Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The Egg-Beater Tree



An eccentric tree no doubt. I got carried away while pruning. (Actually, this is being cultivated by a person I haven’t met yet.) I like to call it the egg-beater tree. The winter deciduous shot of this London Plane tree shows all the limbs and the layout. The leafy version show why apical dominance has such a strong influence on tree growth. With more leaves at the top of each main “beater” the influence of apical dominance is revealed. The hormone forces new growth at the highest point of the bough/beater.




“BUY FROM THE SOURCE TO HELP KEEP WRITERS WRITING”


Let me know what you think. Visit my web site to learn about my new book on drip irrigation and other gardening books. Thanks, Robert

Monday, May 10, 2010

Gopher It - Baskets & All



Spring time and baskets are rollin’…into the ground. Gophers in the west (certainly around my home) have sprung from the womb and are seeking new territory. This means there’s a mass migration as each gopher tries to stake out it’s new home. Thus many gophers means plenty of damage to roots. In my neck of the woods, gardeners are “planting” wire baskets with the transplants inside. It seems to work, but not all the time. I lost an apple tree to a gopher who simply climbed over the wire and into a protected paradise of yummy rootlets. I spent hours in the USDA Ag. Library (the largest collection of ag. and hort. books in the country) looking for “the answer”. I finally found a report where the researchers wanted to capture live gophers. They built a “V”-shaped live trap with 10-inch-tall wire sides. The gophers simply crawled over the wire. Alas, my futile attempt at a four-inch exposure above the mulch didn’t save the apple tree. However, I learned a lot about roots after I dug up the roots of the apple tree. Nearly 90% were inside the two-foot wide by 24-inch deep wire basket. Most roots where eaten off just as they tried to leave the basket—as seen in the photo on the left. Here is one of the lone roots that escaped the greedy gopher mouths.

“BUY FROM THE SOURCE TO HELP KEEP WRITERS WRITING”


Let me know what you think. Visit my web site to learn about my new book on drip irrigation and other gardening books. Thanks, Robert