George's Current Ramblings and Readlings

The 17-Year Cicadas and Your Plants

May 18th, 2021

   If you live in an urban setting or other more-populated/less-tree’d area, you may be wondering what all the hubbub is over Brood X cicadas, that bug that emerges en masse only once every 17 years.

Check out the bulging eyes on these 17-year cicadas.
Credit: Marcus Schneck

   It’s entirely possible you may not see (or hear) a one.

   However, if you’re in an area where this family of cicadas laid eggs 17 years ago, you might be wondering if this spells the end of your landscape as you know it.

   The short answer is no.

   Although these bugs seem threatening and foreboding in their incredible numbers and screeching choruses, they do surprisingly little plant damage.

   They don’t bite, they don’t sting, they don’t spread disease, and they don’t even eat leaves or fruits. That ranks them fairly low on the scale of insect mayhem.

   “If you’re freaked out by bugs in general, you’ll really get freaked out by these,” says Dr. Jared Ali, a professor of entomology at Penn State University. “But cicadas look worse than they really are.”

   Ali says the main landscape threat is from the bug’s egg-laying habit.

   After mating, female cicadas use tiny saw-like appendages on their abdomens to cut slits in young tree branches. There they lay little white eggs in rows of 24 to 28 eggs, up to as many as 600 eggs total.

   This cutting can cause branch tips to wilt or die from the egg-laying point outward, a condition known as “flagging.”

   “The only trees to worry about are smaller ones, ones with quarter-inch to half-inch branches,” Ali says.

12 Annual Flowers that Can Take the Heat

May 11th, 2021

   Pennsylvania keeps getting hotter and hotter in summer, with 90-degree days more common than ever.

Vinca is one of the heat-toughest annual flowers. This is Tattoo Raspberry.

   Climate forecasters say this is no fluke, that the Harrisburg area is on the road to a climate more akin to Arkansas than past norms.

   If that’s the case, it makes sense when picking our annual flowers each spring to lean toward choices best equipped to handle increased heat.

   One good measure is picking annuals that bloom non-stop right through the triple-digit summers of Dallas.

   Dallas Arboretum conducts trials each year and gives “FlameProof” honors to the heat-toughest flowers.

   If a flower is FlameProof in Dallas, it should have no problem in Dauphin, Dillsburg, or Dallastown, Pa., right?

   Following are a dozen of the best heat-tough annuals you’ll find in local garden centers. Most also aren’t deer or rabbit favorites.

1.) Vinca

   These foot-tall annuals with the glossy leaves can take the worst heat and drought you can throw at an annual. They come in nickel- to quarter-sized flowers of white, pink, rose, red, lavender and pale blue and do best in full sun.

   Good varieties: ‘Jaio,’ ‘Heat Wave,’ and the Titan, Cora, Pacifica, Soiree, Tattoo, and Valiant series.

Both blue and red salvia are heat-tough.

2.) Salvia

   Both the blue-blooming and red/purple types thrive in heat. The spiky, butterfly-attracting flowers grow on 12- to 15-inch stems. Full sun to light shade.

   Good varieties: ‘Signum,’ ‘Rhea’ and ‘Victoria’ (blue), ‘Red Hot Sally,’ ‘Salsa’ and ‘Sizzler’ (red).

3.) Zinnia

   The dwarf types are best at holding off mildew as well as tolerating heat.  Most are hot colors (orange, red, gold), but a few come in pink or white. 15-18 inches tall, full sun.

   Good varieties: ‘Zowie Yellow Flame,’ and the ‘Profusion,’ Zahara, Holi, Preciosa, and Zesty series.

The Best Little Bulbs that Hardly Anybody Grows

May 4th, 2021

   Most people know tulips and daffodils. So it’s no wonder those two spring bulbs show up in a lot of yards, even though tulips are leading snack targets of deer, rabbits, and rodents and tend to go downhill after a stirring debut performance or two.

Siberian squill is my favorite of the least-used bulbs.

   A fair number of people also know and grow crocuses and hyacinths.

   But beyond those four, I think a typical yardener would be hard-pressed to name any other spring-blooming bulbs.

