Neat vs. Messy

 

The collection of leaves among the base of the aster stalks from last season

 

I’m being a messy gardener this year. Recently I read in a magazine a comment from a renowned gardener who, when asked what he wished he could get gardeners to stop doing, said something like “Stop using wood mulch. Plants didn’t evolve to grow in wood chips. Wood chips don’t occur in the wild. Plants evolved to grow in their own waste.” It’s a fascinating truism that has stuck with me. Trees shed their leaves, which form a layer of mulch, which holds in moisture, and decomposes adding nutrients to the soil, which the trees can re-use. Can you imagine how that could apply to humans? Could we thrive in our own bodily waste? I think not. Our bodily waste has to go into another system to be re-used, and that is the world of plants. Plants other than trees do the same thing, particularly the perennials. They shed leaves, flowers, stems, and these accumulate under the plants year after year. So this year, I’m not cutting back my perennials quite as neatly. I’m leaving the accumulated duff under them, as well as the leaves that have blown into them. It’s natural after all. But there is some fallacy to this theory. Plants have evolved to live in their own waste, and wood chips don’t occur in the wild. Cultivated plants aren’t in the wild. They were bred (a form of enhanced evolution), to live in a garden (by definition, not the wild). So in a sense, their recent evolution was to live not in their own waste, but in a mulch of wood chips. I’ve read that leaving a plant’s own debris allows diseases to overwinter and to damage the plants the following year. This includes insects. I’ve also read that leaving a plant’s own debris allows for overwintering of beneficial insects, which will reduce the harmful insects in the following year. There is probably some truth to both statements, neither of which are likely true on their own. I suspect that there are both beneficial and harmful insects overwintering. The beneficial insects might even be surviving through the winter by eating some of their overwintering prey.

gardeners are a hopeful kind

 

The act of planting is a gesture of hope. Whether seed or root, shrub or tree, something that will produce food, or a plant that is purely ornamental, there is no certainty that what is planted will grow and succeed. True, there are some things that are more likely to succeed and some things that are more likely to fail, but whether likely or unlikely, it is still a hope that inspires the planting. I’ve been following the Instagram feeds of some rose breeders. Rose breeding is truly an act of hope and love, especially as a hobbyist. David Austin Roses plants about 300,000 seeds a year, and from these, only one to three of the resulting plants are considered suitable for release. One seed of 100,000. That’s a lot of seeds to plant for a home gardener. And even with these odds, and with extensive testing for 13 years before the chosen ones are released, there is no guarantee that these plants will succeed. There are many, many David Austin releases that have been discontinued, for various reasons, but most likely reasons such as poor growth in the very different and varied climate of the United States compared to the UK, or lack of market popularity (usually due to poor growth, since beauty of the flower is usually not a question). Orchid breeders have an even tougher time of it, since some orchids take an average of 7 years from seed to bloom, and those 7 years can be a total bust if the cross does not achieve the goals of the breeder. That’s even assuming one can get the dust-like seeds to germinate and grow, a process that in artificial conditions requires precise sterile conditions and the inoculation of specific fungi that help the plant survive without killing the embryonic orchid. In the wild, the success of one seed in a million growing to adulthood would be high success. Those breeding fruit trees can wait many years to see what results. Those plant breeders working with easier to grow plants, plants with seeds that are easy to germinate, plants and seeds that are of a size that are easier to handle by human hands, and plants that grow from seeds to adulthood rapidly, are much more likely to see the success from their labors, but even they have no guarantee of success. It is a process of hope. But even if we are planting a product of their success, that result of 13 years of growing and hoping, the result of planting carefully nurturing 300,000 seeds to bloom, is no guarantee of success. It is still a process of hope. At this time of global discord, it is my thought that this is hope that we need. So I encourage you to go out and plant something. Especially if you are down about recent events. Nurture a seed, a root, a shrub or a tree. Plant some hope.

'La Paz'

 'La Paz' is my favorite hippeastrum. I think. Can you see why? But 'Quito' may vye for my attention, being a more striking color.

‘La Paz’ is starting

 

First blooms on ‘La Paz’ this year. It’s funny that this one bulb started this stem well before the other ‘La Paz’ bulbs in the same pot. It has started a second stem, and it is a little behind the other bulbs. Go figure. 

