Pruning, Flowers

Much of Pruning is About Renewal

Why am I spending so much time pruning these days? To keep plants manageable and healthy, of course. But also so that flowering and fruiting trees, shrubs, and vines keep on flowering and fruiting. “Renewal pruning” is what does this.

Pruning apple spur

Pruning apple spur

As plant stems age, they — like all living things — become decrepit, no longer able to perform well. But any plant’s show or productivity can be kept up if stems that are too old are periodically lopped back, which promotes growth of new, young, fecund stems. That’s all there is to renewal pruning.

Ah, but the devil is in the details. One important detail is how old is “too old.” That depends on the flowering and fruiting habit of the plant.

Near one extreme would be pear trees. Along pear stems grow stubby growths, called “spurs,” which bear the tree’s flowers and fruits.

Young pear spur

Young pear spur

Older pear spur

Older pear spur

 

 

These stubby growths grow only an inch or less each year.  Over time, spurs branch and these small branches, in turn, branch to create what look like miniature trees perched along the tree’s stems.

A pear’s individual spur can remain vibrant for about a decade, so little pruning is needed annually. But eventually, even a spur grows old and decrepit. I renewal prune my pears by cutting back some of the stubby parts of a spur system to coax out younger stubby growths or even by lopping back a whole stem on which they sit, stimulating new stem growth on which will develop new spurs.

Near the other extreme in pruning would be an everbearing raspberry plant, which bears flowers and fruits on young shoots arising from ground level. Those bearing stems are very short lived. One way to prune an everbearing raspberry plant would be to lop all stems to the ground each winter. Having borne, those stems are aging rapidly, and pruning stimulates a flush of new, bearing stems that will come up from ground level in spring.

Everbearing raspberry growth habit

Everbearing raspberry growth habit

(Not to muddy the waters, but everbearing raspberry stems actually bear late in their first summer of growth, then again in midsummer the following year, so stems could be left one more season to bear that second crop. After that, though, the two-year-old stems need to be cut back. They die after their second year anyway.)

Pear and everbearing raspberry represent two extremes in bearing habit and, hence, method of renewal pruning. Other plants lie somewhere on the spectrum between these extremes. Where? It depends, as I wrote, on their particular bearing habit. For instance, blueberry stems are most productive on stems up to 6 years old, gooseberries on stems 2 and 3 years old, and grapes and peaches on stems one year old. So I cut away stems older than 6 years old from my blueberry bushes, stems older than 3 years old from my gooseberry bushes, and stems older than a year old from my grape vines and peach trees.

For other plants grown for either their flowers or their fruits, find out how to renewal prune them by watching how they bear for a season or more, or get the information from a book (such as my book, The Pruning Book).

A Workshop

If you’re interested in delving deeper into pruning, I will be holding a pruning workshop here on my farmden in New Paltz, NY on March 28, 2020. For more information about this workshop, please go to https://leereich.com/workshops.

Not Forgetting the Flowers

Flowers are at a premium this time of year. Here on my farmden, the only flowers blooming outdoors are winter aconite and snowdrops.

Winter aconite

Winter aconite

(Typically, my ‘Arnold’s Promise’ witch hazel would be bursting into bloom about now but a few years ago I performed dramatic renewal pruning to reduce the size of the plant. No special technique was involved other than lopping the whole plant to ground level. Witch hazel’s stems bear flowers for many, many years, so don’t need regular pruning; it does take a few years, though before stems are old enough to begin bearing.)

Indoors, plants sense the lengthening days of brightening sunlight. African violets have been blooming for a couple of weeks and will go on doing so for weeks to come.

African violet

The same goes for the Odontoglossum pulchellum orchid, whose stems are weighed down with small waxy white, fragrant flowers.

One surprise was a butterfly bush that was in a large pot that I had brought indoors for winter. This plant enjoys bright sun and hot days, neither of which it receives indoors — it has, nonetheless, managed to cough forth, so far, a singe blue blossom. I stick my nose into the flowers, close my eyes, and inhale, and it’s midsummer.

Butterfly bush flowe

Butterfly bush, indoors

Most dramatic are the humongous, fire engine red bloom of an amaryllis plant. It is gaudy, but appreciated anyway.

My favorites are the white blossoms now opening on Meyer lemon. The blossoms aren’t all that showy but their fragrance is heady and heavenly. No need even to get my nose up close.

