Category Archives: Design trends

Design trends

Bare Root Edibles – Invest in the Future

An apple tree planted now will live in your garden for 60 years

It’s not too late but time is running out if you’re looking to add fruit and nut trees, berries and vegetables to your garden while they’re still available in bare root. Did you know just how long that new fruit tree will be around if you plant it now? If you like figs or walnuts, you can expect your tree to live for 100 years. Apples and pears have a life expectancy of 60 years while plums, pluots and prune trees will be around for 40 years. Love cherries? Your new tree will be in your garden for 30 years. Invest in the future and plant a fruit tree now while they are still in bare root and oh, so easy to plant.

Jeff at Mountain Feed & Farm Supply in Ben Lomond recently showed me around all the edibles available at the store. I’m always on the look out for something new that I might recommend to a client for their garden and I found some good ones in addition to the classic fruit, nuts, berries and vegetables.

If you grow in containers or small spaces try the dwarf thornless Blackberry ‘Baby Cakes’. You’ll get two crops of large, classic, sweet tasting berries per season. Or you might have your eye on a multi graft peach, pear or cherry or a “fruit salad” multi grafted tree. Maybe a weeping Santa Rosa plum would look stunning outside the kitchen window? So many choices.

Jet, my go-to expert at Scarborough Gardens in Scotts Valley, had many great fruit trees still available in bare root. Because they are so beautiful in bloom, I’ve always wanted a dwarf peach or nectarine. From world famous Floyd Zaiger, Arctic Babe, a genetic dwarf white nectarine is a first of its kind. It’s a reliable self fruitful, delicious nectarine ripening late May to early June. Of course, there are apricots, pears, plums, apples, peaches and nectarines also available.

Planting a bare root tree is easy. In most soils, even sand or clay, bare root trees are best planted in your native soil. Less is more when it comes to amending your soil. You want our tree’s roots to reach far into the surrounding soil, and if you have added too much amendment, the roots will tend to grow only in the richest soil right around the tree. You can add a starter fertilizer like Dr. Earth Root Zone or E.B.Stone Sure Start with mycohizzal organisms and micronutrients.

Don’t plant in heavy saturated soil. If your soil drains poorly it’s best to place your tree at an angle in a trench and cover with soil or place it in a can. Wait to plant until the soil is crumbly and friable. Digging in waterlogged soil is one of the worst things you can do for your soil’s health.

What fruit trees can you grow here in the mountains? Well, almost everything. Most of us get 700 hours of winter chilling where the temperature is below 45 degrees. Even with climate change the chill hours add up. And we can still grow fruit like a Fuji apple that doesn’t require this much chill.

What if you don’t get full sun where you’d like to grow fruit trees? Apples, pluots and plums are good choices for an area that gets at least 5 hours of sun a day during the growing season. The ideal is full sun but these trees will still set and ripen some fruit in partially shaded conditions. With peaches, nectarines or apricots it’s a different story. These fruits need hot sun to develop sweet, tasty fruit. Too little sun and they will not deliver anything close to what you have in mind.

With a little planning you can have fresh fruit 7 months of the year. By growing your own fruit you’re not at the mercy of mechanical harvesters and shipping practices. You can grow fruit and harvest it when the time is right. Homegrown fruit is a world apart from agribusiness and much less expensive than the Farmer’s Market.

Design trends

Living with Houseplants

Houseplants like Peace Lily clean the air of pollutants in your home.

I’m embarrassed to confess that I don’t always take my own advice. Take my houseplants, for instance. Decades of research have shown that houseplants reduce stress and anxiety. They can sharpen our attention, make us more productive and give us a happier outlook. They can fight indoor pollution and add moisture to the air in our homes. So why do a few of mine look so sad?

First a typical house plants lives in the understory of a tropical rain forest where it gets bright filtered light. They’re used to warm rain and perfect drainage. I’ve moved mine to the best light I have but it’s not enough for a few of them. I might have to find them better homes.

I also had a problem last year by fertilizing a little too much. I could see the edges of some leaves were brown which was probably from over fertilizing but also could have been lack of light or too much water. Skip fertilizer in December and January and start up half strength mid-February.

