The Yellow Farmhouse Garden

January 16, 2020

Snake plants rarely flower in Southeastern Michigan

Most of us are familiar with Mother-in-law’s tongue plant also called snake plant. It’s found in homes, offices, shops, workplaces and any other place that needs a tough and hardy indoor plant.

Until 2017 it was officially called Sansevieria trifasciata. Subsequent  scientific study has now found it to be a Dracaena species so it’s official name is now Dracaena trifasciata.

Its main task is to sit in one spot, often for years at a time, adding living greenery without causing any fuss or needing any special care.

Snake plants prefer low humidity which is easy to find in most heated buildings. They easily adapt to low light conditions and will just sit there minding their business without either growing or dying back. Under conditions like that, the best thing you can do for it is to  leave it alone, especially when it comes to watering. A widely spaced watering interval is much better than regular watering.

 

A mature snake plant can grow to over three feet tall before sending up a flower stalk.

A mature snake plant can grow to over three feet tall before sending up a flower stalk.

 

Dracaena trifasciata can help clean the air in your home or workspace. I remember back in the 1970’s reading about this plant. NASA was making plans for space travel and were looking for ways to improve air quality inside of spaceships during long voyages. They found out that snake plants not only provided some oxygen but were also very efficient at filtering airborne chemical pollutants.

 

PHOTO/caption: Drops of water oozing from plants is called “guttation”. It’s a natural process caused by the plant attempting to remove excess moisture. In this case the owner decided to help the flowering Sansevieria by giving it extra water.

PHOTO/caption: Drops of water oozing from plants is called “guttation”. It’s a natural process caused by the plant attempting to remove excess moisture. In this case the owner decided to help the flowering snake plant by giving it extra water.

Snake plants hardly ever produce flowers in our part of the world. I can’t remember the last time I saw one flowering, until this week. A few days ago someone sent me a photo of their snake plant with a flower stalk.

Only a small percentage of old, mature plants will produce flowers. When it happens, it’s a real treat to see. This is the time of year when it most likely happens.

Growing wild in their home in Africa, Dracaena trifasciata flower regularly and produce seeds, will this one? I’ll have to get back to you on that.

I’m not sure if you can actually encourage a Dracaena trifasciata to blossom but keeping your plant root bound in an undersized pot and keeping watering to a minimum may increase the odds of it happening.

Bob

 

December 19, 2019

Native calico asters stars of fall

A fall flowering favorite of mine is our native calico aster. It is found in all eastern US states and Canadian provinces.

Around our local area, I’m seeing more of these plants than usual. The relatively rainy growing season may have something to do with it since they prefer semi-damp environments. More frequent rain means that it will be more likely they will be able to establish themselves in spots where they wouldn’t be found in drier years.

In late summer and early fall, these asters produce a display of 5/8-inch diameter, white flowers with pale yellow centers. You often find them along hiking trails, roadsides and the edge of fields. In my yard they’re popping up around my wood chip pile, an old compost heap and other places that don’t get touched by the mower that often. They range in height from about a foot to over five feet tall depending on their location and how long they have been growing there. They are perennials.

Even though they are not known for their scent, I sometimes can detect a faint sweet smell from mine if I put my nose right up against the flowers.

Calico asters are a good source of late season nectar for pollinators. I’ve noticed many honeybees and other small pollinating insects on mine. As the season progresses, the flower centers change colors as they age adding hues of pink, blue or maroon here and there, giving it a “calico” appearance.

 

Look how the colors of the center of the flowers change.

Look how the colors of the center of the flowers change.

Calico asters can be confused with other similar-looking species. However, if you look closely, you’ll notice the plant has another distinguishing characteristic, its flowers grow from only one side of the stems.

Mammals such as deer and rabbits sometimes browse on the foliage. Some species of butterflies and moths do too.

The stems are strong enough to stay standing through much of the winter adding interesting contrast to otherwise empty expanses of white snow.

These likable flowers make a great addition to a wildflower garden. Plant breeders have worked with them and have come up with improved varieties that are more tame and will look at home in your main flower garden.

Bob

 

December 5, 2019

Still digging dahlia roots in December for winter storage

The arctic blast we had in November caught a lot of us off guard. Temperatures at our house dipped down to nine above zero. Along with the cold air we got about eight or nine inches of snow.

It turns out the snow was actually a blessing in disguise. It was like a warm blanket to the plants in the landscape.

I was able to successfully dig the last of my dahlias just before Thanksgiving despite the mid-winter like conditions the week before. Soil temperatures were still fairly warm, the snow insulated the soil from the frigid air keeping it from being frozen.

Leave stalks until you're ready to dig.

Leave stalks until you’re ready to dig.

I always leave my dahlia stalks intact until digging time. Dahlia stalks are hollow, if they’re cut off from the roots there’s a chance the stubs will collect water from rain and funnel it down to the tubers. The extra moisture leaves the tubers susceptible to rot. Leaving the stalks also makes them easier to find.

Generally, I like to keep my dahlia tubers in the ground as long as possible. They are one of those kinds of plants whose roots keep developing even after the tops have been killed by frost. The cold temperature stimulates “eyes” to form. The eyes are where next year’s growth will occur, much like a potato eye.

So now we’re in early December, soil temperatures are still above freezing, thanks to that first early snowfall and moderate late fall air temperatures.

 It may not be too late to salvage dahlias that were left in your garden especially if your flower garden is in a well drained, protected area with a southern exposure. Those conditions make a micro-climate condition that will make it more likely your dahlias are still waiting for you to dig them. The soil temperature in my south facing garden was 42° F on December 4th. When you consider the ideal stage temperature for dahlias is around to 45 °F you can be pretty sure those dahlia tubers are still in fine shape and well developed.

