GHOST OF A NOVEMBER PAST
A Vine or a Bush?
Here’s a blast from the past, from my November 20, 2009 blog post, with current commentaries on how things have changed — and not changed — over the past 11 years.
Dateline: New Paltz, NY, November 20, 2009, 5:30 am. New models of plants, like cars, are deemed necessary to keep consumers interested and spending money. My cars (actually trucks . . . you know, manure and all that) stay with me for as long as they keep rolling along, so it was with equal skepticism I looked upon a new “model” of mandevilla, called Crimson, that arrived at my doorstep early last summer.
I was first attracted and introduced to mandevilla about 20 years ago. The glossy leaves and the bright red, funnel shaped flowers, were part of the attraction. The 
vining habit was also a big part of the draw, making the plant a stand-in for morning glory, but with prettier leaves and brighter flowers. Mandevilla is a perennial, tropical vine, so must winter indoors rather than be seeded outdoors each spring like morning glory. My vine’s leaves yellowed so much in winter that I tired of looking at it; one winter day I walked it over to the compost pile.
The variety Crimson is a new kind of mandevilla whose main selling point is its bushy growth habit. So yes, it is different and new, but wasn’t that vining habit one of the things I always liked about mandevilla?
Still, I have grown very fond of Crimson. It flowered continuously all summer and, since coming indoors in September, continues to do so, with new buds on the way (at every third leaf bud, according to the “manufacturer.”) I’m going to think of Crimson mandevilla as a very pretty, long blooming, bushy plant. Yes, it’s a worthy new model.
Dateline: New Paltz, NY, November 19, 2020: Well, Crimson evidently was not that worthy; it’s no longer with me. As I remember, that sickly look that eventually came on in winter didn’t justify its tenancy here.
With that said, someday I may still grow mandevilla again. But not Crimson or any other bushy variety. As I wrote 11 years ago, that vining habit was one of its main attractions. If I do grow it again, I’ll put it in the basement or somewhere where I’ll hardly see it, for it to sit out winter.
Are They Really Sickly?
(2009) Sickly-looking leaves of houseplants – such as my mandevilla of yore – can be traced to a number of causes. Already I’m seeing this yellow transformation creeping up on my gardenia, which just finished one of its many fragrant shows.
Both mandevilla and gardenia need soils that are quite acidic (pH 4-5.5) in order to thrive. Not enough acidity makes it hard for the plant to imbibe iron, resulting in iron deficiency and yellow leaves.
But wait! It’s not time yet for the “iron pills.” Looking more closely at my gardenia, I see that it is the OLDEST leaves that are yellowing. Hunger for iron causes the YOUNGEST leaves to yellow (and for their veins to remain green). Yellowing of older leaves most commonly means that the plant isn’t getting enough nitrogen. The nitrogen is being robbed from older leaves (which turn yellow because nitrogen is an important component of green chlorophyll) to feed the younger leaves.
The prescription? Add some soluble nitrogen fertilizer and pay more attention to watering. Too much water drives air out of the soil, and roots gasping for air have trouble doing their work to take up sufficient nutrients.
(2020) I mostly agree with my past diagnosis of and cure for yellowing leaves. But two other considerations are worthy of attention.
First, temperatures in my home are on the cool side and roots are less functional as temperatures cool, especially the roots of warm climate plants. So roots might not be able to make efficient use of nitrogen even if it’s added to the soil.
And second, even evergreen plants go through periods of shedding their oldest leaves. Before these leaves drop, they lose their chlorophyll and turn yellow.
So under natural and under less than perfect conditions, mandevilla and gardenia are unavoidably going to look sickly in late fall and early winter.
Oh, the gardenia is also no longer a resident here. Too prone to scale insects.
Asparagus’ Leaves, Their Work Finished
(2009) Yellowing leaves are not always a bad thing. (Think of birch leaves a few weeks ago, or aspen leaves.) I’m happy that my asparagus’ leaves have yellowed. The plants have been growing vigorously all season, feeding their roots to fuel next year’s growth of the delicious young spears that I’ll be snapping off at ground level from late April to early July.
With this year’s work finished, the shoots and leaves, left to grow unfettered since early July, are yellowing and dying back. My short-bladed brush scythe was the perfect tool to make quick work of the plants, a fluffy addition to the compost pile.
