158 Life is Too Short To Put Up with a Problem Plant. The Holly

Life, as I am fond of saying, is too short to put up with a problem plant. Today, the very alive Debbie Flower, who is no problem at all, talks about when to pull the plug on the dying plants in your garden, including some organ harvesting tips when it comes to tomato plants who have overstayed their welcome at your garden party. Plus, we have tips for choosing and storing those cool season fruit favorites, persimmons, apples and citrus. Merry Christmas!

The UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden’s Superintendent Emeritus, Warren Roberts, is in the holiday mood, with everything you want to know about the Plant of the Week, holly. Including information about a holly variety that will literally make you upchuck. Even its name implies as much.

Podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory, it’s Episode 158 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots and Dave Wilson Nursery. 

And we will do it all in way over 30 minutes. Consider it your Christmas bonus. Let’s go! 

November through January, the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast slows its production schedule. Look for new episodes each Friday. In February, we will return to twice a week podcasts, on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Pictured:
Just because that broccoli plant has bolted, don't be too quick to compost it even though it might taste bitter. Those flowers attract pollinators, such as bees.

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Chapters

• 1:41 Problem Plants - Hold 'em or Fold 'em?
• 12:29 Smart Pots!
• 13:35 Problem Plants, Part 2
• 28:20 Dave Wilson Nursery
• 29:45 Garden Basics Newsletter Info
• 30:33 Plant of the Week - Holly

Transcript

GB 158 Problem Plants? When To Shut Them Down. The Holly. 

40:59

SPEAKERS

Debbie Flower, 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. 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

Life, as I am fond of saying, is too short to put up with a problem plant. Today, the very alive Debbie Flower, who is no problem at all, talks about when to pull the plug on the dying plants in your garden, including some organ harvesting tips when it comes to tomato plants who have overstayed their welcome at your garden party. Plus, we have tips for choosing and storing those late fall fruit favorites, persimmons, apples and citrus. Merry Christmas!  The UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden’s Superintendent Emeritus, Warren Roberts, is in the holiday mood, with everything you want to know about the Plant of the Week, holly. Including information about a holly variety that will literally make you upchuck. Even its name implies as much.  Podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory, it’s episode 158 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots and Dave Wilson Nursery.   And we will do it all in way over 30 minutes. Consider it your Christmas bonus. Let’s go!

Farmer Fred  01:42

You got to know when to hold them, and know when to fold them. No, we are not going to sing a Kenny Rogers song for you. We're gonna tell you when it comes time to shut down your garden. We face that at least twice a year, if you have a warm season and a cool season garden. But, you're saying "I don't want to take them down. There's still stuff out there. There are still tomatoes, there are still beans, there are still any number of things on those plants." Well, at some point you're gonna have to bite the bullet. Debbie Flower is here, our favorite retired college horticultural professor. How long should we let our fruits and vegetables linger in the garden?

Debbie Flower  02:21

Good question, Fred.

Farmer Fred  02:23

I've got a real moldy tomato out there. It's probably past its prime.

Debbie Flower  02:28

It probably is, and that plant may still have unripe tomatoes on it. You can leave a plant and it will struggle along. Actually in very warm climates like the Tucson area or Phoenix area, you can leave your tomatoes over the winter as they are perennial plants. They will come back the next season, the next warm season. But for most of the rest of us in the US, that's not going to happen. When we get our first hard freeze, which is 28 degrees Fahrenheit or colder, they will turn to mush, like the frozen head of lettuce in the back of your refrigerator. So the best way to tell when to do things in the garden, especially the warm season vegetable garden, is by night temperatures. 

Farmer Fred  03:15

Or morning lows.

Debbie Flower  03:16

You're right. When they say it'll be 60 During the day and it'll be 40 at night, that's right before the sun comes up. That's when it's the coldest part of the night. So that's the temperature we're looking at, is the coldest temperature for the day. And warm season crops such as melons, squash, peppers, tomatoes, beans will really stop being vigorous when night temperatures settle at 55 degrees Fahrenheit or below, but they'll still look good.  They'll still have flowers on them. They'll still have fruit on them, but they will slow down dramatically in their production and I admit I have a tomato still in the garden. It has one tiny fruit on it that's red and has a hole in it from some visiting marauder. So it happens fairly quickly between the time that the night temperatures hit and settle at 55. It's not the very first night that you get 55 for cold; it's when they settle and you have a series of them three, four nights in a row that are 55 or below. Then the plants aren't going to be very productive. It's time to take them out.

