Good garden reading is an asset to a gardener’s enforced winter recess. Allen Lacy, the author of some of the most engaging American garden writing, has died at the age of 80. He was a thoughtful garden columnist, essayist, and author of books with an inviting style. Reading him is instructive and a great pleasure.
Michael Pollan wrote about Lacy that he was the role model who “showed me that you could bring real ideas into what had been a fairly light genre without losing the amateur vibe of garden writing.”
And this, from Allen Lacy himself, deserves repeating: “There is nothing wrong with hobbies, but most hobbies are intellectually limited and make no reference to the larger world. By contrast, being wholeheartedly involved with gardens is involvement with life itself in the deepest sense.”
Seek out, among many other Lacy works, “Gardening with Groundcovers and Vines,” “The Garden in Autumn,” “The Gardener’s Eye,” and “A Year in Our Gardens,” with Nancy Goodwin.
My current open book, a rereading actually, is Sandor Katz’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved.” Food, gardens, growing, land access, and eating are all woven together eloquently and tellingly in this thoroughly political book.
Triangular relationship
Yet another Island woodland tree species may be at a heightened health risk. The photograph shows the weathered, coal-black fungal growths of Scorias spongiosa dripping off the dead leaves and branches of an American beech tree.
Thanks to having the Polly Hill Arboretum as a resource, I was able to receive expert input within a short time after my query about the growths on the tree I had seen near my house. Tim Boland, PHA’s executive director, identified it and sent me links (bit.ly/wiscfungi and bit.ly/sootymold) that describe it.
While the public is aware of liabilities in connection with American elm and black oak, and many gardeners know of the health problems of American dogwood or other species, Vineyard beeches have, until the present, been considered generally healthy and good choices for Island properties.
Not so those on the nearby island of Naushon, where aphid- and fungal-encrusted beeches have been seen for a couple of decades. Now Vineyard beeches appear to be hosting an increase in the messy-looking problem.
From Tom Volk’s Fungus of the Month for September 2007: “Scorias spongiosa is one of the Capnodiales sooty molds, a group of ascomycetes that grow on insect honeydews or sugary plant exudates.” It is a fungus that shares a specific triangular life cycle with beeches (Fagus grandifolia) and the beech-blight aphid, Grylloprociphilus imbricator.
The cottony-white beech-blight aphid is a sucker of plant juices, and is found in dense patches or colonies on American beeches. The large aphid colonies excrete copious honeydew, which in turn feeds spores of the fungus.
The fungal spores are airborne; they float about and settle where honeydew has been excreted. The fungus then proliferates, and because the aphid colonies are large and the honeydew excessive, over time it matures sizably, and then ages to the blackened deposits we see on host beeches.
Both fungus and aphid are specific to American beeches, so there is no risk that Island woodlands face becoming bemired in ghoulish black globs. However, there is the risk that patches of beech, being colony-forming trees, can host large enough numbers of the two co-factors to become Halloween-like.
Tim Boland wrote on a National Institutes of Health website: “Sooty molds do not actually penetrate the leaves, so they are not parasitic on the plant. However, they can harm some plants by blocking photosynthesis, slowing growth, and hurting fruit production. However, sooty molds may be beneficial in some ways. Recently, Jouraeva et al. (2006) found that leaves covered in sooty molds adsorb more polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and heavy metals from air than clean leaves. Thus they may be more efficient at cleaning up polluted air.” All of which makes me wonder if this situation is a response to increased pollution conditions, in which most living organisms did not evolve over millennia.
Although it is impractical on woodland trees, controlling the aphids and associated honeydew for the most part consists of spraying with horticultural oils and insecticidal soaps, as is done with most other scale and plant-juice sucking insects. As the links cited disclose, at this time there appears to be little permanent damage to beeches that are triangulating this phenomenon.
Living Christmas trees
The planting sites and holes should have already been chosen and dug for 2015’s living Christmas trees at time of purchase. This is a form of holiday decoration that cannot remain indoors for long without jeopardizing the plant’s chances of establishing well and thriving.
After planting, water the tree as long as temperatures stay mild; and then mulch the rootball, using compost, bagged mulch product, or straw out to the drip line, keeping mulch away from the trunk. Spraying the tree with antidesiccant — ideally done before bringing it into the house — should help with transpiration. Observe product temperature-use guidelines.
While on the subject of discarded holiday trees and greens, their branches make good covering for beds and plants that are in danger of freeze/thaw damage, or insulating overly warm locations that promote the early lifting of dormancy. Break the tree down with loppers; spread branches over the surface to retain what frost is present and to prevent warming and melting action.
While performing the above, look around and see what else needs mulching. I am removing a season’s worth of bedding from the henhouse and topdressing places and plants that need it with this well-aged product, but compost, leaf mold, composted woodchips, or purchased mulch all serve to protect soil surfaces. Conditioning underlying soil with a covering assists warm-weather weeding and cultivating too.
Choose deicing products for steps and walkways with care, especially in proximity to beds and shrubbery. Sodium chloride buildup in soils is harmful and cumulative; sawdust, sand, ash, or mixes of them are preferable choices.