Ground Breaking Banter - Rick
Citrus and winter go hand in hand – especially for those of us in cold climates who could really use the cheerful scent and nutritious fruit. But growing citrus plants indoors isn’t the easiest thing: you need lots and lots of bright light, good air circulation, just the right amount – not too much, not too little – of water, plenty of fertilizer…but if you can provide that, you can enjoy a beautiful fragrant citrus plant indoors in winter and outdoors in summer.
Join us at the YouTube link above or on your favorite podcast platform for our whole conversation on growing citrus.
There’s a plant that I’d love to highlight here, but it’s not a Proven Winners ColorChoice Shrub – and it probably never will be, as you will soon discover why. That plant is Poncirus trifoliata, also known as trifoliate orange or hardy orange. Yes, you heard that right: poncirus is a true citrus that is hardy to down to USDA zone 5 and an incredibly cool plant. It is a deciduous shrub or small tree, but its stems are green so it looks green all year. And it has these massive but beautiful thorns that are also green and give the whole thing a really unique look (but alas, huge green thorns are not exactly a selling point for most people, so I don’t think we’ll be seeing hardy orange in the Proven Winners ColorChoice family anytime soon!). I’m adding one to my garden. I also grow rue, Ruta graveolens, which is not just a member of the citrus family, Rutaceae, but also the genus it is named for. Rue is a woody perennial, often sold in herb sections at garden centers (even though it is barely edible), and many people grow it for its beautiful blue-green foliage and the fact that it is a food source for swallowtail butterflies. There’s also one other very cool member of the citrus family that’s actually native to Michigan and that’s Zanthoxylum americanum, commonly called prickly ash. It is also a favored food source for swallowtails and as a relative of Sichuan peppercorn, its berries are edible though not quite as pungent.
So for this to be a true plant on trial and not just me talking about cool members of the citrus family you can grow even in cold climates, we’re going to pick a plant on trial based on the name we gave it: Juiced Orange cestrum. Also known as jessamine, this is actually in the nightshade family so related to tomatoes, potatoes, and peppers. You may not be familiar with it since it is hardy only down to USDA zone 7b/zone 8, though in cold climates, it can easily be grown in a container for seasonal color. And what color! All summer long, it produces rounded clusters of yellow-orange trumpet shaped flowers. It’s very heat tolerant and thrives readily even in USDA zone 10, and is very heat and drought tolerant as well. Pollinators, butterflies, and hummingbirds love it while deer and rabbits don’t, so that’s great news for many of us.
USDA zones 7b-10, 4-5’ tall x 3-4’ wide, full to part sun.
If you’d like to add Juiced Orange jessamine – or any of the 320+ Proven Winners ColorChoice Shrubs – to your garden or landscape, you’ll find a list of local retailers here.
Gardening Mail Bag - Stacey
This is definitely strange, and I have to confess I’m not entirely sure what’s happening. However, looking at the edges of this damage, it is kind of reminiscent of yellow bellied sapsucker feeding. These native woodpeckers drill holes in neat rows into smooth barked trees, which causes the sap to flow. They don’t actually eat, or even suck, the sap; rather, they eat the insects who come in to eat the sap. Normally, the bark in between the holes stays alive – I have not seen it all die and fall off like in this case, but if you look at this photo and yours below, you can see that the outline does indeed look like the tidy holes of a sapsucker. If this is indeed from a sapsucker, there’s nothing you can do, and normally, a tree can readily tolerate even heavy sapsucker feeding. However, losing entire patches of bark like this could definitely compromise the tree’s health, so keep an eye out for signs of decline, like smaller foliage, dying branches, and low flowering.
While it’s true that squash bugs do overwinter as adults, they don’t usually do so directly in the area where the squash was growing. They may crawl to some other part of your yard, even a neighboring yard, and hunker down there until spring, so using a flame thrower in the area they were active is likely to be ineffective. Instead, try this: plant your squash a bit later than usual in the hopes of it maturing after they’ve completed their life cycle for the year. You’ll get a later harvest, but it may be worth it and you may even find you get a better harvest. As the plants grow, check the undersides of the leaves frequently for eggs. They’re quite easy to see: clusters of red-orange eggs usually laid at the “v” of a squash leaf vein. If you find any, either remove the whole leaf, or use a fresh piece of duct tape to lift them off the plant.
As for the bean beetles, the simplest solution there is to also plant later. By doing so, you move your crop to when adults have already mated and laid eggs, so those beans are likely to escape damage. You can learn more here.
Do you have a question for us? We’re happy to help! E-mail us or use the contact tab above. Due to high volume, we may not get to your question, so if you need an answer quickly, please reach out via the Proven Winners website.
Branching News - Rick
Back in October, Rick went to the legendary Arnold Arboretum in Boston, one of the great botanical institutions in the US. Join us as he shares what he saw and loved, and how he learned about marcescence – the phenomenon describing how leaves don’t fall off certain trees, like beech and oak, in autumn.
