Category: Friday puzzle

Friday fun, part 1

This posting is for Holly, who I am sure is desperately trying to finish her annual review.  I feel your pain!  And I’m going to add to it today.

 

The poinsettia in these photos is not from this Christmas, but from 2008.  You can see it thriving happily in its office environment.  I’m told by its caretaker Nick (a nongardener) that it has no bugs or other problems, and seems very happy.  And it’s blooming, without the benefit of the extended night period. … Continue reading this article “Friday fun, part 1”

Friday’s puzzle solution

We have a winner!  Brian correctly identified the windowed hood of a cobra plant (Darlingtonia) and its function in tormenting hapless insects.  Here’s the entire picture:

Thanks to everyone who gave the puzzle a shot.  Very imaginative guesses!

Friday Foto Fun!

I’m taking the easy way out this week, as I’ve got to get my annual review done by next Monday (and I haven’t even started it yet.  Hah!).  But over the weekend, let’s see if you can figure out (1) what this is, and (2) why it looks the way it does:

Monday’s photo will reveal all!

Foliage fun flaunted!

Not much activity on the Friday quiz!  It was a tricky one.  Take a look at our photos in total:

As you can see, these aren’t plant “problems” in the strictest sense.  (The “landscape” in question is a retail nursery.)  They are cultivated anomalies – little mutations that have been discovered and propagated.  There are several points to this exercise:

1)  Be sure you know your plant material!  Many peope mistakenly assume that plants such as these are diseased, pest-ridden, or lacking some nutrient and need to be “fixed.” … Continue reading this article “Foliage fun flaunted!”

Friday Foliage Fun!

Take a look at these three closeups of foliage from three different plants in a landscape in Washington state:

 

You’ve been asked to diagnose what’s going on in this landscape that would cause these foliar abnormalities.  (I get photos emailed to me all the time asking these kinds of questions.)  Bugs?  Disease?  Nutrient deficiencies? Environmental conditions?  All of the above?

More photos and answers on Monday!

Friday quiz

Thought we’d take a break from the invasive discussion (I have some throughts I’ll weigh in with on Mon.)  In the meantime, here’s a photo of dwarf Alberta spruce not too far from my boyhood home in Olympia, WA.  I get 2 or 3 of these calls each year; usually with a homehowner exclaiming, “I’ve got a tree growing out of my tree!”.

Friday puzzle solved!

Great discussion over the weekend, with some very astute observations.  If you looked at the brown needles under the tree in Friday’s picture, you may have noticed that some of them weren’t needles:

Not only was this tree planted too deeply, as several of you pointed out, but the burlap and twine were left intact.  It appears the nylon twine has already started to girdle the trunk, based on the trunk swelling just above where the twine is wrapped.… Continue reading this article “Friday puzzle solved!”

Friday fun!

It’s the holidays, but this pine tree is feeling anything but merry.  It was installed about a year ago.  While the upper foliage looks lush and green, the lower branches have no new needles and in fact the current needles are dropping:

This is a two part question:

1)  What might be directly responsible for the needle decline on the lower branches?  (Hint:  this is caused by the plant itself.)

2)  What might be the underlying stress causing the needle decline? … Continue reading this article “Friday fun!”

Friday puzzle answers!

Good speculation on the rhododendron leaf damage!  Jim in Wisconsin zoomed right in on the causes:  the first photo was taken on a year where we had an unseasonable freeze right as leaves were expanding, and the second was taken on a year where we had unseasonably hot weather as leaves were expanding.

In both cases, the ultimate cause of damage is lack of water in rapidly expanding tissues.  Once dormancy is broken, leaf and flower buds are highly sensitive to environmental extremes – they are expanding and are most sensitive to anything that interferes with water content.… Continue reading this article “Friday puzzle answers!”

Post-turkey puzzler

I hope everyone had a great holiday yesterday!  Since I am NOT a shopper, I’m avoiding “Black Friday” and posting another puzzle instead.

Consider this photo:

This is a rhododendron in my own landscape.  The photo was taken in July, though the damage on these new leaves occurred earlier than that.  In Seattle, rhododendron leaf bud break generally occurs in April.

Now consider this problem.  Same plant, different year – and actually a different problem!

So what caused this damage?… Continue reading this article “Post-turkey puzzler”