Advice for the Home Gardener from the Help Desk of the
UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County
And can you please identify the green plant for me and what I should do with it? The ones I see in our neighborhood look more like a low ground covering but ours has a large trunk and is very woody and unattractive. I am open to pulling it out if it can't be pruned attractively.
Fuchsia: I suggest that you hold off pruning the fuchsia until next spring. Your fuchsia looks like it is struggling as it only has sparse stems, leaves and flowers and the leaves look rather pale. If you were to prune it most likely you would be removing many of the leaves and without those it would not be able to produce its food. Flowers appear on new wood so do any pruning before spring growth begin but after the last frost. During this part of the season focus on providing good cultural care.
Fuchsias like to be watered regularly; you want to maintain a moist but not waterlogged condition.
Fuchsias are heavy feeders so while blooming provide a monthly application of a balanced liquid fertilizer. A balanced fertilizer is one with 3 numbers about the same. You may see 5-5-5 or 10-10-10. The numbers represent the percentage of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus respectively in the product.
Unknown plant: Your unknown plant is a ceanothus. There many varieties of ceanothus both upright shrubs and ground covers as you see in your neighbor's yards. Regardless of the type you have, I can provide you with general information on pruning and care.
The part of the plant you are showing in the picture has nice green growth. Since I cannot see the whole plant I am unable to tell you if you will be able to make it more attractive. For pruning, wait until the blooms have faded and avoid cutting off any branches more than an inch in diameter. While most Ceanothus can be shaped by tip pruning and cleaning out interior or low dead growth, it resents serious hacking. Ceanothus will not produce shoots from old wood, so never prune back severely to old wood. Prune from the inside, lightly thinning and removing a few lower limbs.
Ceanothus typically requires little if any water during the summer months so caution here because your fuchsia that lives right next to it requires regular water.
Following is a link to a UC website that will provide more information on the history, pruning, and care of ceanothus: http://sonomamg.ucanr.edu/Plant_of_the_Month/Ceanothus_796/
Help Desk of UC the UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County (EDC)
Note: Contra Costa MG's Help Desk is available almost year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays (e.g., last 2 weeks December), we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 2380 Bisso Lane, Concord, CA 94520. We can also be reached via telephone: (925) 608-6683, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/. MGCC Blogs can be found at http://ccmg.ignore.edu/HortCoCo/ You can also subscribe to the Biog
- Author: Rebecca K. Ozeran
This is the adventure of a livestock advisor trying to find a way to kill a fig tree. Normally we are doing our best to make fruit trees grow. In this case, Rebecca Ozeran had to find the best way to kill figs that were fouling the range. Her solution is not applicable to fruit tree growers in California. Triclopyr is not registered for edible fruit tree crops in CA. So, don't try this at home. There are other ways of doing it.
Mention of any pesticide in this message is not a recommendation.
Why a Livestock Advisor learned about fig trees
by Rebecca Ozeran
Livestock and Natural Resources Advisor
UCCE Fresno County
As a livestock and natural resources advisor, I don't expect to get questions about fruit trees such as figs. As it turns out, I recently needed to know just enough about figs to provide information on how to kill them - a west Fresno County landowner contacted me to ask how he could get rid of some fig trees that were threatening his belowground water pipelines.
Before writing this post, I did my due diligence and confirmed that no one has already discussed fig trees as the target of weed control on this blog. The only mentions of fig trees in the UC Weed Science blog history are a listing of approved herbicides to control weeds in California subtropical crops as of 2 years ago1 and a mention that fig was one of several crops undergoing residue trials last summer2. Triclopyr is, interestingly, not on the list of approved herbicides. (This will be important later.)
Now that we've established this, we have to ask: Why and how are we getting figs on rangelands in Fresno County? And why does it matter?
Figure 1. Mature fig trees in an orchard.
