GB 121 Monoculture. Daylilies. Japanese Maples.
29:55
SPEAKERS
Chris Aycock, Debbie Flower, Amanda Pollock Pines, Warren Roberts, 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
We've talked about the importance of rotating your food crops. Well, did you know the same is true for much of the rest of your landscape? Our favorite retired college horticultural Professor, Debbie Flower, will explain. During July we're giving away Smart Pots when listeners submit audio questions. If we use it on the podcast, you'll be getting a new, six foot long Smart Pot raised bed fabric planter, just like Amanda from the Sierra foothills who's wondering how to use all those pine needles on her property. The Plant of the Week: it's a gorgeous flowering perennial that can be grown throughout most of the United States. And it's edible too. It's the daylily, also known as hemerocallis. And we have a primer on growing Japanese maple trees from an expert. It's all on episode 121 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 01:32
Debbie Flower is here. Welcome to the abutilon jungle.
Debbie Flower 01:35
It's pretty.
Farmer Fred 01:36
it is and it's nice to have you to drop by Barking Dog Studios here. And now you may recall that it was just two months ago, two and a half months ago, I cut back these flowering maples, these abutilon, down to below the window level. And now they're creeping up towards the top of the window.
Debbie Flower 01:53
Yes, they are. They're probably five feet tall.
Farmer Fred 01:56
They are starting to bloom as well. They're these beautiful, Chinese lanterns, these red and orange and yellow lantern like flowers, that the hummingbirds just love. It has become one of my favorite landscape plants just because everything about it. The leaves are nice, sort of maple like leaves. Well, it is a flowering maple. The flowers that attract the hummingbirds and the bees, it is just a gorgeous, I use it as a privacy screen
Debbie Flower 02:24
Right. It's something nice to look at, and lots of evidence that we need to interact with nature to be happy and healthy. And we, as gardeners, go out in nature a lot. But also just seeing it from windows. I love to design my garden from in the indoors looking out the window, what am I going to see? Because that, I think, helps keep me happy.
Farmer Fred 02:46
That is one of the tricks of designing a food garden, too. If you've never grown food before, if you've never had a food garden, one of the keys is using it when it's ready. You grew it now eat it.
Debbie Flower 03:00
Yes.
Farmer Fred 03:01
And the easiest way to remind yourself of that is to locate the garden somewhere within sight of the kitchen window or the dining room window or a patio window or in a room you're always in.
Debbie Flower 03:09
Yes, very true. I have worked with landscapers who want to put it in the back 40 and not see it. And I said no, that's not a good idea. It'll never get tended.
Farmer Fred 03:19
So keep that in mind if you are designing a new garden to always keep it in sight. And besides, it'll help relax you when you're looking at it.
Debbie Flower 03:29
It makes you happy.
Farmer Fred 03:30
Now a few weeks ago, we were talking about crop rotation in the food garden. How it helps to move your tomatoes from one bed to another bed, year after year. And your other crops, heavy nitrogen feeders like corn, maybe have a resting bed that you can sort of replenish the nutrition in during the winter or even during the summer for that matter, with a cover crop. And you mentioned in passing that crop rotation is good for food and flowering plants. And we never talked about the flowering plants. Now I know about the benefits of rotating food crops around to avoid diseases. And what did you mean by crop rotation of landscape plants?
Debbie Flower 04:12
it's very similar. If we just focused on flowers, let's focus on annual flowers. It's the same thing as food crops that they have their own disease and insect problems. And if you plant the same thing in the same place all the time, then there is the potential for those disease organisms and those insects to build up at that location and the plant will do less and less well each time you plant it there. So, moving them around like the zinnias that you grow and have generously given some to me, I move them around different parts of the yard each year because of that they don't have necessarily... well, maybe powdery mildew was the only thing that I have seen on zinnias If anything, but moving them around from place to place. So that they aren't always exposed to the same organisms that could potentially harm them. The more important thing for I think for, it's not really rotation, but it's it's along the same lines, considering when you're designing a landscape is to avoid a monoculture. So a monoculture is when you grow a lot of one thing...
Farmer Fred 05:23
you mean like abutilons?