Farmer Fred  04:22

We won't go into all the details about how to save green tomatoes. We did that awhile back, in episode 152, "Green tomato ripening tips." You can check that out and get all the advice you need to know about saving your tomatoes, which ones are worth saving, and how to save them to give them a chance to ripen. So we won't go into that here. Again, go back to Episode 152 to learn about that. You have an interesting technique for maybe getting them to ripen out there. So prior to pulling your warm season plants, you talked about basically kind of stripping the plant.

Debbie Flower  04:56

Yeah, but it's quite a bit prior to pulling the plant. If your plant says, and you would know this by the type of plants you have, it'll be on the seed packet. They'll say, or it'll be in the seed catalog, it will list the type of tomato, the name of the tomato, and then they'll say 70 days. And that means from the time you put the plant in the ground, it'll be 70 days until you get a ripe tomato. So if it's a 70 day tomato, then you have to guess when your night temperatures are going to drop to settle at 55 and count back 70 days from that. Oh, and that's when you would start this process of removing flowers from the plant so that it doesn't set any more fruit and the ones that are left on the plant will ripen fully.

Farmer Fred  05:40

Boy, I hope you have a growing season of 140 days. Sad to be cutting back a plant before I had a chance to mature, right?

Debbie Flower  05:48

Frankly, I don't know that anyone would do that, there's always the hope that you're going to get more fruit and you will get more fruit. And even if it doesn't ripen, we know there are things you can do with the green tomatoes.

Farmer Fred  05:59

And there's something called sink priority, which I always thought was, "Yeah, the wife gets the sink in the bathroom, I'll go find someplace else." What does sink priority mean?

Debbie Flower  06:08

Sink is the place where the plant sends the food that it makes. It makes the food and all the green parts and then the food sinks somewhere. It travels around the plant and it sinks or ends its travels in a place where it settles, and those places are growing points: flower buds, fruit buds, and ripening fruit. And there is a priority in the plant over what gets the food that the green parts are making. And fruit is a high priority. Fruit needs to be fed to get a lot of food into it. And flowers are a high priority. So if you have existing fruit on the plant and flowers, then you want to convert your sink, you want to skew the sinks toward the fruit so that you get as much ripening out of the fruit as possible. So that would mean picking off the flowers. I would not pick off new growth, because picking off new growth stimulates the plant to make more new growth. Typically, if you take off one stem tip, you're going to end up with two or more. So you've actually doubled your sinks there and taken more food away from the fruit. So I wouldn't touch the growing points. I would just remove the flowers.

Farmer Fred  07:15

you're just pinching off the flower.  And probably the best time to do that is mid morning.

Debbie Flower  07:20

Yes. The plants make food during the day, then they move it around at night and make other chemicals at night. All the plant parts have the most sugar in them the most plant food in them early in the morning. So that's when you would take the flowers off.

Farmer Fred  07:39

Alright, and I imagine immature fruit as well, right?

Debbie Flower  07:43

 If it's small, and it's doesn't have a chance because you're going to hit your cold nights in the next two weeks or three weeks, it doesn't have time to ripen or mature, get to a good usable size, whether you want to use it green or red. If it doesn't have that time, then take it off.

Debbie Flower  07:48

And again, this would be true of melons, squash, peppers, tomatoes, and beans.

Debbie Flower  08:02

 If you wanted to grow a giant pumpkin, one of the things you have to do all through the growing season is remove secondary fruit, because you want all the food to sink into the giant pumpkin, not into these other fruits.

Farmer Fred  08:17

And why you would do that? Well, I'll tell you, you'll do it once. And then you realize it's much easier picking up a 30 pound pumpkin than a 100 pound pumpkin.

Debbie Flower  08:24

We did it once at school with students. And then yes, we got a 250 pound pumpkin but it's like, "Now what do we do? Yeah, it's out in the backfield. How do we get it out of here?"

