Category: Amusing Facts

I see the light!

Here’s the follow up picture from Friday’s puzzler:

As you can see, there’s a street light near the lower half of the maple.  (I cleverly hid it behind the utility pole in the first photo.)  The green part of the tree never received the message that days were getting shorter, since the street light is bright enough to interrupt the dark period necessary to initiate dormancy.

This is one of my favorite phenomena unique to urban environments.  It doesn’t appear to hurt the tree, although the green leaves will die before the tree can scavenge their nutrients.  If more of the tree were affected, I’d be more concerned.

Congratulations to Planting Oaks, who nailed this right off.  And kudos to those thoughtful alternative explanations, all of which could logically have had an impact on color change.

Autumn color puzzler

Here’s a photo I took in Buffalo about 20 years ago.  Buffalo, like many places in the northeast part of the country, has fantastic color changes in the fall.  This maple seems to have changed its mind part of the way through the process:

What do you think caused part of this tree to retain its green leaves?  Answer and another photo on Monday!

Carrot-top syndrome in white pine

I know a few folks out there are starting to believe that I’m just an apologist for the nursery industry.  While it’s true most of the nursery people with whom I work are hard-working folks trying to do their best to run a successful business and produce a quality crop, there are certainly some issues out there and I’ve got my share of pet peeves.  One of the things really that chafes my heiney is what I refer to as “Carrot-top” syndrome in eastern white pine (Pinus strobus).  White pine is one of the most commonly planted conifers in this part of the world.  White pine is native throughout much of the eastern US and is an extremely fast growing tree that makes a good ornamental when planted on the right place with room to grow.  It is also widely grown as a Christmas tree in the Upper Midwest as well and therein lies the rub.  Many nursery producers also grow Christmas trees and many Christmas tree growers also dig nursery stock.  The result?  White pines that have been heavily sheared as Christmas trees end up planted as landscape trees.  Once in the landscape, the upper portions of the trees will quickly resume rapid growth, with some shoots growing 2’ to 3’ or more per year; while the side shoots that had been repeatedly sheared barely grow at all.   After a couple of years the net result is neatly trimmed Christmas tree with a wooly beast growing out of its top.   What’s the solution?  Ideally producers should identify which portion of their trees will be sold as Christmas trees and which are destined for the landscape trade.  Christmas trees can be sheared to meet demands of that market while landscape trees can be pruned much more lightly to maintain a single leader and conical form but keep obvious layers of whorls.  The dilemma, of course, is that growers don’t always know which trees will end up and the Christmas tree lot and which will be dug for the nursery trade.  The other, more challenging problem is that, given a choice, 99 out of 100 garden consumers will choose the neat-looking Christmas tree for the landscape, unaware of the wooly mess that’s about to be unleashed in their yard.  The solution?  Education on both sides; making growers aware of the issue and making consumers realize that the only way to have a natural-looking white pine in your yard is to start with a natural-looking white pine.


Heavily sheared pines will retain the outline from from shearing for years while the top rages out of control.

How on Earth Did I Land This Gig?!

Linda referred to my recent absence from the blog – but it was in the name of education, I swear!

Cocos nucifera, the iconic coconut palm.  My office for the past two weeks. Or a Corona advertisement. You pick.

This study abroad to the Dominican Republic sent Virginia Tech students (mostly biology and natural resources majors) to the Punta Cana Ecological Foundation for the entire semester, with faculty rotating in for two-week stints on topics from ornithology to geography. My topic was “tropical horticulture”.  The professor previous to my session had to cancel his trip; by the time I arrived, the un-chaperoned students had basically gone feral.  Corralling them with promises of beer and French fries, I coaxed them out onto plant i.d. walks.  By the time our field trip to the national botanical garden rolled around, they were blurting out plant names left and right.  Made me proud!

Identification walk featuring salt-tolerant plants. That’s red mangrove, Rhizophore mangle, on the right. Feral students on left.

The ecological foundation’s shade houses, orchard, and organic veg gardens grow some of the produce for the resort and made for a great learning experience (unusual greenhouse pest problem: tarantulas).  I’ll post more tropical plant pics and factoids in January – when we’ll really, really need to see them.

Morinda citrifolia, better known as Noni.  Though chock full of vitamins and all manner of secondary metabolites of medicinal interest, the smell of ripe Noni is comparable to Limburger cheese left in the sun for several days.  Shrieks of “NONI!!!” meant someone was about to get pelted with over-ripe fruit.

 

Where the Buffalo Roam

Just kidding. We have no buffalo on the campus of Virginia Tech, just lots and lots of students with the flu. Yuck.  But this is much more interesting:

Bouteloua dactyloides (bless you!), better known as buffalo grass:

We’ve recently added a 1-acre meadow to our on-campus teaching and display garden (the Hahn Horticulture Garden at Virginia Tech).

Native trees, shrubs, perennials,and grasses surround a central lawn of buffalo grass. As one of the components of tall- and short-grass prairie, it is a popular forage in the west and midwest. Toughness and no-mow-ability makes buffalo grass a candidate for the low-maintenance lawn. We chose the cultivar ‘Bowie’, which has been reported as a good choice for the Mid-Atlantic…more cold and moisture tolerant.  But it’s not cheap – ran us $15/lb with a seeding rate of 3lbs/1000 sq ft. We ordered 1/4 acre’s worth. Our horticulturist Paul calibrated the spreader not once but three times, and was still nervous.

