GB 111 Establishing Low Water Plants. Tart Cherries. The Smoke Tree. TRANSCRIPT
29:58
SPEAKERS
Debbie Flower, Warren Roberts, Phil Pursel, Farmer Fred
Farmer Fred 00:00
Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots, the original lightweight, long lasting fabric plant container. it's made in the USA. Visit SmartPots.com slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's SmartPots.com/Fred.
Farmer Fred 00:20
Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, you've come to the right spot.
Farmer Fred 00:32
Much of the western United States right now is under extreme drought conditions. Watering restrictions are already being established in many places. If this is the new normal, and you want to landscape in the future, low water use plants, especially native plants, might be part of your new yard. But just because they will eventually become able to thrive with less water, they will still need regular watering after planting for a short time. Today, we talk about the watering precautions necessary when putting in low water-use plants. And the Plant of the Week is a plant that does its best in poor soil. And it puts on a show for an extended period throughout its wide growing region. It's the smoke tree. Plus we're talking about the best tart cherry varieties to plant. It's all on episode 111 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots and Dave Wilson nursery. And we'll do it all in under 30 minutes. Let's go.
Farmer Fred 01:35
There's a lot of interest these days about growing low water use plants, native plants, plants that don't require much water once they're established. And that is the key to establishing a native plant or a low water use plant before you turn off the water. That "mm-hmm" belonged to Debbie Flower, retired college horticultural professor,who is here at Barking Dogs studio with us today. A lot of people make the mistake, when they go to a nursery, they might buy a perfectly good low water use plant thinking, "Oh, it doesn't require much water, I can just stick this in the ground walk away, and it'll do fine.'
Debbie Flower 02:14
Mm hmm. No, That was something that I did a lot of reading about while I was doing my master's thesis at UC Davis. And there was somebody else's PhD thesis that I was reading about just exactly that, taking a plant, putting it in the ground from a container, planting it into the landscape, and how do you water it so it will survive? When do the roots get established? So let's think about that plant that we just purchased. It's in a container of some sort. And that container contains media of some sort. Everybody's mix is different. There are as many container media mixes as there are people mixing. But in general, they are very high in organic matter and very open to allow water and oxygen to penetrate them and the roots to grow, we are going to put that medium with the roots of the plant into our field soil, which is very low in organic matter. If you have 2% to 5% organic matter in your field soil, that's about normal. If you've used mulch for many years, and it's broken down, it might go up as high as 10%. But in the landscape that's about as high as you're going to get it. In the container, it's 50%, maybe more than that. So this change in texture between the container soil and the field soil creates a problem for water movement. The plant has all its roots in the container soil, has been living in the container, has been watered in the container, has been fertilized in the container. Now, you're going to put that into the ground. It came out to be about six weeks. These were one gallon plants that I was reading about in that PhD thesis. For about six weeks, you need to water the container soil itself. It's in the ground now. But you have to get the water directly into that container media very frequently. In a hot California summer, it can be daily, it can be twice a day. So it depends where you are, how hot it is, whether you've had any rain, but you need to get water to that container soil very, very frequently for the first six weeks. And then in those six weeks, you watered this field soil around the plant once a week. That's a difficult situation to create. I did create it when I was working on my thesis. We actually cut the tops off of one gallon pots and made little collars around the planted one gallon plants and those collars were raised above ground so we could have pushed into the ground as well so that we could water directly into that container media and it wouldn't flow out into the field soil at home. I don't do that at home. I plant the plant and I lay out a sprinkler of some sort or a soaker hose, set it to a timer on a hose bib and have it go off every day every other day depending on the weather. And water that plant for about six weeks, and then I'll I don't just take it away, I'll move it away further away from the plant. The thesis said that I read said, the roots of the one gallon container plants had grown into the field soil after six weeks. So all of a sudden, these plants were able to take moisture up from the field soil, but they couldn't do it before that. And so you have to create the conditions where you're not saturating the plant, not getting too much water into the container soil or into the field soil, but you're getting enough that the plant doesn't die.
Farmer Fred 05:37
So it sounds like a spiral of a soaker hose, for example, that starts off basically, around that root ball of the plant, and then spirals out a little bit more and a little bit more would be the ideal way for moistening. Or maybe it would take two soaker hoses, right, with the one closest to the plant being on more frequently than the outer one.
