If you’ve been following the saga of our clematis, you’ll know that first they suffered iron toxicity (from the waterlogged soil they were in) and then were dug up and replanted in containers. Last week I showed you what happens when you vigorously work wet soil – yet more waterlogging! During the transplanting process, I took more pictures:
This damage is NOT from the iron toxicity problem. It appeared during the transplant process. What caused it?
Answer on Monday!
A bit more on my recent travels to the big floriculture conference in Columbus, Ohio. I always try to make it out to the Chadwick Arboretum & Learning Gardens, on the campus of THE Ohio State University. There are several components, including trials, a large arboretum, and several small gardens. My favorite is the Steven Still Perennial Garden. It’s a lovely mixed garden, designed by Adrian Bloom (Blooms of Bressingham), and was installed in ONE DAY by their garden volunteers – 2005, I think.
Watching it grow has been fun. I noted [ with pleasure] that they’ve already had to start cutting back and removing some things. This makes me feel better because I am The Queen of Planting Too Close
A few highlights:
I thought of y’all when I saw
this…remember our conversation about Stachys the other day? Here’s a
new one on me: Stachys byzantina ‘Silky Fleece’. What teeny, tiny
little leaves! And seemed to be limiting itself to a small area on the
edge of the border. Introduced in 2006 by German seedmeisters Jelitto
Perennial Seeds. They missed the boat on naming it…could have all kind
of fun with ‘Little Lamb’ or even ‘Mary’s Little Lamb’ as the director
for their North American office is Mary Vaananen. Heh.
My foot is just in there for scale – I’m really not that inept a
photographer.
A gorgeous flock of Rhus typhina ‘Tiger Eyes’. Hardy to Zone 4, the foliage is golden in summer, blazing apricot in fall, a wonderful shrub accent in any garden… What? Hang on a sec.
Correction:
That’s Rhus typhina ‘Bailtiger’ PP16,185. Trade name is First Editions® Tiger Eyes® Cutleaf Staghorn Sumac. Well, that took all the fun out of it.
Moving on…
Belamcanda chinensis – Blackberry or Leopard
Lily. A tough cookie, this midseason bloomer takes drought and even
reseeds a little bit in my home garden. The pods burst open to
reveal a cluster of seeds that look exactly like a blackberry. These
weren’t quite that far along, but in between flowering and seed setting, they
do something else interesting..
The petals twist up into these hilarious
little bundles. I have no idea why or what for. Just kind of neat.
All for now!
Friday’s puzzle was tricky! I will preface the answer by saying I don’t do a lot of container plants except for annuals. When I plant up annuals into soilless potting mix (which is dehydrated), I work in the water thoroughly into this fluffy medium. Friday’s situation was a little different. The Clematis are more or less permanent residents in these planters, so I use real soil rather than potting mix. (This will reduce or eliminate the shrinkage you’ll get if you use soilless media, as these highly organic materials steadily decompose.)
But what I thoughtlessly did was to mix water into my nice screened clay loam like it was a potting mix. The result of vigorous mixing is to break down the soil structure and drive water into all of the pore spaces, resulting in a totally waterlogged soil:
After my "D’oh" moment when I realized my error, I potted the second Clematis into loose soil and let gravity work the water into the larger pore spaces. This passive approach protected the soil structure and left some of the pore spaces filled with air rather than water, so that the water drained through rather than sitting on top of the compacted soil:
This demonstrates one of the rules of working with landscape soils: you should avoid any potential compaction when the soil is wet. (It’s the same reason you shouldn’t stomp on wet backfill as you’re transplanting trees and shrubs.) As Ginny pointed out, you’ll create a cement-like structure – not conducive for water movement, oxygen availability, or root growth.
A few weeks ago I showed you photos of iron toxicity in a Clematis planted in a soggy soil (perched water table). Because this area is just not conducive to plants, we’re putting in a small deck. This necessitated the excavation of two Clematis, which were both suffering from wet feet. (Needless to say the root mass was very small and shallow on both plants.) We decided to put them into large planters with conical trellises and use them as deck plants.
During our pond excavation we retained the topsoil and sieved it for uses just like this (for woody planting, not annuals). The soil is a clay loam and has been stored in a garbage can to keep it dry. Anyway, the first pot I filled with this good soil, added water, and worked the soil with my hands to ensure it was thoroughly hydrated. As holes developed, I added more soil and continued to work it in by hand. I then installed the first plant and watered it thoroughly.
