- Author: Betty Homer
- Author: Betty Victor
One of my neighbors has a large banana plant growing in their yard, this made me want to learn more about them, as I know very little about this plant.
I found out it is considered the largest herbaceous flowering plant. It's technically in the genus Musa, and is both an herb and a fruit. Ginger, and Bird of Paradise flowers are its distance relatives. They grow from a rhizome, not a trunk like a tree has.
Depending on the variety (which I do not know about this one), they can grow to be at least 12 feet tall. I think my neighbors is taller than that. It is towering over our 9 foot fence. They also need 4-6 inches of water a month, so maybe our winter rains helped with that and need fertilizer 4-6 times a year.
I am not sure if the plant I see has been fertilized, but it looks healthy and has been there for about 10 years getting taller every year. I do know when the large leaf blades die they come crashing down into my yard and can mash any tender plant in their way.
Because the large two purple blossoms face my yard, I am not sure the neighbors know there are bananas on the plant growing from the back of the flowers. They are fairly new neighbors and did not plant this plant in the back corner of the yard.
But I am enjoying watching the small bananas to see how large they may get.
- Author: Lowell Cooper
I am very thankful for the many responses I got to the saga of my mysterious visitor. I guess I should say that it was a mystery for me but not for many of you, who knew that it was an Empress Tree, Paulownia tomentosa. It turns out that it looked so different from another Empress Tree that I have growing only about 10 feet away from it, that it never occurred to me that they were the same. The leaves on the spawn are about 5 times as large and it is too tall for me to see if there are any buds forming. However, it is so close to my house that it is unwelcome and, with my help, is about to come down.
But it is connected with another discovery – an iPhone app called “plantsnap”. When I first saw the visitor, I dutifully followed the app instructions, basically taking a picture, fussing a bit with focus, and then the diagnosis would appear. A diagnosis did in fact appear, but the app was almost always wrong. I tried it on any number of plants, some of which I knew. When I submitted this blog initially, several of you responded so as to suggest you were helped by an app, or some electronic helper, in deciding on your diagnosis. I am impressed. Could you let me know what your source material was, if you have a chance, as I would love to use it myself.
I am humbled by the number of smart people there are who read this blog. This is especially true when it is obvious that 2 versions of the same plant growing in the same environment look so different. But the wise are not fooled. Nature has taught me a valuable lesson. It turns out, incidentally, that I grow a lot of roses and it is often true that the color of the flowers changes in the course of the life of a bloom, depending on the amount and intensity of sun, and other cultural conditions. So it is a generalization akin to the identical-twin studies. While there is a great overlap in genetic make-up, it is possible to observe phenotypal distinctions. This has been a real learning experience for me. Not only did I finally identify this mysterious visitor, but I realize that it took a village to teach me just how subtle and varied nature can be. Thanks.
- Author: Launa Herrmann
The Medfly is back — this time in Fairfield. Although Ceratitis capitata is only the size of a house fly, this pest can produce 1,000 eggs in 60 days and wreck havoc on California agriculture from apricots to cherries to peaches and pears and more and even attack avocados, bell peppers, tomatoes, walnuts, grapes and cotton. And that's just a smidgen of the entire host list. The concern is real. And sometimes desperate measures are needed to eradicate it.
As I peruse the September 5, 2017 press release, I vividly recall the quarantine and eradication attempts during the Mediterranean Fruit Fly invasion of Northern California in the early 1980's. At that time, I resided with my husband and six-year-old in a San Mateo County subdivision. As a working mother and weekend gardener, I knew just enough about this destructive pest to recognize that desperate measures such as aerial spraying were justified at that time. I also knew the importance of agriculture having grown up on a Southern California orange grove listening to tales of my farming ancestors who had watched crops destroyed by locusts and other flying critters.
As an adult, I found the spraying annoying since the residue left behind coated everything including cars. We had already complied with the mandatory order to strip fruit from our lone peach tree. Needless to say, although I had walked barefoot as a child down dirt paths my dad had sprayed with DDT, I was a bit unnerved by this aerial spraying of Malathion not to mention the close proximity to our home that the helicopters flew. Let's put it this way: From our second story, one had a good view of our street and also the streets below winding down to the main road. We observed and experienced the spraying first hand. My research reveals the pesticide was dropped on approximately 1500 square miles, mostly residential. And we lived in the thick of it.
What I didn't consider at the time was how traumatic this aerial assault was on my young daughter. Only decades later did she talk about the event. From her perspective, one gigantic evil bug was on the loose — The Medfly. As if watching a war movie on a big screen, she looked out her bedroom window — glass rattling — and saw helicopters buzz right past at eye level --- lights blazing and propellers screaming through the darkness. The pilot's face was clearly visible, the copter was that close.
Today, as an older, wiser Master Gardener and grandmother, I hope if we resort again to aerial spraying that we remember little children have big imaginations. That as parents, gardeners, experts, educators and the community we tell our kids that helicopters flying in front of their bedroom windows doesn't mean we're at war. And that media coverage of “The Medfly” doesn't mean a gargantuan “Flyzilla” is on out there streaking through the air.
For further information on prior invasions by the Mediterranean Fruit Fly, check out these online articles:
PDF file entitled “Mediterranean fruit fly: The worst may be yet to come”
http://calag.ucanr.edu/Archive/?article=ca.v035n03p5
“California Agricultural Trade: Combating the Medfly Menace”
http://www.commercialdiplomacy.org/case_study/case_medfly1.htm
“A Mediterranean fruit fly has been found in a ...” by Robert Crabbe, UPI, Aug. 22, 1981
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/08/22/A-Mediterranean-fruit-fly-has-been-found-in-a/6815367300800
- Author: Mike Gunther