Cool Winter Blues

Cool winter blues...or do I have the blues because the winter isn't cool?

A visit to the Favorite Local Garden Center.  Haven't been in days, and was starting to suffer from I-need-a-new-plant symptoms.  This blue beauty seems to have a confusing wealth of names.  Senecio/Cineraria/Florist Cineraria, has been re-classified as Pericallis x hybrida.  

Some of the most stunning blue you can find, outside of the sky:


Any name you care to use, they are far happier along the coast than inland with Santa Ana winds to desiccate them.  This is not a plant for spells of 7% relative humidity.  Plus no way am I going to spend $12 for a winter annual.  The same goes for the amazing ornamental kales.



My Sweetie glumly surveyed the orderly rows of Kale and was not impressed.  "Looks like a damn cabbage farm,"  he grumbled.
 


True, but a very attractive cabbage farm. 

Change Of Weather (We Hope)

Rosa 'Litchfield Angel':

 
After three weeks of golden 80 F (27 C) weather, we suddenly have a cool-down and a slight chance of scattered showers.   Moving two roses was still done in blazing sun, though a cold breeze refreshed  considerably. 

Rosa 'Easy Does It', in a not-very-good (too shady!) spot:
 

I moved 'Easy Does It' and 'Litchfield Angel' from not-very-good spots to the excellent spots formerly occupied by 'Easy Going' and 'Andre le Notre'.  Both transplants had small root systems and were easy to dig up.  The soil in their new spots was loose and already well amended due to a decade of mulching with quality compost. 

Ice plant 'Cherry Bomb':


I also noted the ice plant 'Cherry Bomb' (genus/species unknown) I bought on a whim this time last year was in full bloom, looking quite glorious.   The camera cannot capture the intensity of the pink of this flower.   I will check future Google Earth photos of our house--if they happen to post one taken when 'Cherry Bomb' is blooming, the searing pink should be quite visible, even though the plant is only about 10" in diameter.

All the rain followed by all the warmth and sunshine produced Tazetta narcissus flowers quickly.  I've pulled most of the ones originally planted on the front slope.  They do not quite agree with the Agaves and Aloes.  A few evaded my shovel.  Originally they were mixed in with the so-called "Dutch" Iris, which all died because the slope was just too arid.  The Tazetta narcissus thought the bone-dry slope was just fine and dandy.  They multiplied like rabbits. 
 


Speaking of Agaves, I've tentatively decided that the Agave I bought labeled as A. guingola is really A. tequiliana, possibly 'Webers Blue'.  It's just down the slope a bit from the Agave that was supposed to be A. ovatifolia, and isn't. 


Tentatively A. tequiliana is tres bleu, but probably too close to the street armed as it is with nasty terminal spines.  I noticed a bit of cold damage on the oldest leaves, which is what leads me to believe that this is A. tequiliana--its more cold sensitive than a lot of other Agaves.   Maybe I'll move this one.  It can reportedly sucker 6' away from the original rosette.  That sounds a wee bit intrusive. 

Decidedly non-intrusive little hybrid Aloe 'Blue Elf' has just sent up flower shoots.  Its foliage is bluer in summer dryness and heat:


And the double whammy of 12" of rain followed by three weeks of perfect warmth has made Aloe marlothii (I think) very happy.  It was yellowed during summer, and I was concerned.  It's fat and happy now:


So, actual rain?  Please.  All that warmth dried everything out too thoroughly. 

Grafted Rose Autopsies

Rosa 'Easy Going':

'Easy Going' unfortunately preferred growing extremely tall to blooming.  I experimented with hard pruning between flushes, in the hopes of keeping it short.  It preferred to grow tall again before blooming, which doomed it.  'Easy Going' had excellent rust and mildew resistance, and would still be in the ground had it stayed reasonably short, say under six feet (2 meters).  I do not want a 4 meter floribunda. 

'Easy Going' was originally a grafted plant with a 'Dr Huey' root system.  An autopsy revealed that it had own-rooted itself thoroughly, without any root or crown gall.  The remainder of the 'Dr Huey' roots were disappearing as the 'Easy Going' root system thrived.

