Liberated Gardener

How To Launch a New Fig Tree by Layering a Branch

When I discover a plant I really like I want to have more of them. But sometimes I want more then my budget can support. Fortunately, as gardeners we can save money by making our own plants.

 One of the easiest ways to multiply plants is to grow new roots from the branches of shrubs and small trees. I’m not talking about taking cuttings or grafting or division. Those all have their pluses and minuses in the world of horticulture. I’m talking about an even easier technique called layering. I think it’s one of the most underutilized propagation techniques in the garden today for shrubs and trees. It can work with shrubs like rhododendrons, camellias, daphnes and even small trees like juneberries and hollies. 

 Other propagation techniques either require significant damage to the plant--such as division--or trying to start a plant without any roots—meaning cuttings--or trying to line up narrow pathways of the cambium—that’s grafting.

Layering gives the gardener and the new plant the best of both worlds: the new plant stays connected to the mama plant until it’s ready to grow on its own.  And there’s no tricky work for the gardener. You can start a plant from layering in any season. Here, I’ll show you how simple and reliable it is to layer a fig tree.

 1)   First pick a few slender branches (no more than an inch or so thick) that bend easily and can touch the ground.

2)   Take your pocketknife and scrape away a thin layer of bark from the side of the branch that will touch the soil. Scrape away an area about 2” long (in line with the branch) and up to a half inch wide to expose the green cambium. (Some gardeners like to bend the branch just till it cracks and that can work too.)

3)   For some species it may be beneficial to apply a dusting of root hormone to the cut area, but many plants will root successfully without that.

4)   Press the cut area onto the soil after removing any mulch or other debris.

5)   Hold the scraped branch in place with a stone, brick or length of stiff wire so it doesn’t move. You want the scraped area of the branch to have thorough and stable contact with the soil. The darkness, the moisture and the smell of good soil will stimulate the cambium to produce new roots from the damaged area.

6)   Leave it alone for one or more seasons. I often start layering a fig in fall, let it root over winter and pot it up in late winter or spring. You can also layer them in early spring and probably pot them up in late summer.

7)   When you think it’s been long enough lift the brick and brush soil away from the branch. If there are no roots, you haven’t given it enough time or it’s been too dry or too cold for much to happen. Put the brick back and wait another season. If the branch is holding in place and you can see roots reaching into the soil, then it’s ready to grow on its own.

  8)   Use your hand pruners or loppers to cut the new baby plant away from the mama plant. Make this cut on the mama side of the branch just an inch or so away from where you scraped the bark.

9)   With the rooted branch separated from the mama plant, carefully dig as deep as necessary to get the roots up out of the ground.

10)                 Put the rooted branch in a suitably sized pot.

11)                 Add any compost needed to fill the pot and keep the roots from drying out unless you are going to plant the new fig somewhere right away.

12)                 If you are going to grow the new plant in a pot for a while put soil less media (I recommend 2/3 compost and 1/3 shredded pine bark) so that the potted roots will have great drainage and can get better established.

13)                 Alternatively, you can just cut the branch and leave the new plant in the ground where it is until you are ready to move it or give it away. Here's a picture of a new fig tree that's been dug after leafing out in spring.

Once it’s all said and done, you’ve got a new fig tree and can look forward to filling bowls with this delicate fruit in two or three years. 

This beautiful and delicious variety is called Violete de Bourdeaux and is available at www.ediblelandscaping.com.

Free-Ranging Formosa Lily

When other plants in the summer garden look like they want a vacation, Formosa lily launches a fleet of bright white flowers. With fragrance. 

 

The stalk in full sun is about 6'-7' tall. It gently seeds in around the garden so plants in shade are appropriately shorter. Sometimes 2'-3' high. Blooms through the month of August and into Sept. here in NC piedmont, zone 7. Once the 8" long flowers pass, their drooping form is replaced by upward facing seed pods that look like a candelabra made of skinny gourds. Seeds ripen by fall and seedpods can be left to dress up the winter garden or cut and sown wherever you need something upright and drought-hardy that blooms in summer.  

Originally from the island of Taiwan, their latin name is Lilium formosanum. Some varieties have pink or red color on the outside of the petals. 

  

Figs in a Jam!

 

I love the look on the face of a person who's only known Fig Newtons and is getting their first taste of a tree-ripe, juicy, sweet, luscious fig from our back yard. Figs are one of the best fruiting trees for the south and for partial shade and for growing organically. They are drought hardy, rarely have serious bug or disease problems and are very hardy in our mild winters. 