For starters, Fresno County used to have several thousand acres of cultivated figs (nearly 13,000 ac in 19663, but less than 7,500 ac as of 20164), so there are many places in the county where volunteer figs can be seen sprouting, including in newer subdivisions where fig orchards used to be, e.g. the "Fig Garden" region of the city of Fresno. Landowners also may have decided to plant figs on their rural properties as a source of fresh fruit and/or shade, and once established, the figs were able to reproduce and spread. Although fig populations seem to grow slowly in new areas, figs have invaded riparian and other natural areas throughout California's Central Valley5 and can be tough to control once established.
Of course, if fig didn't cause any problems where it grew in these natural areas, we wouldn't be talking about it today. Unfortunately, fig is capable of displacing native plants and forming thick clusters of fig where nothing else can grow5, often in riparian areas. This is problematic for livestock owners, since grazing animals don't find fully grown fig trees appetizing. This can also be bad news for the biodiversity found in riparian areas, as figs become a monoculture. In addition, fig tree clusters decrease ground cover from litter (fallen leaves, grass stems, etc.) which means the fig-dominated areas have more bare soil than grassy or shrubby areas.
Figure 2. Weedy figs create dense stands that exclude other vegetation.
Trees also tend to evapotranspire more water than herbaceous plants like grasses, so they can actually take more water from stream systems and lower stream water levels6. The combination of lower water levels and higher potential for soil erosion can then cause trouble for water quality, and especially for aquatic animals who may require certain water temperatures, clarity, or depth to survive. Lastly, there is the threat fig roots pose to water infrastructure (pipelines) as seen by the landowner who contacted me in the first place.
Hopefully at least one of those consequences helped to illustrate why someone might consider fig a weed. Fortunately for me, several Weed Workgroup members provided great information when I reached out for advice. Mechanical treatments are impractical, as fig can create new sprouts from cut stumps, stems, and roots, and repeated treatments are not always feasible. Applying glyphosate alone to the leaves is ineffective; more effective are cut stump or basal bark applications of various herbicides, including combinations listed in the informative Weed Control in Natural Areas7. Based on the book, very little is known about the efficacy of many herbicide treatments on fig itself, and treatment recommendations are based on their use in other species. Only triclopyr (told you it would be important) has been tested explicitly on fig. Triclopyr is particularly effective when applied as a basal bark treatment. A great resource explaining basal bark treatment can be found below8.
Figure 3. Tree receiving basal bark herbicide treatment.
A non-UC member of the workgroup, Dr. Kerri Steenworth of USDA-ARS, referred me to Dr. Katherine Holmes, a restoration ecologist who is currently Assistant Executive Director of Solano County RCD and Chair of Solano County Weed Management Area. Dr. Holmes has investigated riparian and rangeland restoration connected to fig tree invasion in California's Central Valley5,9,10. When I spoke with Dr. Holmes, she confirmed that triclopyr basal bark treatments have been the most effective in her experience. She has never attempted stem injection or cut stump application on figs but hypothesizes that the strong sap flow would likely reduce the effectiveness of injected herbicide, and that the root system of cut and treated stumps may still be able to create new stems. Dr. Holmes suggested coating the basal 6 to 8 inches of the fig trunk with a mixture of 75% Hasten (surfactant) and 25% Garlon 4 (triclopyr), as long as the tree wasn't in or near water. Basal bark treatments require that the tree is still alive for enough time for the herbicide to be distributed through the vascular system.
In sum, fig trees are a weed issue I never imagined, but fortunately there seems to be an effective solution. More research on treating this species as a weed could be valuable, as fig production is in decline in Fresno County and fig invasion may continue in natural areas. For now, we at least have one blog post about controlling weedy fig trees.
References:
- Weed Control in Subtropical Tree Crops. http://ucanr.edu/blogs/ucdweedscience/blogfiles/32828.pdf
- Treevix Labeled for Use in California Pomegranates. http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=21326
- 1966 Fresno County Crop Report. Available at http://www.co.fresno.ca.us/departments/agricultural-commissioner/crop-report-history.
- 2016 Fresno County Crop Report. Available at http://www.co.fresno.ca.us/departments/agricultural-commissioner/crop-report-history.