Debbie Flower 05:24
Well, yes, you've got what three or four here. But if you think of a farmer's field of corn, that's a monoculture of corn, a lawn is a monoculture. And as a result, we end up with disease and insect problems in that monoculture, because the plant next to it is the same plant as the one being attacked. It may not be exactly the same plant, but it's in the same family. And so this is when the plants are organized by family and then genus and species. And the family is not always known to the gardener, you have to do, it's not on the tag necessarily. So you have to do some research to know what family it's in. But if you want to hedge, to block the view between your house and the neighbor's house, the the most common thing I see is that people pick a plant, and they plant a whole row of them all down the side of the property, maybe they're 25, maybe there are 50. And the problem with that is if a pest or disease, a pest being a disease or an insect come in, that favors that plant, you won't just lose one plant, or you won't just have an ugly looking one plant or you want to have to treat one plant, you have to treat the whole row of them. When I had a hedge, I had about five of one species from one family, and then I switch to five of something else. And then I switch to five of something else. That way, if something comes in and attacks one of those plants, then maybe I'll lose five, but I won't lose the whole row.
Farmer Fred 07:04
Well, not only that, you're also increasing the diversity of beneficial insects and other beneficial critters like birds that will take part and enjoy that diversity and will thrive, right?
Debbie Flower 07:17
the beneficials need, just like the bad guys, too, but they need a home, a place to live. They need food and they need water. And so yes, by having different plants, you create different environments that are adapted to different beneficials.
Farmer Fred 07:33
We're seeing this a lot in agriculture here in California now where hedgerows have become increasingly popular. Hedgerows have been popular in Midwest farms and back east for quite a while, they're finally catching on here. And it's the diversity of the hedge rows, using a lot of native plants, that is attracting so many beneficials and birds. It is helping reducing pesticide costs for farmers. And you can do that in your own yard by putting in, shall we say, the good bug hotel, which is a wide variety of plants. Now most of those plants, though, are in the composite family, the Asteraceae family, and you would have to mix those up with something else.
Debbie Flower 08:14
Plants are in the same family because they share pest problems, disease and insect problems. And so the one family that's the biggest is the rose family. It's amazing how many plants are in the Rose family. And I sort of went into a panic last year because I realized that I was planting too many plants in the Rose family and I was afraid I was going to lose some,
Farmer Fred 08:33
To fireblight .
Debbie Flower 08:34
Yes, yes, my neighbor, My husband was delivering the neighborhood newsletter and she knows that I know about plants. And she said look at these. They were loquats. What's wrong with them? Would you ask your wife and so I happened to be going to the grocery store, I drove by her house. And I could tell right away it was fireblight. And she has two loquats. And they're both completely at anywhere that there was a flower fireblight is a bacterium that enters the flower it's carried by the pollinator and it kills the tip of each branch. The flowers and the leaves, the leaves remain attached. That's it's and that's exactly what I saw.
Farmer Fred 09:09
It looks like a blowtorch hit it, right.
Debbie Flower 09:11
Every tip. And so the cure or the repair is to go in and cut out all of those tips, six to eight inches into healthy wood. So that's a big job.
Farmer Fred 09:20
And get rid of it.
Debbie Flower 09:20
And get rid of it. Don't let it lay it on the ground, and if you don't do that it becomes systemic in the plant and then the plant will never be healthy. Again.
Farmer Fred 09:28
The rosaceae family includes not only roses and loquats, you've got pyracantha, you've got apple trees, you've got pears, all of which are susceptible to fireblight.
Debbie Flower 09:40
Yes, and they share pollinators. So the good guys come around and do the pollinating for you. But they may have stopped at a plant, maybe not on your property, maybe on somebody else's property that has that fire blight and they can spread it from place to place to place so it's just something to be aware of, to not plant all maples in your yard. Yes, you love them, And they're beautiful. And you have the environment for them, but they will share problems or don't plant all stone fruit in your yard, mix it up with some citrus or blueberries or things from other families.
Farmer Fred 10:13
And you can intersperse annuals and even low growing perennials among your food crops as well. And we're seeing a lot of that in agriculture, as well, as where they're using ground covers like alyssum that attract beneficial insects and lining of the farm rows with the alyssum to bring on the bees to help pollinate the crops.
Debbie Flower 10:35
Yes, there is a chart and I'm can't find it at the moment, for California. So it's local for hedgerows, and it has something in bloom every month of the year, right, that attracts and feeds the beneficials. So that's something worth looking into making
Farmer Fred 10:54
Sure, you have something in bloom, and it may not be a gorgeous flower that you want to cut or call your neighbors over to see but something that provides pollen and nectar to the beneficial insects, which is the reason I have so much California buckwheat in my front yard. Because it has the longest bloom cycle of like six or seven months that attracts beneficials for three seasons.
Debbie Flower 11:18
Yes, I have several, three kinds. Now that I think of buckwheat, I can think of four. Yes, and several are in bloom and they have all the plants in the garden attract more more insects than others.
