Category Archives: Zonal Denial/ Tropicalisimo

The Fascicularia and Ochagavia Question: Two Worthy and Relatively Hardy Bromeliads

The inflorescence of Fascicularia bicolor with its blue flowers. The center of the foliage on a blooming rosette, turns red when the flowers appear and then, like many Bromeliad, that rosette dies replaced be previously formed offsets. My blooming plant had multiple rosettes at the time, three of which bloomed. Taken in my garden, Sept. of ’17.

If you’re not into blood and guts, consider this genus, as on my scale of one to ten as described above with ten warning of near complete evisceration if one is fool hardy or reckless, this one’s a solid 4, dangerous enough but not stupidly so. Fascicularia pitcairniifolia. You would think that in a genus composed of one or two species things would be pretty well settled taxonomically, guess again. Originally described as F. bicolor it was reclassified as F. pitcairnifolia and later changed back to F. bicolor. Subspecies were proposed. Changes retracted. There are significant differences in the sampled populations, but were they sufficient to constitute separate species??? Adding confusion at a different level are those who say the species name indicates that it is from Pitcairn Island. It is not. The specific epithet simply recognizes a similarity to the foliage in genus, Pitcairnia, another Bromeliad member. This Fascicularia is from the lower Chilean Andes, allegedly north of the other Fascicuaria species, F. bicolor which is suppose to be slightly hardier and occurs at least occasionally as an epiphyte! Some botanists have argued that F. pitcairnifolia possesses thicker, slightly wider leaves. and some minor differences in the timing of flowering and is reputedly slightly less hardy. The ranges of both overlap Good luck sorting this out. Continue reading →

Growing Agave in My Maritime NW Garden

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My picture, but not my plant. Alas! I just potted my start up to a 1gal purchased from Sean at Cistus. Agave ovatifolia ‘Vanzie’. Several of these big beautiful cultivars are growing in the Ruth Bancroft Garden, in Walnut Creek, CA. We visited on a nice 80F+ day last October. It is distinguished from the species by its undulating longitudinal waves across the wide guttered leaves. Each leaf can be over 10″ across.

When we garden in the public view, and most of us do, at least where we front along the street, or even when we invite others into its more private and inner sanctum, and we grow plants successfully, people are going to ask you: ‘What’s that?’ ‘I didn’t know you could grow those here!’ and, ‘What did you do? they always die for me!’ In short, if you’re successful, people will regard you with respect and assign to you the attributes and position of ‘expert’…when all you did was try to follow the gardening maxim of ‘Right Plant, Right Place!’ In short, you tried not to kill it. Genuine expertise requires broader experience, study even, that the simple buying and planting of one particular plant cannot earn you. If you’re like me such easy success and adulation, can be embarrassing and often serves as a prompt, to look through books, search the internet and ask others, that you know who have way more practical growing experience than you yourself do, and gradually, the assignation of ‘expert’ feels a bit less flimsy, maybe even ‘earned’. I often tell gardening friends that I consider myself to be more of a dilettante, flitting from one plant or group of plants to the next. Inquisitiveness has always been a part of me and growing one Penstemon, one Banana or one Agave, never adequately ‘grounds’ me. Grow a few more and I feel a little more comfortable with it. Look into some of its ‘cousins’ and the particulars of where something grows, its climate and soils particularly, and I feel ‘better’, much like I did when I was preparing for mid-terms at school. And then I move on, my interest sated for the time being, somewhat comfortable in what I know and curious about the next group. Over time they all start forming a bigger picture out of what once seemed like a massive, unknowable puzzle and I enjoy solving puzzles. Having said this, I still don’t consider myself to be an expert, just an avid and focused gardener. Continue reading →

Chilling, Freezing & Surviving: Understanding Hardiness & Preparing Your Plants for Winter

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Parrotia persica, Persian Ironwood, has long been among my favorite trees, for its leaf shape, substance, fall color, the overall plant form and for its exfoliating puzzled bark. Hardy to zn4 this plant is tough as nails here requiring no protective effort at all.

[A note to the reader. This is not a scholarly treatment of all of the peer reviewed material on this topic. There are no footnotes or listed sources. This is a product of my more than 35 years of horticultural field experience and gardening along with what I’ve gleaned from reading several technical peer reviewed articles on the subject. Such material is difficult to read and can be off putting and intimidating to even the educated layperson. This posting is my attempt at interpreting the research and reviews that I read in a way I think is understandable without overwhelming the reader with bi0-chemistry and the technical esoterica scientists must consider in their pursuit of understanding. Any faults are mine.]