Debbie Flower 06:01
Right. And I'm typically planting into a bed that already has irrigation that comes on. Actually sometimes it doesn't come on except once every two weeks. And so I'm using the soaker hose, I just string it around from plant to plant. If I've planted a lot of little plants, then I'll move it from plant to plant and keep it very close to the base of the plant because that's where the media, the container media is. Yes, I'm watering some field soil in between, but there is drier field soil around that plant. And then it gets its usual irrigation once a week or once every two weeks depending on what that I've put it in.
Farmer Fred 06:34
I would think a couple of other strategies for putting in low water use plants would be the timing of this. And that timing could include not only the time of the year, but the time of the day that you put these plants in.
Debbie Flower 06:47
I will have plants and wait and check the weather. I'll have plants and pots that I've purchased. I have some right now. And I'll check the weather until there's a cooler day. Now we're in the heat of summer. So that's not real frequent, but a cooler day and often plant in the evening when the direct sun is not so strong. And another thing i do, this sounds very odd. I've never seen anyone else do it. But I'll make little paper hats out of newspaper or if you have some large piece of paper, shape them, you just use scotch tape make a little hat and anchor them with irrigation line anchors those metal hooks. And yes, they turn brown and they start to rip. But the first few days when that plant is is out of the container it was grown in a field and it was totally surrounded by other container plants that were about the same size. So the wind was low on that plant. It may have been grown in partial shade, many growing facilities are in partial shade because the plants grow better. Now you're taking it away from all those other plants, it's totally exposed on all sides to the sun in the wind. And it's not under shade, or it's probably under less shade than it was in its growing grass. So it has to adjust all these changes in its environment. So putting that little paper cap on it helps it eliminate some of those things that are hard for that plant to deal with. And the paper doesn't last very long and when it starts to shred and blow around the garden, I go out and throw it away and that's as long as it stays on the plant. But I find it very helpful. I did it to a ceanothus that I planted in summer and it worked very well, both the the soaker hose and the little paper hat.
Farmer Fred 08:27
Ceanothus is also known as California lilac, it is notorious for hating summer water when established. It needs to be off on its own circuit, away from other plants that are getting regular water definitely for it to have a long life. And frankly, the ceanothus in California...10-15 years, probably, is their life.
Debbie Flower 08:46
if they're irrigated. Yes, yeah. Yes. So yeah, it sounds counterintuitive to do this to water ceanothus after you've planted it.
Farmer Fred 08:54
However, you've often preached of the benefits of moistening the soil before you plant. Will you water thoroughly the area before you put in a low water use plant?
Debbie Flower 09:05
i don't. i water the container to make sure that water has gotten all the way to the bottom of that container. So the plant has something to live on when I put it in these very difficult situations, meaning increased light, increased wind, and new media but I do not irrigate the hole. That is recommended by many people however.
Farmer Fred 09:24
Including you.
Debbie Flower 09:27
Well, that's when I go from container to container, right? I absolutely yes, I use moist media, I water what's in the container and I water what I'm putting it into because the container media often contains peat moss, which is incredibly difficult to wet. But landscape soil, it varies all over the world. So I can't say anything general except that it typically does not contain peat moss. Peat moss is a particular problem to get it wet, and so that's why I always use moist container media.
Farmer Fred 10:01
And you've gotten me into the habit now of using my five gallon buckets to pre-moist any potting soil that I may be thinking of using that day. Just putting the amount of potting mix that I think I'll be using into a big bucket, topping that with water, and letting it sit there while I go do other things and then come back and take that moist soil and put it in the container for replanting.
Debbie Flower 10:27
Yes, I think for container media, it's critical. Field soil, not as much.
Farmer Fred 10:32
The other thought, too, about putting in low water use plants to reduce the stress is maybe planting in fall, when the days are cooler and the soil temperature is still warm and the weather is just more mild.
Debbie Flower 10:44
It's much easier to do. To plant in fall. I prefer to plant in fall. The reason I don't always do it is that the plants aren't always available in fall, right. Having worked at nurseries wholesale and retail and with students at the school growing grounds. You don't want to go through the winter with a lot of plants, material and containers. It takes a lot of labor.
Farmer Fred 11:07
and water.
Debbie Flower 11:08
and water. And they can be persnickety, some don't want water in winter, and some do. It just creates a lot of work. And so the tendency is for nurseries to let their stock quantity decline as you go into the fall so that they don't have to attend to these plants in the winter. So it's sometimes harder to find what you want in fall.
