Recycling Your Christmas Tree

Christmas is over and you need to take down your tree.  Do not just toss it in the trash. It deserves better than that and certainly has many uses after you take it out of the house!

      

But before you begin the recycle process, be sure to remove all lights and ornaments.  If you used "natural" decorations, such as strung popcorn or cranberries leave them on the tree to provide food for birds and animals.

1. If you have a chipper, run the tree through it.  The chips make great mulch.

 

2.  You can cut off the boughs and place them on the ground around your plants.   Save the trunk for a use in your garden as a trellis. 

3.  Move the tree in its stand outdoors for the winter where it can provide food and shelter for birds.

4.  The trees could be used as artificial fish attractors in ponds or lakes

5.  If you are in a hurry, just pile the trees in fields and forests for use as wildlife cover.

       Reuse your tree any way you can.  Remember it took 5 – 10 years to grow this tree.  Do not waste all of Mother Nature’s time for a few weeks of your pleasure.

Paperwhite Daffodil Flowers for Christmas

2013 has been interesting weather year.  A wet warm winter followed by a cooler wet summer before a short very warm dry spell.  The early fall was pretty good football weather before a very cold November and December.

Some plants have responded exceptionally well to this weather pattern.  I have already posted how well my few early camellias are doing.  My japonicas are loaded with buds also.

Paperwhites for Christmas!

An unexpected but pleasant surprise has been my small planting of paperwhite  daffodils (Narcissus papyraceus).  Most years they produce flowers in mid-January.  This year they had some blooms in late November.  Now they have peaked just in time to decorate the Christmas day table!

If someone gave you paperwhites already in bloom as a Christmas gift, do not throw them away when the flowers dry up.   Find a well-drained spot in the landscape that gets plenty of sun.  Prepare a hole 4 inches deep.  Separate the bulbs and plant 3-4 inches apart.  Cover with the excavated soil but try to leave some of the leaves extending above the soil line.  The leaves need to provide some food to replenish the bulbs.  Hopefully, you will be rewarded with a new crop of blooms next Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all!

'Shishi Gashira' Camellia

'Shishi Gashira'  at MSU-Meridian

The ‘Shishi Gashira’ camellia, a 2002 Mississippi Medallion award winner, is at near peak bloom around Meridian, MS.

'Shishi Gashira' as a pot plant.

‘Shishi Gashira’ camellia is a very slow-growing, evergreen shrub that can reach 5 feet tall but is more typically around 3 feet. Their small size makes them well-suited for pot culture. 

This camellia is known for its beautiful flowers and 6-8 week long blooming season. Dark, pink rose-form flowers 2-3 inches across are produced in abundance from November to early January.  Their waxy, dark green leaves coupled with the blooms make these camellias not only a good shrub but also good for use as foundation plantings or high-profile ground covers.

Although ‘Shishi Gashira’ blooms during the C. sasanqua season, it is considered to be a hybrid between C. japonica × C. sasanqua, referred to as Camellia x hiemalis.

If you can find these at a nursery now, buy it; cover the pot in festive paper; and give to a friend as a Christmas gift.  It will truly be a gift that keeps on giving.

Author's note:  In my previous post I stated that 'Yuletide' camellia was a C. sasanqua.  Others say that it is a C. vernalis  which is a hybrid.   I am not a taxonomist so I try to use the most reliable sources.  Most gardeners do not care.  They just enjoy the pretty flowers.

Hot Plant: Camellia sasanqua ‘Yuletide’

'Yuletide' camellia

      The magical blooms of the sasanquas are the beginning of the camellia blooming season. There thousands of sasanquas and tens of thousands of other camellias, which makes it difficult for a particular variety to stand out in the crowd, but ‘Yuletide’ is one of those amazing stand out camellias.

     This spectacular landscape camellia has a long blooming season beginning in October and lasting into December. It is often in full bloom with red flowers and bright yellow stamens during the Christmas season, hence the name of ‘Yuletide.’  Right now mine is in peak bloom.

      At a time when camellias have been overlooked in the landscape, ‘Yuletide’ has become a mainstay in the garden centers where camellias are sold. It can be used as a dense evergreen hedge or stand alone as a specimen plant.

      Like all camellias, ‘Yuletide’ grows best in an acidic, well-drained soil in partial shade to full sun. Do not plant in deep shade because flowering will be greatly reduced.

Alternative Holiday Plants

         It is no secret that poinsettias make great holiday plants, but why not try something different this winter?

