Lemon Verbena Cuttings

Lemon Verbena has been with us for many years.  It is perhaps the most aromatic plant grown in gardens.  Becky uses finely chopped fresh leaves in fruit salads instead of sugar.  Add the leaves and allow time for the flavors to meld.  The taste of these salads is delicious beyond description.  Sharing with gardening friends made the plant impossible to find in local nurseries as a result of its new found fame.  We now rely on cuttings to keep this tender perennial in our garden.

Grown in climate zone 8 or higher, this plant will reach a height of six feet and display beautiful flowers.  Here in zone four each plant is limited to two seasons of growth before reaching its ultimate destination of the compost pile.  As amazing as it may sound, the scent of this plant will announce its presence when several year old compost containing it is screened in preparation for adding it to the garden.  These four plants spent the winter on a basement window sill and will be allowed to enjoy the rest of their time time in the sunny garden.  With this year's heat we may have a chance of flowers.

These two cuttings were taken much later than usual.  Falling behind is what we now do.  Heel cuttings are taken when new growth appears early in the growing year.  That bit of bark cut from the branch anchors the cutting in place and is the location of new root growth.  When roots appear in numbers and put on some growth, these new plants will be singly placed in one gallon pots and set out in the garden.  When cooler weather approaches the pots will be pulled from the ground and moved into the basement.  The important thing these new plants do is provide fresh cuttings in the spring.  During their second year they will also provide leaves for fruit salads.

This is our system for rooting cuttings.  Old plastic juice bottles with their bottoms cut off provide a moist environment for the leaves.  After some time has passed, the cap will be removed to allow limited air circulation.  Then the bottle will be removed.  If the timing is right, the cutting will continue holding its leaves upright.  If they droop a spray bath will be followed by a return of the bottle.

Lemon verbena is the most sensitive plant with regard to disturbance of its roots that we have ever encountered.  Early on we tried to dig up plants to take inside for the winter.  Total leaf droop followed.  It persisted for days and on occasion proved fatal.  If the plant did recover it held only a few leaves and sometimes did not last until spring.  Keeping the plants potted solved that problem.  These plants are widely available using mail order.  They are well worth the effort of keeping them in the garden this far out of their native climate.

Way Too Much Gravity

It was yesterday at about 11;30 AM.  The weather was was sunny and calm. Not a leaf rustled in the stillness.  When the loud cracking sounds reached my ears, my first thought was of fireworks. It was not one big bang, but a whole series of  loud noises like the finale at the end of a fireworks show.  I have to admit I was angry at the thought since the sound was so close to the garden and the house.  When I looked toward the source of the sound I actually saw what seemed to me to be a gaping hole where there used to be a continuous line of tree tops.  I used to think that trees were permanent features of the landscape.  Living here has taught me that change can be slow, but it can also happen in the blink of an eye.

Today Ed risked life and limb to get pictures of the Red Maple tree that was responsible for all that noise.  The tree is large, perhaps several feet in diameter, and is growing on a steep incline.  Climbing that steep slope presented challenges for someone who is losing his sense of balance.  For some reason Red Maples send out branches perpendicular to the trunk.  When that branch reaches sunlight it turns and grows vertically toward the sky.  How can a huge unsupported mass like that exist for years?

Clearly there was way too much gravity pulling on the branches and leaves of the tree and 11:30 yesterday was the tree's breaking point.

A closer view of the broken branch shows the source of all that noise.  Every crack, every split and splinter of the wood as the tree branch fell to the ground made itself loudly heard.  It would be interesting to count the rings to see how long the tree has been holding that branch in the air like that but lumber jacking on that steep hill is not in our plans.  I am really happy that the main trunk of the tree seems undamaged.  So to answer that old question about a falling tree making a sound  I would have to say indeed it does and it sounds just like the fourth of July!