Farmer Fred 11:28
If only you people would just pay attention to all the signs you see in front of nurseries every September, that fall is for planting. Yes, we wouldn't have this issue. Yes, yes, it's all supply and demand really. Alright, so we've established a low water use plant, we've planted it. What about adding mulch? Does that help?
Debbie Flower 11:45
I always try to mulch up to the container soil, not over the container soil. And that helps, as you say repeatedly, do not mulch right up to the base of the plant. And so if you only go up to the container soil, and that goes back to another, another bypass, when you plant container soil-grown plants into the landscape, you plant them, it's called planting proud, someone is proud, they stand up tall. And so you want the container soil out of the ground, out of the field soil. For a one gallon plant, as much as an inch of that container soil sticking out of the landscape soil once you've planted it. A couple of reasons for that. One, if you dug the hole really deep and had to fill it back in, there's air in that media in that landscape soil that's underneath the pot, and that's going to settle and the plant will go down. If you dug it exactly the right depth, Good for you. But you still want the media to stick out because the media itself is full of organic matter, it will break down over time and that plant will settle. And once it settles, if it's below field soil, all the water will flow to it and you're likely to drown the plant and I have drowned them. I've done it here, planted proud, you've got that container media sticking out. Mulch right up to it.
Farmer Fred 13:03
The other thing to consider too, when planting low water use plants is, as we've alluded to, they don't like a lot of water once they're established. So think about where you're going to be planting them. Is it in a low, moist area? Maybe you don't want to put it right there. Maybe you want to put it at the top of a slope or even in a raised bed?
Debbie Flower 13:23
Yes, yes. the ceanothus I've had success with most recently is on a mound. And so I still got the soaker hose running past it. And it's doing very well. I have another ceanothus I want to plant in a different location that is not mounded, but I will put some field soil there to create a mound. That's another option.
Farmer Fred 13:44
How do you keep the sides together on a mound?
Debbie Flower 13:47
Well, you have to slope it gently.
Farmer Fred 13:49
Okay, so the eventual height, that mound, would be about eight inches or so.
Debbie Flower 13:54
I don't think I'll go that high. I think I'll just go three or four. And then plant proud in that mound. That mound will settle. Anytime you move soil, you've added oxygen to it and it settles over time. So I may end up with only a two inch mound, but it's still higher than the field soil around it.
Farmer Fred 14:12
And that soil, because you've made it quite wide, actually can act as a mulch, too.
Debbie Flower 14:19
Right. But I will mulch around it too. Alright.
Farmer Fred 14:22
Okay. Have we established those low water use plants?
Debbie Flower 14:25
Let's see. We planted them. We we put in the irrigation, we mulch them. After six weeks, we take the irrigation off and then you can go to low water use irrigation.
Farmer Fred 14:37
Oh listen, I hear a voice saying how much (watering) is that?
Debbie Flower 14:41
That depends. That's another topic. Yes. Yes. I think we have.
Farmer Fred 14:46
Okay, all right. So low water use plants. You can save money. Mm hmm.
Debbie Flower 14:51
But you got to pay attention when you plant them to get them established.
Farmer Fred 14:55
Debbie Flower, thanks so much for your help on this.
Debbie Flower 14:57
Thank you. My pleasure.
Farmer Fred 15:03
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Farmer Fred 16:27
We like to answer your garden questions here on the Garden Basics podcast. If you have a question, there's a lot of ways to get in touch. You can leave an audio question without making a phone call via speakpipe at speakpipe.com slash gardenbasics. If you want to talk into a telephone, you can do that, too. 916-292-8964. 916-292-8964. You can text us at that number as well, leave some pictures if you'd like. Email? Sure, send it to Fred at FarmerFred dot com. Or you can leave a question at the Facebook, Twitter or Instagram locations (links in the show notes). And we get a question from Indiana, Southern Indiana to be exact, from Rachel. And Rachel writes in: "Hi Fred. I would like to plant a few tart cherry trees on my property this year. I am a beginner at this. So I'm looking for recommendations on what tree would be the most disease and pest resistant. Is there such a thing? We live in southern Indiana in USDA zone six B Thank you." And thank you, Rachel for including your USDA zone and the approximate location where you live, because that helps us answer garden questions. We like to bring in the pros from Dave Wilson nursery to help us out with the fruit tree questions. We're talking with Phil Pursel, and Phil, tart cherry trees...very popular back East and in the Midwest, and they're excellent for cooking, aren't they?
