Jenny Bee Greenthumb
Gardening advice, ideas and products
Olive- Olea Europaea
Olea europaea
(O-lee-a eur-o-pee-a)
Olive
DROUGHT: ✺✺✺✺
RECOMMENDATION: ★★★★
HEIGHT: 20' - 40'
SPREAD: 20' - 40'
FORM: Round Head
GROWTH RATE: Slow - Moderate
CHARACTER: Evergreen, Woody
LEAF: Color Gray Green
Texture Medium Density Medium
FLOWER: Color White
Time Spring
FRUIT: Color Green to Purple
Time Summer; edible after treatment
LANDSCAPE VALUE: Accent X Background Barrier Border X Bonsai X Climber
Container X Erosion Control Espalier Fall Color Fire Retardant Foreground
Foundation Flowers Fruit X Ground Cover Hedges Lawn Substitute Lawn Tree
Low Maintenance Mass X Multi-Trunk X Poolside Rockery X Rapid Growth
Screen Shade Standard Street Tree X Topiary X Tropical Effect Xeriscape X
Windbreak Other Spanish Theme
ENVIRONMENT: Sun X 1/2 Shade X Shade Wind X Heat X Dust X Aridity X
Moisture Humidity Smog Saline X Alkaline Soil Coastal Other
Temperature Tolerance 15 o F
CULTURAL REQUIREMENTS: Fruit can be prevented by using chemical sprays or the flowers can be sprayed off with a high pressure water nozzle.
PESTS AND DISEASES: aphids, scale, olive knot
REMARKS: Fruit can stain sidewalks and driveways. Backlighting, downlighting and up lighting into the tree is very effective.
(1) JBGreenthumb- Garden products and information
Pollinator Week 2017
Pollinator Week 2017 (June 19-25), marked the tenth consecutive year of uniting the nation around the critically important issue of pollinator conservation. Pollinator Partnership (P2), which created and has administered Pollinator Week since its inception, secured proclamations in support of the observance from ALL 50 state governors (and many mayors), as well as the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and the U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke. Additionally, more than 200 events, a PW record, across North America were organized and registered through P2’s Pollinator Week webpage. Cities across North America celebrated Pollinator Week through numerous local events, including in New York City, where the dating app Bumble erected a pop-up hive as a gathering place for their users. On June 22, with a flip of the switch from beekeeper and Shark Tank star, Daymond John, the Empire State Building lit its cupula in yellow and black to represent the nearly 4000 bees found in the United States. It was a great collaboration between P2 and the National Wildlife Federation. The CN Tower in Toronto and Niagara Falls were also illuminated to show support for pollinators. In Washington, D.C., a Congressional briefing was held by the Congressional Pollinator Protection Caucus, and a reception sponsored by the American Society of Landscape Architects and Pollinator Partnership engaged policy makers in the Capitol. In other exciting Pollinator Week news, Pollinator Partnership is joining forces with the iconic Debbie Harry and Blondie, who have launched their own Bee Connected campaign to save pollinators, following the recent release of their aptly titled Pollinator album. These Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Famers have shaped, and continue to influence, the worlds of music, fashion and art. To find out about this year’s events by state and to get ideas for next year visit http://www. pollinator.org/pollinatorweek!
Yucca Brevifolia a.k.a Joshua Tree
Yucca brevifolia
DROUGHT: ✺✺✺✺
RECOMMENDATION: ★★★★
HEIGHT: 20' - 30' SPREAD: 20' - 30'
FORM: Irregular, Upright
GROWTH RATE: Slow
CHARACTER: Herbaceous, Perennial
LEAF: Color Bluish Green
Texture Coarse Density Open
FLOWER: Color White
Time Spring
FRUIT: Color Insignificant
Time Summer - Fall
LANDSCAPE VALUE: Accent X Background X Barrier X Border X
Container X
Foundation
Mass X Multi-Trunk X Poolside X Rockery
Xeriscape X
Other Spanish theme, Native
ENVIRONMENT: Sun X Wind X Heat X Dust X Aridity X
Humidity Saline X Alkaline Soil Temperature Tolerance 25 o F
PESTS AND DISEASES: pest free
More about Joshua Trees
DROUGHT: ✺✺✺✺
RECOMMENDATION: ★★★★
HEIGHT: 20' - 30' SPREAD: 20' - 30'
FORM: Irregular, Upright
GROWTH RATE: Slow
CHARACTER: Herbaceous, Perennial
LEAF: Color Bluish Green
Texture Coarse Density Open
FLOWER: Color White
Time Spring
FRUIT: Color Insignificant
Time Summer - Fall
LANDSCAPE VALUE: Accent X Background X Barrier X Border X
Container X
Foundation
Mass X Multi-Trunk X Poolside X Rockery
Xeriscape X
Other Spanish theme, Native
ENVIRONMENT: Sun X Wind X Heat X Dust X Aridity X
Humidity Saline X Alkaline Soil Temperature Tolerance 25 o F
PESTS AND DISEASES: pest free
More about Joshua Trees
Flowering Maple
Abutilon hybrida
(uh-BUE-ti-lon HYB-ri-dum)
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Flowering Maple
|
DROUGHT : ✺✺✺
RECOMMENDATION: ★★
HEIGHT: 8' - 10'
SPREAD: 8' - 10'
FORM: Mound; Obovate
GROWTH RATE: Rapid
CHARACTER: Deciduous, Woody
|
LEAF: Color Green
Texture Coarse Density Medium
Fall Color Insignificant
FLOWER: Color yellow, red, orange, white
Time Spring - summer
FRUIT: Color
|
Time
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LANDSCAPE VALUE: Accent X Background X Barrier Border Bonsai Climber
Container X Erosion Control Espalier Fall Color Fire Retardant Foreground
Foundation X Flowers X Fruit Ground Cover Hedges Lawn Substitute Lawn Tree
Low Maintenance Mass X Multi-Trunk Poolside Rockery X Rapid Growth
Screen Shade Standard Street Tree Topiary Tropical Effect X Xeriscape
Windbreak Other
|
ENVIRONMENT: Sun 1/2 Shade X Shade Wind Heat X Dust Aridity
Moisture X Humidity Smog Saline Alkaline Soil Coastal X Other
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o
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Temperature Tolerance 25 F
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CULTURAL REQUIREMENTS: No special requirements.