Thorny roses

‘Alnwick Castle’

Although I do have some roses without thorns, I also have some roses that are wickedly thorny. As the canes age some get more thorny. Some are wicked from the start. It’s not just the number of thorns that make the most evil ones. It’s the hooked curved thorns that grab and don’t let go that cause the most bodily damage. 

‘Radio Times’

‘Abraham Darby’

‘Munstead Wood’

‘Bishop’s Castle’

‘Bishop’s Castle’

‘Radio Times’

 

And one to show how some roses have no thorns at all. This one is ‘Windermere’. Of my other roses, ‘Annie Laurie McDowell’ has no thorns. ‘Nahema’ and ‘Marie Pavie’ have very rare thorns. 

Neofinetia falcata ‘Shutenkaku’

 Neofinetia falcata 'Shutenkaku' is a pink form of the Japanese Wind Orchid. It smells just as good as the wild form, a delicious vanilla orange blossom scent at night. It took me a long time to find this pink form, many years ago, but now they are easier to find. It doesn't bloom as much as the wild forms that I have, but I still love it.

Rosemary removed!

 

 

 

 

Almost the "before" photo. The last of the rosemary hedge to be removed. 

Lots of roots

Digging up the watering line

Who put in this crazy serpentine line anyway. Right in the middle of the planting zone.

There, that's better.

Almost done! At least done for the day.

When I removed the rosemary hedge that was against the house, one friend thought it was because I had gotten tired of it and wanted something new. I was called heartless. Another friend thought that I had removed it for artistic purposes (flattering, but not true). The truth is, I removed it because the rosemary had gotten too big. It grew much wider that this variety was reported to grow. I didn’t have the time to shear it twice a year to keep its size and pruning it back hard would leave dead stumps of branches since rosemary doesn’t tolerate pruning below where there is active growth. The rosemary had grown over the path and I had walk into the gravel to the left to get around the rosemary. The rosemary, being about 9 years old had also become a fire hazard with all the dry resinous fallen leaves and the plants themselves with high oil content. This is the normal fire cycle of its native environment. So over the last 4 or 5 weekends, I've been removing the hedge. Today I revamped the watering system and double dug the ground. Of course the planning is already done, but I’m not saying what’s going in.

Dendrobium Microchip

 

Not the best photos, and Microchip struggled a bit this year with the change in lighting. 

White Amaryllis

 

This white amaryllis that I received as a gift is blooming again, exactly one month after the first blooms. I don’t think I’ve ever had an Amaryllis do that. 

‘Snow Dance’

 

Helleborus x ballardiae 'Snow Dance' turns from white to rosy pink as it fades. What we see as the showy parts of hellebore flowers are not petals, but are actually sepals. The true flowers are the little yellow things at the center. The sepals typically turn green as the flowers fade and last for a long time even though the true flowers have faded and dropped. Fortunately, 'Snow Dance' turns this interesting shade, although we shall see if it turns green with time. Since this is the first time it has bloomed for me, I don''t know yet!

Roses do grow in the winter

 I've been working on the roses this January, some got removed, some got planted in the empty spots. I repotted this 'Rouge Royale' today. In all of these cases, something I noticed is that although the tops appear dormant and are not growing, the roots are still growing. They are not just alive, they are actively growing, with new white feeder roots. This is not just in the pots that are above the ground, but in the plants in the ground. This makes me think that the best time to plant roses really is in the fall, not the spring, when most roses are sold. They are mostly fine to be planted in the spring, as they are tough plants and they will survive, but planting in the fall, the roots will have time to grow through the winter and this will give a head start on the growth in the spring, and this means more flowers.

More ‘Quito’

 

Another shot of 'Quito' to show how the petals get some ruffling as they mature. And another shot to show how tall 'Quito' gets once it has grown some roots.

NoID phalaenopsis

 These twins were given to me years ago and they have stayed quite small with proportionately large flowers. 

Phalaenopsis Liu’s Cute Angel ‘Wilson’

 

Phalaenopsis Liu’s Cute Angel ‘Wilson’ is a micro-phalaenopsis bred from Phalaenopsis parishii.  I have found that it takes at least three years to learn the character of an orchid, sometimes more. I have a few parishii hybrids and have learned that, like parishii, the plants can be very small, but the roots are very extensive. Parishii is a deciduous phalaenopsis, losing the leaves in the dormant season, and photosynthesizing primarily through the roots. This type of orchid would do better mounted (I.e. grown on a slab of wood or branch) than in a pot because of this. In the third photo, the roots extend way beyond the picture frame. The roots attach to anything adhesively and are very difficult to remove without damaging them.