Phil Pursel 18:00
They are. Especially for pies. And that is what you would use, as opposed to the sweet cherry. You'd go with the tart cherry.
Farmer Fred 18:08
All right. And according to Purdue University, tart cherries are about all they recommend for most of Indiana except for some parts, I guess in southern Indiana that don't have quite as cold temperatures, they can grow sweet cherries, but tart cherries are the cherry of choice for Indiana. And according to Purdue, they're saying that there is one variety that does quite well there and it happens to be a rather big staple in the Dave Wilson lineup.
Phil Pursel 18:38
Yeah, so Montmorency is the number one planted tart cherry tree in the country. And it's just because it produces very large, flavorful cherries. It's very productive and you can count on the crop every single year.
Farmer Fred 18:56
The fruit is large. It's got a medium red color, it's tart, it's firm, and the juice is clear. It can be a big tree though, but I would imagine just like in California, in Indiana, you could keep that tree at a reasonable height
Phil Pursel 19:12
You can. Tart cherries are mostly planted on standard root stocks because the tree itself is naturally dwarfing, the Montmorency would be considered a semi dwarf tree on a standard root stock. So that being said, they don't get out of hand like a sweet cherry can, but you can still keep it down to anywhere from eight to 12 foot size and still get plenty of cherries off of it.
Farmer Fred 19:38
I see that it's recommended for a wide variety USDA zones, four through nine, and I guess it's self-fruitful, so basically one tree would do it. Would you get more cherries if you planted two?
Phil Pursel 19:53
Yeah, generally speaking. With most fruit if you add another variety in there to cross pollenize. But it does, you definitely do increase the fruit production on both trees, like you were saying, the sour cherries are unique or all the varieties are self fertile. So if you only have room for one tree, then you don't have to worry about it like some of the sweet cherries, that need a cross pollenizer.
Farmer Fred 20:23
So another variety that you may want to plant in order to get to an even bigger crop, and I see Purdue recommends it and it's part of the Dave Wilson family of tart cherry trees, and that's the North Star.
Phil Pursel 20:36
Yeah, so the North Star is a much more dwarfing tree. And in areas, especially in northern Indiana, that can have a harsh winter, the North Star is even more of a hardy tree than the Montmorency is. Then there's also a favorite, especially for people who are making their own wines, is the English Morello. Out here in California, we're finding that variety is starting to really gain popularity, because of, you know, different cultures making a very unique wine out of it. The sour cherries are super adaptablein climates. They are a lot like persimmons, where you can grow them and down in Southern California and you could grow them in the cold country.
Farmer Fred 21:29
And I would think that growing cherry trees in Indiana is much the same as growing them here. You need good drainage.
Phil Pursel 21:37
You do. One thing that cherry trees must have is good drainage. It's cherry rootstock can suffer from root rot. And so that's the one. thing If you have a wet area in your yard, it's probably best to find another location for that cherry tree. And if you don't have it, and that's the only location you have, then definitely what you want to do is plant that cherry on a mound so they can get established, and it's not sitting in wet soils.
Farmer Fred 22:13
Your mound or a raised bed mounds may be eight inches high raised beds are usually 12 to 16 inches high. But that will certainly give you good drainage.
Phil Pursel 22:21
Yes, it will. Yeah.
Farmer Fred 22:23
All right. We learned a lot about sour tart cherries today, especially for Southern Indiana. Rachael, I hope that helps. I hope you enjoy the Montmorency cherry. If you want more information about growing cherry trees, visit DaveWilson.com and check out their wonderful Fruit Tube video series on YouTube, as well. Phil Pursel, Dave Wilson nursery, thanks for helping us out here.
Phil Pursel 22:46
Thanks a lot for having me.
Farmer Fred 22:56
Are you thinking of growing fruit trees? Well, you probably have a million questions. Like, which fruit trees will grow where I live? What are the tastiest fruits? How do I care for these trees? The answers are nearby. They're just a click away with the informative Fruit Tube video series at DaveWilson.com. That's Dave Wilson nursery, the nation's largest grower of fruit trees for the backyard garden. They've got planting tips, taste test results, links to nurseries in your area that carry Dave Wilson fruit trees. Your harvest to better health begins at DaveWilson.com.