I did catch one other bit of welcome color outdoors: my first sighting of bluebirds. The day is gray but the bluebird, to quote Thoreau, was “carrying the [blue] sky on its back.“

AMUSING MUSINGS

(The following is excerpted from The Ever Curious Gardener: Using a Little Natural Science for a Much Better Garden, available here.)

Write the Name Right!

With little pressing, gardenwise, this time of year, why not muse about plant names — their common names and their sometimes intimidating-looking botanical names? Take the tree commonly named dawn redwood for example. ”Dawn redwood” admittedly reads more easily than this tree’s botanical name, Metasequoia glyptostroboides.

Wait! don’t stop reading! Instead, speak the Latin name aloud slowly: me-ta-see-KYOY-a GLYP-to-stro-boy-dees. It’s delightful, tonal poetry vocalized by a smooth dance of the lips, the tongue, and the upper pallete. 
dawn redwood
Sensual pleasure aside, botanical names have a practical side. That woolly-leaved plant that sends up a candelabra of creamy yellow flowers each summer has a hundred or so common names. I call it mullein but other names include Aaron’s rod, Adam’s flannel, bullock’s lungwort, and velvet plant. This plant has only one botanical name, though, Verbascum thapsus. 
Mullein
Each plant gets only one botanical name, and that name is recognized worldwide. A botanical name has two parts, both based on Latin. The first word in the binomial is the genus; each genus is subdivided into one or more species, the second word of the binomial. This system of plant classification was originally set forth in Species Plantarum, a book written in 1753 by Carl von Linne (usually known by the latinized form of his name, Linnaeus.)

I have a pet peeve about botanical names that finds root in a challenge issued way back in high school English class. Mr. Mehegan gave us detailed information on the correct way to list bibliographic references at the ends of our term papers: punctuation, underlining, capitalization, ordering. Then he predicted (correctly) that no one would list all their references exactly right. Now it irks me when rules are not followed in writing plant names.

Rules for plant nomenclature are simpler than Mr. Mehegan’s rules for referencing. Genus and the species names are always underlined or italicized. Genus is always capitalized; species is not, unless it commemorates a person. A species is never written by itself; if the genus is obvious, it may precede the species in abbreviated form.

The Name is Loaded with Information

With correct botanical information under my belt, if I want a packet of marigold seeds, I could ask for Tagetes minuta whether I am in Andorra or Zanzibar.Marigolds In the case of plants like petunia, chrysanthemum, rhododendron, and fuchsia, at least part of the botanical name is the same as the common name in English. In some cases, using the botanical name might be the only way I could be assured of getting the plant I really want. If I wanted to plant bluebells, Hyacinthoides, and searched and asked for it by its common name, I could end with plants in the Mertensia, Muscari, Campanula, or Eustoma genus.

When I’ve planted lilies, I didn’t want to pick from a grab bag of about 80 different species of Lilium; I wanted to plant—and did plant—the sweetly fragrant Lilium candidum (which actually is the only lily with the common name Madonna Lily). I also wasn’t interested at that time in planting daylily (Hemerocallis spp.) or lily of the valley (Convallaria majalis), neither of which are true lilies. Neither is even in the Lily Family, let alone the Lilium genus!
Lily
A botanical name can tell a story about a plant: its discovery, its origin, its form. Adalbert Emil Redcliffe Le Tanneux von Saint Paul-Illaire discovered what became known as African violet growing amongst the lush vegetation in the mountain jungles of East Africa; in his honor the plant was given the botanical moniker Saintpaulia ionantha. Juniperus virginiana is a juniper native to eastern North America; Juniperus chinensis hails from China. Tulip tree, Liriodendron tulipfera, has a particularly descriptive name. Liriodendron was the ancient name for this plant, meaning “lily tree.” And tulipfera means “tulip bearing.” Tulip tree’s flowers do, indeed, resemble tulips, as long as you don’t look too closely. Tulip is a member of the Lily family. Tulip tree is in the Magnolia family.

African violet

African violet

Family Matters

Botanical names can tell about plant relationships. The apparent similarity between peaches, plums, and apricots is confirmed in the similarity of their names, Prunus persica, Prunus domestica, and Prunus armeniaca, respectively.

Knowing kinship can help decide what grafts might be successful. Grafts between the same genus and species almost always spell success. Success is even possible between different species of the same genus, which is why I once grafted a couple of branches from my sweet cherry tree (Prunus avium) onto my tart cherry tree (Prunus cerasus). The sweet cherry didn’t bear reliably enough to warrant living here as a whole tree. Emulating George Washington, I chopped the (sweet) cherry tree down following a successful graft.

