SH ARING A PASSION FOR PL ANTS
PlantPictorial JUNE 2018 // www.plantpictorial.com
GARDEN TOUR
Shore Lane
Indian Harbour Beach, FL
Trench Edging // P.R.A. – Melbourne Botanical Festival // Cordyline fruticosa, Ti Plant Propagation F REE S HIPP IN G AT PL ANTPICTORI AL.COM - SHOP PALMS NOW!
Letter From an Obsessed Gardner // Hello!
And we’re back I’m excited about Plant Pictorial. If you don’t remember from past issues, I’m obsessed with gardening. All aspects of it. Designing, planting, germinating, dividing, composting, irrigating, etc.
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I’m also a graphic designer by trade with an emphasis in print and digital design. I spend most of my time at my corporate job within the sales and marketing department. I also freelance up to 20 hours a week with other clients. Plant Pictorial is a blend of my two passions, design and gardening. An outlet to direct my creative ideas and share with you my life within this passion. The magazine has been on hiatus since 2013. My wife and I welcomed our first son in late 2012 and we were blessed again in 2015 with another boy. My obsession with all things plants and design never wavered during the break. I have grandiose plans for Plant Pictorial, in addition to the magazine, I’m launching a website and an ecommerce store. Also have plans for garden podcasts with other obsessed gardeners. For more photos, tips and info please follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram. A lot has happened since 2013. In addition to my two boys, we’ve had two major hurricanes, Matthew and Irma. My garden took a huge blow when Cat 4 Hurricane Matthew’s center came within 40 miles of my home on the Brevard barrier island. This storm ended my obsession with banana plants. Before the storm I had about 20+ species growing among my palms and other plants. Matthew flattened every banana and those falling bananas smashed many other plants below. I decided to dig all the bananas up. Matthew hit in October and my garden was about recovered the following year when Hurricane Irma hit in September. Although I’m on the east central coast of Florida we had much more damage than with Matthew. Irma was a much larger storm and my area took a beating from the onshore flow as Irma transversed the state from south to north. My home had minimal damage including blown out porch screens, gutter and fascia ripped off the house and fence damage. Most of my tall palms were leaning after the storm. Let’s hope 2018 gives us break from the hurricanes but if it doesn’t happen I’ll be ready!
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Plants In-Focus // Cordyline fruticosa, Ti Plant
Cordyline fruticosa, Ti Plant 4
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Striking color and small space vertical interest, Ti plants create beautiful contrast and interest in the garden. Relatively easy to grow and maintain, Ti plants can grow to around 10’ when grown in optimal conditions. In my area they tend to top out at about 8’. This plant is also very forgiving if damaged. Hurricane Matthew flattened most of my tall Ti plants. This presented an opportunity because the plants were too tall for their location. I cut the stems at about 2’ from the ground. With remaining stems I cut those down to 6-7” logs and planted out in the garden. Within a month, new baby ti plants were growing and should be decent size in about 12-18 months. The mother plant which was trimmed soon sprouted out new growth on each stem and has come back strong.
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Cordyline Propagation
Plants In-Focus // Cordyline fruticosa, Ti Plant
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Choose the plant you want to propagate.
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Cut trimmed Ti Plant into logs, 6-7� lengths. The tops of the Ti Plant can be pushed directly into the ground or pot.
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Decide what height you want the Ti Plant to be, cut at that point. The plant will regrow from that point.
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Log planted horizontally at soil level. Pot up into containers or plant out. Some folks plant vertically and others plant horizontally. I’ve had success both ways.
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PRA - Palm Related Activities // Melbourne Botanical Fest
P.R.A. Melbourne Botanical Fest
I love spring in Florida. February through March offer some epic plant sales across the state. Most include vendors that are known throughout the US and even the world.
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Background This PRA, (Palm Related Activity) is a visit to the 2018 Melbourne Plant Festival in downtown Melbourne, Florida. This sale is new but old. This sale used to be the FIT Botanical Fest Sale that had occurred for years at on the Campus of Florida Institute of Technology. The FIT sale was special not only because of the great vendors, but the location. FIT is home to the FIT Botanical Garden which was co-designed by Dent Smith, the founder of the Palm Society. In 2017 FIT canceled the event even though vendors had committed to the sale dates well in advance. Fortunately the City of Melbourne took over the event which is now held in downtown Melbourne.
FIT Botanical Garden, Melbourne, FL
Read more about Dent Smith and the Palm Society here >
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PRA - Palm Related Activities // Melbourne Botanical Fest
The haul.
Lytocaryum weddellianum, Wedding Palm. Excited to try this small palm. Kerriodoxa elegans, White Elephant Palm. I have heard this palm will struggle with salty air and irrigation. Worth a shot.
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Dendrobium nobile, my palm trees finally have enough trunk height to attach Orhids. Let the games begin!
Tillandsia butzii, this is my first air plant and it’s a beauty. Concrete rabbit, bought by my son and is now somewhere in the garden.
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Garden Tip // Trench Edging
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Trench Edging. Easy, Affordable and Beautiful. Separating your beds from other areas of your garden creates visual interest and can even help with establishing focal points. You have several material options when choosing edging. Some work better than others. They range from concrete, bricks, pavers, rock, steel, aluminum, wood, plastic, etc. When choosing your edging you need to ask yourself a few questions, how much do you want to spend? How permanent do you want your beds? I use trench edging in my garden. Although it doesn’t cost anything you do have to maintain it and in my area that means once a year I retrench prior to mulching the beds over winter. I like trench edging because it allows me some freedom in the future if I wish make edits to my beds.
Clean lines define spaces within a garden.