- Holmes, K. 2008. Invasive fig trees (Ficus carica) in the riparian forests of California's Central Valley: population growth, community impacts, and eradication efforts [dissertation]. Available at https://search.proquest.com/docview/304698102/previewPDF/7D691548E68B4426PQ/1?accountid=14515
- Hibbert, A. R. 1983. Water yield improvement potential by vegetation management on western rangelands. Water Resourves Bulletin 19: 375-381.
- DiTomaso, J.M., G. B. Kyser, S. R. Oneto, R. G. Wilson, S. B. Orloff, L. W. Anderson, S. D. Wright, J. A. Roncoroni, T. L. Miller, T. S. Prather, and C. Ransom. 2013. Weed Control in Natural Areas in the Western United States.
- Enloe, S., N. Loewenstein, W. Kelley, and A. Brodbeck. 2010. Basal bark herbicide treatment for invasive plants in pastures, natural areas, and forests. Alabama Cooperative Extension System, Agronomy and Soils Series. http://www.aces.edu/timelyinfo/Ag%20Soil/2010/December/Dec_2010.pdf
- Holmes, K. A. and A. M. Berry. 2009. Evaluation of off-target effects due to basal bark treatment for control of invasive fig trees (Ficus carica). Invasive Plant Science and Management 2:345-351.
- Holmes, K. A., S. E. Greco, and A. M. Berry. 2014. Pattern and process of fig (Ficus carica) invasion in a California riparian forest. Invasive Plant Science and Management 7:46-58.
Figures:
- Retrieved from https://ucanr.edu/repository/fileimage.cfm?article=99170&p=HVFBYB
- Retrieved from http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/took-some-pictures-of-the-fig-forest-5952568.
- (C) David R. Jackson and Penn State Extension. Retrieved from https://extension.psu.edu/using-basal-bark-herbicide-applications-to-control-understory-tree-species.
Help for the Home Gardener from the Help Desk of the
UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County
Client's Request: I have a very large Purple Fountain Grass plant. I'd like to thin out the plant and cut back the outer “stalks” that keep falling down, generally to “tidy it up”. How large can it grow and what care should I be giving it? Also, I have some nearby blue fescue with reddish brown stalks that I think should be “blue”. Do you think the Purple Fountain Grass might be causing this? Finally, as I've previously mentioned, I'm thinking about thinning and/or transplanting the Fountain Grass, when and how should I do that?
Purple Fountain Grass (Pennisetum, setaceum) is a perennial plant in Sunset Zones 8-24 (USDA zones 9 or higher) but in colder areas with heavy frost, it is usually grown as an annual. It is native to South Africa, southwestern Asia, and the Arabian peninsula. It is classified as a warm season grass, which is important to know when wanting to prune or divide the plant. It also tends to die back in the winter. It grows best in full sun, in well-draining soil, and is moderately drought tolerant. It can grow in poor soil with little care but will flourish with a little more water and fertilization. As you are aware, it can grow to about 5 feet tall and wide. It is very showy especially in the fall and offers a lovely contrast when planted with other plantings.
Answering your first question on how to thin out the plant and what to do with the falling outer “stalks” (flowers) --the best time to prune fountain grass is late winter or early spring--but be sure to prune before the grass begins to re-grow. Also avoid pruning in the fall before the plant has had time to go dormant.
It is also recommended that you wear gloves and long sleeves as grasses can be sharp and cause itching. Use sharp pruners or hedge clippers. You may need to re-sharpen them as grasses dull cutting blades. Grab the plant and tie a string or tape around it and cut straight across the plant 4-6 inches from the base. Using your hands or a tool, comb through the remaining plant to remove dead grass. If you wish to thin the plant, make small cuttings inside of the plant in several areas. The remaining grass stalks will "disappear" when the plant re-grows and will provide some support to the flowers and blades. This is an arching type of grass so some flowers will fall around the periphery of the plant and you can trim these away but again leave 4-6 inches of the blades. Here is a link to a UC article about pruning ornamental grasses: http://sonomamg.ucanr.edu/2010_Feature_Articles/Pruning_Ornamental_Grasses/.
