On our hike to Horse Thief Creek, I found this plant nearly ready to bloom:
But I have no idea what it is! The area is about 3000 ft. in the Santa Rosa Wilderness. I’ve checked all the wildflower books I have for these deserts and am not having any luck. It doesn’t help that I can’t see the flowers, of course.
So take your best shots! I’ll check out all the guesses and come up with a list of best possibilities. Let’s see if you can help me learn a new plant.
Just returned from a mega field trip across the state of Virginia with my Ornamental Plant Production & Marketing class. We toured major wholesale nurseries, greenhouses, and retail garden centers over the course of three days. The trip went well, I believe (university field trips are a considered a success if you return with the same number of students you left with).
One over-arching trend is, of course, that growers and retailers are going after the veg/fruit thing in a big way. Bonnie Plants has been one of the few vegetable transplant growers for the big box stores; now others are getting in on the act. Wholesale growers who traditionally supplied woodies and perennials to independent garden centers are including veg plants and herbs in their product mix.
Even the packaging is changing from the ubiquitous paper cup or poly 6-pack. Coconut fiber (coir) pots are a step up from peat pots – they hold up better for the grower and garden center but are still plantable or compostable.
I can’t decide whether these pre-planted bean cages are ridiculous or genius. The students rated them “very cool”. But how many beans can you get off of three plants?
Take some galvanized tomato cages, paint them bright colors, and charge three times the usual price. Who on earth would go for this? Oh wait, that would be me. Two. In orange. Cram ’em in the van, people.
I didn’t exactly cheat on this one…but it was a mean trick nevertheless.
This is a contorted cultivar of Larix (can’t remember the exact name and I’m out of town this week), hence the twisty needles. And indeed the tree is senescing. The newer growth (the second flush of the season) just wasn’t as prepared for fall as the older growth, which is yellowing naturally. So everything is just peachy with this tree.
Just goes to show you how important it is to know all the details when doing distance diagnosis!
Today I’ve attached a photo of a conifer displaying two symptoms: chlorosis of the older needles and a twisted appearance:
What do you think are the causes of these symptoms? Answers on Monday!
As Austrian reader Johannes explained, the difference in dandelion flower height is due to herbivory – in this case from a lawnmower. Dandelions are quite adaptable to variable environments (the phenotypic plasticity Johannes also mentioned) and flower heights will increase or decrease depending on these variables. This ensures that the flowers will be accessible to pollinators, yet not decapitated by lawnmowers. It’s just one of the fascinating traits that make weeds successful!
It’s spring and the dandelions are happy to see you! I’ve taken photos of two groups of dandelions just footsteps away from one another. The populations are both in full sun, with similar types of soil and water availability. You’ll note that one group has very short flower stalks, while the second has longer stalks:
So what’s responsible for the difference in flower stalk length? And for extra credit, what’s the scientific term for the phenomenon?
If this isn’t something you’ve noticed before, you will from now on! Answers Monday!
And we have a winner! As Karen guessed, these are lichens on decomposing granite:
This photo is from the Fortynine Palms oasis area in Joshua Tree National Monument. These lichens (symbiotic amalgams of fungi and algae) could be decades or centuries old – they are very slow spreading.
Most creative answer goes to TT, who thought it looked like sweet potato casserole! The quartz does look like marshmallows.
Another close-up photo for you to analyze and identify:
A more inclusive photo on Monday will solve the mystery. (Sorry for the brevity – I’m on the road and internet access is variable. I’m taking what I can get!)
Enjoy your spring weekend!
This past weekend I had the opportunity to speak at Epcot Center in Florida. It was, without a doubt, one of the highlights of my career so far. I spoke 6 times over the course of 3 days. The focus of my talk was garden remedies. I started by talking about Paris Green (a good story for next week), then made fun of some of Jerry Baker’s, Myles Bader’s and Joey Green’s recommendations, and then proceeded to talk about which homemade cures do and don’t work and why. And then I asked the audience for questions. I always ask the audience for questions at the end of my talks, but I’ve never had such a diverse audience before (both gardeners and non-gardeners from all across the country), so it was interesting to see which problems came up the most. The winner was…. Japanese beetle with fire ants and deer coming in a close second and third. With that in mind I thought I’d devote this column to Japanese beetle control.
Above is my newest prize possession — A statue of Mickey thanking me for speaking at Epcot
The first rule of Japanese beetle control is that you can’t control Japanese beetles. Nobody has found a sure-fire cure yet and, if you try too hard, you’re going to poison yourself and everyone in your neighborhood.
The second rule of Japanese beetle control is like unto the first. Don’t trust garden center employees to know a damn thing about Japanese beetle control.
The third rule of Japanese beetle control is not to make the problem worse that it already is. Using a trap to lure Japanese beetles to their demise will kill a few — and may make you feel like you’re doing something — but you will be attracting more beetles to your yard than you kill.
The fourth rule of Japanese beetle control is that killing grubs doesn’t stop the adults. In other words, while killing Japanese beetle grubs is possible (usually using imidacloprid), killing those grubs won’t prevent adults from flying into your yard after they’ve hatched from someone else’s yard.
The fifth rule of Japanese beetle control is that Japanese beetle control is dirty work. Most of the “organic” and biological controls just don’t work that well. If you want to spray a concentrated dish soap spray on the beetles that will kill them, but it won’t last long and it will burn your plants. Same thing with a spray of one of those citrus insecticides. The organic insecticide pyrethrum will kill Japanese beetles, but it won’t last long and spinosad (another organic insecticide) which works for some beetles (it’s better on other insects) just isn’t considered that great. A biological control called Milky Spore Disease is supposed to kill Japanese beetles while they’re grubs, but the truth is that it usually kills less than 50% even in good conditions.
The sixth rule of Japanese beetle control is that, if you’re willing to go to a little bit of trouble, lose a few leaves, and use a little bit of a synthetic insecticide there is a way to protect your plants to some degree. If you’ve ever been around these beetles then you’ll know that they prefer some plants over other — for example, they love roses, and so they’ll attack roses first. If you spray roses with permethrin (a synthetic insecticide) you can get 7-14 days of clean roses, and, if you’re lucky, you’ll kill many of the Japanese beetles before they move on to other plants — this is called trap cropping.
The seventh rule of Japanese beetle control is that these beetles will seek revenge for their dead relatives.
So many interesting answers to Friday’s puzzle – thanks to all of you for putting out the effort! It most certainly is an abiotic problem – but was it temperature, suggested by Deb? Water, suggested by Foy, Gayle and Ed? Light, suggested by Nancy? My plan was to have an extensive soil test run to address the possibility of pollution (suggested by Jim, Heather and Paul), except we discovered the source of the problem last summer when we finished digging our pond:
As you can see in this photo, we have solid clay about 12″ below the surface. (And I do mean solid. I’ve kept lumps of the stuff to take to seminars, so when people say “I have clay soil” I pull this out and ask if this is what they mean. Usually not.)
So in this area of our yard we have a perched water table: the water percolates through the topsoil, hits the clay, and spreads horizontally. When we had turf in place, it tended to keep the upper few inches relatively dry, which allowed the dogwood roots to survive. When we took out the turf and covered it with wood chips (to conserve water!), the soil became saturated nearly year round. We dug out the tree a few weeks ago, and this is all that remains of the root system; the rest of the major roots had rotted away:
We’ve replanted the tree in another area of the yard with much better drainage, and we’ll keep track of its establishment and leaf size. I think it will recover, as new roots will emerge from the main root mass.
(Paul, thanks for the kudos on the fence design! My husband built this, and he’ll be pleased to see your comment.)