Rose pruning

 

I’ve started pruning my roses. This is a process that takes several weeks since I have limited time and a lot of roses. Some people say to wait until new growth begins before pruning. I’ve pruned as early as Christmas or as late as March and I’ve noticed no difference. I suspect that those recommendations are for people in colder areas who get winter damage. Here, I’ve only seen winter damage on tender roses like Tea roses (NOT Hybrid Tea roses). Pruning makes one very acutely aware of how thorny a rose is. The first photo shows ‘Munstead Wood’ which is one of the thorniest roses in my garden. The thorns of each rose is as distinctive as the flowers. 

Helleborus x ericsmithii ‘Champion’

 

Many of my hellebores are dwindling as the trees above them get larger, taking more light and moisture. I'm sad to see 'Champion getting smaller and with fewer flowers.  I tried watering them more this summer, and that helped a little, but not enough. The trees (redbuds in this case) will still take much of the water. You might think that I could just increase the watering regimen on the automatic irrigation, but this would flood the other areas that the timer controls, not just the area with 'Champion' and my H. nigers ('Jacob', 'Nell Lewis' and 'Joseph Lemper'). It's a bit of a juggling act. I also tried thinning out the tree canopy, and that helped a little also, but probably not enough. H. x ericsmithii is a hybrid between H. x sternii and H. niger.

'Quito' Hippeastrum

 

'Quito' is a very tall Hippeastrum. It was new for me last year and it is interesting to compare this year (above) with last year (below). With a year's growth and not having the roots dried out during shipping, the stems are another third taller. It could also be due to there being cloudy weather for more than a week during its growth phase. There are two stems this year (and one that bloomed in the middle of summer). One stem last year. Only one baby bulb coming up as compared to the prolific 'La Paz'.  I hope it makes many more to make a nice cluster. I suppose I could buy a few more, but it's more fun to see how it grows. 

 

 

This photo above makes it look like last year's photos were more ruffled, but when opening, they looked similar to how this years look (they started opening last night). We shall see in the next few days. 

 

Redtwig…rose!

 

No, this is not redtwig osier, but Wood’s rose again. I’ve seen Wood’s rose grow streamside in the wild, like Cornus stolonifera or Cornus alba, but I’ve also seen it growing on a dry hillside. It’s not as bright as the osiers, but it does provide nice winter color with drought tolerance. Similar to the osiers, it grows as a suckering shrub. What it has that the osiers don’t have, are colorful hips which can also last all winter, fragrant pink spring flowers, and thorns (of varying degrees, some plants are nearly thornless, some are very thorny, most have few small thorns). 

Rosa woodsii, hips or stems?

 

Rosa woodsii really shines during this season. Some have more hips and grey stems and some have more hips and red stems. Some have tons on hips but only some years. And some have hips that are shiny sparkling beads while others have hips that fade to dull or brown when the weather goes below freezing. Most hips are red in the fall, but some are orange. There are also a variety of plant forms, from only a foot or so tall, to more than 5 feet. Some plants form a thicket of single canes from underground stems (like bamboo) while others make mostly a single plant with multiple branches canes (like a lilac). I’m not sure how much is related to culture, but I bet size is, and perhaps how juicy the hips are and whether they freeze in cold weather or are dry and stay preserved. When I wanted some Rosa woodsii for my garden, I was lucky to be able to choose from among many varieties, since I planned to take cuttings from public plantings in my neighborhood. The one I took cuttings from is about 4 feet tall, growing on a west facing slope (hot and dry, but irrigated by the neighborhood landscape system). It has bright red young stems which turn grey as they get older, and a moderate amount of shiny sparkling red hips that last through the winter. I took those cuttings last spring, and I will see how they perform in a garden setting this coming year. 

Streptocarpus ‘Bristol’s Smelly Cat’

 

First bloom on Streptocarpus ‘Bristol’s Smelly Cat’. It’s a rare fragrant strep, not smelling like a cat at all. 

‘Sharifa Asma’ cutting

 It’s hard to believe, but my records show that I took this cutting of ‘Sharifa Asma’ on 10/31/2021. First signs of growth on December 7, and it was potted up on December 13. This bloom is not quite what the blooms will look like on mature plants, but the perfume is intense! #sharifaasmarose #davidaustinroses