After observing what happened during the next several hours with this plant, I installed the second plant differently – I watered the soil but did not work it by hand to hydrate it. I added the plant as before and then watered everything thoroughly; I added soil where holes developed. I then redid the first container in the same manner as the first.
What happened to the first container that caused me to change my installation technique? And why didn’t it happen with the second container? Answers and photos Monday!
Just back from OFA – my discipline’s humongous tradeshow and conference in Columbus, Ohio. All things Floriculture – new perennials, annuals, and seasonal plants, technology, structures, and equipment for greenhouses, and plants and products for floral designers. The bulk of the show and educational sessions is focused on growers, but garden center owners and florists are also targeted. I was part of two team talks for growers on “Perennial Production Problems and Solutions”.
Aside from the thousands of attendees and hundreds of exhibitors, it’s like a big family reunion for floriculture faculty involved in teaching, research, and Extension. We introduce our latest graduate student to our own back-in-the-day classmates and our “old” major advisors. Beers are consumed. We’ve come to determine that we’re quite inbred; most floriculture researchers and educators received degrees and/or are employed by Michigan State, North Carolina State, Purdue, U. Florida, Cornell, or Minnesota. Many of our collegues have left academia to R&D positions in the horticultural corporate world, the conference also gives us a chance to catch up with them.
One of the highlights of OFA is the amazing array of new plant introductions from industry leaders such a Ball, Ecke, Syngenta, Dummen, Proven Winners, etc. Most of these names are not familiar to gardeners – they are wholesale (business-to-business) brands that provide growers with seeds, plugs, and liners, to be grown on and sold at retail. Proven Winners is one of the few vertically-integrated brands that market throughout the supply chain, from grower all the way to the consumer.
‘Gryphon’ – an exciting new begonia from PanAmerican Seed.
There are a slew of begonias out there – so what’s so special about this one (besides reaching almost 2′ in height and width)? Most fancy-leaf begonias are propagated by rooting vegetative cuttings that wholesale for $0.50 to $1.25 per liner. This one’s grown from seed ($0.05 per), enabling the grower to produce a beautiful plant yet still make a decent profit margin. The margin in our industry is ridiculously miniscule – wholesalers seem to constantly undervalue their product compared to all the costs involved in growing and shipping.
But I digress. I’ll post more from the “hot and new” front in ornamental plants on my next installment!
Well, Dr. Rohwer was right – he thought you’d get this more easily than I did! Ray and Jon were spot on – this is classic juglone toxicity from those walnut trees (Juglans spp.) you see in the background. Many of these leaves ended up on the roof, leaching into the rain barrels (good sleuthing Ray and KennyG!), the water in which was used in irrigating the vegetable garden. In fact, Dr. Rohwer divulged that the rain barrel water was quite brown from the walnut leaves. Thus, the tomatoes met an unhappy end, because tomatoes definitely do not love walnuts.
Juglone toxicity, an example of allelopathy, is an interesting phenomenon – it does not affect all plants equally. In fact, this clue was given in the puzzle, when Dr. Rohwer mentioned the "garlic and carrots, amongst young beets, onions, kohlrabi, and bolting radishes and spinach" also in the garden. Many of these vegetables are known to tolerate juglone, as are various landscape plants. (There is an excellent publication from Purdue on juglone toxicity with lists of tolerant and sensitive species.)
Juglone is most prevalent in the nuts, roots and leaves of walnut trees. This makes sense: germinating walnut seeds and expanding root systems are both able to kill their competitors, retaining more resources for themselves.
Juglone tends to be less of a problem for established trees and shrubs, as their root systems are more extensive; seedlings would be the most sensitive stage. And walnut wood used as part of a wood chip mulch has not, as far as I know, been shown to cause juglone toxicity in landscape plants.
We’re glad to have Dr. Rohwer back for another visit! Here’s his Friday quiz – see if you can figure out what happened to his tomatoes.
"Exhibit A is a tomato in our garden. We had 2 tomatoes last year a couple feet away from this one, they met the same fate. Wilting at about flowering time, and water did not resolve the wilting. Previous to last year, the area was turfgrass for who knows how long. There was no vascular discoloration or oozing."
Charlie also included more evidence: "Exhibit B – arrow points to former location of the wilted tomato behind the garlic and carrots, amongst young beets, onions, kohlrabi, and bolting radishes and spinach. Exhibit C – arrow shows the former location of the tomato. In the far background you can see our roof. We have 2 rain barrels collecting most roof runoff." This water is used in their vegetable garden.