With the asparagus shoots and leaves cleared away, I could get into that bed and weed it. The bed was pretty much weed-free until July, but then wet summer weather kept 
weeds germinating and growing, and hard to reach among the 6-foot-high forest of feathery stalks. The bed is now weeded and soon to be fertilized (2#/100 square feet of soybean meal) and mulched (wood chips 2 inches deep).
(2020) Wow! Right on schedule, on the same date as 11 years ago, asparagus leaves have yellowed. They’ve pumped nutrients and fuel down to their roots to provide for next spring’s growth, and are no longer functional and could harbor pests. So, like 11 years ago, I’m going to cut them down and add them to the compost pile.
This year I did treat the ground differently from the past 11+ years. Right after this year’s harvest, at the end of June, when the whole bed was cut to the ground, I did a little weeding. And then, instead of soybean meal as a fertilizer, I spread an inch of compost. Compost adds organic matter to the soil, and supplies a wider slew of nutrients and is more sustainable than soybean meal, among other benefits. The compost would also smother some weeds that would try to emerge.
Then, just to further smother weeds, I topped the compost with a one inch layer of wood chips.
I’m proud to report that the asparagus bed has never been so weed-free. No doubt, the very dry summer weather also played a part in keeping weeds at bay.
At any rate, I’m getting out the scythe now to cut down the stalks. And I look forward to a good crop of asparagus beginning at the end of April. I highly recommend growing asparagus: it’s perennial and is one of those vegetable whose flavor is markedly different, and much, much better, when eaten fresh-picked.
FROM PAST TO PRESENT
Br-r-r-r-r-r
This post originally appeared November 7, 2009. Here’s an update with commentaries on how things have changed — and not changed — over the past 11 years.
Dateline: New Paltz, NY, October 19, 2009, 5:30 am. I bet my garden is colder than your garden. I was startled this morning to see the thermometer reading 23 degrees F. Not much I could do at that point about protecting “cold weather” vegetables still in the garden, some covered with floating row covers and some in “plein aire.” The thing to do under these circumstances was wait for the sun to slowly warm everything up and then assess the damage.
2009
I ventured out to the garden for a survey in the sunny midafternoon. Joy of joys. None of the cold-hardy vegetables was damaged by the cold. Romaine lettuces stood upright and crisp, arugula was dark green and tender, radishes were unfazed, and the bed of endive, escarole, and radicchio looked ready to face whatever cold the weeks ahead might offer.
That 23 degree temperature reading came from my digital thermometer, read indoors from a remote sensor out in the garden. Most surprising was the reading from the old-fashioned minimum/maximum registering mercury thermometer out in the garden. This thermometer remembered the night’s lowest temperature as 20 degrees F. Brrrrrrrr.
2020
Dateline: New Paltz, NY, November 11, 2020. This fall has likewise had a few frigid dips in the thermometer, down a couple of times to 24°F, and cold temperature vegetables have likewise fared well. Nowadays I check temperatures with a high-tech, but reasonably-priced, Sensorpush, a small sensor strategically hung in the garden. It beams current temperature and humidity back to my smartphone, and keeps a record of them throughout the day, week, month, and year. Its reporting jives with that of my “old-fashioned minimum/maximum registering mercury thermometer”.
What has changed is the weather over the past couple of weeks, with sunny days and temperatures hovering around 70°F. A fitting closing for a stellar year in the garden: best harvest, best fall color, congenial weather.
The effect of microclimate has been startling. I live about 4 miles out of town, on a road that follows the valley along the Wallkill River. On clear nights, radiation frosts spill cold air downhill to bring the temperature at the farmden about 5° colder than in town. A couple of evenings ago, temperature in town, as displayed on the local bank building and on my car thermometer as I drove through town, was 55°. Arriving at the farmden, the car thermometer, Sensorpush, and the “old-fashioned minimum/maximum registering mercury thermometer” registered 42° — quite a dramatic difference for a 40 foot elevation difference.
Mediterranean Fancies
(2009) Moving, figuratively, to warmer climes: the Mediterranean. I’m taking the Mediterranean diet one step further by trying to grow some of the delectable woody plants of that that region.
Figs are a big success, and not an unfamiliar sight well beyond their natural range. I’ve tried all the usual methods of growing them in cold climates. I’ve grown them in pots brought indoors for winter; I’ve bent over and covered or buried the stems to protect them from cold; I’ve swaddled the upright stems in leaves, straw, wood shavings, or other insulating materials. All yielded some fruit, but none of these methods beats having a small greenhouse with the trees planted right in the ground. Handfuls of soft figs, so ripe that each has a little tear in its “eye,” follow each sunny day and should do so for a few more weeks.