Many attractive holiday plants can be found in floral shops, supermarkets, and garden centers in November and December.

         Amaryllis can be purchased as a bulb or a plant, and will produce large, beautiful white, pink, or red flowers. 

Amaryllis

These colors can also be found cyclamen. Even this cyclamen’s foliage is attractive, often having silver marbling on the top sides of the leaves.

Cyclamen

Gloxinia, a close relative of the African violet, has dark green fuzzy leaves, and large, bell-shaped blooms in reds, purples, and pinks.

Gloxinia

For a foliage plant, try Stromanthe ‘Triostar.’ It has green and white leaves with bold red undersides.

Stromanthe 'Triostar'

How about a rosemary plant trained into a Christmas tree shape.  Looks cute and smells good too.

Rosemary 'Christmas' tree

Dress up these and other plants by placing them in festive containers

Kuidzu Bugs on the Move

Kudzu bugs

As the weather has begun to cool, I have started getting calls about large numbers of insects trying to get into people’s homes.  Most people are familiar with the Asian Lady Beetles, but they do not recognize this insect.  This insect is the kudzu bug.  The cooler temperature has caused them to move from the kudzu patches and start looking for a place to spend the winter.  And your nice warm home is a good spot.

The kudzu bug was first reported in Mississippi in 2012 and is rapidly spreading throughout the state.  The most recent report has this insect in 33 counties.  It was necessary to spray some soybean fields in some areas to prevent economic damage from them.

This time of year they are just an annoyance.  To keep them out of your home, seal all window/door cracks. Screens will also help prevent kudzu bug entry. It is important to make sure soffit vents and peak vents on homes have good screening in addition to window and door screening.

       Sweep the kudzu bugs that do get into your home into a dustpan and put them in a bucket of water.  If you vacuum them up, they will release their stink into the vacuum canister and that can stay in it for several weeks so change canister bags as soon as you get through.  It is not a good idea to pick them up in your bare hands either.  It takes multiple applications of soap and water to remove the odor.

To further reduce entry into your home, you can apply insecticides around doors and windows.  You can use any labeled outdoor insecticide to kill them.   If you kill large amounts to them, you need to sweep and remove since they will produce a foul odor as they decompose.  Their carcasses can also attract ants.

BIG, Scary, Yellow Spiders!

 Golden Silk Spider with scary human.

          Does your yard look like it is already decorated for Halloween because of all the spider webs covered with huge spiders?  In the fall we see an increase in these large webs.

One of the more colorful ones is the Golden Silk Spider (Golden Silk Orb Weaver), Nephila clavipes: This is a large orb weaver (web builder) with webs that are several feet wide. They are often called ‘banana spiders’ by people in south Mississippi know them by this name. Mature females range from 1 to 1 ½ inches long and have a leg span of 3 to 4 inches. The abdomen is orange or yellow with white markings and is elongate and tube-shaped; the front part of their body is silver. The legs are yellow, banded with black, and have distinctive tufts of black hairs concentrated at the joints

           

Golden silk spiders suspend their webs between trees and shrubs in open woods and wooded landscapes. They can be quite numerous in the southern part of the state, and it is not uncommon to see several spiders nesting near one another, presumably sisters that developed from the same egg mass. I have several webs suspended between trees and shrubs lining my driveway.

 

Like regular garden spiders, they can inflict a painful bite if mishandled, but they are not aggressive and the bite is usually not serious. Because their webs can be so numerous, these spiders can be a nuisance to hikers, bikers, and people who work in the yard or play outside. It is shocking to feel one of these large spiders crawling up the back of your neck after you have unknowingly walked through its web.

 

This spider produces one of the strongest silks, and hence one of the strongest fibers, known to man. It gets its name from the golden color that the silk has in certain lighting. Golden silk spiders occur throughout the Southeast and in Central and South America. They are quite common in the southern third of the state, but it is unusual to encounter them much north of I-20.  I live in Meridian just a few miles north of I-20 with several large webs in my yard.

           Leave them alone and these spiders will not bother you.  They will silently and colorfully catch insects for you.  Not to mention they will provide free Halloween decorations.

 

Ragweed---Something to Sneeze At

Common ragweed hiding in the goldenrod.

   My eyelids are swollen, and tears are flowing.  And, if my nose runs anymore, there will no longer be any liquid left in my body.  People avoid me because they think I have some dreaded disease.  I sniff and sneeze in my private torment, taking little comfort in the knowledge that 25 million others commiserate with me.  All this misery is because of a condition known as Allergic rhinitis.

