Peasant Gardens vrs. Convenience

One of the big trends in gardening these days is planting a multilayered garden with edible plants as ground cover, shrubs, & fruit trees, with a few herbs and/ornamental thrown into the mix. I was intrigued by this concept in the mid-70s. I learned my lesson well—the hard way.

Mixing layered plants with & under fruit trees is a royal pain in the @#s. You’re forever looking for a place to step without squishing the other, lower plants. It must increase the picking & pruning time by a factor of three to ten times. Another problem is finding any fallen fruit so as to not leave any pests or diseases around to infect the tree the next year.

The mixture of layers of bearing crops is really based on peasant culture, especially in the tropics. If you read the books carefully, you’ll find a lot of the “models” are actually based on non-temperate plantings. The tropics has a completely different soil ecosystem. The tropics stores most of its nutrients above ground for rapid availability of nutrients. In temperate zones, it’s the other way around. Soil not in the tropics, such as most of America, stores much of the nutrients in the soil. To take a tropical model & transfer it to a temperate climate is fraught with the possibility of failure.

Furthermore, the tropical models usually stem from a highly knowledgeable peasant demographic. The people are trained via many generations of cultivators where tried-and-trusted cultivation techniques are common. The tropical ecosystem combined with skilled knowledge of the ecosystem often makes for lush, multi-layered plantings. In America, most families have two working people. What to do in the “spare time” is critical. A layered planting takes so much extra time that I don’t recommend it. Rather than the two photos of peach trees with roses, irises, and dozens of other plants beneath & beyond the dripline of the tree, I prefer clustering fruit trees in a zone with continuous mulch as seen in David Ulmer’s front yard. The time saved for other recreational activities is greatly increased. The planting of beneficial insect attracting plant well beyond the current & future diameter of the fruit tree works fine as must beneficial insects can easily fly into fruit tree zone to pray upon pests.

It’s a matter of choosing between an aesthetic bias, a preference an intellectual concept, or the convenience of zoning the trees together. This doesn’t mean linear rows like a commercial orchard. Instead I plant fruit trees on an irregular spacing to look more like a grove of trees. Another excellent approach is to plant two, three, four or more trees in the same planting spot—as David does. The photo without plants & a continuous mulch beneath is a planting for David’s wise use of fruit trees. This gives the opportunity to increase the variety of fruit while looking less like a typical orchard.

“BUY FROM THE SOURCE TO HELP KEEP WRITERS WRITING”


Let me know what you think. Visit my web site, www. rkourik.com, to learn about my new book on drip irrigation and other gardening books. Thanks, Robert

Pollarding, Oy Vey

A futile attempt at pruning an ornamental ‘Bradford Pear’ tree to keep it from blocking the names of the business. (The photograph on the right.) The trees were bought on a whim by somebody that wasn’t thinking about their future size. The pitiful attempt to turn them into some kind of pollarded tree sure doesn’t seem to working. This tree has been pruned (hacked) this way for over 5 years. Don’t make this mistake! Sycamore/London Plane trees work much better and are the common tree for pollarding trees in Paris and other countries, as seen in the photograph on the left.


“BUY FROM THE SOURCE TO HELP KEEP WRITERS WRITING”


Let me know what you think. Visit my web site to learn about my new book on drip irrigation and other gardening books. Thanks, Robert

Concrete Kills

In my book Roots Demystified, Change Your Gardening Habits to Help Roots Thrive I talk about how important it is to allow the soil to breath for the best growth of roots. Roots with compaction or hardscape don't thrive. Here's a large, formerly beautiful, oak tree surrounded by a parking lot, driveway, sidewalk, and street. As the butchered pruning shows, the tree is rapidly dying over the past five years - a short period of time for an oak tree that can last for several hundred years or more. Such a glorious tree slowly dieing due to an anaerobic form of root bondage.

“BUY FROM THE SOURCE TO HELP KEEP WRITERS WRITING”


Let me know what you think.Visit my web site to learn about my new book on drip irrigation and other gardening books.NOTE: The comments section at the bottom of the post has disappeared. Click on the "___ Comments" button or the title under the "Blog Archives". Thanks, Robert

YIKES, Don't do this at home!

NOT MY GARDEN!

I ran across this poor tree and was amazed at how it was butchered. Seems they tried to cut almost flush on a few cuts. But heaven knows who left the enormous "stub".

If your tree, like this fir, doesn't have a noticeable hump or shoulder (branch collar) at the base of the limb, you can use the drawing to figure out where to cut. Make one cut a foot or so under the limb part way out from the trunk. Cut further out from the first cut. When the branch falls, it won't rip bark past the first cut. Lastly, make a proper cut as illustrated from A to D. In all cases, don't cut flush!

