/or healthier than what they can buy at the market.… Continue reading this article “A rant about urban farming”