Additional Information | Gordon's Gardens

December 5, 2012
by Gordon's Gardens 6 Comments

An Oak Tree? You Can Grow That!

In mid November while attending the Partners in Community Forestry Conference in Sacramento, I picked up a few acorns from various types of oaks around the area. Part of the conference included a tour of the Shields Oak Grove at the UC Davis Arboretum – the home of more than 80 species of oaks from around the world. I saw oaks I never even knew existed, including a unique oak from Mexico with very stiff and large leaves. Of course, I had to pick up a few acorns to see if I could grow any of them. The only viable acorns I could get my hands on were that of the bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa). I had never seen an acorn like this before. It was covered by a large, protective cap with rough furry edges, as seen in the picture below.

Bur oak acorn (Photo credit: CameliaTWU)

In downtown Sacramento, I picked up a few cork oak acorns (Quercus suber). These trees have incredibly interesting bark. It’s called cork oak because the bark is the source of commercial cork for wine bottles, etc. (like I needed another reason to love a tree). I came upon a whole slew of these acorns on my way out of the hotel and was very excited about the possibility of growing one of these beautiful trees.

Quercus suber L. / Alcornoque/Surera. (Photo credit: chemazgz)

Fagaceae: Quercus suber (Photo credit: Dane Larsen)

I was excited to stick these acorns in the ground to see what would happen. Fortunately, I was surrounded by hundreds of arborists (I’m still in training). One of them, my co-worker in fact, was able to explain what to do as easily as if she was telling me how to start a car. It’s so easy, that any of us can do it. Hence the title of this post: “An oak tree?

Here are the steps:

1) Find viable acorns. This means they aren’t dried out or damaged by insects or animals. If you wait too long after collecting the acorns, they will lose it’s ability to germinate.

2) Float test: remove the caps off the acorns and drop them into a glass of water. If the acorn sinks, it will grow; if it floats, it won’t.

3) Get some vermiculite, wet it enough so that it’s moist without being soggy. Put the vermiculite in a bag with the acorns.

4) Place the bag in the refrigerator for approximately one month for germination.

5) Once roots are growing out of the acorn, remove and place in a pot large enough for the taproot to grow.

6) Repot in larger pots as it grows, or plant in the ground.

And ta-da! You should have a new oak tree seedling. Remember, that not all seeds will grow, so it’s best to prepare several acorns if you’re hoping to get one tree.

Considering sudden oak death (SOD), the gold spotted oak borer beetle, etc., it’s not a bad idea to do what we can to try to grow more oak trees. Whether you plant them in your backyard or in a nature preserve, growing more can help oak populations out.

Here’s my experience with this process so far:

Removing the cap from the bur oak was NOT easy, but it was so big that I figured it would interfere with the float test. Unfortunately, the acorn didn’t exactly sink to the bottom, nor did it immediately float to the top. I have a feeling it’s not going to grow, but I’m trying it anyway.

After only about 2 weeks, one of my cork oak acorns has already sprouted. Yippee! You are seeing potting soil on these acorns. I didn’t have any vermiculite or sawdust, so soil was the only substrate I had available at the time. I wasn’t sure how well it would work, but so far so good. I’ll be happy if I get one seedling out of this experiment. Just think, if I start growing a cork oak now, it may be ready by the time I decide to take up winemaking! (Don’t worry, harvesting bark for corks is sustainable and will not kill the tree.)

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On the fourth day of each month, garden bloggers everywhere are coming together to post about what you can grow. Posts will be about anything from growing hops for your home brew to growing your own wedding bouquet. To see others, check out the You Can Grow That! Facebook Page. More on this can be found at C.L. Fornari’s blog.

August 16, 2012
by Gordon's Gardens 6 Comments

Can’t See the Forest for the Trees

Ever since March, I was looking forward to the second week of June (who am I kidding, ever since last August). That is when my work year as a teacher ended and I would begin my time off to recover and refresh myself so that I could do it all over again. I was really looking forward to all the time I would have to spend writing new blog posts, doing home repairs, and perhaps even finally getting to landscape my backyard finally!

