The Garden Professors™ – Page 119 – Advancing the science of gardening and other stuff since 2009

Every survivor has a story

It’s been suggested, not unfairly, that the Garden Professors are sometimes a little ‘Tree-Centric’. As a forester and tree physiologist by training, I’m probably the guiltiest among my co-conspirators on that count. But occasionally I do notice things less than 10’ tall and lacking a single, woody trunk.

When weather permits I like to take my lunch down to the MSU annual trial gardens behind my office here at the Plant and Soil Science Building. Every summer the annual gardens are awash with the color of impatiens, geraniums, petunias, and other annuals. This time of year, however, it’s bulbs that steal the show. This spring there was a display of bright pink tulips that was especially striking. Wandering by the beds recently I noticed a tag in one corner; ‘Susan Komen mix’. For those that aren’t aware, Susan Komen lost a long, brave battle with breast cancer in 1980. The foundation founded by her sister, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, is the leading advocacy and fundraising group for breast cancer awareness and research in the US. Komen for the Cure also provides services and advocates for our country’s two and half million breast cancer survivors.

In many ways, tulips are a fitting symbol for breast cancer survivors and the brilliant pink show made me think of a cancer survivor I know, my college girlfriend, Lisa. I remember learning about her cancer nearly two years ago. We had followed our own paths after our undergrad days and contact was sporadic as we each set out on careers and started families. I missed her at our 30^th high school reunion but found her number in the reunion directory and rang her up. The words hit like a punch in the stomach, “I underwent breast cancer surgery and treatment this past winter.” I was stunned but in the next instant knew her trademark grace and humor were still intact. “Yeah, when the reunion notice came out I had just lost both my boobs and all my hair. Ya know, I just wasn’t up for all the ‘Hi, how are ya’s?’” Today, Lisa remains cancer-free though after-effects of radiation treatments linger. Through the wonder of Facebook we now keep up on each other’s awesome and talented kids. She’s looking forward to two year’s cancer-free in July and then the all-important 5-year mark beyond that.

So, what does all this have to with landscape horticulture? My friend and colleague Art Cameron concluded a talk at our Master Gardener College last Saturday with a quote: “To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” So much of what we in do horticulture is an expression of our faith in the future. When we plant tulips in the fall we know they must endure dark, cold days each winter in order to bloom the next spring. Breast cancer survivors and their families have to endure more than their share of darkness to see brighter days. We’ve become a society obsessed with instant gratification and the old cliché ‘stop and smell the roses’ seems trite and shopworn to a lot of folks. But gardens connect us to the earth and to each other and provide the perfect place to take time and reflect on things that really matter.

According to the American Cancer Society nearly one in eight women in the US will develop invasive breast cancer in their lifetime. To learn more, read breast cancer survivor stories, and to support breast cancer research go to www.komen.org

Friday’s “disk of mystery”

What is this "green disk of mystery?" It’s about 2" in diameter:

Answer on Monday – have a great weekend!

The Approach Graft

Seeing as this blog is called “The Garden Professors” it has been far too long since we’ve given you a lecture on a useful practice for your garden, so this week I thought I’d give you a little how-to demonstration on something called approach grafting. Approach grafting is a technique that you could use to graft a tomato to a tomato (good if you want to use a disease resistant root with a non-disease resistant top — common in heirloom tomatoes), a tomato stem to a potato root (just a fun project), or an eggplant root to a tomato shoot (good for wet locations).

So here we go. First, you need two plants that are about the same size, and you need to plant them in the same container as demonstrated below with a potato and tomato. You will also need to strip off lower leaves as they may get in the way of the graft.

Above we have a young potato and tomato plant to be grafted.

In the above picture the potato and tomato plant have been planted in the same container and their lower leaves have been stripped off.

After the two plants are in the same container a small slice is made on each plant at the same height. This slice will be, ideally, just a little bit deeper than the cambium into the center of the stem (you’ll be able to see the plants pith — in the center of the cut — it’s tough to see in the image here).

In the above picture the stem of both the tomato and potato are cut so that they can be joined together.

After making the required cuts on both plants the cuts are pushed together and wrapped. We used parafilm to wrap this graft, but saranwrap, or even an elastic band would also work.

In the above picture the cuts are being joined.

Here the cuts are wrapped.

The next step is to wait until the graft “takes”. This could take 3-5 weeks. After a good strong union is formed the top of the potato and the bottom of the tomato plants are cut off. Wait a few days to make sure everything’s working properly and plant the result in your garden.