Your second question was about the blue fescue with reddish brown stalks and whether or not the fountain grass could be causing this to happen. I could find no information in my research about fountain grass causing this problem. Browning of grass may be due to excessive watering or fertilization or the plant being root bound or excessive sunburn. It may also be the result of the fountain grass shading the blue fescue. Pruning away the brown grass is suggested as well as pruning the fountain grass so it is not shading the fescue. If the discoloration is due to a rust problem, here is an article that tells you how to manage this disease: http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/r785101611.html.
Your third question about transplanting a fountain grass clump and thinning out the plant: you will want to dig up the root ball. You can best transplant and/or divide up the clump in the fall before dormancy or in the spring when the plant is beginning to re-grow. Here is a link which will give you more information: http://sacmg.ucanr.edu/files/117290.pdf.
I hope I have answered your questions and the links are helpful to you. Let us know if you have any further questions and we hope you are successful with transplanting these beautiful grasses.
Help Desk of the UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County (EKP)
Note: The UC Master Gardeners Program of Contra Costa's Help Desk is available year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays, we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 75 Santa Barbara Road, 2d Floor, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523. We can also be reached via telephone: (925)646-6586, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/ MGCC Blogs can be found at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/HortCoCo/ You can also subscribe to the Blog (http://ucanr.edu/blogs/CCMGBlog/).
/span>- Author: Alison Collin
With Memorial Day fast approaching my thoughts have turned to poppies because a paper Red Flanders Poppy (Papaver rhoeas) is often worn to remember and honor those who have fought for their country. In many parts of Europe the plants are still to be found growing in cornfields and along byways in large masses and, although in some places they have been declared an agricultural weed, most people secretly love them.
The poppy family, Papaveracae contains 25 genera, and over 100 species which generally emanate from the temperate latitudes. Many have wonderfully flamboyant flowers such as the well-known California poppy, (Eschscholzia california) with its saturated orange flowers which clothe many dry hillsides of the state in spring, to the exquisite sky blue Himalayan blue poppy (Meconopsis betonicifolia) which is tricky to grow at the best of times and would hate the dry atmosphere in the Owens Valley.
However there are many garden varieties of poppies which are easy to grow here and it is hard not to love their vibrant crepe petals.
California Poppies now come in a wide range of colors such as pale cream (White Linen), burnt orange (Mikado), yellow (Chrome Queen), and purple (purple gleam). They are perennials but can be grown as annuals where there is a long season. They have a long taproot and resent any attempts to transplant them, so the seed needs to be sown where they are to grow. Water to keep moist until germination has occurred after which occasional watering should suffice, although they will flower for a longer season if given a more regular supply.
Shirley Poppies (P. rhoeas) are annuals and do well here if sown in the fall to will bloom in the spring. They grow about 3 feet tall and about 1 foot wide, and come in a variety of colors apart from the original red – white, pink, salmon, and lilac, sometime with a contrasting white edge. Bees love them for their early supply of pollen, and I have often witnessed them almost fighting around the anthers.
Oriental Poppies (P. orientale). These perennials are perhaps the most striking with huge flowers held on strong stems in late spring or early summer. They grow a clump of hairy leaves early in the year before the flower stems develop. Large clumps of flowers each up to 7 inches in shades of scarlet, white, coral or pink with a large black blotch at the base of the each petal can make a spectacular show in May, after which the foliage dies down in the summer in response to hot weather. They are also loved by bees for their black pollen. Unfortunately the roots are also irresistible to gophers!
Papaver soniferum, an annual variety that has been in cultivation for hundreds of years, comes in a wide range of colors and forms. I love the original single violet flowers which have darker splotches at the base of the petals but now they also come in double varieties (which are not attractive to bees and can look rather like a mop head), and fringed versions. The colors range from very pale pinks to almost black. Unlike a lot of other poppies the leaves are grayish-green, and smooth.
