+Two old Soapboxes
In driving around town there are an increasing number of palm trees that have been mistreated. The sight of these poor trees makes me get out one of my Soap boxes, get onto it and deliver a harangue.
Palm trees are beautiful assets to our landscapes but only if they are allowed to grow they way they want to. They are no longer beautiful if a tree trimmer takes off most of the leaves. It’s hard to know why they do it. They wouldn’t do it if they understood how a palm tree grows. Trees need all the leaves they can produce. Leaves capture energy from the sun, they shade the tender bark up at the top of a tree It’s an understanding among good tree trimmers that you don’t remove green leaves from palm trees. It’s alright to take off the dead brown leaves and dead flower stalks (though this is not necessarily called for–they will fall off on their own) but healthy green leaves are needed on the tree. Unprofessional tree trimmers take off more leaves than they should because, I believe, they can say how hard they worked and therefore can charge higher.
If someone comes to your door and tells you that your palms need trimming, ask them some questions. How much foliage are they wanting to remove? How will they know when to stop? You could start by telling them that you don’t want any green leaves to be cut off. This is the simplest and easiest messge to give the trimmer but you could ask at what degree removable leaves sit on the tree because even those fronds pointing down are often totally green and should stay on the tree. Frond color is the best indicator. Those that are yellowing are good candidates and those that are dead brown are better. When the job is done there should be no green fronds in the trailer headed for the land-fill
Another opportunity for a second box came to me after visits to two of our community gardens (and we could say any two because its a common problem). Harvest-time gives us an opportunity to say whether our hard work is well rewarded or wasted. Say the gardener shared a piece of cantalope and it was delicious. You’re bound to ask “What variety is this?” and very often comes the answer “I don’t know, I didn’t write down the name, I don’t even keep a journal”. If the taste and size of the harvest is a good one most people thank their lucky stars but if the taste is disappointing the thought that goes through the gardener’s head is “I’m not going to grow that one next year”. But the question remains–what variety was that?
Collectively a hundred of our gardeners have a wealth of trial experience that could be so useful in planning our yearly activities, but we’re missing the opportunity
If every gardener kept a journal, and let us read it, we would have a record of what went on, good and bad. It would tell us that Seed Catalogs don’t always tell the truth because their descriptions describe what happened at their trial grounds in a different situation than ours and we were completely led astray by the descriptions and the pictures.
Even better, if every gardener used a weatherproof label and wrote down the name of the vegetable, the other gardeners would get an immediate message regarding the performance of the plant. Later a harvest taste test would complete the asessment and we’d all be the wiser. Many people have a good memory and they can rely on it but more gardeners , me included,are not equipped well enough and need some written evidence.
Let’s all make a resolution to use labels when we sow and plant our cool-season vegetables. starting at the end of August. Make an order for good quality labels now.
