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| Pansy |
The sun is trying to peek through and make the day less
gloomy. I appreciated the warmer weather
this weekend but since I still had lots of snow and icy spots I wasn’t able to
do much outside. The rain last night did
remove a lot of it but there is still some ice here and there. This week the weather doesn’t really look too
spring-like but I know we have to be getting there. The daffodils I brought inside have finished
blooming but just outside my door I have a clump of crocus that will bloom if
they are just given a day or two of mild, sunny weather.
The USDA has said that the recent snow melt and rain have
restored our soil moisture levels to “adequate.” That’s a good thing as we went into winter
with a strong deficient in soil moisture.
A slow wet spring may be torture for us gardeners but good for the plants.
I am waiting for a man to give me an estimate on removing a
50-60 foot high blue spruce by the barn that has pretty much died from the fungus complex that has affected so many
spruce in Michigan. It was such a
magnificent tree for so long and it hid our compost pile and junk areas pretty
well. Now it has only a 10-20 foot area
near the top that is still green and all the lower branches have pretty much
died. There is no hope it can be cured
and ever look good. It’s too big for us
to remove ourselves.
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| The spruce a year or so ago. |
I hate to cut trees down, but it looks bad and I talked
myself into it because I have convinced myself that I can use the newly bare
spot to move my vegetable garden to- since its close to the house and water and
a much easier spot to get to than the pasture where we were going to move
it. And the old veggie spot will again
be sunny, since the top of the spruce cast shade on it in the afternoon. I won’t need to remove any grass like I would
in the pasture. And there will be lots
of pine needle mulch.
I intend to build raised beds so I won’t worry about roots
and soil acidity from the spruce doesn’t concern me. I am hoping who ever chops it down will chip
the branches for me to use as mulch there and in other places. I think I can get 7, 4’ by 20’ beds there,
which will greatly expand my growing space.
You can see I am still talking myself into the benefits of removing the
grand old tree.
We will have to install a bit of privacy fence in front of
the compost pile and my storage spot for pots and such. But even that gives me some ideas. I have some Honeyberries coming that would
look good along that fence. And the Goji
vine definitely will go there. Maybe
some tall sunflowers and cucumber vines too. Lots of work ahead.
The shamrock
The Festival of Drunks, commonly known as St Patrick’s Day
is Sunday. For some reason 4-leaf
clovers, called shamrocks, are associated with the day and stores will have
pots of oxalis, the closest thing to a shamrock, on sale. Most oxalis come from South America or Africa
and are tender perennials. There are a number of oxalis varieties on the
market. Not only is the foliage attractive but most have pretty flowers
too. Many people buy the plants around
St Paddy’s Day but don’t take care of them and discard them soon after the
holiday. If they are well cared for,
however, they will last several years and get bigger and prettier. The bulbs are also sold in bulb catalogs and
are easy to start. Oxalis are sometimes called wood sorrel but they are not
related to our native sorrels.
Oxalis leaves may be traditional green, usually with red or
bronze markings or they may be reddish or purple. Flower colors are white, red, pink and
yellow. The flowers are small and held
above the foliage, some are flat, with 5 petals; other types have funnel shaped
flowers. Throughout the winter, spring
and fall they are happy in moist but well drained soil in bright light. Fertilize occasionally, even in winter, to
promote spurts of bloom.
When temperatures get very hot in the summer, oxalis goes
into dormancy and the leaves dry and fall.
People sometimes think the oxalis has died when it goes into dormancy. Let
the pot dry out a little and store it until fall brings cooler
temperatures. Water well, give it a
little fertilizer and soon it will be blooming again. We had an oxalis plant in the Extension
office that did not go into dormancy for at least two years, maybe because of
the air conditioning.
Re-assigning flower
names
The shape of flowers and their reproductive parts has long
been one of the primary ways that botanists classify plants and assign them to
family and specie groups. With the event
of DNA testing however botanists are finding that flower shape may not be the
best way to find related plants.
Research has indicated that many plants thought to be related because of
similarities in flowers and sexual parts might not be so closely related after
all.
Unlike animals plants cannot move when their environment changes,
they have to quickly evolve strategies to deal with the change or face
extinction. So rather than plants being
related because they are found in a similar environment with similar flowers,
they have similar flowers regardless of the family tree because that type of
flower is more suitable for the environment.
It may be because of pollinators the flowers need to attract or that a
certain kind of flower is better suited to distribute pollen in the wind or
water in that environment. Flower shapes that look very similar weren’t passed
down through genes, they evolved separately to get mating done efficiently.