We’re pretty happy with the progress – it’s filling in nicely after 18 months. Once established, buffalo grass will pretty much choke everything else out, but until then, broadleaf weeds and crabgrass are a bit of a pain. Extremely drought resistant, it also handled this year’s surplus rainfall with no problems.

The best way I can describe it is, er, cute!  It’s so fluffy, and forms pet-able 6″ tall tussocks with little seed heads dancing about. One just might, after a hard day of academia-induced anxiety, want to lay down in it and make a “grass angel”.

We’ve already had a light frost, hence the tawny color. This presents a teaching opportunity:  most of the turf around here is tall fescue or blue grass – fairly evergreen, cool-season grasses. Buffalo grass WILL turn golden-brown in winter, and we’ll get lots of questions as to whether or not our meadow is “dead”.  No, it’s just resting!

If you’re thinking of trying buffalo grass or something other than run-of-the-mill turf for your lawn (or even ripping it out altogether), check out ideas from Susan Harris and friends at www.lawnreform.org

Moo... So there's a weed or two...

The Heartbreak of Plagiotropism…

…Otherwise known as “splayage”. When vegetatively propagating some species of woody plants, care should be taken when selecting where to take a cutting (piece of stem) to root.  Propagation from terminal cuttings (pointy end up) usually results in orthotropism or a vertical growth habit.  Cuttings from extremely lateral branches (those that grow parallel to the ground) can, in a few species, result in a spreading growth habit or plagiotropism.

This is not always undesirable – some species are purposefully propagated this way to maintain the prostrate habit that particular cultivar is known for. I’ve propagated lots of Buddleia over the years and don’t recall having this happen. Jeff, you were “Mr. Buddleia”* back in our days at UGA…please weigh in on this!

Floppulence
Buddleia davidii ‘Santana’, author’s garden.

Said plant was purchased from a little Mom & Pop greenhouse as a 4.5” pot with a 6” tall rooted cutting, and it went into our garden in May. It is now lolling all over its neighbors like a drunken sailor.  What looks like a vertical piece in the back is simply propped up by the Canna. No big deal, just a good teaching moment.

‘Santana’ is a bit slower-growing than most cultivars of Buddleia, yet is in great demand due to the wacky variegated foliage. My guess? This is the result of repeated acts of propagation via lateral branches…cuttings of cuttings of cuttings. Not to mention the fact that it’s patented, so this guy may not only be floppy, but illegal (!). One of the purported upsides of the plant patenting process is to control the quantity and quality of propagation through licensing. But that’s another post topic for the future.

*Not to be mistaken for the pageant winner “Miss Buddleia”

Buddleia or Buddleja?

I recently heard that Mike Dirr has come out with the next edition of his book on woody landscape plants. Dr. Dirr (I can’t seem to bring myself to call him Mike, even after all these years) was my major advisor in graduate school, so I’m really looking forward to getting it.  In the meantime I heard that he included a section on my thoughts about how to spell the scientific name of the butterflybush, a plant that I worked on to get my Ph.D..  Some people spell it Buddleia, but most go with the Buddleja spelling  — but it looks really silly.  So, while I’m not sure exactly what Dr. Dirr wrote, I thought I’d give you my two cents worth.

By the way, any of you out there yelling and screaming that I shouldn’t be promoting an invasive weed should be ashamed of yourselves.  I spent years working on this plant and I refuse to believe that all of my work was for naught!

But back to the name. First of all you need to understand that the Butterflybush was originally named for a botanist named Adam Buddle.  Buddle didn’t discover this plant.  Nor was he directly involved with its naming, being an expert on mosses.  Besides, he wasn’t even around when Butterflybushes were discovered by the western world around 1730 (Buddle died in 1715).

Buddleja was first mentioned in Species Plantarum, a book by Linnaeus.  And, when it was listed there, it did have that j in it.  OK, so far it makes sense to spell the name Buddleja. BUT, in his later works, though this plant was spelled Buddleja in the text of the book (at that time stylized print settings meant that i’s were printed as j’s u’s as v’s as s’s as f’s), in the index – where the stylized text wasn’t used – Buddleia was spelled with an i.  Hence I submit to you that Buddleia should be spelled with an i – though I’m not nearly as fanatical about it as I once was.

Slugs and Beer: Not So Fast, My Friend…

[To those new to our blog, there are many past posts of scientifically-proven garden advice and research results…so pardon if we slip off the wagon just briefly.]

In response to the previous post:
Dr. Gillman, I’m simply shocked at your sloppy “materials and methods”.
What is that, a Frisbee? And you drink a beer called Moose Drool? Sounds intriguing, but probably too hoppy. No wonder the slugs were simply mocking your feeble attempts at attracting them.

BEHOLD the well-researched and insightful slug trap:

One 12″ plastic pot saucer + 10 oz. Pabst Blue Ribbon = 28 slugs in one night.

Not unlike college students, results indicate there’s obviously no accounting for the slug’s taste (or lack thereof) in beer. Hmmm…that gives me an idea for a grant proposal…