Farmer Fred 11:29
right. There's plenty like that. And whatever state you're in check with your native plant society because I'm sure they will have those lists available as well for your area. And yeah, mix it up.
Debbie Flower 11:40
Yes mix it up. That's the key. Yep,
Farmer Fred 11:42
yep, yep, nature abhors a monoculture. Debbie Flower. Thanks for helping us out here.
Debbie Flower 11:46
Mix up the garden. It's always a pleasure, Fred. Thanks for having me.
Farmer Fred 11:54
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Amanda Pollock Pines 12:53
Hi there. My name is Amanda. I live in Pollock Pines, California. I am in growing zone 9a. I have pine trees all around my home and I was wondering if those fallen pine needles around the yard could ever be beneficial? Could I ever put soil on top of them and allow them to decompose underneath? Or is it just a big no-no to do that? Should I, you know, gather them all up into a pile and let them decompose on their own and turn into compost for later? Thank you so much for your guys's help, and I look forward to listening to future episodes.
Debbie Flower 13:25
Well, Amanda, thank you for getting in touch with us and I love to talk about mulch. Many people in the foothills, and by the way Pollock pines, as you might gather, is in the Sierra Nevada foothills. And full of pine trees. Yes. So there's plenty of mulch available there. It's free. It's usable, with a few caveats. First of all, they can be very attractive and the whole pine needle (bundle) is very porous, air and water can go through them easily. As long as you don't pile them on too thickly. I think for whole pine needles, maybe limit yourself to three inches, maybe four inches. if you shred your pine needles and people like to do that because it makes them less prickly and they'll break down a little bit quicker. But don't pile them on as thickly if you shred your pine needles, maybe two or three inches as mulch. By the way, pine needles, like other mulch, should never be buried in the soil. Just put it on top of the soil and let it slowly break down. A lot of people think that pine needles acidify the soil since pine trees are acid loving plants. You would think, well, the needles must increase the acidity of the soil. Actually, they don't. As pine needles break down, that acidification effect disappears. Now there is one big warning about using pine needles, especially in the foothills in what we here in California like to call the urban-wildland interface. Pine needles are highly flammable. They have among the highest hazardous combustion characteristics, and they're only recommended for use in areas more than 30 feet from the house. What about using pine needles in a compost pile? Well, that's fine, but I wouldn't put too much in a compost pile, maybe 10% of your total compost pile could be pine needles, because needles take decades to decompose. So put that in a very slow acting compost pile. Where can you use pine needles, put them around perennials, trees and shrubs, that's where they'll do the most good. Move that pine needle mulch about an inch or two away from the trunks of perennials, trees and shrubs to avoid any rot issues. So Amanda, thank you so much for your audio question. And because we used it during the month of July, the fine people of Smart Pots are going to be sending you free, a new Smart Pot. It's their six foot long raised bed fabric planter. Amanda used Speak Pipe. It's easy for you to get your questions in that way, as well. speakpipe.com slash garden basics. It's very easy to leave an audio question there. Or, you can give us a call 916-292-8964, 916-292-8964. For any audio question we use during the month of July, that person gets a Smart Pot. But even after July, we'd like to hear your audio questions because we love the sound of your voice.
Farmer Fred 16:21
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Farmer Fred 17:02
Here on the Garden Basics podcast we like to talk with Warren Roberts. He's the superintendent emeritus of the UC Davis Arboretum and public garden, and every week he has a plant of the week for us. And today's plant is certainly one you could grow just about anywhere and they look great when they're planted en masse. It's just a gorgeous bloom. The daylily and you can eat it too. Hi, Warren.