But that didn’t happen.

Alas, my yard is still a yard and not a garden. There are less weeds now and I finally pruned the overgrown camelias, but there’s still the dilapidated fence, insane ivy, and dusty, bare soil. Any week now we’ll have the fence replaced and I’ll finally be able to sheet mulch (there will be a post dedicated to that when it happens). I have not laid the wooden floor in our bonus room. I have a half un-upholstered chair in the garage waiting for me to have enough time to continue working on it. There are seeds for Albizia julibrissin, Rosa californica, and a type of manzanita sitting on the table next to my bed, asking me each night, “So, uh, when are you planning on planting us?”

So what have I been doing? I got a summer job. The day after my last day of school work I started working part time at a place called Friends of the Urban Forest in San Francisco (see my previous blog titled “A Tree in Your Sidewalk? You Can Grow That!” for more info on this amazing organization.) I’ve been running around San Francisco doing emergency tree care, providing the public with information about trees, and working diligently on researching information and gathering some pictures for the upcoming tree database for the new website. It’s been a lot of work but just as much fun – and I’m learning a heck of a lot. Soon I will post about some of the tidbits worthy of attention (yellowing Magnolias, the impending doom of Myoporum trees, and more).

I did manage to have some fun this summer, too. I spent a week in the Eastern Sierras with my family (where I got the wild rose seeds) and celebrated my 30th birthday in Sonoma at a few wineries (where I got the manzanita seeds…and some amazing wine, of course). Tomorrow I leave for a road trip to Portland, OR. Along the way, we will be stopping at the many beautiful sites (and breweries) along the California coast up through Oregon. This is my first time heading north along the coast, so I’m looking forward to seeing everything (especially the forests and other plant life). I’ll post pictures of anything of botanical interest.

May 5, 2012
by Gordon's Gardens 10 Comments

A Kitchen Herb Garden – You Can Grow That!

If you have enough natural light in your kitchen, you can grow an herb garden. Growing a variety of herbs you use on a semi-regular basis can be both easy and incredibly satisfying. All you need to grow an indoor herb garden in your kitchen is good light.

In years past, I attempted growing rosemary in my kitchen, but being a city dweller, I rarely ever lived in a place that received enough daylight to keep it alive. Our new house in the city has two skylights in the kitchen. The previous owners remodeled and put the refrigerator under one of the skylights, which we at first thought created a rather odd space above, but it’s actually been quite beneficial for growing herbs (with a pothos and a cactus). It’s a perfect platform for growing since it’s just the right distance from the skylight.

Parsley, mint, chives, rosemary……and a pothos and cactus, too!

But what if you don’t have a skylight? If you have a bright window, you can always put a flower box on the inside or outside of the window and grow your herbs there. Friends of ours have a kitchen with windows that open out into a light well (another anomaly of urban living) and they, too, are successfully able to grow basil and mint from the amount of sunlight peering overhead.

Fridge-top Garden

When selecting herbs for your own garden, keep in mind that they don’t all require the same light and water conditions. Do a little research prior to going to the garden center so you have a better idea of what will do well in your kitchen conditions. Also take note of the lifespan of each herb. Is it an annual? A biennial? A perennial? Plants such as parsley are biennials. They’ll look great for two seasons, but as soon as you see it has produced a long spike then its days are limited. Many people don’t realize that parsley is a biennial and then feel like they did something wrong when it dies. Don’t worry! You didn’t do anything wrong.

We’re growing chives, rosemary, parsley, and mint. I wasn’t sure that a woody rosemary plant would be able to grow well under the same conditions of the herbaceous herbs, but it’s doing well. Soon after we brought home the mint, I saw that there were little red spots under the leaf. Yes, mint rust. I figured it was only a matter of time before it was a gonner. Well, a month later and there are no signs of rust and the plant is looking as healthy as ever. I’ll continue to keep an eye on it, of course.

No rust, but there is some mark on one of the leaves. Other than that, it looks healthy again!