Trench edging is easy, you only need a shovel to get started.
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Garden Tip // Trench Edging
Work your way along your existing beds, digging a small trench along the edge. I make the edges deeper along the grass edge and slope up towards the bed, this creates an area of deeper mulch which weeds have difficulty growing through and if the st Augustine grows over, it’s easy to pull out. Once your trench is done simply add your mulch and your done. Looks good and it’s affordable.
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Visualize the bed border, a good tip is to use a hose to outline. Take into consideration the radius of your curves. Small curves will make mowing difficult. Aim for long sweeping curves.
Before
Messy borders about 12 months since last trench edging.
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From inside the bed, scoop along the border, removing the soil and grass from the inside of the bed to the border cut.
Mulch your newly trench edged beds.
After
Crisp, sweeping borders created with trench edging.
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Garden Tour // Shore Lane
Garden Tour
Shore Lane Garden Quick Stats
• 1/3 Acre Property • First Planting: Summer 2012 • Zone 10a • Climate: Humid Sub-tropical • 1/3 mile from Atlantic Ocean • Soil: Pomello, Canaveral/Palm Beach Sand • 70+ Palm Species
Share Your Garden with the World! I’m always looking for more gardens to showcase. Click here for information.
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Garden Tour // Shore Lane
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Welcome to my garden! Here's some background info, moved to property in May of 2012. Only palms on property were a Queen, Butia and a Chamerdora. Several very large Spanish bayonet, podicarpous, tangelo tree and hibiscus. The backyard also had a large shed which was unusable. I started planting the summer of 2012, mainly bananas, helicona, cannas. Those stepping stone plants led me to palms. I started getting into palms later that summer.
Arrowhead Plant (Syngonium podophyllum), climbing the base of a Coco nucifera. Interesting how the plants leaves will change as it gains height while climbing.
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Garden Tour // Shore Lane
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Some of the first plams I planted were coconuts which I germinated from seed collected in Islamorada, a Royal, foxtail, bottle and spindle. That winter a friend from Jupiter, FL offered me some palms from his collection which he germinated from seed.
Variegated Crinum Lily (Crinum asiaticum variegatum) growing in part shade.
Those included Veitchia, Archontophoenix, Areca triandra, and Dypsis lancelotte. I also started purchasing a lot of seedlings from ebay. I planted out seedlings of Archontophoenix, Dictosperma, Carpentaria. A local palm guru offered me some palms the following spring, this included Veitchia winn, Archontophoenix maxima, Cocothrinax barbadensis, Arenga engleri, Dypsis mahjanga, Thrinax radiata. This was the base of my garden and since then I have added many more, last count I'm up to around 70+ species of palm trees.
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Garden Tour // Shore Lane
You might notice a reoccurring theme, several gardeners offered up seedlings and plants for free. Their generosity inspired me to give a lot of plants away too. Yearly I probably give away many palms to folks in my area. It feels great to give someone who shares the passion something. The biggest projects to date have been removing the 14' x 10' shed, three mature Spanish bayonets, tangelo tree, and a fence rebuild. The garden has been fun to watch mature. Low palm fronds were annoying for several years until they reached an overhead height. This allowed for under-story palms and plants to be planted. Once the under-story palms and plants have grown I'm now at a stage of adding floor plants. Next phase might be adding some art around the garden.
Pineapple (Ananas comosus) fruiting.
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Garden Tour // Shore Lane
Cordyline terminalis ‘Miss Andrea’
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Coccothrinax borhidiana (guano, Borhidi’s guano palm)
Mini Red Pineapple (Ananas bracteatus) fruiting
Coccothrinax barbadensis close up
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Garden Tour // Shore Lane Taller palms still looking a little raggad from Hurricane Irma and a dance with a low temperature in the 30’s during winter.
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Section of garden coming together nicely.
Back to back hurricanes in 2016 and 2017 helped further develop the curved trunks of the coconuts throughout the garden.
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Plants in Real Life // Eucalyptus Deglupta
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End of the Rainbow?
I germinated an Eucalyptus deglupta from seed in 2012 and planted the tree out in 2013. For three years the tree grew like a weed, adding 10’ a year until late summer 2016.
Eye of Category 4 Hurricane
Eye of Category 4 Hurricane Irma
Matthew 40 miles off the coast of
south of the Florida Keys.
Brevard County Florida.
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Plants in Real Life // Eucalyptus Deglupta
Hurricane Matthew devastated the tree. Almost every leaf and limb was broken off and I was left with what looked like a large colorful telephone pole in my front yard. The tree made a great recovery but 11 months later Hurricane Irma hit and the tree was once again devastated. The recovery is progressing and the tree will survive.
Ordered 100 seeds, only needed one to germinate.
Unlike us, the tree doesn't have the choice to hang it up. It's recovery program is coded within its DNA, survive or die. There is no contemplation .Plants are interesting, no doubt about it. Gardening has shown and reinforced some great virtues for me. Patience is one I think of right off the bat. Resilience is another one, as shown by the Eucalyptus. Why am I obsessed with this gardening thing? I ask this question a lot and my answer changes depending on the circumstances. I have a stressful job, busy family life with two boys under five, yet I fight for the chance to spend a couple of hours in the garden on the weekend. For me the garden is an anchor in a chaotic world. Chaos isn't bad though, without it life would be dull and boring. Too much of it and we're in trouble. The key is learning how to stand with one foot in the chaos and one foot in order.
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Palm of the Month
COCOS NUCIFERA VAR. “RED SPICATA” Beautiful dwarf coconut that grows to around 25’. Often will bear fruit within 4 years in ideal conditions! Has a smaller crown and a thinner trunk than other coconuts.
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