Water just enough to keep the soil from going totally dry allowing oxygen to move back into the root zone. Houseplants are resting at this time of year and don’t use as much water as when they are actively growing. Let the soil in a 4-6 inch pot dry half an inch down between watering then water with room temperature water. And don’t let the pot sit in a saucer of water or the roots will rot. If your plants is in a larger pot let the soil dry down a couple inches.

Don’t re-pot a plant in winter when they are slow to grow new roots. I’m really anxious to transplant a couple of mine into more decorative pots but I’m going to hold off until March.

Plants that I have had good results with in lower light are philodendron, peace lily, Chinese evergreen, cast-iron plant, schefflera, arboricola, ferns and palms. Hanging plants that grow well in low light are hear-shaped philodendron, pathos and grape ivy. Most of these house plants grow naturally in low light areas of the jungle. Don’t overwater and they’ll be happy.

So far, this winter hasn’t been as rainy as last but still it’s been cold and my home is closed up to keep the heating bill down. Without doors and windows open to circulate fresh air, toxins such as benzene, formaldehyde and trichloroethylene can be realized from furniture upholstery, carpets, cleaning products, paint, plastics and rubber can build up inside. Carbon monoxide from the incomplete burning or wood and vehicle exhaust can also be present in indoor air.

Biological pollutants include bacteria, viruses, animal dander, house dust, pollen and dried cat saliva. What? Cat saliva? Do you hear that Archer? House mites, the source of one of the most powerful biological allergens, grow in damp warm environments. Mold and mildew grow in moist places like central heating systems and are just one more source of indoor pollution.

NASA researchers suggest that the most efficient air cleaning occurs with at least one houseplants per 100 square feet. Even the microorganisms in potting soil removes some toxins.

Some of the easiest houseplants to grow are some of the best to have in your home. Any of the plants listed above would fit the bill. If you have a cat or dog that nibbles, however, it’s best to stick with spider plants, palms and orchids, African violets, aluminum plant, bromeliads, peperomia, cast iron plants, Christmas cactus, chenille plant, creeping Charlie, false aralia wandering jew, piggy back plant and succulents like donkey’s tail and echeveria.

With a little planning you can clean the air in your home while keeping the pets safe.

Design trends

Flowers Adapt to a Changing Climate

These cultivated violas look similar to the field pansy in the study.

On this rainy day I’m picturing my garden and deck this summer filled with colorful flowers. The bumblebees will be happy, the hummingbirds will be happy, I’ll be happy. Or will I?

I recently read about a study in France that suggests that humans are quickly altering the way flowers are reproducing and it’s happening in just 20 generations. Toxic pesticides and vanishing habitats have driven down the populations of bees and other pollinators so some flowers have evolved to fertilize their own seeds more often than the seeds of other plants.

Bumblebee populations have declined and it may be that the field pansy flowers in the study are investing their energy into using their own pollen to fertilize their own seeds more, rather than produce big flowers that lure pollinators.

The researcher in the study, Dr. Cheptou an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Montpellier, was inspired to carry out the study when it became clear that bees and other pollinators were in drastic decline. How would flowers adapt? Would they find another way to reproduce?

The field pansies have always been able to reproduce using both methods. But a selfing flower can use only its own genes to produce new seeds. Sexual reproduction allows flowers to mix their DNA, creating new combinations that make them better prepared for diseases, drought and other challenges that future generations may face.

Tracking the evolution of the field pansy was made possible by the cache of seeds from the National Botanical Conservatory in France collected in the 1990s and early 2000s.

The researchers compared these old flowers with the new ones found in the countryside. After growing the new and old seeds side by side in the lab under identical conditions, they discovered that selfing had increased 27 percent since the 1990s.

Other changes of note were that although the new field pansies had not changed in their overall size, their flowers had shrunk by 10 percent and produced 20 percent less nectar.

So this change in reproduction may be making a bad situation worse for pollinating insects. The genetic limitation of selfing could put plants at risk of extinction.

Flowering plants are dealing with other issues such as global warming which speeds up the growth of the flowers and shrinks the window of time before the flower wilts and has nectar for pollinators.

Another study, however, on morning glories in the southern United States, found that between 2003 and 2012, the flowers became bigger, not smaller. Is this a strategy to keep attracting bees as they become less common?

Being an optimist I’m hoping that nature will adapt and figure out how to keep everybody happy.