- Author: Toni Greer
Many of you are familiar with the scent from the leaves of the Lemon Verbena. However, what about the Sweet Almond Verbena (Aloysia virgata)?
The scent from the lemon verbena emanates from the leaves, while the sweet almond verbena's flowers are fragrant. The almond verbena has leaves that are larger, slightly glossy, dark green, and with scalloped edges. The lemon verbena's leaves are slender, pale green, and with a point at the end.
Sweet almond verbena's flowers are tiny and white on long spires. They are long-blooming as well as the bloom on new growth. Deadheading (removing the spent blooms) gently encourages continued blooming and can help with the legginess of your plant.
They are native to Argentina and can be grown here to be either a woody shrub or a small tree. It can grow to be 15' tall and 8' wide but can be kept pruned to your needs. Its branching habit is slightly weeping like a Buddleia. They have no serious insect or disease problems when planted and grown outside. That is not the case if you decide to grow it inside in a pot.
I planted ours at just under a foot tall and it has grown to about 5' tall in its first year. My challenge, as the pictures show, is that it was attacked by our very strong storms and wind a few weeks ago. This removed the small branches starting from a few inches from the soil to the top of the plant. I didn't catch it early enough when this happened. Because of that, it's now blooming at the end of the very few stems and the central leader. They bloom at the ends of their branches, naked or not. My dilemma now is whether to prune the few blooms off or not, from my no branches but blooming Almond Verbena!
They like full sun and are loved by pollinators and beneficial insects (which is why I initially planted it). It is also drought tolerant once established, which is great for our parched state. The almond verbena is easily propagated in spring or early summer by cuttings.
While gardening is horticulture therapy for me, looking at my bare, blooming almond verbena isn't what I really think about. I do know it will recover and thrive. Now THAT is how I define my horticulture therapy. If you have a space for this interesting small tree/shrub, I would suggest you give it a try.
- Author: Jenni Dodini
I was originally gathering information on another topic when Steve handed me the grocery ads from the mail. Seems like everybody had shamrock plants for sale. Of course, I had to go buy one and then got inspired to research shamrocks instead of what I was originally researching.
Turns out that I really didn't know much of anything about them besides some of the Irish folklore, and I really didn't know much of that either. So I'll start there. Shamrock comes from the Irish word "Seamro'g" which means "little clover". It represents the rebirth of spring. The three leaves explain the Holy Trinity. The 4th leaf (If any) symbolizes God's Grace. Four-leaf clovers are considered lucky because the odds of finding one are about 1 in 10,000! If you should be so very lucky as to find one, then giving it to another person is reputed to double the luck. In ancient times they were thought to be magical or sacred. They could enable the holder to see fairies, recognize witches and evil spirits, and enjoy protection from the "evil eye". Eve was thought to have taken a 4 leaf clover with her when she was banished from the Garden of Eden. Oxalis tetraphylla is known as the "Lucky Clover" because it naturally has 4 leaves that form a dark maroon eye in the middle. It is native to Mexico.
There are actually two unrelated genera that are considered "Shamrocks", Oxalis and Trifolia. Oxalis is also known as Wood Sorrel and there are over 500 species which are most numerous in the tropics. Trifolia are generally clovers that have three leaves. Both can be grown indoors or outdoors, in containers, or planted in the ground in hardiness zones 6 - 11. Outdoor plants can be brought indoors during the harsher winters down to zone 3. Both also have dormant periods, usually in the summer that can last up to three months for the green plants. The purple ones usually are only dormant for about a month. During this time, they like to be on the dry side in a cooler place. Both have flowers in a variety of colors.
As both plants are members of the legume family, their roots have nitrogen-fixing bacteria thereby giving them value to the soil as a "green manure". Bees and other pollinators are attracted to the flowers. Right now, the "Yellow Bell" oxalis in the orchards can be heard to be alive with the humming of bees! Many of the clovers grow in harmony with lawn grasses and are helpful because they crowd out broadleaf weeds, the most popular clovers being the "white clovers" Trifolium dubnium or repens. This is because of their tolerance for being mowed.
PLEASE BE AWARE AND ACT / ADVISE ACCORDINGLY --- Oxalis is TOXIC to dogs, cats, rabbits, and horses, and probably other small pets as well as small children because it contains oxalic acid.
- Author: Paula Pashby
A while back, I planted some winter seeds that a friend had given me, which included cilantro (Coriandrum sativum), onions (Allium cepa), and spinach (Spinacia oleracea). All of the seeds were mixed together, so for some fun winter gardening, I planted them in a medium-sized container to see what I would get.