   From the earliest little white snowdrops that can bloom even under a February melting snow to the softball-sized purple orbs of giant alliums that lead us into summer, lots of other bulbs do well in our climate.

   Yet few people grow them, most likely because 1.) they don’t know about them, or 2.) they figure something must be difficult about them or else they would be more common.

   From what I’ve seen over the years, most of these lesser-known bulbs are reliable growers that come back year after year, often get better with age, and seldom get eaten by animals.

   They also bloom at different times as the season unfolds, making it possible to have something in color non-stop from the end of winter right through June, when the summer annual and perennial flowers take over.

   To help paint a real-life picture of what to expect, I put 10 different so-called “specialty bulbs” to the test in my new yard.

10 “Climate-Smart” Trees that Can Take Our Future Heat

April 27th, 2021

   Our climate isn’t like it was just a generation ago, and our plants are showing it – especially trees.

White oak is a species tolerant of our future heat.

   Many of Pennsylvania’s recent tree demises – from diseases on spruce and firs to branch diebacks on Japanese maples to “mysterious” deaths of sugar maples – are directly or indirectly related to climate changes.

   The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Climate Change Resource Center says we’re on a road toward wetter, warmer, and less snowy winters; earlier springs; hotter, drier summers; more extreme fluctuations between heavy downpours and “flash droughts;” more erratic temperature swings; longer, drier autumns, and new bugs, diseases, and weeds that didn’t use to withstand our colder winters.

   All of that is taking a toll on trees – particularly those that don’t adapt well to change and that don’t do well in hotter weather.

   Gardeners, urban foresters, and public gardens such as Longwood Gardens and the Chicago Botanic Garden have been documenting that some species are struggling more than others.

   Of 50 trees the Chicago Botanic Garden studied, for example, 10 were identified as ones that won’t fare well 30 years from now – American and Greenspire lindens, shagbark hickory, Black Hills spruce, American hop hornbeam, katsura, Norway spruce, Sargent cherry, amur maackia, and Serbian spruce.

   The U.S. Forest Service also identified beech, sugar maple, gray birch, eastern white pine, and black cherry as others “vulnerable” in the climate that’s unfolding.

   Knowing which species are best equipped to adapt to the future climate is good to know because trees are such long-term investments.

   As Penn State Extension urban forester Vincent Cotrone wrote in a post on tree selection, “We need to take into account whether (a tree) can handle conditions in 20 to 30 years. If we decide to plant 50 new street trees of a given species, and they begin to decline and die off in 10 years, we have just wasted time and lost 10 years of establishment.”

   If you’re planning a new tree or three, it makes sense to take into account the likely future conditions as well as “conventional” selection factors such as light, soil moisture, available space, and whether the species is a prime target for those deer that are lurking nearby.

   Based on studies by the Chicago Botanic Garden and the U.S. Forest Service’s Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science, below are 10 of my all-around-best tree choices that also are equipped to handle future heat. Let’s start big and work small…

Gifts to the Future

April 20th, 2021

   A fellow commented on a profile I wrote about the majestic white oak that “maybe you’ll be able to enjoy a tree like the one in the photo when you’re 125 or so.”

I may never see my young purple beech look like this, but I’m happy with it now anyway.

   I hope I’m still planting daisies rather than pushing them up then, but assuming not, that over-used adage doesn’t discourage me from planting trees.

   One of my life aims is to leave my little corner of the Earth in better shape than when I found it.

   A sidebar to that is planting as many trees as possible to counter-balance the many more that get cut down every year.

Read George’s post on what trees he’s planted in his new yard so far

   Sure, it’s going to take decades for a baby oak to reach its mature glory. And sure, I’m unlikely to see that.

   But planting a tree is not just about me and about now. Trees are as much for the future (maybe more so) than the present.

   I’m thankful for the people who had the forethought to plant trees years ago that are now the mature specimens we all can admire, sit under, and enjoy in flower or fall foliage.

   When I plant a tree, I see it as returning the favor to this earlier generation so that my children and grandchildren’s generations can enjoy the benefits of my investment.

   That’s not to say we get nothing out of trees in the meantime.