Warren Roberts 17:27
Hi Fred. Yes, this is the daylily, it would be a good nomination for plant of the week. And the scientific name is hemerocallis. It's mainly native to Asia, although I did read that there is one native to Central Europe, but I haven't heard about that one. Daylily is fairly well noticed and grown in the U.S. a long time and naturalized in many areas. People in Indiana think it's a native because it's been a part of their lives growing up. And it just grows out in the in the countryside. In climates that get sun or rain, no problem. It's easy to grow. It does this, it performs best in sun, full sun, and it's called daylily because it looks like a lily and it's related to lilies and the flowers last a day, sometimes two, but usually just a day, but it keeps producing them over a long period of time. There is a species, Hemerocallis fulva, with orange brownish orange flowers, it's one of the common ones. And the buds of the plant are a traditional food in Japan, Manchuria, Korea and China. They pick them before they open and then dry and then use them all year in cooking, I think can be used fresh, as well. So it's kind of neat to have a plant in the garden which is not only beautiful, but that is edible. One of my favorite ones of the group is hemerocallis flava, which is now called hemerocallis lilio-asphodeulus. And this is also fragrant. And the flowers are elegant, and they're held up about about three feet high sometimes. And very striking. It's one of those things where you see a planting of it, you get an involuntary gasp of of pleasure because it's so beautiful. Those two species that I mentioned, are the main species of the ancestry of hemerocallis. But there are many, many hybrids and ranging all the way from the once I mentioned, brownish orange and yellow, to almost white, so creamy white to almost red, and then everything in between, and double flowered ones, and single petal. Each of the typical flower has six petals. And there are some that have petals that are very thick and have kind of a protuberances. And it's just easy to grow, very easy to grow and easy to propagate. I think there are nurseries that specialize in dailies. We have at least one here in California and not far from Sacramento. And they have a garden filled with day lilies and then they have a daylily festival too.
Warren Roberts 20:00
And they will also serve it for meals.
Warren Roberts 20:32
Yes, yes. I think other parts of the plant are edible. I I've just had the flowers in Japanese style soups.
Farmer Fred 20:42
So, if you like day lilies, people need to visit Amador flower farm, up near Jackson in the foothills. Near Plymouth, really, in the foothills in Amador County. It is just gorgeous with their hillside covered in dailies during the month of June.
Warren Roberts 20:57
So it's a wonderful place. And they have as I mentioned, they have a sort of a festival they have times when the place is spectacular. And it's in the Gold Rush country too. And they're wineries it's you can make a day on it just visiting the area.
Farmer Fred 21:13
That's right, the owners of it, the Deavers, also have a winery as well.
Warren Roberts 21:17
Oh. Now the hemerocallis is pretty hardy throughout much of the temperate world and the Mediterranean world. And there was even one species hemerocallis minor which is kind of has grassy leaves and flowers just barely extended by the foliage, which has been found to be perfectly cold hardy in the inland of Alaska. Now you got to kind of be cold hardy to thrive there. My favorite one that I mentioned, lilio-asphodelus (Lemon daylily). But there is another one. Maybe even more favorite favorite, which is a hybrid, a rather small and it gets about, oh, 8-10 inches high, called Stella Del Oro, and it has yellow flowers in it's quite a beautiful one. And you can use it as a ground cover because it's almost evergreen. So a very useful group of plants. It's a group of plants, daylilies, which I've known all my life and admired.
Farmer Fred 22:21
Now I guess, that the day lilies you have are deciduous, you have semi deciduous, and you have evergreen. And I guess if you're in a really cold climate, you probably want to stick with the deciduous ones because they seem to take temperatures down to what, 35 below zero.
Warren Roberts 22:38
Yeah, it's quite amazing. So that you know the ground because it's gonna freeze and they're still fine. Yeah, it must be the case with the other species too, or at least the ones that are typically winter deciduous.
Farmer Fred 22:53
It's the hemerocallis, also known as the daylily. Chew one today. Warren Roberts is the superintendent emeritus of the UC Davis Arboretum and public garden. Pay a visit if you're going to go to Amador flower farm, you might as well go to Davis and visit the Arboretum it's free. And check out their 100 acres of just beautiful gardens that they have there. And find out more online@arboretum.uc davis.edu Warren Always a pleasure. Thanks for the plant of the week.
Warren Roberts 23:23
You're welcome Fred. My pleasure.
Farmer Fred 23:34
Thinking of growing a Japanese maple? we are talking with a guy who can help you out, no matter where you might live. We're at a local nursery in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, Eldorado nursery here in Shingle Springs, Chris Aycock runs the place. And he's a Japanese maple specialist and he sells Japanese maples to people live in the hot hot Valley as well as the cold cold high Sierra. So he would know which Japanese maples might work best for you. Chris, Japanese maples, they really are widely adaptable. You just have to know which varieties are best for your climate.
Chris Aycock 24:11
Yes, yes you do and how to care for them in the individual areas as well. So mulching for the hot valleys is very very important for them.
Farmer Fred 24:20
And I would think, too, in the hot Valley, they'd like some protection from the sun.
Chris Aycock 24:24
Well, ideally, they would like some protection from the sun. We would like protection from the sun in the hot Valley, too. So morning sun, afternoon Shade is perfect for Japanese maples and humans. There are quite a few that are adaptable to the full sun. Again, mulching is very critical, keep the roots cool. And then although we will recommend full sun for quite a few of the varieties, we will tell you to pull it away from the house so there's no reflective heat, so you're better to have it out in the open rather than up against a hot wall.