            The culprit that causes this condition is ragweed, whose billions of grains of pollen are released on these wonderful fall days.  Ragweed is indigenous to most of the United States; however, the greatest ragweed concentrations occur in the Midwest.  Around Cincinnati, a square mile of ragweed might shed 16 tons of pollen a year.  Nationally, an estimated 250,000 tons or more of ragweed pollen are released into the atmosphere year and each grain can travel more than 100 miles from its source.    No wonder allergies symptoms run wild in the fall each year!  The persons who count and weigh these near-microscopic pollen grains must lead a monastic lifestyle.

            Ragweed is a pest that invades horticultural and agronomic crops, pastures, and highway rights-of-ways.  There are 2 species of ragweed - giant ragweed (Ambrosia trifida) and common ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia) that cause most of the misery.  Before common ragweed becomes a tear-making culprit, it exists as a plant with a distinctly unique appearance.  The grayish-green leaves are deeply lobbed, giving them a lace-like appearance.  Careful pruning will keep this plant compact.  These characteristics make ragweed a candidate for pot culture.  Just remove the flowers before they release their pollen.

Giant ragweed, on the other hand, can grow to 15 feet tall.  My first experience with giant ragweed was as a child when I removed insect larvae from stem galls to use as fishing bait.

So, how do we cope with ragweed (and other) pollen?  To reduce exposure to ragweed pollen, it is best to avoid the outdoors between 6-10 AM and also dry, hot, windy days.  The best time to be outside is in the late afternoon or after a heavy rain because pollen levels are lower during these times.  When gardening or mowing the lawn, wear a particle mask.  Take your allergy medications before going outdoors.  Wear sunglasses to keep pollen from getting into your eyes.  After being outdoors, it is best to shower and change clothing.  Pollen can adhere to clothing, skin, and hair.   Be aware that your pet can also transport pollen into your home. 

Ah choo!  In case you haven't figured out what Allergic rhinitis is, it is hay fever ... no hay and rarely any fever.  Remember hay fever is mostly caused by ragweed pollen, not goldenrod flowers.   However, goldenrods are usually blamed because their glorious yellow flowers distract one from seeing the incipient green flowers of ragweed.

Giant ragweed

Fall Webworms Are Here!

It is not even fall and they are back! I am getting calls from people asking, “What is that web stuff on my pecan trees!” That stuff is the webbing created by the fall webworm

The fall webworm appears on pecans in summer as well as in the fall. The fall webworms build larvae nests on the ends of branches. In our area they appear mostly on pecans and up to 90 other deciduous trees.

Damage is caused by caterpillars that eat leaves within the nest and enlarge the nest as they grow. Damage to the tree is seldom serious, but several severe infestations can defoliate and stress a tree, particularly small ones. The adult insect is a one inch, snowy white moth, with dark spots on its wings. The caterpillars are one inch long and covered with silky hair. Their color varies from pale yellow to green with a black stripe on the back and yellow stripe on each side. People usually do not notice the caterpillars until the large, white webs with skeletonized leaves appear.

Although the fall webworm is not considered a deadly pest it does gets lots complaints due to its ugly web that detracts from the aesthetic value of the tree.

You usually do not need to worry about losing your tree is because the webworms are eating leaves relatively late in the growing season. Therefore the defoliation is much less damaging to the tree than had it occurred earlier.

Control of this pest is rarely needed or even effective. You could use stick or high water pressure to break their silk web nest and expose them to their natural predators: birds, yellow jackets, and wasps. Also, you could prune infected branches and burn or otherwise destroy them. Some people attach some newspaper to the end of a long pole, set it on fire, and burn the webs in place.

If using pesticides for the webworm, there are a few that are effective. For severe infestations, spray nests and leaves with Sevin, permithrin, spinosad, or malathion, according to label directions. The best way to apply these chemicals is to spray them around the nest, on branches that the worms may spread to, and inside the nest after first breaking it with a stick. There is an organic product called “B.t.” (Bacillus thuringiensis), sold under the product name of Biotrol, Dipel, or Thurcide. To apply break up newly formed nests, then spray with B.T. in early evening during mid-summer when the caterpillar nests are small. B.t. is slow acting so be patient.

Natural control is preferred whenever possible so poke that hole in the web and let Mother Nature take charge.