How To Instructions | 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.

September 5, 2012
by Gordon's Gardens 9 Comments

Super trendy moss in a jar – You Can Grow That!

Everywhere I look these days I see those small glass terrariums featuring mosses mixed with lichens on remnants of bark or sticks. Some hang in store windows while others exist in fictitious internet lands where they sit on pristine, completely white desks where absolutely no real work ever happens. Unique, small, green, little living worlds – a reminder of what I’d rather be paying attention to rather than any of the work on my desk. They soothe the angst-ridden mind.

Growing up in dry Southern California, moss was something I only saw on PBS documentaries, so I am particularly drawn to the allure these terrariums offer. Whenever I see one when I’m out and about I stop and stare at them, inspecting their individual intricacies. Even the video rental store near my house sells them – “We’re out of Mad Men Season 4 dvds, but we have moss in a hanging globe. Want that instead?” My answer would be “Yes, please!” if these little balls of joy weren’t so darn expensive. Yes, you are buying living art and there’s always a price to pay for someone’s design aesthetic, but I have a hard time paying for something that I feel I can easily do myself. So I will…and you can, too!

Depending on where you live, you can most likely acquire some kind of small green life form or something reminiscent of one while on a hike out in nature. In areas that receive a lot of moisture, you should be able to find some kind of moss, lichen, or liverwort. You can go for succulents if you live in more desert-like conditions (or go to the local nursery if you can’t find any out and about). On my recent road trip from San Francisco to Portland, Oregon, I imagined I would pick up some moss in a redwood grove near the foggy mists of the Oregon coast. It was very romantic in my mind. Instead I found some in the grass at rest stop just outside of Eugene. The dog needed to go take care of some business and I found a dead twig covered in dried moss and a few lichens in the grass along the way. The moss was dark and looked dead, but the lichens were pretty so I picked it up. Again, being from SoCal, I don’t know much about moss, so I was pleasantly surprised when the moss came alive and green after getting it wet. (I have a lot to learn! Anyone have any recommendations for helping me catch up on my bryology?)

The dream of the moss is alive in Portland! This pile of joy on a stick can’t wait for a proper container.

I have not yet purchased a glass globe or a nice enough jar to put it in, but I do recommend getting one if you are going to make your own moss terrarium. Right now, mine is sitting in a small dish (as you can see above) and the exposure causes it to dry out rather quickly. I give mine a quick soak every so often, but an even mist from a spray bottle works well, too.

If you want to make your own terrarium but don’t know where to find supplies or plant materials, you can take a terrarium class or just find what you need at many independent plant nurseries/retailers. The San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers offers a terrarium building class as does Sloat Garden Center (both are approximately $35 each). Or better yet, you can visit Flora Grubb Gardens and build your own at their “terrarium bar.” Just grab one of the many hand-blown glass containers and choose from an assortment of branch pieces, lichens, and air plants to create your own custom soil-less terrarium. (They also have them pre-made there, too, if you don’t trust your creative instincts).

An example of what you can make or buy at Flora Grubb (picture courtesy of: http://www.casasugar.com/Flora-Grubb-Plant-Cube-Great-Succulents-9939450)

Or you can just say screw it and just buy an already made terrarium. Mosser offers a really cool, yet pricey, ball of moss in a jar for $36. It’s moss in a jar. Very simple in concept and design, but amazing in so many ways. http://www.mosserstore.com/

I’ll admit it, I’ve been tempted to pick up one of these extravagancies for my desk at work…my non-white desk with non-white accessories on it…but the moss just won’t have the presence it does here in this picture with the white background and simple, elegant glass container and label.

So yeah, you can make that!….or buy that!….and definitely, you can grow that!

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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. Soon the name will be changing, though. More on that can be found at C.L. Fornari’s blog.

Moss provides a sense of peace and tranquility even during these uncertain and stressful times, and one company is filling this niche by providing five varieties. (prweb.com)
Growing an Open Terrarium (dadsforlifesg.wordpress.com)

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 11, 2012
by Gordon's Gardens 2 Comments

Plant-centric Bathroom Makeover Ideas

As with every project we have done at this old house of ours, what appears to be a quick and easy task often turns into a long, drawn-out mess. Case-in-point: our 1940s Pepto-[Abysmal] pink tiled bathroom. We’re saving the complete makeover for a later date when we have the resources to do a good job (meaning replace the worn out pink tiles with anything not pink). In the mean time, we’re merely patching holes and repainting. This shouldn’t take too long to do, but with all the other requirements in our daily lives, this project has already taken about a week.

What a great place for a ladder. The Anthurium andraeanum doesn't seem to mind it, though.

I imagine all will be finished by this weekend, but in the mean time my sun-loving plants that typically call the bright, sky-lighted bathroom home have been displaced to the dark spare bedroom. They started their revolt on Monday by drooping their leaves or otherwise not looking too happy. To rectify this situation, I moved them back to their bathroom home amidst the construction. They are perking up already.

No medicine cabinet? No problem for this Euphorbia milii that loves getting all the sun from the skylight above it's new, temporary roost. (Don't worry, this plant will be removed before the medicine cabinet goes in.)

Moral of the story: don’t piss off your plants. They have the ability to self-destruct and sometimes will within a short amount of time. If they have to be moved from their preferred location, move them somewhere that has similar conditions to what they are accustomed to already. The same goes for moving plants from the green house to the open air, or from the conditions of the retail nursery center to your home – they need to be conditioned by slowly introducing them to any new environment that will be drastically different than where they were living prior. And even then, not all environments will be suitable (Read: don’t try to slowly adjust your favorite cactus to a water garden, obviously).

Well, my plant crisis is averted. Not only that, but these plants do perk up the otherwise hellacious construction zone now that they’re back. Who knows, if this project takes any longer I may have to grow a vine on the ladder in the bathtub. I can also fill up the bathtub with some dirt to grow a tropical garden….or better yet, fill it with water, plant some water lettuce or water lilies in there, and throw in a few gold fish! No one will notice the horrid pink tiles once they see that lush water garden.

Imagine this, but in your bathtub! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Don’t worry, the shower is a separate stall next to the bathtub….which would be a great place for shade-loving ferns and mosses (No, that’s not “mildew” between the tiles…it’s Funaria hygrometrica)! We could always resort to using the backyard garden hose for our daily showers.

Funaria hygrometrica (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Gordon's Gardens

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Category Archives: How To Instructions

An Oak Tree? You Can Grow That!

Super trendy moss in a jar – You Can Grow That!

A Kitchen Herb Garden – You Can Grow That!

Plant-centric Bathroom Makeover Ideas

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