Farmer Fred  08:34

What about cool season vegetables, I would think cold would be their enemy.

Debbie Flower  08:38

Yeah, cool. There's freezing and there's hard freeze and there's cold and they're all different things. Hard freeze, as I mentioned, is 28 degrees or below. And that's the temperature at which an actively growing plant cell will form ice crystals inside of it and burst. The freezing is 32 degrees. And that's just when water becomes ice. But plants have a lot of water in them. But it's not pure water, it's got a lot of other stuff in it. And that's why they're freezing temperatures actually 32. So 32 degrees Fahrenheit is just cold, that's ice and some plants can survive ice.

Farmer Fred  09:13

So the critical point is 28 degrees.

Debbie Flower  09:16

Critical point is 28 degrees. If you're hit 28 degrees and below for a long period, starting sometime in the fall and ending sometime in the spring. You're not going to grow a vegetable garden during that period of time unless you have season extenders, which would be greenhouses,  high tunnels, or something like that.

Farmer Fred  09:32

Another enemy of cool season crops is early heat, and we're seeing that here in California a lot sooner than we used to. It's now in January where temperatures are getting abnormally warm in the 70s and 80s. And what does that do to cool season vegetables?

Debbie Flower  09:50

It stimulates them often to bloom. And cool season vegetables are typically ones where we don't eat the fruit. So we don't want flowers. We eat the leaves, or we eat the roots that have accumulated food, like a beet, or radish. Or we eat the buds of the flowers like broccoli, we don't want fruit to form. Typically, heat will stimulate them to flower and then like the lettuces and the cabbage and spinach and thinks they become very bitter when they flower.

Farmer Fred  10:21

Before the international pollinator society starts setting up a picket line outside our window here in the abutilon jungle, we should point out that those flowers do attract a lot of beneficial insects.

Debbie Flower  10:31

They do and when I have something that does bolt,that's the term, it means go to flower. If I have a whole bunch of them, I will leave one or two to allow those beneficial something to eat. If I have a use for that space, I want to grow something else, I want to modify it or whatever. I will take most of the crop out, but just leave a few for the beneficials to feed on.

Farmer Fred  10:52

Alright, so I imagine, then, those cool season crops that may need a little bit of protection, then, when temperatures get down to 28: the carrots, cauliflower, celery, chard, Chinese cabbage endive lettuce, parsnip, parsley, pea, radicchio, although there are others, though that can survive a hard freeze unprotected.

Debbie Flower  11:12

Yes, there are some that can survive a hard freeze unprotected, including arugula, Austrian winter pea, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, fava bean, garlic, kale, kohlrabi, leek, mustard, radish, rhubarb, rutabaga, spinach, turnip and Walla Walla onion, and they have a way to make antifreeze. I'm not going to go into it, but a way to make antifreeze in their their plant parts, you might lose the tops to things like beet and radish but the part that you eat is still there, the part underground is still there.

Farmer Fred  11:42

So, carrots and parsnips would fall into that, right?

Debbie Flower  11:44

So you may want little labels of some sort so you know where to harvest them from. And if you get snow, snow is an insulator, snow will cover the ground and it's actually a wonderful insulator, it's better to have in a cold climate, it's better to have snow on the soil than to have bare soil when temperatures get below 32 degrees Fahrenheit. It is better for the plants in a cold climate to have snow on the ground when the temperatures get below 32 degrees Fahrenheit than it is to have bare soil. Because the bare soil can, if it's exposed without snow can get down below as low as the air temperature gets. If there's snow on the ground, the air temperature can get down into single digits but the ground will remain at 32 degrees.

Farmer Fred  12:32

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Farmer Fred  13:36

Back in October here we had an atmospheric river event plop down over our heads locally, we got six inches of rain in 24 hours, which for us is a lot. In fact, it was a record amount. And I noticed that in my cool season garden that I just planted a few weeks before that, there was lettuce transplants in there and the leaves of the trees hadn't fallen yet, so I didn't have any mulch on there. And when you get heavy rainfall, that will splash dirt back up into those leaves of the plant. And I'm thinking, "Oh, I wish I had some oak leaves put down there to stop that."