With a sunny enough spot, anyone can grow a great and useful herb garden in his or her kitchen. When reading a recipe and you see it calls for one of the fresh herbs you are growing, nothing is more satisfying than knowing you have it and you grew it yourself!

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April 25, 2012
by Gordon's Gardens 4 Comments

Let’s Tweet About Squirrels to Raise Money for NWF

Craigslist Founder Will Donate $1 if You Tweet About Squirrels.

and… #Squirrels4Good | craigconnects.

This just in…Craigslist founder will donate $1 to the National Wildlife Federation for every tweet about squirrels or on his Facebook page. Squirrels? I love squirrels (out in nature), too, so I can understand why he’d do such a thing. It makes me happy that others have an affinity for squirrels as much as I do (and someone who actually has money enough to donate it).

So this got me thinking about squirrels more. They come up often in my English classes. When I think the kids aren’t paying attention I’ll somehow insert the word “squirrel” into my lecture. ”The Victorian Era is known for serialized novels, celebration of childhood, imperialism, and squirrels.” This helps me figure out who’s listening or not. I’ve been doing it so often that now the students bring up squirrels before I get the chance. One of them even bought me a plush squirrel. We named it Chippy. Chippy is now the class mascot and is sometimes blamed when assignments are not turned in or corrected in time.

Squirrels in the Garden

But there’s more to squirrels than the absurdity that I like to bring to my classroom. I enjoy seeing squirrels out in nature doing their squirrelly thing in the forests, but they’re not so cute when they’re wreaking havoc in your garden. They may eat your fruits, vegetables, plastic irrigation lines, plant and tree roots, or they chew the bark off of trees. Ground squirrels will burrow in lawns, under houses, patios, etc., destroying lawns, creating uneven ground, and possibly causing expensive structural damage to buildings. Tree squirrels won’t burrow underground, but will cause damage in tree canopies and even eat the eggs out of birds’ nests.

Managing Squirrels in Your Yard

But aren’t squirrels cute? They’re so adorable when they’ve girdled your cedar tree or destroyed your drip lines. Yeah … so, uh, you’re probably wondering … how do you get rid of them? Mechanical methods are best, but not always fool proof. Exclusion and trapping can work. If the fruit tree is small enough, building a screen around it will keep the squirrels (and birds) out, but that’s not always a viable option. Screening over a vegetable garden can keep them out, too. I’ve also seen people hang CDs or mylar strips in trees as a means of scaring them away. I’m not sure how successful they are, though. Live trapping always sounds nice because of the romantic ideas of releasing the urban squirrel into the great rural fields where we think they all would rather be anyway, but that’s a bit too idealistic. In California, live trapping is very unsuccessful because it’s illegal to release trapped animals in a new area, so you’ll just have to release a trapped animal back into your yard (or the neighbor’s?) or euthanize them. If that’s the case then you might as well use death traps, or better yet, learn to live with a little squirrel damage (if it’s not too intense).

From my own experience, the most effective method of keeping squirrels out of your yard is by keeping your dog in your yard. Not only are the squirrels too scared to jump into your yard from the fence, but chasing them also gives your dog (or dogs) exercise.

Walter the dog intently looking at...a squirrel? No, probably at food or another dog.

And now off to tweet about squirrels to make some money for NWF…. (I better learn how to use Twitter stat!

A Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel stands in front of a camera while Melissa and Jackson Brandts are taking a photo of themselves at Banff National Park. The image has spread virally around the internet, making the Brandts, the squirrel, and Banff National Park momentarily famous. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

April 4, 2012
by Gordon's Gardens 10 Comments

Family Bonds…You can grow that!

I have many childhood memories. Some of my strongest are associated with growing vegetables or otherwise enjoying the plants around me. You, too, can grow family bonds and influential memories by growing and enjoying plants together.

Tomatoes (Photo from Wikipedia)

I remember following my Grandpa around the backyard with a salt shaker. We’d pick ripe tomatoes off the vines and eat them like apples but with a few sprinkles of salt.

Pumpkin flower with incipient fruit (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I remember my Grandpa picking off dying squash flowers so I could stomp on them. Yeah, I’m not sure why now, but at the time it made sense. They would pop!