Farmer Fred 24:53
There is some problems especially in the hot, dry valley with hot dry winds.
Chris Aycock 24:57
So be aware of that, right. The winds are actually worse than the full sun on the Japanese maple. So, you know if you live in some of these areas that get that high wind every evening, we usually recommend that you protect them a little bit from that hot afternoon wind.
Farmer Fred 25:12
What about for people who live at the upper elevations that you're selling to, who live at 5000-6000 feet. They have cold cold winters. I bet there you could probably find a Japanese maple or Tuesday up in Lake Tahoe.
Chris Aycock 25:26
You can. there are Japanese maples planted in Tahoe, although they do tend to protect them a little bit up there from the snow load, you know, Sierra cement, because that could take the branches out in a heartbeat. There are quite a few varieties that will not grow up there. one that comes to mind is coral bark. Sango Kaku. It does not like that intense cold weather. Although I have seen laceleafs and Bloodgoods and Fire Glow and several other species up there.
Farmer Fred 25:52
What are some of the easier varieties the least temperamental Japanese maple varieties to grow?
Chris Aycock 25:58
Oh, that's, that's a trick question. So it's really not that difficult to grow. Overall, there are some that are more temperamental than others, but for the most part 95% of them are you're going to care for the same. So I say Bloodgood, that is your old standard red upright Japanese maple, that gets 30 up to 35 feet tall and wide. It is basically the red form of the green seedling. You know, if you want something smaller, Fire Glow that I mentioned is a nice 12 to 15 foot upright growing one. If you're looking for a lace leaf Orangeola happens to be one of my favorites. It's kind of this very fast growing Medusa like laceleaf, cascading with an orangey red foliage to it. Very, very tough, very vigorous.
Farmer Fred 26:48
What about Japanese maples for containers? What are the best varieties for a large container?
Chris Aycock 26:53
probably the lace leafs or any of your intermediate uprights Shojo Nomura, any of your laceleafs should be fine in big containers.
Farmer Fred 27:03
I would think that fall shows for Japanese maples really depends on your climate.
Chris Aycock 27:08
Well, the more the tree is exposed to the elements, the better the fall color you're going to get. So if you Nestle a Japanese maple, under the shade of other trees trying to protect it from the summer sun, you generally don't get as nice fall color on those as you do the ones that are sitting out and exposed to the elements.
Farmer Fred 27:25
Fertilization and water. What are some typical requirements for Japanese maples in that regard?
Chris Aycock 27:31
Well, that's gonna that's going to vary throughout the country but for this area we will recommend watering three days a week. That is sufficient for even in the full sun. So provided you have a good mulching layer right there.
Farmer Fred 27:45
What sort of fertilizers are best for Japanese maples?
Chris Aycock 27:48
Oh, we like slow release fertilizers. You know the Gardner and Bloome acid fertilizer, their Rhododendron-Azalea camellia food makes a great fertilizer. Another one that we really love around here is MaxSea, it's water soluble.
Farmer Fred 28:02
Japanese maples, widely adaptable throughout most of the United States, it really does have a nice effect, great for containers, great in the ground, I would say put it at a place where you can enjoy it while sitting in the house.
Chris Aycock 28:15
Yeah, and plant several different varieties so that you get a different array of fall color because it's not just red. There are oranges and bright colors and yellows and you know in different shades of red.
Chris Aycock 28:28
I would imagine one good tip then for buying Japanese maples is do it in the fall when they're turning color at the nurseries and pick them out then. if you as a general rule of thumb for any tree if you're trying to pick that fall color out and you want a specific one, that's the best time to do it. Although these are all grafted varieties, you know, there are 1000s of them listed in a book by trees. And they're pretty true to form. If you get a good grafted variety. If you're planting a seedling then you definitely want to look for it in the fall.
Farmer Fred 28:57
So that brings up another question. They do seed. Are those worth growing?
Chris Aycock 29:02
Well, time will tell. you can take those seedlings and grow them on and who knows, you may come up with a different form that's never been seen before in the world. That's how most of them are usually found.
Farmer Fred 29:12
All right, Japanese maples, why not add one or two to your landscape? Chris Aycock is with Eldorado Nursery and Gardens in Shingle Springs, California, here in the Sierra foothills. Chris, thanks for the lecture on Japanese maples.
Chris Aycock 29:24
Oh, thank you. Thanks for stopping in.
Farmer Fred 29:31
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