Debbie Flower  14:14

And not only does it splash it up, which can transfer diseases if you happen to have diseases in your soil. It also covers the leaf so you don't get photosynthesis going on in that portion of the leaf. And it makes your lettuce gritty, but it also compacts the soil. The power of a droplet of rain on the soil is so strong that it moves the particles closer together, and it makes that soil less desirable for the plant to grow in.

Farmer Fred  14:38

Yeah, I guess you could set up tunnels or row covers. But when you get that much rain so quickly, they better be sturdy.

Debbie Flower  14:46

Yes, that's very true. Sturdiness was critical because the storm came in, not just with heavy rain, but with some wind, which is typical of a storm. So yes, row covers are a spun fabric. If you sew, it's like interfacing. And they come in different thicknesses. Some of them are just for keeping insects out. Cabbage moth is one of those insects. It's a little white moth with black spots on its wings. And it looks for plants in the brassicaceae family, which includes cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts, and it will lay its eggs on the leaves of that plant, then the babies hatch their little worm, it's a little caterpillar, and they eat, typically from the bottom of the leaf. They are voracious, they will eat the crop pretty quickly. If you don't catch them, they're hard to see because they become the color of whatever they're eating. So if you're growing those crops, and air temperatures are mild, like into the spring, or you're putting them in early in the fall, if you can grow into the winter, you may want to cover those with a very light row cover so that you're excluding the cabbage moth, adults from getting to your plants.

Farmer Fred  15:58

Yes, the plant can withstand insect damage a lot better, the more mature it is. So if you just returned from the nursery, and you're planting that new garden of those baby transplants, it's not a bad idea to throw a row cover over it right then and there, no matter what the weather is, just to keep the flying insects out of it. Don't give them a target.

Debbie Flower  16:16

Right. You can use a hoop or you don't even have to. If it's loose enough so that the plants, it's very lightweight, the plants can push it. Now this similar fabric comes in much thicker versions, and those are to trap heat. They obviously will also keep the moth out. But they trap heat and they can be used to keep a plant that can withstand 32 degrees alive for the one night here and there that temperatures get below, let's say 28.

Farmer Fred  16:44

One of the beauties of having citrus trees if you live in an area where you can grow citrus, is the fact that they're fine on the tree until you need them. And they're much happier there. But if you get some extreme cold temperatures, you might have to harvest them.

Debbie Flower  17:01

Yes, cold damage. And for citru, it is actually drying damage. The roots are unable to bring water up and so the plant dries out. And then, when the plant dries out, it can't hang on to its fruit and fruit doesn't mature anymore, it can become a problem. But if you can trap some heat during that chilling event with a frost cloth, then you can prevent that damage.

Farmer Fred  17:25

Another way to tell if the citrus on your trees is getting past their prime is give it a squeeze. If it isn't as firm anymore, if you notice that outer coating is kind of loose, the fruit has pulled away from the skin, maybe it's time.

Debbie Flower  17:39

Yes, yes. Citrus store best on the tree, given the right environmental conditions. When the fruit turns from shiny to dull, that's an indication it's ripe because the fruit has exuded a wax out of its skin to protect it to store water. And so they go from shiny to dull when they're ripe. And they may or may not turn orange. In warm places, citrus does not change color in the skin. The fruit will be orange in an orange, but the skin will not. We import, in the US, a lot of citrus from Brazil, and it will be brought in and put in a chill room so that it turns orange in order for us Americans to believe that it's really an orange. But in Brazil, you might buy it green.

Farmer Fred  18:29

Okay. The dirty little secret about growing avocados is: everybody's expecting their avocados to turn out like what a Haas avocado looks like that you buy at a grocery store. When in reality, the avocados that can take colder temperature,s and by that I mean above 40, basically, are the Mexican avocados. There are those avocado varieties that do better in slightly colder climates where temperatures don't get much below 40 degrees. if at all. The Zutano, the Mexicola, the Bacon, the Jim, and several others like that. They are a smaller avocado with kind of a brownish green skin and a more nutty flavor. And so you just have to learn to accept that.  If you're on the edge of USDA zone nine and not living in Ventura or Santa Barbara. The other fruit of the season that people are harvesting in mid to late fall, the persimmons. And there's two types of persimmons, basically. There's astringent and non-astringent. If you don't want to pucker up after tasting one, you want the non-astringent varieties., The astringent varieties, like the Hachiya, need to get totally, totally soft before they sweeten up. Whereas the popular Fuyu, if it's firm, you can harvest it off the tree.