'Easy Going', with plenty of its own roots:


To allow a grafted rose to "go own-root", plant so that the entire bud union is either just below the surface, or halfway buried.  Some roses easily go own-root, and produce a forest of canes (and a blizzard of flowers).  Some roses simply don't go own root.  This may be a function of the number of dormant bud eyes in the wood--few bud eyes, few opportunities for roots to sprout. 

The Austin rose 'Tamora', orginally grafted, now an own-root thicket of canes that produce a tumult of flowers:
 

'Easy Going' grew so large it became a nursery for birds:
 

Adios, 'Easy'. 

Rosa 'Andre le Notre' aka 'Betty White', in a rare moment of beauty:


'Andre le Notre was a replacement for another rose, 'Abbaye de Cluny', that suffered horribly from Thrips damage.
 'Abbaye de Cluny', the King of Thrips:


'Andre' aka 'Betty' unfortunately suffered from the same problem, though not quite to the same extreme.  Most of my roses are always heavily infested with Thrips.  Some, however, show little or no damage.  The pale-colored flowers of high-centered form, of which 'Andre le Notre' was one, are the most vulnerable to damage.  The best way to prevent Thrips damage is to spray the individual flower buds with a virulent chemical pesticide, which I chose not to do.  Bye bye, 'Andre'.  Bummer.  It was a beauty when it was beautiful, which was rare.

This originally grafted rose was in the process of own-rooting itself as well:

 
Red arrows indicate the 'Andre le Notre' roots sprouting from the bud union.  Purple arrows indicate the original shank where the 'Dr Huey' was grafted with the 'Andre le Notre' budeyes.  The green arrow indicates the bud union, and the blue arrow indicates the 'Dr. Huey' roots, still active.
 


Here's another example of a grafted rose going own-root.  This time the roots are sprouting from one of the canes that came in contact with the ground.  Austin roses, like 'Mary Rose' will often do this: 


So, my conclusions on 'Easy Going' and 'Andre le Notre'.  An autopsy (if you could call it that) revealed neither rose was suffering from a devastating disease like root gall.  They were in adequate locations with sufficient water and nutrients.  Both roses were growing and vigorous. Yet I dug them up, though not without regret.  They did not meet high expectations.   My fault or theirs?  Must fault always be assigned?  I used to think so.  Not so much any more. 

Learn and move on.  That is the way of the gardener, and of the world.

Leaf And Shadow

The Moral Hazards Of Little Potted Succulents

I read on a blog far better than my own--was it Danger Garden's?  Spiky Obsession's?  Desert Dweller's?--that some Echeveria flower stems will root.  I didn't doubt it for a moment, but I had to see it for myself.

Yep, they root!


Otherwise, some frustration in the garden.  A whole lot of roses left to prune, and nowhere to put the prunings.  The green waste bins are full, the trash-trash bin is close to full as well--stuffed with rose clippings, just a corner left for the actual trash-trash.   Trash day is not until tomorrow.  I have extra buckets of trimmings waiting for disposal.  Should I walk around the neighborhood tonight in the dark, looking for space in neighbor's bins, like a bag lady in reverse?  Oh, dear. 

I left the roses alone and looked to all the succulent pots, dried out now from our December rainy season. 

All the tiny Echeverias grown (very, very slowly--I neglected them horribly) from the leaves pulled off last year's flower stems were crowded in their little plate of dried-up potting mixture, so I planted them in the ground on a slope where, theoretically, they could be very happy--a little morning sun, a lot of bright afternoon shade, and perfect drainage. I ended up with over twenty-five little plants clustered together on the slope.  They may thrive eventually and form a bronze-green galaxy of pinwheels right abut the stairway, perfect for close admiration.     One hungry snail could ruin it all.   



I had a new rooted Senecio vitalis for the front slope.  A small piece rooted in a week.  New stems sprouting in three.  Planting the Senecio, I saw Cotyledon 'Happy Dancing Girl had dozens of fat grey finger-shaped leaves knocked off its formerly pristine perfect form.  Coyote maybe, or rabbit.  Ideally, coyote chasing and catching rabbit.