The first of three harvests we get each summer from our Violette de Bourdeaux (bought from Edible Landscaping Nursery in Afton Va.) is the sweetest and we give away a lot. The spicy/sweet fig jam in the photo above is from our neighbor Sandi, who's a great cook. She was re-creating a fig jam she had tasted before and could no longer buy. ( I've read that great cooking is really about capturing flavors that are anchored in our memories.)

Okay, so now this spicey/sweet fig jam is anchored in my memory too. 

And here's Sandi's recipe in her own words:

Okay, I'm pretty sure what I did was (using a basic, old-fashioned jam recipe technique from Joy of Cooking):

4 to 5 cups of fresh figs, washed, half of them chopped roughly, the other half quartered:  put in a pot and press down on them a little to get some juices oozing.

Add 3 cups of sugar and slowly bring to a boil, then keep simmering, stirring frequently to keep from sticking or burning
(the old recipe calls for 3/4 to 1 c. of sugar to each cup of fruit, and I went on the lighter side, but still very sweet.  However, I think you DO need a high sugar content if you want to avoid using pectin)

Meanwhile, stick a jalepeño with a carving fork, and roast over open flame until blackened all over.  Stick it in a paper bag to steam & cool for ten minutes.
Peel the charred skin off of the pepper, and mince finely.  Depending on how hot you want the jam, throw away some or all of the seeds before adding to figs.  (in the recipe I tried, I threw away about half, but think I should have left them ALL in.  For MY taste, next time, I think I would use two jalepeños.)

Toss jalepeño and seeds into the simmering jam, along with 1 stick of cinnamon, and 4 or 5 cloves.

Continue to cook and stir until quite thickened (a total of about 45 minutes); remove the cinnamon stick (and any of the cloves you might notice), and pack in glass jars.

Should make 6, 7, or 8 half-pint jelly jarfuls.

Pure Water for a Thirsty Rhubarb

Keeping rhubarb happy in the south takes a bit of care. Keeping them happy through the summer let's you know you're a serious gardener. Our friends Tim and Helga have been growing a big row of rhubarb for 20 years and sell it at the farmer's market. 

Here's the trick: 

* Grow a variety called Victoria which is best adapted for the south. 

* Afternoon shade.

* Plenty of organic matter in well-drained soil. 

* Only harvest about half the stalks in spring. 

* Remove the flower stalk as soon as you see it. 

* Keep them watered through the summer. 

Which brings us to the photo below:

 

That hose comes from a dehumidifier in our otherwise slightly damp basement:
 

 

We were already running the dehumidifier to keep the basement dry, so I put it on top of a shelf so that the reservoir can drain down through a garden hose and empty out near one of our rhubarb plants. I rented a hammer-drill to create a 1" hole in the wall for the hose. I'll fill the gap with spray foam insulation. 

Occasionally I'll let the hose drain into a bucket so I can water some other plants. It puts about a gallon of water in the bucket in a day. 

 

So the hotter and more humid it gets, the more water the dehumidifier puts on the rhubarb--just at the time of year that the rhubarb is getting thirstier. So the pure water doesn't go to waste and we don't have to use tap water to keep the rhubarb juicy and growing. And I don't have to empty the reservoir by hand anymore! 

An alternative water source would be an air conditioner. The water that drains out can be fed through a hose to your rhubarb (or other thirsty plants). Our AC is downhill from the rhubarb so that won't work for us. Maybe we can work something out with our downhill neighbors...

Pot Marigold at the End of the Rainbow?

Originally christened Mary's Gold in the 12th century, Calendula officinalis was considered a remedy for small pox, indigestion and "evil humors of the head." Their bright yellow, long-lasting flowers are also a remedy for a tired-looking garden. And here a native bee both pollinates the flower and is enjoying getting it's fill of pollen. It will then make packets from the pollen to feed it's young after they hatch. 

Another form of Mary's Gold?

 

These annual calendulas have seeded into a sunny, dry bed and a partially shaded, sometimes moist bed from one specimen we picked up at a plant sale. 

 

The foliage has a fragrance that reminds me of collards. So it must be good for your health. And the fragrance may deter deer. 

Originally from the Mediterranean basin and points east, so it's pretty drought hardy. And if it wants to keep on seeding-in and saving us from spending money buying plants--more power to it. 
  

Blackberry Surprise

It's July and wild blackberry vines are rambling and scratching their way into everyone's heart and belly. 

The "blackberry" below comes around a few months later, but I would not eat it.

 

Because they are the seedpods of an ornamental plant called Blackberry lily which is blooming now. 
 

 This biennial (flowers and sets seed in it's second summer and then dies) is one of Chris's favorites. She loves the summery orange color and the iris-like foliage. But it's not in the iris family--it's instead called Belamcanda chinensis. 