Debbie Flower  19:51

And I saw them both in my local grocery store yesterday. Confusion, yes, with no description and they were both firm. 

Farmer Fred  19:59

Did the sign just say "persimmons"?

Debbie Flower  20:01

Please notethat  in the sampler box that we have brought into the studio, they were in the garage ripening, is a Chef's Choice tomato, a couple of Fuyu persimmons and a couple of Miho Wasi mandarins. And there are pieces of the stem still attached to it. These fruits were not ripped off the tree, they were cut off the plant to preserve a piece of stem, or in the case of the persimmon, the calyx, I believe, that's what it's called, where you got that leafy part right above it,  with a piece of the stem that keeps the fruit intact, and it won't spoil as quickly.

Debbie Flower  20:01

Well, they said Hachiya and Fuyu, so if you knew. The Fuyu, this is like a visual mnemonic, the way I remember which one is the Fuyu is the Fuyu is the flat one that has several sort of lobes on the bottom of it and the word "Fuyu" has 2 "U's".  Those are the lobes those "U's", okay. Hachiya is more teardrop shaped.  I bought some Fuyus and they weren't all ripe, and there was a woman there. They were in bags. I dislike it when the grocery store does it. But they were in bags and so you had to buy a bag of six, let's say and she was digging through the bags looking for a bag where they were all deep orange, and I tried to tell her that they will ripen. But I don't think she spoke English, so that was problem. But they will ripen so you can buy them wherever you can get them: your farmers market or you can get them from your neighbor's tree if you happen to live in a place where they are grown, or your grocery store. And they might be not bright orange, but they will ripen once you take them home.

Farmer Fred  21:09

Right. If you're harvesting your own or you're buying from someone who has harvested them, make sure there is a piece of stem attached to these fruits and it prevents or it slows water loss from the fruit. And it prevents making a big hole where bacteria and fungus will get in and rot the fruit.

Farmer Fred  21:50

I think people are in too big of a hurry to harvest apples. Apples, I think, can get sweeter on the tree. The prime example out here is the Granny Smith, which if you shop at a grocery store, they're green, when in reality if you leave them on the tree, they will turn yellow and be much sweeter. People think of Granny Smith as a tart apple. Leave it on the tree, let it get a tinge of yellow to it. It'll be much sweeter.

Debbie Flower  22:16

I didn't know that about Granny Smith. I know that apples should have a nice warm back color to them. They might be red on the surface, but there there will be blotches of other colors behind it and a little bit of yellow, a little bit of warming in that color will indicate ripeness.

Farmer Fred  22:33

Also, I think it's important to note that not everything ripens at the same time on the tree. It depends where it's located.

Debbie Flower  22:39

Yes, it does. I see that with my citrus that they start on one side of the tree and ripen first. And different trees in different part of the yard ripen at different times.

Farmer Fred  22:48

What is it about storing apples in the refrigerator? You hear all these warnings about, "Don't store apples with anything else."

Debbie Flower  22:54

Apples continue to give off the ripening hormone ethylene, even when after they have been removed from the tree. And that was a big thing when I took a tree fruit class at Rutgers, we spent quite a bit of time on that. There were apple orchards in the state and further north in New York state. And so it was a bigger industry around there. And they came up with controlled atmospheric storage. So the apples you buy in the fall in the grocery store have come pretty fresh right from the farm. But we can purchase apples throughout the year at our grocery stores, all the way through spring and summer. And I don't know if you've noticed, but the flavor is not as great when you do that. 

Farmer Fred  23:40

Duh, Yeah!

