Spring has begun, and the flowers are making their debut en masse. The daylily is an exceptionally versatile plant that grows in various colors, shapes, and habitats (Hemerocallis spp.). This plant garners its name from a combination of Greek terms meaning “beauty for a day,” given the tapestry a mass planting provides, they live up to that name. These plants tend to bloom repeatedly for 4-7 weeks, though each individual flower only lasts one day. The time of year flowering begins varies by cultivar, but typically, they may be seen beginning in March, with later bloomers starting around mid-May. Add to their beauty that they are also edible, and you have a plant that can’t be beaten.
UF/IFAS Photo: J. Criss
These perennials are widely available as bare-root or potted plants. Both may be planted in Florida year-round, but planning in spring or autumn will increase success. Inspect roots before you plant them, removing any that are circling or damaged. Plant with the crown at ground level, much like a tree, and keep the soil moist until the plant is established. Though drought tolerant with deep roots, you’ll still want to apply mulch to retain moisture. Fertilizers may be added in spring, summer, and fall based on soil testing. Scouting this planting is important, but insects rarely cause lasting damage. They may be propagated vegetatively or via seed. Vegetative propagation will become important as these plants fill in spaces over the years and will need to be thinned.
Uses in the Landscape
Thanks to the hybridization efforts of growers worldwide, daylilies are available in every spectrum of color and a variety of flower shapes. Daylilies are clumping plants with grasslike foliage and flowers on a scape that may reach up to 36 inches tall. They can be striking when planted in groups of 10, included in a mixed border, or used to highlight a specific area of your gardens. Because they are so varied, it is important to carefully consider the design elements of your landscape and the growing conditions of your landscape when selecting varieties. All cultivars will require some sun, so avoid heavily shaded areas.
UF/IFAS Photo: J. Criss
A Note on Color
Your biggest concern when considering daylilies in the garden will be color. When it comes to landscape design, color integration has three main theories. The first revolves around monochromatic flowering. Simply put, except for the green foliage, all flowers in this type of garden will be one color. Certainly, daylilies fall into this category, which are often yellow and may be quite striking. The second theory on color in your garden spaces is an analogous scheme in which 3-5 colors on the color wheel are utilized to create continual flow. In this case, find daylilies with red flowers and pair them with violet or yellow flowers. The final theory on color use in gardens is a complementary scheme. In this instance, colors on opposite sides of the color wheel are utilized. The contrast created by this method can create a striking difference that draws the eye to a specific point. Keep in mind that these are all theories. Ultimately, it is your landscape, and you should use those flower colors which satisfy your sensibilities.
UF/IFAS: Gail Hansen
Daylilies are a wonderful plant for your landscape. Easy to grow with great variety, few others can compete with them. For more information, see this Ask IFAS document. As always, please contact your local extension agent for additional information on this and any topic regarding your gardens and more.
Extended spring weather with cool nights and frequent rain can be enjoyable for humans, but does strange things to plants, especially if dormant fungi are hanging around. Exobasidium vaccinii is a fungus that is believed to overwinter as spores attached to bark and bud scales. It can cause infection with the opening of buds in spring, creating odd shaped leaves and flowers that are referred to as galls. Infection is dependent on high humidity and moisture during bud break. Gall growth is due to plant cell division resulting from the stimulus of hyphal growth within host tissue. When galls are still soft, the fungus grows between epidermal cells, breaks the cuticle, and sporulates giving the gall a white cast. Either all or part of a leaf may become thickened, fleshy, and covered with a white bloom of spores. At first, diseased leaves are succulent and white, but they later shrink into hard, brown, gall-like bodies. Galls are composed of fungus-infected plant tissue. Older leaves are resistant to infection. Exobasidium vaccinii is most common in azaleas and camellias.
Photo by Sheila Dunning
But, other Exobasidium species are floating out there, and with just the right conditions they can deform other plants. That’s what caused this odd formation on one flower of a gardenia plant. In this case, the spores fused the sepals to the petals of the flower.
Photo by Margaret Stewart
While chemical controls are available, they would need to begin before symptoms appear and continue until the gall dried completely. It may be an option for the fastidious weather watcher with a good working knowledge of this disease. But, for the rest of the population, removing and destroying galls before they turn white is the best management practice to avoid having spores form and hang around until next spring. Proper pruning of the plants to improve air circulation will also reduce the chances of favorable conditions, should there be an extended cool, wet season next year.
Here in North Florida, it is not uncommon to see a few citrus trees in a residential landscape. With Florida being the second highest producing state of citrus, it is not out of the normal to see them when you are out and about. They are a great option to keep a lush green aesthetic in your yard. But, what other options are there for the homeowner that wants to add some edible diversity to their landscape? In this article we will be discussing a few of the many edible landscape choices that can add both diversity and a sweet treat to your yard.
A popular edible landscape option is the rabbiteye cultivar of blueberry. The rabbiteye blueberry plant is considered easier to grow for the first time blueberry grower in comparison to the southern high bush cultivar. This cultivar thrives in acidic soils and requires a soil pH of 4.0 to 5.5. When planting, the use of pine bark mulch is a great organic method to satisfy the soil pH requirement. Mixing composted pine bark mulch in the soil and adding additional mulch after the bush is planted will add to the soil’s organic matter over time. Mulching also aids the establishment of young plants and moderates soil temperatures and weed control. For variety selection, mid-to-late season rabbiteye cultivars are best for Northwest Florida, as they are more cold tolerant and less susceptible to lose their flowers and young set fruit in late winter/early spring frosts. Common mid-to-late season rabbiteye’s are ‘Vernon’, ‘Brightwell’, ‘Powderblue’, ‘Tifblue’, and ‘Georgia Giant’. Because blueberry plants are not “self-unfruitful”, they will require more than one variety to cross-pollinate with in order to produce fruit. Two is great, but three plants will also encourage larger fruit set for you and your family to enjoy!