PESTS AND DISEASES: scale, whitefly, caterpillars, crown rot, root rot
REMARKS:
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Organic Fertilizers
In general, it’s a good idea to spray less fertilizer, more often, rather than just dumping it all on at once in the spring.
So I come through my garden at least once a month with some form of liquid application, generally combining a few ingredients at once.
When I’m around and have the time, I’ll even cut the application rate by 75% and spray weekly instead – especially useful during the spring when fertilizing often brings the most benefit.
Here’s what I use:
Microbial Inoculants
Most organic gardeners focus on organic fertilizers (let’s call that the chemistry of the soil), but just as important is the life in your garden (the biology).
Microbial inoculants bring in that biology, the beneficial microorganisms that are often deficient for various reasons. We need them back in there to feed our plants and bring them water and protect them from predators and so on.
Here’s how I do it:
- SCD Probiotics or EM. Definitely my favorite microbial inoculant. I use it monthly along with molasses, liquid seaweed and either sea minerals or liquid fish.
- Mycorrhizal fungi. Perhaps the most important soil microorganisms in the world. I always use this inoculant during planting, plus I’ll apply it one time into an established garden if it wasn’t done during the original planting of that garden.
- Compost tea. Excellent for boosting microbial diversity. I use it once each in spring, summer and fall with dextrose (glucose), EM, liquid seaweed and either sea minerals or liquid fish.
And then of course comes a bit of high quality compost in spring and/or fall – just a dusting of 1/8 inch or less is all you need unless you’re building a new garden bed on poor soil and then it can make sense to bring in an inch or more.
Liquid Organic Fertilizers
While we’re bringing the biology back into the garden, we want to make sure our plants have access to the chemistry – the minerals and vitamins and other building blocks.
And we want to go beyond just nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium to give them all of the dozens of minerals they need. Here’s how I do it:
- Liquid seaweed fertilizer. An organic gardening standard that’s especially known for boosting plant health. I use it monthly with EM or compost tea.
- Sea minerals fertilizer. My favorite organic fertilizer, providing broad spectrum nutrition. I use it every other month with EM or compost tea, rotated with the liquid fish below.
- Liquid fish fertilizer. Another excellent organic fertilizer, a great source of nitrogen and phosphorus and whole proteins. I use it every other month with EM or compost tea, rotated with the sea minerals above.
- Molasses or dextrose. Both of these feed microorganisms. Molasses is especially used along with EM, while dextrose is used with fertilizers to help them penetrate into the leaf. I always use at least one of them in with my monthly sprays.
Mineral Fertilizers
I also offer the most important dry organic mineral fertilizers to help you boost your soil’s fertility.
While liquid fertilizers are great for feeding both soil and plants with nutrients that can really help in the short term, dry mineral organic fertilizers are used for boosting long term soil nutrition.
Here are a couple of important notes:
- Rock dust and calcium carbonate are the two that can be used by everyone, without a soil test, regardless of your soil type.
- For the most part, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium and specific micronutrients are only used based on a soil test, so I’m really just making them available down the page here for people who’ve had that done, especially my gardening students.
- If you can find these dry fertilizers in your local area, you’ll probably get a better deal because the shipping is what makes them a little more expensive online. But the big difficulty for most people is finding them in their local area at all, so that’s why I’m offering them here and I’m actually able to do so at fairly good prices.
So Which Is Right For You?
Well that depends on your goals.
To keep things simple, I’m going to create 3 categories – beginner, intermediate, advanced – to give you some tips on what to buy, whether from me or your local garden center.
I’ll also suggest how much you need per 1000 square feet (100 square meters) of garden space.
For those of you who aren’t the best with measurements, here are some sizes to relate to:
- Take 10-12 big steps, do a 90 degree turn. Do that 3 more times and you’ve just outlined a square of 1000 square feet.
- An average 2 car garage is 300-400 square feet.
- Any of the big face-off circles on an NHL hockey rink are 700 square feet.
- One half of a professional indoor volleyball court is 900 square feet.
- 8 average (8 feet by 16 feet) U.S. parking spaces in a row is 1000 square feet.
- Half of an NBA basketball court is 2350 square feet.
- 1/8th of an acre is about 5500 square feet.
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Olive- Olea Europaea
Olea europaea (O-lee-a eur-o-pee-a) Olive DROUGHT: ✺✺✺✺ RECOMMENDATION: ★★★★ HEIGHT: 20' - 40' SPREAD: 20' - 40'...
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Olea europaea (O-lee-a eur-o-pee-a) Olive DROUGHT: ✺✺✺✺ RECOMMENDATION: ★★★★ HEIGHT: 20' - 40' SPREAD: 20' - 40'...
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Yucca brevifolia DROUGHT: ✺✺✺✺ RECOMMENDATION: ★★★★ HEIGHT: 20' - 30' SPREAD: 20' - 30' FORM: ...