Debbie Flower  23:41

And the texture declines as well. And that's because these apples have been in controlled atmosphere storage. Controlled atmosphere storage means that they are at a certain temperature, and they are best stored at about 40 degrees Fahrenheit or below. In the controlled atmosphere storage, their air is pumped out of it. The ideal temperatures for storing apples are between 30 and 32 degrees. Except for Macintosh, which is better at 36. But definitely under 40 degrees. Most of our refrigerators at home are 40 degrees, or they may even be 42. So make sure your refrigerator is cold enough if you're going to store a bunch of apples, maybe the extra refrigerator in some other part of your house where you bought a big box, make sure that it's cold enough. The colder, the better. That slows down this pumping of ethylene out of the fruit. And so if you have them in the controlled atmosphere storage, which we don't have at home, they suck the ethylene out. So they're sucking air out and putting fresh air in. If the ethylene builds up, then the ripening of the apples goes faster and faster and faster and they decline faster and faster and faster.

Farmer Fred  24:47

Americans like things big. They always have. But when it comes to storing apples, does a big one have an advantage over a small one?

Debbie Flower  24:56

Big ones don't store as well as small ones. Yeah. 

Farmer Fred  25:00

So store the small ones. 

Debbie Flower  25:01

Store the small ones, eat the big ones, right. And there are certain cultivars that are better for storing than others. So that's something to look into if you're going to grow your own or you're going to buy a whole bunch of them at some orchard. Learn the ones that are better for storage and that will be listed with their name in a catalog. For instance, then you have the opportunity to store apples for future use. According to Washington State University, the following Apples are good types for keeping or storing into the winter:  Arkansas black, Ashmeads Kernel, Braeburn, Empire, Fuji, Gala, Granny Smith, Grimes golden, Mutsu, Newton, Pippin, Northern Spy, Rhode Island greening, Spartan and York.

Farmer Fred  25:50

You named some of my favorites in that list. Ashmead's Kernel is, to me, an ugly, ugly apple. But it's so tasty. And Mutsu is one of my favorites. It's a big, green apple that is just so tasty. I didn't realize being a big apple, I would think oh, it doesn't store well, but  according to Washington State...

Debbie Flower  26:12

So I can assume I can make up a story that there's something about its its physiology that it doesn't produce ethylene as quickly.

Farmer Fred  26:20

Okay, we'll go with that. And you heard it on a podcast. So it must be true.

Debbie Flower  26:23

I have some apple rootstock in the ground that I am grafting over. So maybe I'll add one of each of those. 

Farmer Fred  26:32

Oh, that's a show of its own, grafting. 

Debbie Flower  26:35

Yeah, so not all of us have the facilities to store a whole bunch of apples and so we can do other things with them to make them last through the winter to have the wonderful flavor of them. One is drying, which is an easy thing to do with window screens. Another one is freezing them if you have a freezer, or making applesauce and canning that applesauce or obviously freezing it. So apples can be with us all year round. And we can get the best flavor out of them. But buy them in the fall.

Farmer Fred  27:07

Here, try a dried persimmon. 

Debbie Flower  27:09

 Yes, it looks good. 

Farmer Fred  27:10

Fuyu persimmons, they're very good.

Debbie Flower  27:12

A little bit of moisture in the flesh. The skin is a little bit stiff.

Farmer Fred  27:16

We keep it into jars in case you couldn't hear that.

Debbie Flower  27:18

Mm hmm. I like persimmons and this is Fuyu.

Farmer Fred  27:21

This is a Fuyu. And the beauty of the Fuyu persimmon, as opposed to many other persimmons, it's usually seedless. Yes. So it makes it a lot easier to put on a dehydrator tray. About seven-eight hours at 130 degrees. 

Debbie Flower  27:35

You have an official dehydrator?

Farmer Fred  27:37

I have an official hydrator Yes. 

Debbie Flower  27:39

Have you dehydrated them in other ways, let's say in the oven or between window screens?

Farmer Fred  27:44

No, by the time persimmons ripen, it's probably a little too late for the outdoors.

Debbie Flower  27:49

Right. Humidity here is quite high, in the 80s and 90s these days, so that would make it difficult to dehydrate outdoors.

Farmer Fred  27:56

But you know, I've got a nine tray dehydrator. It does the job. Yeah, it does the job and I love dried persimmons. This is the second jar we've gone through.

Debbie Flower  28:06

Oh wow. Yeah, it's a great snack.