And here’s a bit of diagnostic information: "Plants sensitive to this condition exhibit symptoms such as chlorosis (foliar yellowing), wilting, and eventual death."
Can you figure out what happened? Answer on Monday!
Most gardeners that I know have tried to produce roots on stem cuttings from plants that they like. Sometimes this turns out well for them, particularly if they are working with what we call an easy-to-root species, and sometimes it turns out poorly. OK, in all honesty, it often turns out poorly. The problem is that plants like very particular conditions when they’re growing roots and the typical gardener is going to have a tough time providing these conditions. So here’s an option. There is a method of propagation called air-layering which works on many plants that stem cuttings won’t work on and which doesn’t need all of the specialized equipment either. It’s not a sure-fire technique, but it’s more likely that the average gardener will get this technique to work than any other (with the exception of seeds).
Here’s how it works. Select a small branch from the plant you want to propagate. Find a point on the branch about 6 to 12 inches from its apex and then cut out a ring of bark around the circumference of the tree. This will allow water and nutrients to flow into the branch (assuming you didn’t cut too deep), but it won’t allow the carbohydrates produced in the branch to flow down the stem — instead they’ll be stuck where you made your cut and be used by the plant to produce new roots.
Around the cut you may apply a rooting hormone. This will help the root production to some degree. To keep the wound moist apply a heaping helping of moist peat and keep it in place with plastic wrap — or a cut up sandwich bag. Wire ties, elastic bands or string will hold these in place. Now you just sit back and wait.
It usually takes anywhere from 4-8 weeks for roots to emerge (you’ll see them when they do because they’ll push up against the plastic wrap). Once the roots are there plant your new tree/shrub/perennial in it’s own container just like you would any new plant, care for it as you would any other plant, and then plant it out if you so choose (I like to keep young plants like this in a container for at least a few months — the landscape is usually a harsher environment than a container, and so the time in the container gives it a chance to get stronger and store needed nutrient reserves.)
Yep, there he is. Showed up at our state Master Gardener College, just last week. I even went to dinner with him. The snake-on-a-stick startled the bartender just a bit.
The elder Bartram (his son William was also a great botanist and explorer) was the Royal Botanist to King George III and a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Stockholm. As with many of the Great Plant Explorers, his life combined botany with politics,
adventure, and lust [for plants,anyway]. Someone should make a movie…
Probably best know as the discoverer of the soon-to-be-doomed little tree, Franklinia
alatamaha, he also was responsible for the introduction of lots of
other North American native garden staples such as rhododendrons,
Kalmia, and deciduous magnolias. Bartram died in 1777, but has recently been resurrected by Kirk Brown, master thespian and all-around talented guy.
Kirk works with Joanne Kostecky Garden Design in Allentown, PA, and is a director for Garden Writers of America. But his passion for the life and times of fellow Pennsylvanian John Bartram takes the audience far beyond the usual gardening lecture. His presentation "John Bartram: The King’s Gardener" unveils the travels, collections, and psyche of the father of the nursery industry in the original thirteen colonies. I love the review by Stephanie Cohen (The
Perennial Diva!) "Kirk Brown did not imitate John Bartram, he actually
became him…anyone who has an interest in history or horticulture will
be spellbound by this presentation." She’s absolutely correct. For more on John/Kirk, check out www.johnbartramlives.com.
Friday’s quiz was a tough one. Bernadette and Lisa B. gave it a good shot, guessing that this might be a phosphorus deficiency. While they’re on the right track (it is a nutritional disorder), the mineral of interest is iron, and it’s a toxicity problem, not a deficiency.
Under wet conditions (the affected Clematis is in the part of our landscape with a perched water table – see the March 15 posting), iron is predominantly in the Fe+2 form (ferrous) rather than the Fe+3 form (ferric). The ferrous form is easily taken up by roots, and when leaves accumulate too much iron they turn reddish-brown. This diagnostic characteristic is called bronzing, and it’s different than the reddening caused by anthocyanin accumulation. (As an aside, nonagricultural landscapes rarely have phosphorus deficiencies and are more likely to contain excessive levels of phosphorus.)
Finally, all this talk of iron has reminded me of one of my favorite chemistry puzzles – see if you can figure out what this is:
Give up? It’s a ferrous wheel!