In some cases, a species might be subdivided into botanical varieties. For instance, cabbage and its close relatives all are Brassica oleracea. But cabbage itself is the botanical variety capitata (meaning head), Brussels sprouts are gemmifera (little gems), broccoli is botrytis (cluster-like), and kale is acephala (without a head). The correct way to write broccoli is Brassica oleracea var. capitata.

If you’re put off by botanical names for plants, take heart because the situation used to be more awkward. Before the days of Linneaus, baby’s-breath was the Latin mouthful Lychnis alpina linifolia multiflora perampla radice. Catnip was known as Nepeta floribus interrupte spicatis pedunculatis. (Both are mellifluous but too long for a name.) Thanks to Linneaus that the scientific names of these two plants now are the manageable and descriptive Gypsophila elegans to Nepeta cataria, respectively.
Cat and catnip

Keep on Composting

One Problem in Cold Weather

I don’t let cold weather put the brakes on my composting, at least my role in it. For the bacteria, fungi, and other workers in my compost pile, it’s another story. Come cold temperatures, and their work come screeching to a halt or near halt (which depends on the degree of cold, the size of the pile, the mix of ingredients, and moisture).

But that’s no reason for me to abandon composting.

The main problem, as I see it, with composting in winter is not the workers not working. Pile up food scraps another organic materials winter, and composting will re-convene when warm weather arrives again in spring. The problem is that those food scraps offer a smorgasbord of tasty, easy calories for rodents. Which is not good.

(Lest you’re feeling fuzzy and warm to these furry creatures, a short list of what they could bring along to you would include hantavirus, leptospirosis, lymphocytic chorio-meningitis, rat-bite fever, salmonellosis, and tularemia, all of which are as bad as they sound. And that’s only a partial list.)

I take a multi-pronged approach, then, to keeping rodents at bay yet carrying on with my role in composting.

Population Control

My first line of defense is to keep rodent populations in check.

The top layer of the compost pile is not the only place where rodents might find a meal. In autumn, I clean up any rodent treats that might be lying around such as ears of corn, old squash and tomato fruits, and baskets of filberts or black walnuts. As appropriate, they go either onto the compost pile or into animal-proof storage.
Compost with fresh materials
Sammy, Daisy, and Gracie also help out. They are, respectively, a dog and a dog and a spayed cat, who spend most of their time outdoors. (I know, I know about the problem with cats and birds. But I’m trying to strike a balance. A few less birds weighed against soaring rodent populations seems reasonable. And anyway, Darwinian selection may be going on here for birds that are increasingly learning to avoid Gracie. At least, not to get too graphic, judging from the “gifts” Gracie brings back to show off.)

Dogs on porch

Dogs at “work”

I support the work of Sammy, Daisy, and Gracie by doing some trapping on my own, mostly of rabbits and squirrels because they can damage or kill plants, and pilfer my food. Black rat snakes, which sometimes go so far as to lay their eggs in my compost pile, also help out.

Mouse damage

Mouse damage

Rabbit damage to branches

Rabbit damage to branches

Exclusion

My second line of defense is to keep rodents out of my compost pile. A number of heavy-duty plastic or metal, animal-resistant compost bins are available for sale, and all work pretty well — as they should, since any pile of organic materials will eventually turn to compost. Their usual limitation is that they many lack sufficient volume for a critical mass if you want to make hot compost.

I made my own compost bin, actually bins. Having two or more allows compost to mellow in one bin while the other one or ones are still cooking. My bins are rodent-proofish. They are so, first of all, by my setting them up in flat ground upon which I first lay down a large enough piece of 1/4 inch or 1/2 inch mesh hardware cloth to keep the critters from tunneling up from below.
Commpost bin board
The bin itself is made of notched, fake wood (such as used for decking). As the notched pieces slide together, the tolerances were designed to be close enough to deny rodents access. Ah, but “there’s many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip;” my carpentry skills fell a little short of making all those notches small enough, which would be less than 1/2 inch, to allow entry by even a mouse. Still, the bins work pretty well.

I detail the material I used and the construction of the bins at https://leereich.com/2019/06/my-compost-for-a-bin.html.