As botanists begin to DNA test more and more plants those
assignments of plants to certain families and species are going to change. I personally hate it when a plant that has
been known by one Latin name is changed to another. To make it even more confusing there are
several “schools” of botanical classification that often have different names
for plant families and species. Latin
names are supposed to make it easy for everyone to be on the same page when it
comes to a plant but all of the recent flurry to re-classify plants is only
going to create confusion. It’s too bad
botanists can’t find a way to keep a plants name while acknowledging that it
belongs to a certain “family” of related plants.
Daffodils are
different
Daffodils and narcissus often have a crown shaped structure
in the center of the flower, called the corona.
It’s often colorful, the same color or a contrasting color to the petals. Until recently it was assumed that the corona
was a modification of flower petals, possibly to aid pollination. Recent research has determined that coronas
are not modified flower petals.
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| The corona is the cup shaped peach colored center. |
Once again genetic analysis along with the study of
developing daffodil flowers led researchers at the University of Oxford, Harvard
University, the United States Department of Agriculture and the University of
Western Australia to conclude that coronas are a separate structure that
develops after the flower petals and sexual organs are fully formed in the
bud. Coronas are genetically similar but
not the same as the stamens, or male sexual organs, of the daffodil.
So what is the function of the corona? Since daffodils and narcissus typically bloom
in early spring maybe they are an extra layer of protection from the cold for
the sexual organs of the flower. They
may also serve to guide early spring pollinators to the right spot. One other plant that I can think of,
Hymenocallis ( Peruvian Daffodil, Spider Lily) has a flower structure similar
to daffodils and since it too flowers in spring, it may be another case of
flowers evolving to suit the environment.
However Hymenocallis is native to places where conditions are somewhat warmer
than where daffodils and narcissus grow.
We may find out in the future that coronas have some other function.
Green tea news
We have all heard of the benefits of green tea and now new
research has shown that chemicals in green tea may help prevent and breakdown
the accumulations of proteins in the brain called amyloid plagues that lead to Alzheimer's
disease. Scientists are working to
separate and tweak the chemical epigallocatechin-3-gallate, known as EGCG found
in green tea to create a treatment for Alzheimer’s and other plague diseases. Other research has found that the eye tissue
absorbs the same chemical compound and the antioxidant properties it has may
help with glaucoma and other eye diseases.
And you can get the eye and possibly the brain benefits simply from
drinking green tea.
Banana Uses
Bananas and their peels have many, many uses. You can use a banana peel to polish your
shoes and silverware, and fertilize houseplants. But it seems there is a new exciting use for
this old product. Researchers found that
ground banana peels are extremely effective in removing heavy metals from
water. A purification device made simply from chopped banana peels could filter
metals like lead and copper from water 11 times in a row as well as or better
than most other forms of water filters.
And dried green banana can be turned into flour that has
antioxidants and fiber and a low glycemic index, meaning it doesn’t cause a
steep rise in blood sugar. It also has
no gluten. The green banana flour has
been added to pasta flour to make it healthier and flour made totally from
green bananas is being used to produce gluten-free products for people who
think they suffer from the effects of gluten in the diet.
Wishing you could grow bananas? The Musa Basjoo is said to
be hardy to zero if mulched. That would mean Zone 6 gardeners can probably grow
them, at least in a protected location such as against a house. It will die down and come back from the roots
each year. However it doesn’t have
edible bananas, just large tropical foliage.
But you can grow the Dwarf Cavandish banana ‘Mahoi’ in a pot if you have
a sunny spot indoors in the winter and it will reward you with clusters of
small, very tasty bananas after the second year. There is also a small red banana you can grow
indoors.
If you want to learn more about bananas and how to grow
them, outside and inside, I recommend the book Bananas You Can Grow by Stokes and Waddick. The book covers 66 banana cultivars and
species.
Disneyland features
gardening
If you are thinking about going to Disney World this spring
you may want to visit the Epcot Center which is hosting the International
Flower and Garden show now through May 19th . Along with the beautiful gardens and topiary
offerings there will be classes held with HGTV celebrities on several days of
each week. There is a new “Oz” play land
and all of the international eateries will be offering special “garden” menu
items such as green asparagus and lobster with a garden cocktail sauce, stir-fried
veggies and soba noodles, or savory bread pudding with spring peas and wild
mushroom ragout.
If you want to watch a video about the behind the scenes
prep of topiary at Disney and get the speaker schedule you can click on this
link. http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2013/03/behind-the-scenes-horticulture-preps-100-topiaries-for-the-epcot-international-flower-garden-festival/
Get your green beer and shamrocks and celebrate spring!
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