I’ve been thinking about plants and their response to cold having watched the deciduous trees drop their leaves, dug tender plants out of the garden and moved pots around to where they would be adequately protected from freezing temperatures. We all know what happens to water when it freezes, going from a liquid state to a solid one, its molecules forming crystalline structures, expanded and rigid, responsible for burst water pipes and snowflakes. Water possesses some amazing qualities, as a solid, kind of counter-intuitively, it becomes less dense floating rather than sinking even taking on some insulative qualities and stopping the convective flow of heat that is normal in liquid water. At the instant of freezing water releases a small but measurable amount of heat. What happens inside plants when temperatures drop below freezing? How does the plant keep from bursting its own cell walls like the water in pipes within an unheated crawl space or wall cavity of a building? You’ve seen what happens to plants like Coleus and the sodden black heaps they become upon thawing out. Continue reading →

My Garden: Behind the Scenes

Palms I Have Grown: A Look into Trachycarpus and its Intimates

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Trachycarpus fortunei - My oldest tree. The house's gutter is at 13'. This is the most robust, stoutest, of the 5 T.f. that I have with the broadest canopy. It's male. I've just finished cleaning up its rattiest older fronds.

Trachycarpus fortunei – My oldest Palm tree. The house’s gutter is at 13′. This is the most robust, stoutest, of the 5 T.f. that I have with the broadest canopy. It’s male. I’ve just finished cleaning up its rattiest older fronds. I remove 15-20 every year and have been annually while it’s been in its adult active growth phase. It will slow down when it begins to approach its maximum height and maturity.

Continue reading →

Butia x Jubaea: A Pinnate Palm for Portland – First Test…for me

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Butia capitata at my front stairs along with a new Beschorneria yuccoides 'Flamingo Glow' and a Agave parryi 'Hauchucense'

Butia capitata at my front stairs with a new Beschorneria yuccoides ‘Flamingo Glow’ (I had just removed a Beschornieria septentrionalis, divided and potted the starts up. The replacement has more flamboyant foliage.) Iris douglasiana ‘Canyon Snow’, various low Sedum, Asarina procumbens, x Halmiocistus ‘Merrist Wood Cream’ and an Agave parryi ‘Hauchuca Blue’

My friend Steve has urged me to periodically write about my experiences in the Denial Zone…so here’s a little something: We all know you can only go so far with the whole tropical thing in Portland if you’re not going to invest in a greenhouse. Those of us who try to mimic the tropical look realize that we have to seek out the temperate and a few sub-tropicals that give us that ‘feel’. Bold foliages are key. Architectural plants, and just as important strong foliage contrast. This is not the place for subtlety. Strappy, fuzzy, split and dissected, compound pinnate and palmate, glossy, drip tipped, bold variegation and wild patterns…over the years observant nurseryman and plant hunters have brought us a smorgasbord of unusually foliaged plants. Plant breeders have pushed the limits crossing hardy species in ways that mimic their tropical cousins, I’m thinking Hibiscus here. But still there are certain plants, certain forms and silhouettes, that are hard to replace.

Palms are one of these. Many of us grow various palmate forms like genus Trachycarpus, T. fortunei, most commonly, while others have used T. wagnerianus, T. takil and T. princeps. There are many others but of unproven hardiness. Another form of Palm are those with costapalmate fronds, of these I have a Sabal minor doing fine at home slowly getting bigger in the ground for the last four years, (It’s more than ten years old. I’m of the age now where I just say something is ten years old because it’s easier than checking. It may actually be 12-15.) and a Sabal x ‘Birmingham’ I have high hopes for probably destined for a few more years in the pot before I try it out in the ground. (The genus Sabal includes the Palmetto Palm native to the coastal southeastern US. They tend to be slower growing than Trachys, preferring more heat, often with larger more deeply segmented fronds. For those of you who don’t know, costapalmate are intermediate between palmate and pinnate. The stem extends into the frond where the segments separate and fan out. This extension may be slight as it is in Sabal minor. Instead of having the segments radiating evenly from one point at the base, the ‘base’ is slightly elongated stretching it as if it were briefly considering being pinnate. A casual look might leave the observer thinking that something is slightly off with what appears to be a palmate leaf.) Perhaps others will be found growing in the extremes of their home ranges that can take zn7 and 8 consistently with smiles. I planted the aforementioned Trachys over the last several years in and near Waterfront Park’s bowl. (Actually, the T. princeps is new this spring. Cross your fingers.) They are consistent and durable performers…even through last winter.