Let me know what you think.

Visit my web site to learn about my new book on drip irrigation and other gardening books.

NOTE: The comments section at the bottom of the post has disappeared. Click on the "___ Comments" button or the title under the "Blog Archives". Thanks, Robert

Pruning in the Summer versus Winter Pruning

Why in the dickens am I mentioning summer pruning now? Well many people still don’t know that it’s possible to prune throughout the summer. I used to have to cover summer pruning during winter pruning lectures because nobody would sign up for just a summer pruning class in the summer. In fact summer pruning may be more helpful than winter pruning. Summer pruning [especially repeated pruning] is the best way to control a tree that is growing to tall or fast. Summer pruning slightly reduces the tree’s vigor. While winter pruning stimulates new growth in the spring as it begins to leaf out.

Grandfather never lied. When he said “pruning trees in the summer is bad, especially with fruit trees—they might bleed to death” he was just repeating an heirloom myth. I know better now. Summer pruning will not cause plants to perish. In reality, summer pruning is a very valuable addition to the gardener’s repertoire of techniques (a tool, if you will) for shaping and nurturing all garden growth.

Summer Pruning’s Virtues

There are many practical aspects to summer pruning. First, it’s comfortable; you can wear shorts and a tee shirt instead of being cumbersomely bundled up. Now, pruning is spread over a greater number of months to ease a gardener’s busy spring. Since the foliage is readily visible, it’s easier to spot dead, damaged, or diseased growth; and you can watch how pruning effects light and shadow patterns.

It offers more opportunities to control unwanted growth on a tree. Mid- to late-summer is the best time to remove unwanted suckers and so-called water sprouts—those poorly-named straight shoots which tower through a tree’s crown [a.k.a., canopy] or along the top of horizontal limb—with a single pruning.

Summer pruning can allow you to enjoy bountiful flowering and then control the size of the tree. Summer pruning allows more light into the crown to add a colorful blush to ripening fruit. Pruning cuts callus-over with the assistance of active photosynthesis, sealing the wound.

Summer Pruning’s Shortcomings

Foremost, summer pruning is a new concept to many. Pruning trees in leaf makes it harder to see a deciduous tree’s winter branching pattern. The main and secondary limbs may get sunburned. [When pruning in hot summer areas, cut with discretion, leaving enough foliage to protect the main the trunk.] If you prune too late in the summer where winters are cold, any new growth will be vulnerable to some freeze damage. With fruit trees, some fruit may be knocked off if you prune on older limbs before harvesting.

Some diseases enter open pruning cuts. The fungus Anthracnose sp. causes cankers and enters cuts during fall rains in the west—don’t prune too late in the summer, allow plenty of time for a callus to form. Check the Cooperative Extension Service and its Master Gardener Program or an arborist for other diseases specific to your area.

Let me know what you think.

Visit my web site to learn about my new book on drip irrigation and other gardening books.

NOTE: The comments section at the bottom of the post has disappeared. Click on the "___ Comments" button or the title under the "Blog Archives". Thanks, Robert

Lavenders - Prune with care-free abandon

Well, not with a weed-whacker or inattentive eyes. But with educated eyes and some trusty clippers.

Most people prune their lavenders wrong. They often cut the flower stem back to where the foliage begins. This works for awhile. However, I found out in the distant past that I ended up with a leggier plant that flopped open from the weight of the blossoms, as is the case with the Spanish lavender (Lavandula stoechas var. 'Otto Quast'). For other lavender species and cultivars, they just had shorter lives as they became more gangly. Eventually I learned that this sub-shrub needs “severe” pruning. NOT back to so-called “dead wood” as nothing will sprout where there are no leaves.

Yesterday I pruned a large Spanish lavender plant. (The “English” varieties are budding, but not yet blooming.) The photograph of my 15-year-old Spanish lavender shows how dramatically I prune. I prune back to where there is only one- to two-inches of foliage. In the photograph, it shows that I cut the flower stems and the foliage by eight or more inches. I filled a 15-gallon container with the clippings of a single five-foot-wide plant. This more radical pruning keeps the plant more compact and less likely to flop open. And such care means a long, healthy life for each lavender.

Try this style of intensive pruning – but not with totally-free abandonment.

Please post a comment - I want to know what you think.

Visit my web site to learn about my gardening books.

NOTE: The comments section at the bottom of the post has disappeared. Click on the "___ Comments" button or the title under the "Blog Archives". Thanks, Robert

Plants Don't Bleed to Death

Most trees don’t commit suicide by bleeding to death.

