Pruning Ginkgo saplings

Shaping the young tree will avoid removing larger branches, later. This seed-grown Ginkgo is in prior photos on this blog, now about 7 feet tall. I removed the lower branches, and shortened a couple of the longer upper branches so that it would keep to a single lead. It's probably hard to see what was done, but that is the idea: shaping and prevention.

Ultimately, I want the lowest branches to start 5 or 6 feet above the ground. That way they are less likely to be climbed on by kids, and as they arch upward, they are unlikely to be in the way of vehicles on the street. I don't want to remove too much biomass, however, because the more leaves that it has, the faster it grows. SO this method is a compromise.

Before, the lower branches are small but this year are likely to become much thicker.

After. Later this winter the tree will be given a nice compost mulch, and be ready for another year of growth. I think of the 6-foot stage as the threshold to really looking like it will be a tree.

After 3 years of my lobbying, my workplace will be planting a tree on the grounds for Earth-day / Arbor Day (April 22 and 25). As the fervent tree-promoter that I am, I get to choose. How predictable am I? It will be a Ginkgo biloba. Since it is in a public place, of course, my seed grown trees wont do. They have a 50% chance of being female, and females are too likely to be cut down due to their stinky seed coats. A male has a better chance for a long life among pesky humans.

Planting Plum Trees

The new plum trees came 2 days ago. The varieties are Hollywood (a more columnar shape, purple leaf, nice blooming, purple plum, partially self fertile) and Shiro (wider branching, green leaf, juicy yellow plum, partially self fertile). According to everything that I read, both should do well in this zone and region.

Other than the grape pruning, this then is the first major garden activity to inaugurate the year 2009! I am stoked!

I think that they do a great job packaging the trees. Only two tiny branches were damaged, and they were very minor branches.

Nice roots, nice branches. I've been ordering from Raintree for several years, and their products, plant quality, and packaging have not disappointed me yet.


Soak the new trees for a couple of hours. Since it may still be cold and frost, I soaked to get the trees well hydrated.

Generous holes, with the trees planted so that the grafts were 2-3 inches above the soil line. I did add a LITTLE compost, but not enough to create the 'flowerpot' effect in the clay soil. One tree is in a raised bed with retaining wall, replacing a magnolia that I moved out last fall. This soil was amended several years ago, and the soil level is about 2 feet above the original grade. This area is well drained. The other tree went into less ideal ground, but I heeded the warnings not to over-amend the soil, just adding a little compost mixed in for 'luck'.

Watering them in. After tamping the ground firmly with my feet (but not my ENTIRE body weight, please?), I poured on a bucket of water. Once it soaked in, both were given a layer of well aged yard compost as mulch.

Now planted, ready for Spring. How cool is that?

Birds at the feeder: House Finch

Most authorities recommend keeping a healthy population of birds around. During the summer, many of them eat insects.
Based on photos on the internet, these are male "house finches". House finches are vegetarian, so probably not much benefit for the gardener. But I still like them. The birds have eaten about 15 pounds of seeds so far this winter. Except the seeds that the squirrels got first.

Creating Schlumbergera hybrids

Holiday Cactus. Obviously, I don't need more of them, but it's interesting trying to see if I can create hybrids and grow them from seed. I transferred pollen among the 3 colors that I had blooming at the time, red, pink, and white. According to various web sources, most are self-infertile, so hybridization is necessary in order to get fruit - and then seeds.

I wonder, what is the advantage to the species to be self-infertile? Some plants are self-fertile, and others are self-infertile. It seems like it would take a special mechanism to become self infertile. I suppose that 'enforced' genetic exchange might result in hardier plants due to mixing of genes, and also result in faster transfer of beneficial genes throughout a population.

Another possiblity is that since the modern varieties are all hybrids, the pollin-producing mechanism and the pollen-receiving mechanisms might originate from different, incompatible species, so another plant with matching mechanisms is needed from a different hybrid. Again, this is just a wild guess.

I pollinated these 2 or 3 weeks ago. Each was pollinated from another variety of a different color.


Here is a web posting about hybridizing and growing Schlumbergera from seeds.

Here is a posting on the gardenweb, with some individual challenges and successes.

It's interesting that the young fruit of the white-flowered variety is not pigmented, so is green.

And the pink variety is a bit more pigmented than the white one.


And the red-flowered variety has the darkest fruit pigmentation as well.

Now comes the long wait. According to some sources, it can take a year for the seed to mature, then 2-3 years to obtain flowering plants from seed. Faster than Clivias, which take a year for the seed to mature and up to 7 years to bloom. But patience is still needed. And luck.

New Year's Tradition: Pruning the Grape Vines

I don't know how it started. Each year within a few days of New Year's day, I prune the grape vines. This year, new year's day was not possible, but yesterday was close enough. Pruning in Spring, after the sap starts to flow, leads to dripping of sap as it continues to run for a few days or week. That doesn't happen with mid-winter pruning. Plus, it's a nice chore to do for puttering meditation.

Most years I have gone with a combination of spur and cane methods, since I wasn't sure which was best. Last year they were quite productive, and it didn't seem to make much difference whether it was cane or spur pruning. I think that they may have over-grown the arbor, so this year, it's all spur pruning.

It's interesting how soon the trunks developed a gnarled, established look. I like that.

My approach with the spur pruning was to leave about 4-6 inches of growth from 2008, and remove the rest. That means that I removed about 95% of last year's growth. I left 2 to 4 buds in most cases. Most grapes seem to bloom from buds forming on last year's growth, and most from the first few buds on the cane. If I'm wrong about that, then this will not be a productive grape year. But I think that I'm right. We'll see.

This arbor has 3 vines: Interlaken (my favorite), Canadice (the most productive) and Venus (a nice change of pace).

I was more aggressive with Canadice, since it was too productive. That meant that the grapes were smaller, and there were too many. I left more of the Interlaken, since it is my favorite. Two vines would have been plenty on this arbor, but I wanted 3 varieties.

Over the gate, Price grape. Also very tasty, larger grapes in smaller bunches. Price has not been very productive so far. Squirrels eat the flower buds. In 2008 I added some screening, which deterred the squirrels somewhat. I'll have to do that this year as well.

Price was also pruned mainly as 2 to 4 bud spurs. Last year it was too unruly, so I was more aggressive this time.

The prunings were chopped into pieces about 3 to 4 inches long, and applied as a mulch around some shrubs. Last year, I did the same thing, but then applied compost on top of the grape vine mulch. That resulted in numerous small grapevines growing from the chopped pieces. This time, I'll leave the chopped vines on top so that I don't get unintended starts.