A plant that has done exceptionally well in my high desert garden is P. atlanticum. This is a smaller poppy which produces a prolific crop of soft orange semi-double flowers and which arise from a clump of perennial foliage. It has a very long blooming season if it is regularly deadheaded. It is difficult to transplant, but volunteers readily and comes through our winters with ease. The large black native carpenter bees are particularly attracted to this flower and look ridiculous as they try to collect food from these delicate flowers.
In the deserts the native prickly poppy, Argemone intermedia, is just coming into bloom. An annual or biennial, it has large crinkly white flowers the delicacy of which belies the prickly plant's tough nature, so unless you have an area given over to plants that like dry rocky terrain, you probably would not want to plant this in your garden. It is much loved by insects of all sorts.
Another native plant with similar flowers and no prickles is the shrubby Romneya coulteri the blooms of which look like fried eggs with their crepe-papery petals surrounding a boss of golden stamens. It is native to the Californian coastal regions, and is probably borderline hardy in the Owens Valley but I have seen a spectacular hedge of them growing in West Bishop. They are quite tricky to get established since they require fire for the seeds to germinate, and have rubbery roots that do not hold a ball of soil well for transplanting. The best method is to find a rooted sucker and try transplanting that. However, once established in ideal conditions these plants can spread rapidly and reach 6ft-8ft.
There are many more types of poppies, both native and cultivated and seeds of these available, both from suppliers of native plant seeds and catalogs such as www.edenbrothers.com/PoppySeeds that specialize in garden varieties.
It is hard to find flowers that give so much reward for so little effort.
- Author: Gerry L Hernandez
Perennial Berries and Vines
- Blackberries and Raspberries - Don't let the vines get away from you. Thornless varieties are available. I have a blackberry bush that does not get much water so it stays small. It is like heaven when you eat blackberries from your own vines.
- Blueberries – Full sun, choose southern highbush varieties. Varieties from Maine will not work here. Needs soil to stay moist, so mulch heavily. Use acidic fertilizer. Great shrub!
- Grapes – Beautiful on an arbor or pergola. We had grapes growing on an arbor when I was a kid.
- Strawberries – A lot of types to choose from. They can be grown as an annual or perennial. They have many diseases and pests.
Fruit Trees
If you are going to plant a tree, why not a fruit tree? Fruit trees are easy to keep small if that is what you want. If you have excess fruit, share with a neighbor. I know I would prefer to get figs instead of zucchini!
- Apples – Many varieties to choose from. Codling moth (the worm in the apple) can be a problem.
- Apricots – Many varieties to choose from.
- Avocados – These can be a hit or miss in our area. Your neighbor can have a very fruitful tree and you get nothing. If you are going to plant an avocado, you will need an A and a B plant.
- Cherries – Need lots of chill hours. They need a pollinizer. Birds love cherries, so you may not get many.
- Citrus – grows well in the valley. Oranges are so cheery in the middle of winter.
- Figs – bears 2 crops a year. These trees can be huge but they are easy to keep small. I have 2 fig trees in my yard.
- Kiwis – great on an arbor, pergola or trellis. Be careful what variety you purchase. Some are self-fruitful and some are not.
- Olives – loves our hot dry summers. They are a beautiful landscape tree.They do have a problem with olive fruit fly.
- Peaches and Nectarines – one of the easiest trees to grow here. Lots of varieties! Need to spray for peach leaf curl. I have 2 nectarine trees. One ripens in July and the other in August.
- Pears and Asian Pears– need winter chill. They need a pollinizer trees. Pears have a problem with fireblight.
- Persimmons – Make sure you get the kind of persimmon you want (eating or baking). Beautiful fall foliage.
- Plums – Lots of varieties, sizes and colors.
- Plum Hybrids – Many to choose from and many different flavors. My favorite is the green pluot that comes from a prune variety.
- Pomegranate – Can be a shrub or tree. Beautiful flowers and leaves.