Bay (as in “bay leaf”) also does well, this one potted. After 20 years, my bay laurel is a
Bay laurel, 2009
handsome little tree, trained to a ball of leaves atop a single, four-foot trunk. The fresh leaves are much more flavorful, almost oily, than dried leaves, especially the old, dried leaves typically offered for sale.
(2020) Yes, figs have been abundant in the greenhouse over the past 11 years. But diminishing sunlight and cooler temperatures, even in the greenhouse (37° minimum temperature), have drained the flavor from the few ripe, remaining figs.
After 30 years, the bay is still thriving, valued as much for its beauty as for the flavor of its fresh leaves. It’s still trained as a small tree, smaller than in the past. I lopped the whole plant to the ground a few years ago to give it a fresh start, trained as round-headed tree only thirty inches tall.
Bay Laurel 2020
(2009) Three hopeful Mediterranean transplants are my olive, feijoa, and lemons. I purchased the olive tree in spring, whereupon it flowered and has actually set a single fruit! The feijoa, also known as pineapple guava, has two fruits on it, which might not seem like a big thing except that those two fruits represent the culmination of about 15 years of effort. (More on that some other time.) True, feijoa is native to South America, but it thrives and is often planted in Mediterranean climates. The same goes for lemon, except that it is native to Asia. My Meyer lemon hybrid, like the olive, was potted up this past spring and sports a single fruit.
The long shots among my Mediterreans are pomegranates. My two plants – the varieties Kazake and Salavastki – are cold-hardy, early ripening, sweet varieties from central Asia, so should do well here in a pot. (They are cold-hardy for pomegranates, down to a few degrees below zero degrees F.) They have yet to flower and fruit.
In a few weeks I’ll move all the potted fruits to the sunny window in my very cool basement, where winter weather is very Mediterranean-esque.
(2020) All three trees are still residents here, although the feijoa tenuously so. It’s a pretty plant but what I really want from it is fruit. Yields have been paltry. I’ve repeatedly threatened it with the compost pile, but repeatedly reneged. Besides its beauty, it often flowers, and the flower petals, fleshy, pinapple-y, and minty, are delicious.
One year, in an effort to downsize plant-wise, I was also going to walk the olive to the compost pile. And then someone reminded me that the olive is a symbol of peace, so I kept it. It’s a pretty plant, an easy to care for houseplant, and occasionally bears tasty olives.
The Meyer lemon offers so much everything: deliciously fragrant flowers, verdant leaves year ‘round, and tasty lemons. Just not enough of them. Meyer lemon is actually a hybrid of lemon and sweet orange.
Pomegranate is still a long shot. I’m down to one plant, Salavastki. It often flowers and sets a few fruits, but the fruits drop off. I’m still not sure why.
Still Great After All Those Years
2009
(2009) Persimmon is another tree grown in Mediterranean countries, although it’s not native there. Up here, I grow American persimmon, an outdoor tree that is cold hardy to below minus 20 degrees F.. Besides yielding delectable fruits, it’s a tree that requires almost no care, not even pruning. Some of the tree’s branches are deciduous, naturally dropping in autumn.
Heavy winds of a few weeks ago took the persimmon’s self-pruning theme too far and blew the top off my 20 year old tree. Fortunately, my three other persimmon trees remained unscathed. I’ll just trim the break from the decapitated tree and it will be fine.
2020
(2020) Persimmon is still thriving, still care-free, and still delectable, the ripe fruits tasting like dried apricots that have been soaked in water, dipped in honey, and given a dash of spice. My persimmon “herd” has been thinned to my two best-tasting, most reliable varieties: Szukis and Mohler. Both are well-adapted to ripening in the the relatively short season (for a persimmon) this far north. Right now, the leafless tree is leafless and still loaded with fruit for the picking, much more than I can eat.
THE SHOW GOES ON
Lesser Known
A whole slew of clear, sunny days and cool nights caused sugar maples to put on a particularly fiery show of yellow and orange leaves this fall. That’s mostly over now around here — but a number of other trees and shrubs, many not well known, are keeping my farmden and beyond colorful longer.