Now I have lots and lots of loose Cotyledon leaves.  Scrounging around the Google, it appears that Cotyledon leaves of some species will root, so I'll give it a try, and let you know.   Dozens of leaves reminds me of The Moral Dangers Of Little Potted Succulents.   We all start with one cute little succulent in a pot on a sunny window sill, don't we?  The wise among us stop there.  The rest of us fools collect, propagate, trade, hunt, form wish lists, sneak broken bits picked up off garden center floors, ask both friends and enemies for cuttings, and eventually end up with a...succulent garden?  No, with a...storage problem!

They're not happy, I'm not happy:

 
A lot of cute little pots eventually are a lot of clutter.  Where non-succulent plants would simply die of neglect, the gardener then free to throw everything out, lesson learned--maybe--succulents endure.  Like the old advice to parents, "Live long enough to become an annoyance to your children," those cute little succulents are a silent reproach, a persistent reminder of self indulgence, overdoing it, overreaching one's time and energy.  At this point, the wise among the foolish who did not stop at one on the window sill figure out some way to make that clutter look attractive and manageable. 

Must get this under control...
 

Ideas:  groups of those that both look good together and have the same growing requirements.   That requires design talent.  Uh-oh. 

Nice uniform shelves with a few carefully staged, masterfully cultivated plants, like a bonsai show.  That requires getting rid of a lot of plants.  Uh-oh.

Uniformity--using the same size and type of pot for all the different kinds of plants, and rowing them up neatly.  The same pot creates a structure and rhythm that makes all that aquisition look on purpose. That, maybe I can pull off. 

As you can see by these pictures, I need to get to work--though I have seen worse--two foot dandelions and other weeds growing amidst a mess of empty and overflowing succulent pots crammed on sagging pieces of grey plywood stretched between frail sawhorses...shudder.  It's time to do something before I succumb to that.   Succulent clutter is bad for the plants themselves, not just the eyes and the self-respect. 

Now that I have perhaps illustrated the dangers of wanton irresponsible cute-succulent accumulation...who wants a Cotyledon? They're really cute!

Just A Fish Picture

Just A Fish Picture.  Rose pruning continues at as frantic a pace as I can manage. 

x Gasteraloe 'Green Ice'

Roots.  Does a root system somehow push all the potting soil out of the pot, or does the potting media deteriorate to the point of nothingness?  I did plant this x Gasteraloe 'Green Ice' in plenty of potting soil a year or two ago. After 10 minutes of shaking yesterday, I manged to shake it out of the pot in which it was firmly wedged.   At least I didn't have to worry about the soil getting too soggy:  there wasn't any.

Time to repot?


I really had roses to prune.  I was in the process of doing so out in the blazing sun, but it was at least 80F (27 C) if not more, and 80F in January seems hotter than 80F in July.  I was ready to faint from the heat, and so retreated into the shade and repotted 'Green Ice'.

Happy now? 
 

Then I moved onto another potted plant, my poor 'Disneyland' rose, which has been suffering in a pot since early October due to the koi pond remodel.  The pond guys put it back in the ground when they were done, but the electrical guys dug it right back up again trying to repair my sprinkler system.  The rose was in a 20 gallon pot of mud for all of rainy rainy December.  The soil was only now dry enough to replant.  Since it was  shaded in the area, I got to work.



Oh dear.  The root system was....missing.   All I could do was remove some cane to make the top a little more proportional to what was left of the roots.



I replanted it, but I'm not hopeful.  I think it will languish and then slip into miserable decline.  I'm going to miss this one, and may have to go looking for another. 

Going to miss this one.  See why? 

Planting A "Bare Root" Rose

A few years ago most bare root roses were sold in what we rosarians call "body bags": tubular plastic bags filled with the roses' root system and stuffed with damp sawdust filler, with the canes sticking out the top of the bag.  The discount home stores still sell them this way.  A few quality garden centers may still sell them truly bare root, stored in bins filled with wet sand, but that practice is also vanishing.  Currently in this area bare root roses are mainly sold in paper pulp pots for longer shelf life--they don't dry out quite as fast as the body bags--and at (of course) higher prices. 



I've long preferred the ones from bins of wet sand.  That being unavailable now, I bought one copy of the recent climbing rose 'Purple Splash' in a pulp pot.  This company encloses the pulp pot in a plastic bag, which appears to be a good idea--the pulp pot was mostly broken down by moisture when I opened it.  There were new white feeder roots growing and the potting media was moist but not soggy:  ideal.  The plant looked pretty good:  several new basal stems (canes) sprouting (always the ones to pick) and no black soggy tips on the cut ends of the canes (a sign of poor storage, or long storage, in my experience). 