Farmer Fred 23:36
Every week we like to talk with Warren Roberts out of the University of California Davis Arboretum and Public Garden. He is their Superintendent Emeritus. He knows his plants and he always picks out a great plant of the week for us. And this week, Warren, is one of my favorites and it is truly adaptable throughout most of the United States. Is it a tree? Is it a shrub? I don't know, but it sure puts on a show for a long time. It's the Cotinus, the smoke tree.
Warren Roberts 24:03
Yes, that would be Cotinus. There are two species. The main species grown is called cotinus coggygria, pronounced cogsagrea, which is an odd pronunciation but especially as spelled c o g g y g r i a. Evidently it's from the Greek, which was the name used by Theo Francis. So even though it seems like an odd name, it has it has classic roots.
Farmer Fred 24:33
Wow. Yeah, I've always called it" khaja griya". Pronounce it again correctly so I can impress my friends.
Warren Roberts 24:40
Well, you know, if someone should correct your pronunciations of botanical names, a knowing smile is the way to go. But anyway, I learned it as cotinus cogsagrea. I don't know where the Z comes in. But anyway, that's how I learned it. It's called the Smoke tree. The first time I saw it was in the garden of relatives in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, and they call it the smoke tree. But I, as a Californian, knew smoke tree to be Dalea spinosa, or Psorothamnus spinosa, which is in the Pea family, and it looks like smoke, too. The whole plant does. And that's a common plant in washes in the western deserts. But my relatives assured me that this was a smoke tree and that was the old fashion, regular green leaf form. But very impressive, even at that. The development of the species horticulturally, I read that in about 1914, in England the purple leafed form was discovered. Since then, darker purple forms have been selected. And so the leaves are purple. But the main effect to me, Well, it's hard to say which is the main effect. This cloud like inflorescence, tiny flowers on little thin stems making a smoke-like appearance. These purple leaf forms have really magnificent red clouds of flowers. It's really stunning. There's nothing really quite like it. Also, in areas with colder winters, it can give you a good fall color, I'm told.
Farmer Fred 26:33
Yes. I've seen it here with great fall color too.
Warren Roberts 26:37
At any rate, these purple leafed and purple flowered forms are certainly worthwhile growing. Cotinus coggygria is native to the Balkan region and adjacent Asia, that's kind of where it's from. And from then it's it's moved in, in cultivation throughout much of the world actually. But there is also an American species, Cotinus obovatus, native to the southeastern U.S. I think when we discuss horse chestnut trees, the Buckeyes, there's a relationship there in the Balkans is the horse chestnut, and in the Americas, you have these other Buckeyes and hybrids are made between those, as in the case of the smoke tree hybrids have been made between the Cotinus obovatus and Cotinus coggygria and there's a selection called Grace. Cotinus Grace. It is a hybrid between the two species. And I don't know why it's called Grace because it's not very graceful. I have experience with several of them. But if the cotinus is awkward looking. just prune it a bit. It responds well to pruning. The American species is called American smoke tree. It's also called chittum wood or yellow wood. And it can be up to, the record is 54 feet high. Cotinus coggygria, the record there in the US at least is about 30 feet 35 feet high. So both of these are large, large shrubs, and they are deciduous, they lose the leaves in the winter, but they're certainly worth growing and these really rich colored cultivars are really worth searching out and planting in your garden.
Farmer Fred 28:31
Yeah, the Cotinus coggygria typically here gets maybe 15 to 25 feet tall. It's more shrublike than a massive tree, but that smoke though, how beautiful is that? The dramatic puffs of smoke from the fading flowers, and they last for months. They're gorgeous.
Warren Roberts 28:52
They really are. It's a favorite of mine.
Farmer Fred 28:55
It's the smoke tree. Warren Roberts, Superintendent emeritus of the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden. Thanks so much for telling us about the Cotinus coggygria. And you can find out more when you visit the Arboretum, at arboretum.uc davis.edu. Warren thanks so much.
Warren Roberts 29:19
I'm glad to be able to share this enthusiasm with you.
Farmer Fred 29:24
I thought for sure you'd say, "I was glad to blow some smoke your way."
Farmer Fred 29:32
Garden Basics comes out every Tuesday and Friday and is brought to you by Smart Pots. It’s available just about anywhere podcasts are handed out. And that includes Apple podcasts, I Heart Radio, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Podcast Addict, CastBox and Google podcasts. And for Northern California gardeners, check out this podcast: the Green Acres Garden Podcast with Farmer Fred, also available wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening, subscribing and leaving comments. We appreciate it.