This drought hardy plant also falls into our category of "gentle-self-seeders." One mature plant in our garden will probably spawn half-a-dozen seedlings to replace it. And since the foliage is two-dimensional, they can slip in sideways between perennials without crashing the party the way sprawling blackberry brambles will. 

When the seed pods ripen and bust open in October, you can toss the seed into some fallow roadside for a little no-cost guerrilla gardening. 

Figs !

Lots of people worry that fig trees aren't hardy here in NC. But figs thrive in southern heat. They can even produce a good crop in part shade and dry soil. And without any spraying, so we don't have to worry about using chemicals. Figs are probably the easiest fruit crop to grow organically in the south. 

The only real threat is birds eating the figs, but we've convinced the birds that the neighbor's yards are safer by hanging an inflatable snake balloon in the fig tree to scare them away. We just move the snake every other day as the figs ripen, so they don't get used to it--and that matches our harvesting schedule anyway. 

We have one fig tree called Violette de Bourdeaux that produces a late spring crop (the sweetest), a mid summer crop (the heaviest) and a late summer crop (the lightest). It has a rich, sweet flavor, juicy texture, dark purple-black skin and strawberry colored flesh. Bought it from Edible Landscaping Nursery in Afton Virginia. When I read in the catalog, that this was the one that all the chefs wanted, I had to have it. 

Edible Landscaping's mission is to find or develop fruiting plants that do well in the south and can be grown organically. 

Since this fig produces more than we can eat, Chris makes a fig syrup and our neighbor makes a spicy fig jam. So we save money and have fresh fruit over a long season and conserved fruit through the winter. And we give a lot away to friends. We've also eaten the figs on Chris' pizzas and have dried them in the oven (but that took over 24 hours !). 

Here's a photo of our pretty figs getting stewed down for fig syrup. 

 

Here's a pic of some figs quartered with a dollop of goat cheese and a dribble of balsamic vinegar that Chris reduced on the stove. We shared these with some friends and brought a big plateful  to a potluck where they disappeared faster than a wheat field in a locust swarm. 

 

Water Timer Saves Both

Summertime heat makes me incredibly thirsty--I'm always making sure I have a bottle of water with me when I leave the house. Plants get thirsty too, but a lack of mobility and opposable thumbs means that they look to us to open the tap. 

I'm not telling you anything new to say that one of the most demanding chores in gardening is keeping new plants, containers and annuals watered in summer. Perennial plants, shrubs and trees that are well placed can survive dry spells and droughts. But containers can easily get too dry, annuals have shallow roots and new plants have roots in too small an area to be able to get through a dry spell without help from us hominids. 

I believe it helps to think of plants as being similar to cold-blooded animals. Meaning that as the temperature gets higher, their metabolism goes faster, so they suck up more water from the ground. But as the temperature gets past the mid-80's some plants' leaves are transpiring water at a faster rate than the roots can suck it up. That's why some plants wilt in the afternoon even if there's water in the ground. An afternoon wilt is often just a momentary condition that passes overnight as the roots finally catch up on supplying water. If plants aren't showing signs of wilt in the morning, they are probably fine. 

The thing to watch for is wilting leaves in the morning. I teach my helpers to recognize that as akin to hearing a baby cry. Which means it's time to put down what you're doing and see what the baby needs. Or in the case of a wilting plant, to get the watering can and do the equivalent of spoon-feeding. 

If you're going to water on a larger scale--with a sprinkler or drip line or soaker hose, then you'll want to use one of the best time and money savers available to a gardener. The inexpensive ($10-$15) plastic water time in the photo below slashes the amount of time spent on watering and if you've had the bad habit of leaving the water running too long or forgetting to turn it off,then it will save you some money too (and conserve water). 

Also in the photo: a brass elbow that makes it easier to attach hoses to the spigot and a large "Y" valve that lets me have a hose for hand watering of containers and another hose with the timer that leads to a soaker hose. 

 

The timer is a simple device, like an egg timer. You simply attach it to the spigot and attach your hose to the timer. Set the timer, turn the spigot on all the way and go off to work. The timer will turn off the water while you're busy doing something else. 

You might leave the house and wonder if you've turned the oven off, but at least you can be sure that the water won't still be running when you get back from work. 

With our water pressure and with nearby trees sucking up a lot of the water, I normally set the timer on the full two hours, unless I see lots of excess water running off the surface.

One caveat: don't leave these timers outside in the winter. Even a little bit of water inside them will freeze and crack the plastic. You'll know that's happened when you turn it on in the spring for the first time and get the shower that you meant for the plants to have.