Permaculture – the discussion continues

We’ve started a robust discussion on the topic of permaculture, especially as applied to home gardens. Let’s continue looking at some of the advice provided in Gaia’s Garden targeted towards home gardeners.

The book contains several lists of plants suggested for specific functions. For brevity’s sake, I’ll just mention two:

“Host plants for Beneficial Insects” (pp. 157-159)
This list is prefaced in the text with “many of these florae are very attractive and can (and should!) be included even in the most formal garden bed.” With this strong endorsement, the author then presents an unsourced list of plants, several of which are identified as noxious weeds in many states in the country. They include Washington noxious weeds false indigo (Amorpha fruticosa), fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), Queen Anne’s lace (Daucus carota), toadflax (Linaria vulgaris), cinquefoil (Potentilla recta), sulfur groundsel (Senecio vulgare), and tansy (Tanacetum vulgare).

“Dynamic Nutrient Accumulators” (pp. 131-134)
We are told “certain species draw specific nutrients from deep in the soil and concentrate them in their leaves” and given an extensive table of these plants and exactly which nutrients they accumulate. The references for this table are not scientific, and in at least two cases are mystical in nature (Cocannouer’s Weeds: Guardians of the Soil and Pfeiffer’s Weeds and What They Tell). As in the previous table, many of these plants are designated noxious weeds in Washington or other states and include nodding thistle (Carduus nutans), Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense), fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), toadflax (Linaria vulgaris), creeping thistle (Sonchus arvense), and tansy (Tanacetum vulgare).

As readers of this blog know by now, we GPs are not “plant purists.” But it is highly irresponsible to encourage people to plant listed noxious weeds in their gardens. Even the author seems to understand this, and states (on page 15) that “it is foolish to deliberately introduce a species known to be locally opportunistic.” It’s mystifying, then, that he does exactly that in these two tables.

The inclusion of the table of “dynamic nutrient accumulators” demonstrates that this book tends to wander far afield of the philosophical roots of permaculture. It is an excellent example of pseudoscience, as it creates a scientific-sounding phrase (“dynamic nutrient accumulator”) and misleads non-experts into believing a scientific claim (nutrient accumulation of specific minerals) without providing actual supporting data.

Visiting Professor guest post: Native wildflowers

Recently I have been fascinated by the native wildflower field I planted last fall. Although I seeded it with the same mixture of seeds (mixed with sand to spread them evenly), you can see that we have clumps of different flowers throughout the area.

Figure 1. Descanso Gardens, California

The area where the wildflowers were planted had several 1-2 foot raised mounds; some were in the shape of keyholes. These were built with silty sand from a nearby seasonal stream that had some erosion problems in a rainy year.

Small differences between the temperature, moisture, light and soil on the different parts of each mound have favored different species of wildflowers. In one of the keyholes, I even found some miner’s lettuce (Claytonia perfoliata), a species I had not seeded that favors wetter areas. If I sampled for insects, I bet I might find a similar patchy distribution as well.

As an ecologist/biologist, I am really fascinated by the way that species diversity can be affected by topography, climate, moisture, and soils. As a gardener, I like that I could create conditions that favor different plants just by moving soil around. Plus I think that the waves of color are lovely as well.

Rachel Young is the head of the California Garden at Descanso Gardens, just outside Los Angeles. She has an MS degree in Ecology and Evolutionary biology from UCLA and lectures on various garden and horticulture related topics.

Everything is obvious once somebody shows you…

It’s amazing how many things in life seem complex when we try to figure them out for ourselves but then we end up smacking ourselves on the forehead when someone shows us how simple it really is. The infield fly rule comes to mind. Some colleagues of mine here at Michigan State may be on their way to such a solution for the problem of white grubs in lawns. Drs. Dave Smitley (Entomology), Kurt Steinke, and Trey Rogers (Crop and Soil Science) are investigating the effect of mower height on turf damage from grubs.

European chafer grub. Photo: David Smitley

The premise is simple: White grubs damage turf when they consume about 75% of the turf roots present. Raising the mowing height of most standard mowers from 2” to the highest setting (usually 3 ½”) also results in more root growth; often by more than double. Since there’s a limit to how much root mass grubs can consume, increasing the amount of roots ensures the damage threshold is never reached. The working hypothesis has been confirmed by greenhouse tests and now the researchers are taking to the field.

Chafer grub damage. Photo: David Smitley

This may turn out to be another example of how raising mower height and not trying to make your lawn look like a golf course fairway can reduce inputs and keep your turf healthier.