Once they grew a bit, I thinned them out so each seedling had its own space to grow.
The first seedlings to peek through the soil had two long and narrow leaves. The next set of seedlings to appear had just one thin, long, straight vertical leaf – maybe the onion? And the last one to pop up had two oval-shaped leaves that looked like spinach.
These seedlings were nothing like I had expected for cilantro, onions, or spinach leaves. However, that was not a problem, as what I saw was one phase of many for normal plant growth. The first one or two sprouts that most seeds put out are called “cotyledons” (kaa tuh lee dn). Cotyledons are also referred to as seed leaves, embryonic leaves, and first leaves.
Cotyledons are not considered “true” leaves of the plant because they are actually part of the seed or embryo. These seedling leaf sprouts are a storage area for the seed's nutritional reserves and will emerge through the soil in different forms that vary between plants. Sometimes the cotyledons will remain underground to serve as a food source for the plant, such as with peas. In either case, the cotyledons are necessary for seedling development.
The seedling will use the cotyledon leaves' reserves for growth until their true leaves appear. The cotyledon leaves will wither and die when they are no longer necessary for the seedling's survival.
As always, what seems to be a simple observation about a garden wonder can turn into another discovery adventure that triggers many other questions to investigate.
- Author: Erin Mahaney
One of the most anticipated springtime displays in my yard is a flowering crabapple (Malus floribunda), also known as a Japanese crabapple. We had a beautiful flowering crabapple in our yard when I was growing up and I knew that I wanted to plant one in my own garden someday. Even though it is a bit outsized for my small yard, I'm glad I did!
Ornamental flowering crabapples have beautiful springtime flowers. There are many different selections of trees, but the flower colors generally range from white to pink to red. The blossoms, which can be single, semidouble, or double depending on the selection, typically emerge before the leaves. My tree begins flowering with bright red buds that open to pale pink and then mature to white. Spectacular! I love that the tree has a variety of colors at nearly all times when it is blooming.
The Japanese flowering crabapple is a broad, densely-branched tree that grows to about 15-25 feet tall and wide (and perhaps even wider). It needs space to spread. The tree needs very little pruning, but it is common, however, to see it pruned quite hard into a small, flat-topped, or umbrella-shaped form. Perhaps people want the flower display, but don't have space for one in its natural state. When I planted my tree 20 years ago, the estimated size range was 15-18 feet wide; but, as noted above, today's literature indicates the mature size is substantially larger! While I prefer a more natural form, I nonetheless prune and shape the tree occasionally to fit the yard.
Many crabapple trees are purely ornamental, which means that they don't bear edible fruit. Other crabapple trees are grown for fruit that used for making jelly, pickling, or cider. My tree bears tiny (less than ½” diameter) inedible yellow fruit with a red blush. Supposedly the birds and wildlife like the fruit, but I haven't noticed an abundance of wildlife when the tree is fruiting. (There seems to be plenty to eat in the neighborhood!) Crabapple trees should not be planted near a patio where fruit drop could make a mess.
The Japanese flowering crabapple bears dark green, oval leaves in the summer. The fall color of crabapple selections isn't outstanding, but some types have yellow or orange leaves.
The tree grows best in well-drained soil in full sun, but it can tolerate a wide range of soils. It has moderate disease resistance. According to some sources, established trees have some drought tolerance, but based on other sources, drought tolerance may be affected by soil type.
A reliable, gorgeous bloomer, the flowering crabapple brings joy to the garden each spring.
- Author: Tina Saravia
The days are getting longer. The weather is getting warmer. My chickens are laying more eggs, and I am getting more anxious to get the garden in better shape for spring. Which of my trees and shrubs need attention, which ones don't? I learned over the years that there's no one answer on when, how, or what.
I have an olive tree (Olea europaea L.) in the front yard that does not yield as much fruit as I want. We take those olives for the Fall Community Milling at the nearby il Fiorello Olive Farm, and last Fall, it only yielded half a pound of olives.
As I poured the last drop of delicious, grassy community-milled olive oil from my tiny little bottle, I thought about how I can prune my tree so I can get more oil out of it.
I found a good number of YouTube videos of people talking and demonstrating how to prune an olive tree, and this one from the Sonoma UC Cooperative Extension is a really good resource:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfHFr_3eYpM
The links below have more complete information about growing olive trees in the backyard.
http://homeorchard.ucanr.edu/Fruits_&_Nuts/Olive/
http://fruitsandnuts.ucdavis.edu/dsadditions/Olive_Fact_Sheet/
Now I'm ready to prune my olive tree and I look forward to a bigger bottle of olive oil in the Fall.
