We read the botanical web so you don’t have to. In this edition: plants, old plants, and really old plants.
Wikipedia: Judean Date Palm Seeds of a 2,000-year-old, extinct date palm are discovered in Israel, sit in university storage for 40 years, then finally planted. One grows!
Extraordinary 298-Million-Year-Old Forest Discovered Under Chinese Coal Mine Or: 32,000 years? Hah! How about 298 million years? “During the Permian, which extends from 299 to 251 million years ago, there weren’t conifers or flowers. Plants reproduced like ferns, using spores, and the modern continents were still joined in a single mass of land called Pangaea.”
All the Time in the World “What a charred ancient tree can teach us about impermanence, deep time, and our place in the universe.” A bittersweet tale of The Senator, a tree that fell after 3,500 years.
Since my last post showed my back yard in the beginning of a project, I thought it would be nice to show off a greener spot this time.
That big, round bush is Geranium maderense. (Yes, really, it’s a Geranium, though it looks nothing like the usual suspects.) I snapped the inset photo back in November 2010 after I purchased it from a SF Botanical Garden sale. Today, it’s almost as tall as the Norfolk Island Pine beside it.
Geranium maderense is a biannual, which means it takes two years to complete its growth cycle, which means it should explode into tons of pink blooms in a few months. It’s also monocarpic, which means that when it does, that will signal the end of its life. Hopefully I’ll get to collect seeds and start the process over. For now, I’m loving its spiky leaves, red stems, and perfect half-circle shape.
When we bought our place a few years ago, the back yard was already really nice. There was a good watering system and lots of happy plants. So our first few years here, I just maintained it. I put in a plant here and there, but it’s a small yard, so I mostly planted stuff in containers.
I think it was the Potato Bush (Lycianthes rantonnei) that pushed me over the edge. It’s a shrub, technically, but it was huge, leggy, and ate up the entire back corner of the yard (which is one of the best spots, sun-wise, in a mostly shady yard). It was pretty enough, with small purple flowers that appeared throughout the year. But it was an aggressive beast, shading out everything under it, requiring frequent pruning. It took me a few years of trimming and muttering about it before I finally decided. It had to go.
Side story: The bush put out long, straight branches. After one pruning, I kept some of the nice branches to use as stakes. They sat under my deck for months before I finally used some to put up some netting in the vegetable garden. A few weeks into their stake duties, I noticed something: they were growing new leaves. The fuckers actually rooted. Tough dude.
Because I’m an idiot, I always forget to take “before” photos. So you’ll just have to imagine a bush that reached 20 feet tall, 15 feet wide, and sent branches up so high they eventually bent down just because of gravity. Also, I think he was a drinker.
First I cut all the branches off with a hand pruner. (This really put my new Felcos to the test, and I hate to say it, but they didn’t do well. I liked the Bahcos much more. If you want details, remind me to write a review.) Then I used a tree saw to cut off the thick stems, some of which were 2-3 inches wide. This filled three SF green bins, so it took a few weeks to get them all out. (No room for a mulch pile in our tiny yard.)
Then I unearthed the rootball using a combination of a shovel, a pickaxe, and manly grunting noises. When I finally got the thing out, it was 2 feet wide and 3 feet deep. It was important to get it out because I’ve heard this plant can be leveled and still come back. And I needed the space for the new plants, of course.
I’m especially proud that I did this all without destroying the soft, black plastic watering system, which I kept finding new sections of. When you work in a garden someone else set up, it’s always a surprise what you find just under the surface. I also found what I think was once a marble cutting board.
I shoveled out a garbage can’s worth of dirt. It’s mostly sand here (which explains a lot), leaving me with a helluva hole. I added two large bags of good soil (Sloat Bay Area Blend, which I love) and a bit of E. B. Stone Sure Start because I’m superstitious like that. I mixed it all in and tried to blend the natural soil in as best I could so it wouldn’t form a waterlogged pocket.
Now, finally, the fun part. Planting new things. See that huge concrete wall in the background? That’s why the previous gardener chose the Lycianthes. So whatever I plant, it needs to grow tall without going too wide to obscure the ugly wall.