Spruce brown-out solved

Gall adelgids are certainly a problem in these parts, especially on blue spruce. But the ‘problem’ in this case is not a pest. This year, as in several recent years, spruces are developing copious amounts of pollen cones. Once the pollen is shed, the cones dry up and turn brown. Many homeowners mistake these for insect galls or sign of some other pest activity.
In many conifers, pollen cones occur on the lower portion of the crown while seed cones occur in the upper third as an evolutionary adaptation to reduce selfing.

Friday Quiz: Spruce brown-out?

We’re beginning to see signs that we may be getting a lot of calls on spruces this year similar ones we experienced a couple of years ago. Homeowners and landscapers are calling in with reports of brown ‘growths’ on spruces – particularly white spruce and some on Colorado blue spruce. The growths can be quite noticeable, even from a distance and cause trees to take on a brownish cast; usually most prevalent on the lower 2/3^rdsor so of the crown. What’s going on?

Note: I also discuss this problem in my article in this week’s MSU Extension Nursery and Landscape CAT Alert – but don’t go there ‘til you’ve chimed in here. Otherwise we call that ‘not in the spirit of the challenge’.

Some Super-Cool Stuff

For the past ten years or so I’ve worked to try to transfer information about horticulture to people. It sounds simple, but it actually took a lot of time and effort to figure out the best way to do it, and I’m still not there yet — and probably never will be. The reason that I mention this is because I appreciate it when another horticulturist, such as my fellow garden professors, work to get information about horticulture out to the public. So yesterday we had a speaker come to our depoartment to give our annual end of the year lecture — It’s kind of a big deal for us — We usually have a big name person (horticulturally speaking of course) and pay him or her pretty well and have a reception. It’s nice. We also hand out scholarships to our undergraduates who earned them and any awards which we have to give. But anyway, back to the speaker. This year we had a guy come in who I’d never heard of before besides some strong recommendations from some of my colleagues here in the department. I also did a cursory check of his website. I liked what I saw, but I wasn’t blown away. Sometimes I’m such a dingbat. Simply put, this guy gave one of the top two or three horticultural (actually I should say botanical — it’s more botany than horticulture) presentations which I have seen. His name is Roger Hangarter and he is a professor at Indiana University. In a nutshell he films plant’s moving using time-lapse photography to demonstrate important concepts. Here is one of his websites:

http://plantsinmotion.bio.indiana.edu/plantmotion/starthere.html

But if you do a google search for him he has a lot of other things on different sites. He has even created a traveling display for museums called slowlife. Very, very cool. There aren’t a lot of people who I’m in awe of — but this guy is one of them. If you have a garden club or run a master gardener program you NEED to get this guy on your calendar if you can.

Permaculture – beginning a discussion

Among other things, part of my job involves reviewing educational materials for use in WSU’s Extension programs related to urban horticulture. One of the books is “Gaia’s Garden: a guide to home-scale permaculture” (T. Hemenway). It occurred to me that my review might also be of interest to our GP readers.

I’ve created a fairly extensive review and I will break it into separate posts over the next few weeks. So let’s start the discussion off with a topic we already know is inflammatory: invasive species. To be clear, we are not talking about the many introduced species, plants and animals alike, who appear to be well-behaved in our country. Here’s my take on “The Natives versus Exotics Debate” (pp. 12-17):

The author, with no formal training in biology past his bachelor’s degree, states that “calling a species ‘invasive’ is not good science.” This will come as news to researchers in the field of invasion biology. He blithely disregards the real environmental and economic damage caused by invasive species and erroneously believes that invasive species selectively appear only as a result of human-caused environmental disturbance. Apparently natural disturbances (from fire, volcanic eruption, flooding, etc.) don’t open themselves up for invasion (again, a notion that is incorrect and refuted by a number of obvious examples, such as the 1988 zebra mussel invasion of Lake St. Clair and the subsequent colonization of many freshwater habitats). The author seems not to understand that there may be unfilled niches in certain ecosystems that can be exploited by invasives, endangering native species whose niches may overlap; there are obvious lessons from Hawaii, Australia, and other parts of the world. In any case, the author’s naive tolerance of invasive species is a poor example to follow and certainly not based on current, mainstream science.

So, fans of permaculture, what do you think? If permaculture is a legitimate science-based practice, how do we reconcile the very real issue of invasive species? If you disagree with me, keep in mind one of the hallmarks of pseudoscience: attacking the motives or character of anyone who questions the claims. The arguments should contain content, not insults.