Dahlia tuber clump after digging.

Dahlia tuber clump after digging.

The window of opportunity won’t last long though. Cold rains can drop the soil temperature quickly. And if we get a really cold snap without snow, it will definitely be all over.

There’s a wide range of opinions on how to store dahlia tubers. Some gardeners suggest washing the garden soil off of the roots others leave the soil on. Some like to divide the clumps into individual tubers before storing but storing whole clumps works too. Whole clumps sometimes get very tough during storage making them harder to separate in the spring, but that depends on the variety.

If you know the variety, label the tubers before you put them into storage.

As mentioned earlier, storage temperature around 40°F or a little higher is about right. The tubers must be packed in some kind of porous medium to regulate humidity. I’ve used sawdust, wood shavings, potting mix and peat moss in past years. Sawdust seemed to work the best. The fellow I learned about growing dahlias always said to pack your tubers in plastic vegetable bags. You’re basically trying to keep them like fresh vegetables for as long as possible without letting them rot.

Check them every 3 or 4 weeks for rotting or signs of shriveling. If it looks like they are drying out too quickly, add a small amount of moisture to the storage medium. The tubers and sawdust will continue to exchange moisture until they reach equilibrium. As the storage temperature changes, so must the humidity. It takes a little practice to determine what that moisture content looks like in your particular storage situation.

Bob

 

November 21, 2019

Save your gladiolus cormels to grow more flowers

Filed under: Flowers — Tags: , , , , , , — bob @ 12:49 pm

Gladiolus are one of the most popular flowers in the world.

Typically, glads are used to fill floral arrangements providing lots of color and their upright spikes add a vertical element.

Many gardeners from the baby boomer generation think of funerals whenever they see glads. That’s because the flowers were ubiquitous in funeral homes back when they were children. In addition to the general solemn atmosphere of a funeral, all of those huge funeral floral arrangements everywhere could make a lasting impression on a young child. So you can understand why gladiolus fell out of favor for awhile.

Nowadays the younger generations are embracing retro flowers of all kinds including glads for outdoor flower beds as well as cut flowers.

Glads are summer flowering bulbs, meaning they can’t stay in the ground all winter. They have to be dug up and stored over winter in an area protected from freezing temperatures.

Even though glads are called flowering bulbs the bulb is actually a “corm”, not a true bulb. The corm is what is dug up and stored for planting next spring.

Each year the gladiolus plant produces a new corm and discards the old one. In addition to a new corm, the plant produces a number of miniature corms called “cormels”.

Here are a few corms after drying and before cleaning. They were dug around the first of November. The dark-colored area is the old corm which, along with soil, will be removed and discarded before storage. The cormels are picked off and kept a paper bag until spring.

Here are a few corms after drying and before cleaning. They were dug around the first of November. The dark-colored area is the old corm which, along with soil, will be removed and discarded before storage. The cormels are picked off and kept a paper bag until spring.

 

A new gladiolus plant can be grown from each cormel but it takes patience. The larger the cormel, the sooner the flowers.

The smallest cormels are about the size of a pea seed and may take three or even four years before full size flowers are produced. Larger cormels, about the diameter of a dime, will produce flowers in two to three years.

The small cormels can be planted in rows almost like seeds, about an inch or so deep. Then they are tended through the growing season much like any other garden plant and dug back up in the fall.

Three or four years may seem like a long time to wait for flowers but gardeners, as a general rule, are a patient bunch. It’s always a big kick to see flowers growing from those cormels you grew yourself. Plus you can increase your crop of flowers each year if you want.

On the other hand, if you are not patient enough to wait that long, you can always buy fully grown corms to plant.

Bob

 

November 14, 2019

Witch Hazel blooming in the snow

Even though the meteorologists had it in their forecasts, the recent big snow and cold temperatures still took us all by surprise. With normal highs in the low fifties and lows in the mid-thirties, some parts of the natural world were caught unprepared too.

I’m sure our witch hazel bush wasn’t expecting over a half-foot of snow and temperatures down in the single digits. Late fall is the normal blooming time for witch hazel. Sure enough, there it was, blooming in the middle of all that extreme weather.”"

We have our witch hazel planted near a window so we can enjoy its flowers indoors while looking outside.

In addition to flowering in November, witch hazel is kind of unusual for a native plant in that it has both seeds and flowers on its branches at the same time.

The seeds that are present this fall are from flowers that were pollinated last fall. They begin developing in late fall then over-winter on the plant. The following spring the seeds begin growing again and develop into a full-mature seed in the fall. Once the seeds are mature, they are ejected from their seed capsules with a pop! that sends them many feet away. It really is a fascinating plant.

One question you might have is,if witch hazel flowers in the fall when it’s cold outside, how are they pollinated ? All of the bees, wasps, flies, ants or other usual pollinators are not flying or dormant this time of year.

It turns out there are moths that stay active during freezing weather. These moths belong to the owlet moth family (Noctuidae). They fly at night looking for sources of nutrition such as tree sap. And it just so happens witch hazel nectar is a perfectly acceptable food for them. Just like bees, when the moths feed on the nectar, they also inadvertently move pollen around allowing pollination to occur.

We rarely see these moths because they fly at night. I remember back when I was a young kid, I once saw some moths flying in the cold weather. It struck me at that time as being pretty odd.

So did the early snow bury the owlet moths and prevent witch hazel pollination this year? Probably not, the witch hazel was blooming well before the snowstorm and probably were already pollinated by that time.

Bob

 

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