In the back, I planted three Tree Dahlias (Dahlia imperialis), two purple-flowered and one white, all from the SF Botanical Garden where they grow, true to their name, like trees (20 feet tall or more in a single season). They’re incredible, but they are perennials, so I need something else to obscure the wall when they die back in winter.
In between the Tree Dahlias, I planted two Brugmansias (B. sanguinea ‘Inca Queen’ and B. vulcanicola). They’re evergreen, so they should do the job of hiding the wall all year. They also have amazing yellow/red flowers. They come from cool, cloudy mountain climates, so they should be a great fit for my back yard’s natural microclimate. We have another Brugmansia (fuzzy leaves, white flowers, not sure which species) that went from a small 6-inch pot to the size of a refrigerator in a year, so I’m feeling confident about Brugmansias in our yard.
Those are all the tall, wall-obscuring plants. Now I have an opportunity to plant in front of them. So I added a bunch of medium-sided Dahlia bulbs (‘Electric Light,’ ‘Purple Gem,’ ‘Avignon,’ and ‘Vancouver’) that my wife picked out at Sloat. I’ve never grown Dahlias before, so I’m excited to give it a go. I hear they need a lot of sun to bloom, so if they’re going to be happy anywhere in our yard, that’s the spot.
After weeks of weekend work, we’re left with … this.
I know, it doesn’t look like much now, but in a few months it should be packed with life. The groundcover (Lamiastrum) will make its way back in no time. And the Tree Dahlias already have growth spikes.
This has been a liberating experience. It’s the first corner of the yard I’ve really had my way with, and the experience has me looking at the rest of the yard with new eyes. Up next? I’ve never really been a fan of those Hydrangea….
The Perfect Potting Area I have potting area envy. Most of my potting takes place in my kitchen. I must figure something better out. Perhaps this will be my botanical resolution for 2012.
So you may have noticed I went a little Amaryllis crazy this year. I’ve still got one in bud (I love a late-bloomer), but most holiday-timed Amaryllis have done their thing by now. If you’ve got one that’s done blooming, here are some tips for what to do next.
Check the flower spike for late buds. Remember, each stem can support several flowers (some as many as 6) and they don’t always bloom at the same time.
If there are no more buds, and all the flowers are spent, and you don’t care about harvesting seed, you can cut the flower stalk off at the base. Check it out when you do – it’s practically hollow. Kind of amazing how it can hold all those flowers up.
From now on, treat the plant as you would any other houseplant. Put it in bright, indirect light. Water sparingly, making sure the pot never sits in water (which will cause rot).
In July, stop watering, cut any remaining leaves off, say “goodnight,” and put the pot someplace cool and dark. This will put the plant into dormancy. I’ve had success using the garage or the back of a kitchen cabinet.
Then, in November, wake the plant up by putting it back in the light. Water sparingly until you see new growth.
If all goes well, you should get another flower! Then just repeat the process.
That’s what I do, anyway. I have to admit, they don’t always flower again. Sometimes I forget to take them out of dormancy and they wither away. That’s what plant shops are for.
For the gardeners in the audience: What’s your post-bloom Amaryllis routine? Do you have any special techniques for encouraging them to reflower? Please share.
Back in November, I planted Titan Arum seeds (aka Amorphophallus titanum, aka “the botanical rockstar”). In December, the first one spiked. Now it’s about a foot tall and is unfurling its first leaf.
Shortly after I took this photo, I transplanted the young seedling into a slightly larger pot. It still lives in a plastic bag, under lights, on a heating mat, but it’s about to outgrow all three. Short of moving to moving to Sumatra or smuggling it into the Conservatory of Flowers, I’m not sure what I’ll do next.
Okay, so I may have gone overboard on the Amaryllistimelapses this year, but don’t worry, this one is worth it.
Amaryllis (Hippeastrum) “Aphrodite”. One photo every minute for 24 hours. It goes red during the second half because it’s opening at night. As usual, the music (Elliot Smith’s “Bye”) is used with admiration if not permission.
We read the botanical web so you don’t have to. In this edition: plants, old plants, and really old plants.