A well-mowed lawn (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I remember having to mow the lawn when I was a kid. Several times I would have to do it twice, then my Dad would do it again. Why? I don’t know. I did a great job the first time. (Maybe this is why I hate lawns now?)

Apricot tree

I remember picking apricots, figs, grapefruit, and loquats in my other Grandparents’ backyard. They were all delicious. Growing up in Southern California had its benefits.

A large mature east side Jeffrey Pine growing on volcanic table lands south of Mono Lake, Ca. Photo taken approximately one mile east north east of Deadman’s Pass, off of US HWY 395. The stand is composed of pure Jeffrey Pine with different age classes found through out. The large tree is approximately 27-30m tall, and 90cm in diameter at breast height.

I remember going to the Sierras with family every summer. The butterscotch and vanilla smells of the Jeffrey Pines (pinus jeffreyi) in the Mammoth Lakes area reminds me of camping trips, card games (they taught us young), early morning hiking, fishing, and laughing over inappropriate jokes Grandma would make.

Artemisia tridentata (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I always tell people I don’t have a great sense of smell. It’s true. I don’t. But I can identify the remarkable smells of the jeffrey pine and big sage brush (Artemisia tridentata) immediately. I recently bought a young Artemisia tridentata from Bay Natives in San Francisco to plant in my backyard as part of my “weeds to wonderful” backyard makeover. It might be a rather wild or boring looking plant to many, but my experiences with it over the years makes it one of my favorites.

Stacked rockmelons (cantaloupe) in a fruit and...

Cantaloupe AKA Muskmelon

Currently, my friend and co-worker Maureen is growing cantaloupe with her junior high students. They’re on a trip, so I’m minding them for the time being (seeds, if you’re reading this, please sprout!!!). She’s continuing an age-old tradition teaching the young to enjoy and respect nature. It’s an amazing thing how plants affect our lives. Whether the cantaloupe seeds sprout or not, these kids will always remember this project just like I will always remember the memories I’m sharing with you here.

Beer!

P.S. If you’re ever in the Mammoth Lakes area, go to Mammoth Brewing Company and try their IPA 395. Named after the central highway that runs through the Eastern Sierras, IPA 395 is made with mountain sage and juniper. What’s the best thing ever? Turning my childhood memories into beer. Try it if you can! It’s amazing whether you share my love of Eastern Sierra plants or not.

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January 25, 2012
by Gordon's Gardens Leave a comment

Stock up on tequila before it’s too late! Two different types of mealybugs are infesting agave and succulents in Southern California

Image via Wikipedia

Well, maybe your tequila is safe for now, but if you live in Southern California you should be aware that two different species of mealybugs (from different genera) have been discovered infesting agave and succulent plants in many nurseries.

The California FDA issued Nursery Advisory No. 01-2012 on January 23rd to Agricultural Commissioners across the state to warn of the Agave Mealybug threat. So far there are no known cases of these mealy bugs loose in the environment, but agricultural inspectors for Riverside and San Diego counties have identified these mealy bugs at 13 nurseries since February 2011. While it’s unlikely that every day consumers will come across infected agaves or succulents at their local garden stores, it’s still good to be aware of the outbreak in case the mealybugs do spread.

These mealybugs are described as being waxy, pinkish-purple with a gray hue, and are typically located around the main stem or whorl of the plant. Check out the above link to the letter from the state to see pictures of a few infected agaves and one succulent.

Not to make light of a possibly bad situation, but let’s hope these mealybugs aren’t spreading through Mexico and affecting the Agave tequilana. If there’s a tequila shortage then I’ll have to give up my day job. Margaritas are the only thing that get me through the week.

January 21, 2012
by Gordon's Gardens 3 Comments

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! In the not too distant future you will see a variety of posts on topics including California native plants, non-natives, tended gardens, natural landscapes, and perhaps even the evolution of my backyard from it’s days of being ruled by weeds to what it is today (ruled by fewer weeds) and to what it will be in the future.

Thanks for visiting!

Gordon's Gardens

Exploring California's tended and untended landscapes

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