Little known, for instance is Persian ironwood (Parrotia persica). I planted it years ago as a shade tree. Big mistake! For shade, that is. It doesn’t grow very large and is more of a large, multistemmed shrub. I’m glad I planted it, though. The smooth, gray stems grow thick and often horizontally, then downward a little before heading skyward, sort of like a miniature beech.
But I’m writing about color, and Persian ironwood has it, the leaves emerging purplish in spring, turning a lustrous green in summer, then morphing into variable shades of yellow, orange and red in autumn.
Also not well known is Korean mountainash (also called Korean whitebeam, Sorbus alnifolia). It’s closely related to more familiar mountainashes except in a different subgenus, Aria, with simple, rather than compound, leaves. I first saw this tree one fall at the Scott Arboretum in Pennsylvania and, knowing the tiny fruits make a good nibble, ate some. And knowing a whole tree can be grown from a tiny seed, I saved some seeds for planting.
That was in 2006, and the tree is now about 20 feet tall and draped in rusty red leaves that are splashed with yellow. As with the sugar maples, the color is particularly good this year — and fruits, which I’ll be nibbling, are also particularly abundant. As an added plus, the tree, each spring, is draped in large clusters of foamy, white flowers.
Another rare bird is Japanese stewartia (Stewartia pseudocamellia) which I planted — was it for its bark, for its flowers, or was it for its autumn leaf color? All are outstanding. The bark exfoliates in the same way as does sycamore, leaving silvery gray and charcoal gray patches against a khaki background. Its cup-shaped, white flowers with yellow center are like camellias, a relative. Right now, the leaves are a warm terra cotta color shading, in parts, to yellow.
Stewartia
Fothergilla (Fothergilla gardeneii) is one more lesser known plant now aglow here. This small shrub’s leaves’ traffic-stopping, rich red color is heightened by occasional blushes of yellow and dark red. Back in spring, candles of fragrant, creamy white flowers perched atop the ends of stems.
Known for Their Fruits
Some plants that I grow for their fruits are also more than earning their keep with fall color.
Huckleberry (Gaylussacia baccata) is among the best of these, and the color makes up for its relatively poor yield of fruit. The deep red leaves look pretty highlighted among the evergreen leaves of rhododendron, mountain laurel, and lingonberry in my “heather bed.” (All are in the Heather Family, Ericaceae.) Where the plants are really spectacular is in the Shawangunk Mountains that rise up just west of here. There, whole swaths of plants paint the forest understory red.
Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) is another fruit plant here, this one with many tropical aspirations. Tropical aspirations? It’s the northernmost member of the mostly tropical Custard Apple family (Annonaceae); its fruit has taste and texture reminiscent of banana; the fruits hang in clusters like bananas; and its long, drooping leaves would be visually at home in tropical climes. Come fall, the plants shed those tropical aspirations as the leaves turn clear yellow, especially nice when backlit by sunlight.
I often rave about blueberry for its ease of growth, its pretty, white flowers in spring, its long season of harvest, its health benefits, and of course, its delicious fruits. I’m sure I’ve also mentioned its fall color, to me one of the best of all plants, mostly crimson but depending on the variety and the season, also with some yellow.
(I delve into the planting and use of these and other ornamental fruit plants in my book Landscaping with Fruit.)
Look Down
Perhaps it was a couple of particularly cold nights, with temperatures dropping into the low 20s, that caused leaves to all of a sudden drop all at once from certain trees. At any rate, the beautiful carpets blanketing the ground beneath these trees have caught my eye.
Pawpaws, for one, the overlapping, large leaves thoroughly hiding the grass beneath them.
Even at their best, mulberries leaves are nothing to look at in fall (but the trees do have other ornamental attributes, so did make it into Landscaping with Fruit). This year, though, the green leaves that plopped onto the ground following the cold nights did catch my eye. Perhaps it was the low angle of the sun reflecting off them; perhaps it was their shine.
One tree whose leaves are perhaps at their best on the ground in ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba). This one is edible, allegedly delicious, but did not make it into my book. The edible part is the nut (seed) inside the fruit. The problem, for me, is that the fallen fruit smell like an open sewer. Really!
The way around this is to forgo the fruit by planting a male tree. The fan-shaped leaves of this living fossil, whose appearance dates back to the Early Jurassic, turn the clearest yellow imaginable in fall. They’re at their best when they drop, making the ground look as if a sunbeam had fallen from the sky.
I haven’t — yet? — grown ginkgo myself.