Farmer Fred  28:08

Yeah, it is. Alright. We learned a lot. Know when to hold them, know when to fold them. Debbie Flower. Thanks for your help on this. 

Debbie Flower  28:14

Oh, it's a pleasure, Fred. Thanks for having me.

Farmer Fred  28:21

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Farmer Fred  29:41

Have you taken a look at the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred newsletter? There’s one that accompanies each episode of the Garden Basics podcast. It’s a deeper dive into what was discussed on the podcast, along with more great gardening information. In the latest newsletter, we’ll have instructions and pictures on how to store apples, so that they’ll last for up to five months. Or longer!You can find a link to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred newsletter in the podcast show notes; or, at Farmer Fred dot com; or, by going to substack dot com slash garden basics.  Think of it as your garden resource that goes beyond the basics. It’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred newsletter. And it’s free. Please subscribe and share it with your gardening friends and family. The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred newsletter. And thank you for listening.

Farmer Fred  30:33

We like to talk with Warren Roberts. He is the superintendent emeritus of the University of California Davis Arboretum and Public Garden. He always has a nice Plant of the Week. And speaking of the time of the year when you Deck the Halls, what do you Deck the halls with? Ilex. Oh, that's not very musical, but it's true. Warren, it's Holly season!

Warren Roberts  30:53

Yes, and the name Ilex is the generic name for this. For the hollies, or most of them anyway, in Latin. If you look it up in the Latin dictionary, it's refers to an oak, Quercus Ilex, the holly oak, which is an evergreen oak, native to much of the Mediterranean. And when the Spanish and Catalonian-speaking people came to California in the 1700s, they saw evergreen oaks that they assumed would be the same or similar to what they knew back in the Mediterranean. And so they use the same common name, which is ensina, for the evergreen oaks in California. But we're not talking about oaks, really. I'm just mentioning that because the generic name of the hollies comes originally from the fact that that these shrubs and small trees have leaves that look like the holly oak, rather than the other way around.

Farmer Fred  32:00

rather prickly. 

Warren Roberts  32:02

Yes, it's true, but you have to stick to it. 

Farmer Fred  32:05

Thank you. 

Warren Roberts  32:06

So there are about 400 species of Ilex. I remember being surprised at seeing them growing in Peru when I lived in South America. Many Ilex species are tropical, and they have all kinds of forms, mostly evergreen now. Ilex aquifolium, we will talk about that mostly. It is the one traditionally use in song music, poetry and decoration. The leaves are prickly, the berries are red. The Ilex aquifolium is a small tree or a large shrub. Actually, there's some varieties that are rather small shrubs. And there are usually the plant will have male or female flowers. Of course, the female flowers will produce the berries but they don't produce them well, unless there is a male nearby, which provides the pollen for the production of the hollies. Often in the nursery trade a branch is grafted. A male branch from a male holly is grafted onto the the one that is being grown for the berries, so you don't have to have two different plants.

Farmer Fred  33:17

The common name for Ilex aquifolium is English Holly. So my obvious question is, Is it from England?

Warren Roberts  33:24

That's a good question. It is from Europe, whether it's native to England itself, I'm not sure. In the English language, we put the name English onto things, even though they're native elsewhere. For example, the English oak is native to France and other areas, as I guess the French are a little less worried about things they just call it oak., English Holly. I think it's because the main tradition in this country for the holiday comes from England. That's the only thing I can think of. But yeah,  that is the common name used in much of the world: English holly. So there are many different kinds with berry colors that range all the way  from yellow to orange to red. The nice thing about the holly is that the berries stay on the plant, even though the branches are cut to use for making wreaths for swags or various other things for the holiday season. The European holly or English Holly has very shiny leaves. Now across the pond in North America, there is a holly, which looks very much like,  let's call it the English Holly. Called the American Holly and that one is Ilex opaca. The specific epithet, in that case, indicates that the leaves are not shiny, at least that's my interpretation. They're kind of matte green. There was a beautiful postage stamp issued, 10 years ago or more, of the American holly. It really shows this characteristic very nicely.

Farmer Fred  35:10

The American Holly can get to be kind of a large tree can't it?, What, up to 50 feet tall?