Scavenger Friends

Rodents are wily creatures, and I expect that they could somehow jump and climb their way up the bins to the top of the pile where the freshest delicacies have been most recently placed. Originally, I planned to make rodent-proof covers to the compost bins, but they never got out of the early planning stage.
Dog and chickens on compost pile
Turns out that my dogs are very good jumpers, and also very fond of kitchen scraps. My ducks are adequate fliers/climbers, and likewise show interest in this department. So the plan here is to deposit compostables from the kitchen onto the compost-pile-in-progress each morning, when ducks and dogs are out and about. They clean up all of the most desirable and calorie-laden stuff, leaving little or nothing for any rodents who, excepting squirrels, are mostly nocturnal.
Dogs on compost pile
Note: As I re-read what I’ve written I realize that I could be accused of not being pc for a number of details stated. Sorry. But composting itself is very pc, and reality often involves striking balances to get the most desirable results.

To Shred or Not To Shred, That is the Question

Organic Matters

My friend Margaret Roach (https://awaytogarden.com) is a top-notch gardener but not much of a tool maven. She recently said she considers me, and I quote, “the master of all tools and the king of compost” when she asked for my thoughts on compost shredders. (I blushed, but perhaps she was just softening me up for questioning. In fact, her tractor is better than mine.)

Of course I have thoughts about compost shredders.
Me, in my garden in 1970s
Climb with me into my time machine and let’s travel back to the early 1970s, to Madison, Wisconsin, where you’ll find me working in my first garden. Like any good organic gardener, early on I appreciated the many benefits of organic materials in the garden, an appreciation bolstered by my having recently began my studies as a graduate student in soil science.

I was hauling all the organic materials I could lay hands on into my 700 square foot vegetable garden. From near where I parked on the agriculture part of campus I could load up large plastic garbage cans with chicken or horse manure for my compost piles. 

Also for my compost piles, and for mulch, was tall grass mowed by road crews along a major roadway, easily scooped up with my pitchfork and packed into those garbage pails. Nowadays, gathering such mowings would be difficult because the flail mowers now used chop everything up rather than lay down the long stalks of yesteryears’ sickle bar mowers. Gathering roadside mowings may also now be illegal. And, in retrospect, those mowings were (and still are) probably contaminated with lead and other heavy metals from nearby traffic.

Garden, Madison, 1970s

Garden, Madison, 1970s

Anyway, I now have my own one acre field which I scythe and brush hog for mulch and feeding compost piles.

Bulk and Speed

But I digress . . . Margaret was asking about compost shredders.

One benefit of organic materials in gardening is their bulk; they are mostly carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, which, over time, ends up as carbon dioxide and water. That decomposition is a good thing because it represents the feeding of soil life and, as decomposition proceeds, plant nutrients are slowly released into the soil.

A downside of all that bulk is that it takes up a lot of space. The decomposition rate is influenced by the materials’ ratios of carbon to nitrogen, inhibitors such as lignin, and particle size. A given volume of smaller particles has greater surface area, accessible to being nibbled away by microbes, than does that same volume of larger particles. Like perhaps many beginning gardeners, I was in a rush to have better soil than the sticky clay I was dealing with.

Enter garden shredders. I headed down to the local Sears Roebuck and Company and purchased a new, gasoline-powered shredder. Back in the garden, I set it up and in little time was reducing large volumes of leaves to smaller volumes of shreds.

That activity probably lasted about 20 minutes before two thoughts entered my head. First, one reason I was gardening was because it was — or could be — good for the environment. I could grow vegetables more sustainably that most farmers of the day, and the vegetables would not have to be transported to me. Shredding seemed, then, a waste of energy. Second, the chugging of the engine didn’t seem to jive with a bucolic activity such as gardening. Fortunately, the shredder could be returned; I packed it up and got my money back. (Unless powered by solar, wind, or some other renewable energy source, and electric shredder also spews carbon dioxide et al. It just does so elsewhere.)

And anyway, there’s no particular need, generally, to speed up the composting process. If you need some finished compost immediately because of poor planning or a beginning garden, there are plenty of places where you can purchase good quality compost. Build a couple or more piles of your own, manage them well, and you’ll have “black gold” always ready in due time.

Solar Enters the Picture

I do still occasionally use a compost shredder — but it’s very quiet and it’s solar powered.
Chopping compost with machete
Also very inexpensive because it’s nothing more than a machete. If I’m piling very rough material such as corn or kale stalks, or very airy material such as old tomato or pepper plants, or large fruits such as overgrown zucchinis onto my compost pile, I’ll chop them with a machete as I add them. (It’s also therapeutic: If everyone spent some time chopping their compost ingredients, as needed, with a machete, the world would perhaps be a more peaceful place.)
Adding material to compost pile
The bottom line is that there’s no reason that you must shred any material for composting. That is, unless it’s absolutely necessary to speed things up or reduce their volume. Is it really necessary? Usually not.