The same is true for shrubs, vines, and other perennials.

If you’ve ever had maple syrup on pancakes, you’ve eaten a bleeding sugar maple tree (Acer saccharum). Not only do the trees not die, they are tapped again the next season and for as long as 100 years. Same goes for true rubber. Slices in the bark of the rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis ) allowed the latex sap to dribble into containers. Same tree every year for many years..

The photo on the lower left is a droplet of sap coming from a pruned Kiwi vine. I pruned the second-story vines late this year. (Rain, book to finish, coordinating an assistant, blah, blah, blah…) The end to the remaining vines dribbled like a leaky hose. For days. Now, some four weeks later, the leaves are beginning to show at the bud just behind the cut.

Why, you might ask, Kiwi’s on the second floor of my house that requires two people to lift and position the ladder? I transplanted two vines from a friend’s fence only to find out they were both females. (I have gotten as much as 25 fruits with no male Kiwi around. Figure that one out!) My foremost reason was to provide an arching canopy along the length of the south-facing wall. (I have friends with a multitude of fruit I can share.) The idea was to have a well-shaded house for our hot Indian summer days. I certainly wasn’t planning on a crop two floors off the ground. So, I prune them for shade by cutting most of the vine back to main vine and some laterals. By the end of the summer some of the vines have arched gracefully ten feet, or more, over the patio below. The cloak of the leaves is both beautiful and functional.

You can see my house in early fall in the third photo with a bit of the wall in the sun.

Please post a comment - I want to know what you think.

Visit my web site to learn about my other gardening books.

NOTE: The comments section at the bottom of the post has disappeared. Click on the "___ Comments" button or the title under the "Blog Archives". Thanks, Robert

Shaping, Not Just Pruning, Fruit Trees

I love Asian pears. They are flavorful yet crispy. And they ripen on the tree instead picking European pears early and letting them ripen in a dark, cool place.

I just got done pruning an Asian pear tree for a friend last week. It’s not easy pruning, or rather, shaping these trees.

Asian pear trees are inclined to sprout new growth that is even more vertical than European pear trees. This tendency to form vertical shoots with a narrow angle of attachment, which makes for a weaker crotch, must be dealt with in the first few months of each season's growth.

Shaping rather than pruning is the way to treat an Asian pear tree. I prefer to spread the young shoots in the early summer to a healthier, and more productive, 45- to 60-degree angle. I use toothpicks to spread the very young shoots once they are ten- to 16-inches long. When the shoots are this young, they are flexible enough to bend to any angle without snapping. I insert one point of a round, wooden toothpick into the new shoot a few inches above its point of origin. Next I bend the shoot out to the desired angle, and insert the other end into the bark of the tree's trunk. By the end of August, I can remove the toothpicks, and the new branch will stay mostly in the position it was trained to by the toothpick.

The tree I was working on last week hadn’t had its stems forced into a 45^o angle when it was young. The owners had missed several seasons. However, there are several ways to spread the older, more-stubborn limbs.

Spreaders can be made out of various lengths of one-by stakes with a nail point at both ends. In the photos you'll see that I used some used 1" X 4" pieces of wood. (You can make these by nailing an eight- or ten-penny box nail halfway into the each end and clipping off the nail's head with a wire-clipper.) Insert one nail point into the newer shoot or limb, bend it down to the correct angle, or a bit further, and insert the other nail point into the trunk.(See the left photo.)

A non-intrusive option is to find a nice heavy rock. Tie a sturdy string to the rock, bend the limb down, and tie the string to the limb. You can adjust the angle of the limb by moving the rock toward or away from the tree. With both methods, you'll need to keep the limb bound into the new position for several or more years to allow the branch to stiffen-up enough to hold its own position.

A neighbor filled Styrofoam cups with cement an inserted a wire before the cement hardened. Then the weights were added to the new growth to weight down the limbs to a proper angle.

Once the limbs come into bearing, the weight of each year's fruit is usually heavy enough to spread the limbs without assistance. In fact, the trees are usually prolific enough that too much spreading should be the gardener's concern—the branches break off. Thin the young fruits to a single fruit every five- to eight-inches apart along the limb. Keep an eye on the fruit-laden limbs, as they still may require propping to prevent torn limbs.

Please post a comment - I want to know what you think.

To see more detail of the illustration(s) put you cursor over the image and double click.

Note: I somehow lost the usual section "Post a comment". To leave a comment, simply click on the area/button that says "___ Comments". Clicking on the title of a Post under "Blog Archive" also gets you to a view that gives the option of leaving a comment. I hope to figure this out soon. Robert

All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2008

Visit my web site to learn about my gardening books.