To Stake or not to Stake...Hindsight is 20/20

Sure in retrospect it would have been a good idea to have staked these trees. But then who knew we would have what? almost 10" of rain in 3 weeks! Ideas about staking have changed over time as tree planting techniques have been refined. A tremendous amount of research has been done in recent years regarding selecting, siting, planting, and maintaining urban trees. Cornell University's Institute of Urban Horticulture and Bartlett Trees are at the forefront of this work. Both offer on their sites, useful and informative downloadable publications. Both also observe that staking ought only to be done in special situations, i.e. when the tree may come down if you don't stake it! Ha Ha!

It isn't always easy to tell when that will be. I don't know when those trees were planted but if they were planted in the fall after most of their leaves were gone, it was reasonable to expect that they would have rooted out enough to support themselves before the leaf canopy filled out sufficiently to catch enough wind to blow the tree over. Fall is the best season, by far, to plant trees so lets be generous and assume they did the right thing, the trees went in in the fall, and its just bad luck that the soil turned to soup.

Back to whether to stake or not. So, if you plant in the fall and the tree is deciduous you normally don't stake. Exceptions would be a tree with a leafy top out of proportion to its root ball. If the ball isn't heavy enough to hold the tree, stake it. If you plant an evergreen in the fall, stake it, cause the winter winds will have their way with it. Planting in the spring is the trickiest. If you plant before the leaves are out and the top is in good proportion to the rootball, you shouldn't have to stake; the new roots should grip enough to support the tree. If you do stake, be sure to remove the support after one year. The proper development of both top and bottom depend on movement of the top in the wind. Oh yeah, about summer and winter. Winter is easy, its the same as spring staking-wise. Summer....try not to plant in summer, but if you do it is probably a good idea to stake as a defense against the winds of thunderstorms.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day is serious business in the Nursery World. The biggest day of all. And if you have a florist shop, look out! I bought plants for my own mother this year, which I almost always do. I'll take them over and plant them for her today. She is a lover of plants with a well-developed but not cultivated streak of individualism, so when I saw a cart of assorted exotic Passifloras at, God I hate to say it, Home Depot, I knew I had stumbled upon a good thing. And you know what? They were even named! I bought her 'Lady Margaret', with flowers. The blooms are a rich red with white centers; in my research I discovered it is supposed to have a fragrance, but I couldn't detect it. It is awfully cool though.

I am also giving her two Moonflower, Ipomoea (formerly Calonyction) seedlings. Moonflower, or Moonvine, is a giant white morning glory that flowers in the evening with an incredible fragrance. It grows like a weed, so that these small seedlings that I purchased at the Beltsville Garden Club spring sale will be 10' long and branched by the end of the summer. Often with favorable weather conditions, it flowers well into fall, though it doesn't take much frost to bring it crashing down. The sooner you can get them out, after frost danger is over, the better. The flowers open at dusk, and if you time it right, you can be sitting on your patio, porch, or deck with a glass of wine and watch the flowers unfold, it happens in just a minute or two. I admit that I am prone to hyperbole, but this really is a great plant and the only annual that I consider indispensable in a garden.

A few words about the Beltsville Garden Club. We are in many ways a typical local garden club, but the proximity of the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center means that there are a few members with tremendous knowledge of the Plant Sciences. Add to that, the usual quotient of fanatical plantspeople, and a small greenhouse facility, and you have an interesting group. We have two plant sales a year in the spring with both usual and quite uncommon material available at extremely reasonable prices. I bought Arisaema sikokianum seedlings for $5 apiece. And Arisaema dracontium flowering for the same price. Unfortunately this Saturday was the last sale this year, but we gardeners are patient planners in it for the long haul. Check the website and mark your calendars.