Looking good!


When I tore away the pulp pot, I discovered the roots were wound around inside the pot.  I straightened them and spread them out in the planting hole.  Once rose roots are wound around, they don't straighten out.  I didn't mind the wound-around roots; it's better than seeing them all cut short.  I knew enough to tear away the pulp pot and straighten them out before planting.  The more root the better.

 A green bin for temporary shade until Baby can settle in:

A lot of water in the planting, and then because it is brilliantly warm and sunny, and likely to be windy and dry the next few days, I put a bin between the newly planted rose and the sun, creating a temporary shady spot for the rose.   This will reduce stress on the canes and new foliage.  Some people recommend removing all the foliage at planting to prevent the canes from drying out, but I just shade the plant for a couple of weeks, and water generously, until the new roots get going.  

So 'Purple Splash', your turn to go to work, cover this up for me, please.  I'm sick of seeing it bare: 


I had 'Alister Stella Grey'  on that tower for a while.  It was beautiful, fragrant, repeated like made, free of all rust and mildew, and then it suddenly died.  I have no clue as to why.  I mourned it for a few years.  Dithered about planting another.  Dug around and tried to figure out why it died.  Thought about this-or-that climbing Tea or Noisette, then thought about the years of waiting for the Tea or Noisette to finally settle and take off and cover that silly tower.  Hence, 'Purple Splash'.  It just occurred to me that this 'Purple Splash' will be the back drop for bright yellow 'Julia Child'.  I never even thought of it, but a purple and white background to a rich yellow should be nice.

Simple Dream

The simple California dream: not the one about going to Hollywood and becoming a movie star, nor the one about making a fortune in Silicon Valley. The old simple dream about walking out the back door in January into brilliant warm sunlight and picking a sweet citrus and eating it right there, with the juice running down your fingers.

The best dream, the one that comes true.



Blogging has been neglected in favor of actual gardening. Because of the glorious wet December followed by an equally glorious warm January I'm rose pruning as fast as I can because the roses are rapidly sprouting new foliage.



The rosemary has burst into bloom and is crawling with happy bees.


The bareroot strawberries I bought last Sunday as little ragged clumps of brown string...


And the baby Oaks are growing too.


January in California is sometimes a dream come true.

Basic Rose Pruning Rules: 3 "D"s, 3 "T"s, and Balance

I have a lot of time to think when I'm pruning hundreds of roses, so I started thinking about how to boil rose pruning down to a few simple, easy-to-remember rules. This is what I came up with:

THE THREE "D"S

Remove anything Dead, Damaged, or Diseased--for obvious reasons.

THE THREE "T"S

Remove anything Thinner than a pencil (unless the normal healthy mature growth is all thinner than a pencil).

Remove anything very Tired (several years old and no longer productive) (unless very Tired is all you have left).

Take brief notes or photos, so you can remember what you did this year, to help yourself out with pruning next year. Review your photos and notes before you go out and prune. It will help you decide how to proceed. Sometimes you can't see improvement or decline without contrasting it with how the plants looked a few years ago, and who can remember, off the top of their heads, how they pruned last year?

Lastly, balance: balance preservation with stimulation

You want to preserve as much of the plant as you can because roses store energy in their canes. When you cut off cane (stem) you are cutting off stored energy that the rose had planned to use during tough times. So why prune at all, then? For stimulation. Balance out the need to preserve stored energy with the need to stimulate vigorous new growth.

Imagine a rose with a few nice strong canes, pruned back to the same spot on each for several years. (I see roses like this often.) Those canes will age and decline over time. You'll end up with a rose that has a few very old canes and nothing else. Doom. Remove enough to stimulate a new cane or two every year, if you can, but don't overdo it. You can't glue it back on.

It should be noted that some varieties just don't grow very many new canes no matter what you do. They just don't. After a period of time all you can do is dig it out and plant a new one. Its the nature of the beast.

The various details about outward facing buds, angle of cut, the right time to prune, and so on are all helpful, but the rules outlined above I think is the essence of the thing. Now back to the great outdoors. I have a lot more roses left to prune.