Blast from the Past: Parthenocissus vitacea, Vitaceae & Inosculation
For the second time ever, this year I won’t be spending Christmas with my family in Milan, so I’m feeling a bit nostalgic. For the occasion, this is the story of my late falseVirginia creeper, which brings back fond memories of home.
At some point in 2009 when I was still living there, thanks to avian seed dispersal (aka bird poop), a seedling sprouted in a pot filled with compost, but otherwise empty, laying on the balcony of my parents’ flat. I was very familiar with this highly invasive plant as it’s a terrible pest in Milan’s countryside, especially when it competes with ivy (Hedera helix) and Clematis vitalba, together they smother anything they encounter. Still, it is a beautiful climber to train and it’s interesting year-round as it keeps going through dramatic colour changes, plus, the tendrils this species produces lack the adhesive pads which make the closely related P. quinquefolia, the Virginia creeper, able to anchor itself to walls, potentially ruining them. So I decided to raise the seedling, and I trained it until I moved to Glasgow in 2014. Unfortunately I didn’t think of taking photos to record the progress at the time, so what you see is sort of the best of what I was left with. In five years the plant developed a short, thick (~2.5cm/~1in) main stem branching into a few thinner ones, which I trained onto a fishing line spider web I strung between the copper rain drain on the right and the window shade clasp on the left.
As the stems kept growing longer -incredibly much longer each growing season, it is extremely vigorous- I continued weaving them to create sort of a net, or trellis pattern, to add even more winter interest when the leaves would have fallen leaving them bare. I also experimented a lot with inosculation, which is the natural version of grafting, when the tissue of related trees or parts of the same tree which come into contact end up fusing together. In the photos you can see some of the examples: a 90° angle union made by splitting a stem with the tip of a knife and threading through it another stem of similar age was probably the most ambitious, as polarity was totally disregarded, but not a single attempt failed and the Virginia creeper proved to be an excellent subject to experiment on. When it was about 2.5 years old it also started flowering profusely through summer, and producing clusters of blue berries, which are a beautiful accent highly contrasting against the fiery red coloration of the late summer and autumn leaves. Sadly, shortly after I moved the plant died of thirst while my parents were on holiday, but I still have its seeds so if they are still viable one day I will reproduce it again.
Note: I took the photos of the inosculation details a while after the plant had died, my mum has kept it there…so that’s why the stem look so thin and wrinkly!
These are some of the photos I took this morning, when we unexpectedly woke up to sun, snow and ice, truly a winter wonderland. We were staying at my boyfriend’s parents’ house and their small garden was bathed in such a beautiful warm yellow light.
The purple flowers are Erysimum linifolium ‘Bowles’ Mauve’, the wallflower, a favourite of my boyfriend’s mum especially because she says in October it attracts lots of butterflies. She has a video on her phone she’s shown me of her and our niece surrounded by the flowers and dozens of very docile butterflies, I need to ask her to send it to me! The bushy plant is Fargesia murielae, the umbrella bamboo from central China, while the monocot-looking one with yellow stripes is Cordyline australis, the cabbage tree from New Zealand. The tree-tops against the blue sky belong to the native Crataegus monogyna, the common hawthorn.
When I photographed this plant at Glasgow Botanic Gardens, while I was attending my horticulture course, I could tell it was a member of the Fabaceae, as the yellow flowers and leaves suggested, but I was sure I hadn’t seen it before. Luckily, I could ask the former curator before even attempting a search, and he explained it is the yoke-leaved amicia, native to Mexico, and how this pretty hardy plant had been living there for about twenty years -he loves it and was happy to talk about it.
Originally from mountainous areas, this plant is hardy down to -10
°C, but in case of severe frost it regrows from its root system as it is a perennial woody shrub which grows to about 2 m/6 ft. At the Gardens it’s located within a border against the south-facing side of one of the heated glasshouses, which definitely helps the plant overwinter well, together with generous mulching. Well drained, fertile soil and a sunny position will ensure it has the best chances to get established if you live in wet, temperate areas, but it can be grown just as easily in a large pot. As the plant is considered exotic and unusual -at least here- propagation from cuttings taken in early spring is the quickest way to obtain new individuals.