Blueberry Set Fruit, Jackson County Master Gardener Demo Garden
Another option that has steadily grown interest in the Florida Panhandle is the apple tree. There are two known cultivars of apple that are acclimated to the North Florida region due to their low chill hour requirement cold tolerance. This is the ‘Anna’ Apple and the ‘Dorsett Golden’ Apple. Apple trees will perform best in full sun locations of the yard and prefer a well-drained soil. The chilling hour requirement for these cultivars of apple are between 400-600 hours. You will begin to see the fruit ripen in the months of May to June. The ‘Anna” Apple has been compared to the well known ‘Red Delicious” that is best known in northern region of the United States. Planting should occur in early spring and planting holes should be big enough that the root system does not become over crowded from limited expansion space. There is no UF/IFAS fertilizer recommendation for the apple tree because it is not commercially produced in Florida, but generally a fertilizer such as 10-10-10 can be used.
‘Anna’ Apple, Photo Credit: UF/IFAS NFREC
The blackberry is a great choice as well for an edible landscape. There are several blackberry species that are native to Florida. Most blackberries produce thorns on their shoots, but many new cultivars have been developed as thornless. When selecting your planting location, low-lying areas should be avoided to deter from over-flooding of your plants. Blackberries thrive best in well-drained soils and high air flow and should be planted between December to February. Pollination of the plant is very important to ensure the quality and quantity of the fruit produced; blackberries range from self-fruitful to self-unfruitful depending on the cultivar. ‘Apache’, ‘Flordagrand’, and ‘Choctaw’ are a few examples of many blackberry cultivars available. The first year after the blackberry has been established, it will only produce new shoots with no berries. These shoots are called primocanes. The second year, berries will produce on these shoots and then be called floricanes. It is important to cut the tip off the primocanes after they have reached about 3 ft in height to encourage the shoot to create lateral branches. Floricanes will die off after they have produced fruit. Trellises can be used as well to encourage the plant to grow upright and off the ground.
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The joy of being outdoors in the yard and gardens is something many of us have the opportunity to receive and appreciate. Observing nature at its best with the changes of seasons and all the activity, from birds visiting to vegetable and flower gardens to the healthy green lawns there is much to contemplate. The environment in which we live is complex and ever changing and is a critical source to our quality of life. One major source that links us all is water and the quality of it moving forward. How are we addressing changes to this important resource and the unintended consequences that can follow?
How we garden and manage the landscape at home and possibly in a business situation seems small in comparison to the number of settings out there, but if enough people work to improve water quality the positive impacts can be significant. Impervious surfaces that include paved driveways and walkways are areas that do not allow rain events or irrigation to infiltrate into the soil. Creative solutions are out there to construct pervious surfaces. Many acres of forest and wetlands have been lost to development impacting land areas like this to slow water movement allowing time for nutrients and sediment to settle and be absorbed into the soil and taken up by plants or sequestered in organic matter in the soil layers.
We often think about the larger rivers and big bodies of water that include lakes, bays, gulfs, and oceans that shoulder the large scale of human activity. It is often the smaller water sources that when combined multiple times as the tributaries involving creeks that lead to larger streams and rivers are often overlooked as having major impacts on water quality. What we can do to assist is to better manage nutrients (fertilizers and others) involving lawns, trees, and shrubs in your landscape. Work on improving soil balance through soil testing and following the recommendations to understand your soil types and plants that grow best in these settings. Contact your local University of Florida Extension office located in your county for information to assist in this important process.
A waterfront buffer zone may include a raised berm with native vegetation to slow runoff from a yard before entering the water. Photo credit: Carrie Stevenson
Creating planting buffers around creeks, ponds and lakes is critical to reducing nutrient entry links to these water sources. Care must be taken when applying nutrients that include nitrogen and phosphorus to the lawn, gardens, and other landscape areas. UF/IFAS Extension’s Florida Friendly Landscaping program recommends, if you are broadcasting fertilizer without a deflector shield, The Ring of Responsibility should extend at least 10 feet from the edge of water. Be aware that fertilizer landing on hard surface driveways and sidewalks are subject to running off with rain events and potentially entering these water sources.
There is much more information available on this topic and it is highly recommended to do a little research via the smart phone and other ways to better understand the importance of how we address water quality moving forward. Enjoy the great outdoors and appreciate all it has to offer.
Weeds can be the bane of the gardener’s existence and Extension Agents get a lot of questions on how to manage them throughout the year. Whether you are growing edibles, ornamentals, or turfgrass you have probably encountered a plant out of place which is basically the general definition of a weed. Just like with any other landscape challenge the first thing you need to do when dealing with weeds is accurate identification. Understanding the life cycle of the pest (weed in this case) you are targeting will be key for the most effective control with minimal inputs. Your local Extension office can assist with weed identification, and you can find a list by county here.
If you missed the live broadcast, you can watch the video on YouTube
Below are the links that were shared during the episode in the order discussed if you would like to follow along:
We have one more episode of Gardening in the Panhandle LIVE! scheduled this year on October 12th. We hope you will join us for Herbs and Cool Season Edibles!
