Criptic Cold Damage

Saturday morning as I walked around the yard I was surprised at all the new brown leaves on some of the plants in the garden. The low that morning was above freezing and the day turned out to be the warmest in weeks, a high in the 60`s and yet new brown leaves were everywhere!

The Rhapis excelsa at the front of the house had some brown spotting on the leaves that reached beyond the corner of the house. On the other side of the house my Cycas taitungensis that sits under the mystery citrus was heavily damaged. This same plant came through 18 degrees untouched while its more exposed sibling had about half its leaved burned.

Checking weather records for the previous week the coldest temp was 23 degrees a few days earlier, not enough to cause the new damage. I can speculate that it may have been the constant wind drying leaves pushed to their tolerance limits or it may be that the plants have been exposed to their maximum below freezing tolerance and are now beginning to show the damage.

The sago (C. taitungensis) was protected from the initial cold by the citrus, which is now losing leaves as a result of that cold. This more open canopy of the citrus tree may now be allowing the cold and wind to penetrate and Cycas taitungensis is very sensitive to drying winds in winter.

In the end this is all cosmetic damage, the brown leaves will be removed later this winter and the new growth will hide this winter sins.

Textures

As a plant nut I usually worry about if the plant will grow here ,not what it will look like and because of that I`ve spent a lot of time moving things around. There are happy accidents where everything turns out right and not because I tried.

The pond is a small 20+ gallons that a friend found in a trash pile. I placed it near another small pond at the edge of my woodland garden so it would get some sun part of the day. It`s an ugly plastic thing that I used resurrection fern to hide the edge. The only plant in the pond is a veriegated Acorus.

The bright colored Acorus shines against the dark water and at the same time contrasts with low clustering ferns. Along side the pond the golden Sedum picks up the color of the Acorus and the texture of the ferns. On the backside of the pond the fern Phlebodium aureum 'Blue Crisp' adds a new color while continueing the fern texture on a bigger scale.

Oh the happy mistakes!

The other plants in the photo are some radiclis palms, Aspidistra and Agapathus. The Blue Crisp has proven to be not only winter hardy but with an overhead canopy is evergreen.

Chinese Fan Palms

Anne fell in love this year. She would call with comments and questions and I knew it was for real: she had discovered Livistona chinensis. It is a great palm Walmart always has cheaply in the house plant section. Bright shiny green leaves on a slow growing plant (in south Florida it grows like a weed) that will tolerate full sun or part shade.

Twenty-two degrees seems to be the temp where the leaves burn off but the plant quickly comes back from fifteen. An evergreen canopy can help keep the leaves a little longer in cold weather. In my 8b neighborhood it is damaged every other year, in Anne's zone 9 garden rear the water it may go for years without damage. So give it a try!

Little Palms

I`m a lover of palms and it is one of the reasons I live in Charleston,SC. In my mind, palms are tall trees bending in the wind not small shrubby plants acting as ground cover. I now know that one of the most beautiful cold tolerant palms is a little gem, Chamaedorea radicalis.

She is a beauty: small and dainty, dark green leaves and brilliant red fruits that is easy to grow. She can also be a he, since the sexes are on separate plants in this species. Normally just a clump of 6 or 8 feathery leaves rising from the ground, you`ll be surprised every once in a while by a plant that produces a trunk.

Shade is what they need and even watering sincetheir homeland is the cloud forest of north east Mexico. When they are happy and you have both sexes you`ll have their distinctive "v" seedlings come up all over the yard. Under a canopy Radicalis palms look best in mass, forming a mid-level just above the ground cover. Fifteen degrees has never bothered mine as long as they are under a canopy. They give your garden that tropical look but tolerate the vagaries of the southeast because they evolved in this climate in Mexico. Let`s start giving them a new home!

Lowcountry Pumpkin Patch

Pumpkins? Okay, maybe not. But around here this a much more familiar fall scene than a pumpkin patch. This is the fallen fruit of the pindo palm or jelly palm (or Butia capitata if you aren't on a more friendly basis) interspersed with the green sprouts of past years' seeds.

The fruit is pretty tasty if you nab it before it has fallen to the ground and turned into a pile of stinky rotten gunk. Some folk make jelly out of the fruit and our local paper ran a recipe for the jelly a couple of weeks ago (see http://www.charleston.net/news/2008/sep/21/palm_jelly_one_mother_natures_tasty_gift55167/). I'm kind of tempted to try making it.

Whoa, who am I kidding? That whole hoodoo-voodoo thing with boiling and jars and lids and seals scares the bejeebers out of me. My finished product would probably be so full of whatever it is that is supposed to be sealed out (bacteria?) that whole neighborhoods would have to be evacuated everytime a jar was opened. Anyway, I'm pretty certain that you can only make jelly if you learned at your grandma's side. If you missed out on that window of opportunity with grandma you don't get a do-over: your jelly-making fate, if not your jelly, is sealed.

Until recently I'd lumped almost all palms around here in as Sabal Palmetto (the SC state tree). I'm still not good at id'ing palms but have finally figured out that Sabals have fan-shaped leaves while pindo palms have feather-shaped leaves. Gee, that sure is easy!