Warren Roberts  35:15

Yes, I think in in time, if somebody doesn't cut it down, it can get fairly large. Although they usually don't. I'm told because out here in California,  you don't usually see really big American holly trees in the wild. And there's a number of different selections. So people have been looking at these hollies and saying, "there's one that's a little bit different. Let's let's try growing that". And so we have dozens and dozens of select forms. There are some hollies that are deciduous, that lose their leaves in the winter. And there's one called, in fact, Ilex decidua, which is useful name in the wintertime. And where it is native, it  is really splendid. You go through a woodland and here is this plant, covered with bright red berries and no leaves at all to hide the berries. That one, one of the common names for that one is possum haw.

Farmer Fred  36:10

That would indicate it's probably native to the southeast.

Warren Roberts  36:13

Yes, it is. And you occasionally seen in the West. An abandoned farm up towards I guess it's Oroville, in California, where somebody planted it. And there's enough groundwater, it's kind of near a stream that it has persisted. And there it is, brilliant red, right up in the middle of an undeveloped area. Very beautiful. And that one is often used to in the wintertime in the florist trade, particularly back east where its native. Another holly for me, which is an evergreen, and is a beautiful small tree, and used a lot. And if you go to Savannah, Georgia, those beautiful squares in the city, you'll see it and that one is called the Yaupon holly, Ilex vomitoria.

Farmer Fred  37:04

I bet that has a story to it.

Warren Roberts  37:06

Well, all of the hollies have alkaloids, that is to say they have substances which are like caffeine, or theobromine, which is an alkaloid that chocolate has. There is a tradition that at a certain time of year, I guess about the change of the year, very strong tea of the leaves of this species would be brewed up, that was  almost dark brown. And that would be consumed, it would cause nausea, getting rid of all the poisons that had accumulated, psychological and otherwise, in the previous year. So you would start out (the New Year) fresh. That's what I've been told. And since that's a tradition from a part of the United States that I don't live in, I just presume that that's the way it was, or is. There is a very beautiful Holly with red berries, too. In China. It's called Ilex cornuta. Though it is popular in mild climate areas or relatively mild climate areas. And there are many different forms of that as well. It has leaves that have points on the sides, too. That one will make a beautiful small tree. There's some very old ones near the Capitol Building in Sacramento, of the Chinese Holly. The story of Hollyies goes on and on. I'll name one more species, which I think is interesting. This one is a subtropical species, I suppose it could be grown as a houseplant. And this is Ilex paraguariensis, from South America. And the leaves of that are actually gathered to make a kind of tea, called in Spanish, Yerba Mate. It's quite traditional in Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina. When I was in Peru, it was also available there. It has a lot of alkaloids in it. You have to be careful when you're drinking it. If you drink too much, it'll make you quite jittery, really. But it is a traditional tea for that area and the leaves are dried and smoked slightly so it has a nice little smoky taste to it.

Farmer Fred  39:12

Well, okay,  I did not know you could do all that with a holly. But folks don't try that at home. Especially on the night before Christmas.

Warren Roberts  39:24

I know. Right? 

Farmer Fred  39:26

But it's the holly. It grows throughout the United States. There are varieties that will suit your climate that you can enjoy. You can find them probably at your favorite local independent nursery or garden center. Ilex. Ilex, the holly, another great plant of the week from Warren Roberts, Superintendent emeritus of the University of California Davis Arboretum and Public Garden, put it on your list of places to visit if you like visiting places with pretty plants, the arboretum at Davis. More information at their website: arboretum.ucdavis.edu, their world-renowned Arboretum. Warren, thank you so much for the Plant of the Week, Holly.

Warren Roberts  40:06

You're very welcome, Fred. Thank you for the opportunity

Farmer Fred  40:19

Don’t forget, if you want to learn more about the topics covered on today’s episode of Garden Basics with Farmer Fred, subscribe to the free Garden Basics newsletter, on Substack. Details are in today’s show notes. The Garden Basics Podcast will be on its winter schedule from November through January. Which means there will only be one episode per week during this three month period. It’ll come out on Fridays. Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots, and we thank them for their support. Garden Basics is available for free wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening, subscribing and leaving comments. We appreciate it.