Trees Bent Out of Shape, Actually the Right Way

Summer and many gardeners are planting trees. But what to do with wobbly trees after they are cut from the stake in the pot or B&B?

If it’s necessary to stake a new skinny-trunked transplant to keep it from flopping, the lower you tie the tree to the stake(s), the more the trunk will be able to flex and strengthen in the wind. To determine the best height for tying (a height which will allow flexing but not flopping), grab the trunk with your right hand near the top and gently bend the top over with your left hand. You’ll notice that the tree is able to return to an upright position. Move your right hand down the trunk and continue bending and releasing the top with your left hand. At a certain point, the top will stay flopped over and not regain its upright position. Tie the tree to the stakes at a point six inches higher than the last position of your right hand. From my book, Roots Demystified, Change Your Gardening Habits to Help Roots Thrive.


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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

Pink Beauty

I’m harvesting my ‘Pink Pearl’ apples this week and next. I grafted scions onto a ‘Sierra Beauty’ apple three years ago and there is a bumper crop this year.

Back in 1980, nobody [except for a few rare fruit enthusiasts] had seen or tasted the special apple called ‘Pink Pearl’. It was introduced in 1944. It was developed by a California plant breeder, Albert Etter who lived in Ettersberg, Northern California. It has been said the ‘Pink Pearl’ was crossed with an apple named ‘Surprise’, a red-fleshed rather sour variety. Perhaps this latter apple was derived from a century old variety of red-fleshed Turkish crab apples.

The apple is easy to spot in the spring when tree is blooming. The photograph here shows how much pink the flowers display.

The skin of the fruit is a pale and dull yellowish-brown skin with a slight blush of pink barely showing through the skin. Typically the apple is a bit misshapen. However, the ‘Pink Pearl’ marbled with a pretty pink crisp interior, the flavor is sweetly-tart. Some say its taste is has overtones of lemon custard with a raspberry finish. The flesh is crisp, fine-grained and aromatic. Ripens at my coastal-influenced house in late August and early September.

I grafted onto a tree in the neighborhood in 1982. I harvested plenty of apples in 1985. Doug Gosling made the apple tart pictured here. Little did we know the heat would flush out the entire flesh from marbled pink to a hot, deep pink. This was probably the first time anybody cooked the fruit this way. A picture of the full tart is on the back of my book Designing & Maintaining Your Edible Landscape - Naturally. Sold on my web site.

Here’s a simple recipe:

Pink Pearl Apple Sauce

Pink Pearl apples, cored, peeled and sliced (Use about 2 pounds)

Apple juice

Sugar

Salt

1-2 tablespoons butter

Fresh thyme (or lemon thyme)

Place apple slices in a heavy pot and pour in apple juice to reach halfway up the apples. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook until apples are tender. Add the butter, any sugar, salt, or thyme to taste. I like chunky apple sauce. If you want a smoother apple sauce, use a hand blender.

Now some growers sell ‘Pink Pearl’ apples at local Farmer’s Markets in northern California.

You can purchase bare root tree of this cultivar from: Trees of Antiquity, 20 Wellsona Road, Paso Robles, CA 93446 phone: (805) 467-9909

Please post a comment - I want to 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

Living With the Roots of an Oak Tree

I laugh (and cry) at the little orange fences they put around oaks during construction. They are nearly worthless. While it keeps vehicles for hitting and scaring the bark, it in no way protects the feeding roots.




As a maintenance gardener I’ve had to dig up a few oaks. And just below the ground the roots have a covering much like bark. Bark absorbs very few nutrients. In a study of 25-year-old apple tree in the UK found that the first four feet from the trunk accounted for less than 10% of all the water and nutrients absorbed.

The wobbly-orange fences are, at best placed at the edge of the foliage. A good start as it may help to keep water off the trunk’s base. But this is a far cry from protecting the majority of the root system’s feeding roots.

In the photograph to the left, the construction company dutifully surrounded the oak’s dripline. But all the machinery and the house itself cover what used to be the leaf litter, duff, and organic mater (humus) that once both fed and protected the young feeding roots.

The tiny root hairs, that live for just a day or so, tend to grow up into the fertile strata of the humus and duff zone. They, like all plants, want to be the first to capture liberated nutrients as they become avaiable. As one researcher put it—“roots grow up not down”. While a bit overstated, they fact is the youngest rootlets and their root hairs reside well beyond the canopy of the tree, where all the construction is taking place. (Learn more in my book Roots Demystified,)

(See my Blog of March 31st to see diagrams of the extent of a roots wanderings.)

At one-half to thee times, or more of the width of the dripline roots gather nutrients and moisture far from the trunk or even the canopy.

The photo (on the above right) of the chairs face south along the Big Sur coastline are a good attempt to protect to crown of the young California live oak from moisture in the summer. The gravel does allow rain in the winter to percolate down along with oxygen and harmful gases escape. The compacted gravel is a bit hard on the feeding roots, but the tree seemed health. Perhaps this is one solution to living among oak woodlands.

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

Visit my web site to learn about my gardening books.

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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