In about a year and a half of writing about plants, I’ve only mentionedone member of the Arecaceae, but there is so much diversity within the palm trees that it was about timeI started featuring them more often. Living in Scotland, where they are grown mostly in dedicated palm-houses, doesn’t particularly help, so here’s my favourite one from Lanzarote. The Cuban royal palm is native to Mexico, Central America and some Caribbean Islands, but is widely cultivated as an ornamental plant around the world where the climate allows it. This palm grows large and has some beautiful distinctive features; the trunk is straight, smooth, grey-white and when they are planted in groups they almost resemble a forest of pale stone columns surmounted by a green, feathery crown held up and sheathed by the oldest leaf’s petiole.
I really like palms and I remember being fascinated by an illustration I saw on one of my books as a kid: it depicted a coconut palm (Cocos nucifera) and how each and every part of the plant had a practical use. I then realised the same goes for many palm trees in their native area, as they are often some of the most useful plants around, from which different kind of goods can be produced. The Cuban royal palm is one of them and provides forage, combustible, fibre, thatching, building material and medicine all at once, while looking beautiful and statuesque too.
I mentioned before that I started working in a garden centre -I’m so happy my change-of-career plans are already beginning to work!- and today it’s actually been a whole month. This first month there has been decisively marked by the fact Christmas is approaching from the very beginning: my first day happened to be when the main delivery of Christmas trees arrived, so it was entirely spent unloading hundreds of conifers, which we then freed from their nets, separated, measured and finally positioned in their pens during the following days. Needless to say, I’ve learnt a lot about the most common Christmas trees you could find in a garden centre in the UK this time of the year. I’ve also ended up reading briefly about the tree farming industry and what it entails in the UK, rest of Europe and America with their differences. But this is not meant to be a post about a tradition which is quite new to me -decorating a real cut tree is not nearly as popular in Italy- its history or the industry it supports, so let’s get to the trees. From top to bottom, they are ordered by their popularity as I’ve experienced it, although most of the stock was of the first two species and we only offered a few of the other three.
1. Nordmann fir Abies nordmanniana, Pinaceae
Very large tree native to the southern and eastern coast of the Black Sea. It’s considered the favourite and the best seller in the UK for two main reasons: it retains its needles, which are soft and have a notched tip, and its spaced layers of symmetrical, almost horizontal, sturdy branches are ideal to accommodate heavy or large ornaments. Especially when young and under 6ft it can look quite wide and bushy at the bottom with a sparse top and often a very long and straight leader.
2. Fraser fir Abies fraseri, Pinaceae
Medium-sized tree native to the southeastern Appalachian Mountains. Also very popular, mostly because it’s sheared in the field to retain a conical shape and this results in a slimmer bottom, ideal for small spaces, and high density of soft branches, which work better with small, light ornaments. The stem and branches seem to grow in a sinuous fashion and the tree often has more than a single central leader tip, which is generally not straight, but twisty too. Its citrus-y sent and the ability to retain its needles help making it a popular choice.
3. Lodgepole pine Pinus contorta, Pinaceae
Medium to large tree or shrub, depending on the subspecies, native to western and north-western North America. As the only Pinus in the list, it looks rather different from the other trees and decorating it can be a challenge, people seem to either love it or hate it, so we only stocked a handful of them. It tends to be quite bushy and, as the name suggests, the trunk can often be twisted. It smells like clean pine forest and is very good at holding its needles.
4. Rocky Mountain fir Abies lasiocarpa, Pinaceae
Generally medium-sized tree which shares its native area with the lodgepole pine in north-western North America.This was a novelty species at the garden centre and we only stocked a few large ones.Most people seemed to love its imposing, but airy and symmetrical structure and blue-grey hue and it’s probably my personal favourite. Its scent is aromatic and as interesting as the colour.
5. Norway spruce Picea abies, Pinaceae
Large tree native to an area spanning from the mountains of southern Europe to Siberia. Most people recognise it as the traditional, old-school Christmas tree, however it has now fallen out of fashion as the worst performing in the list when it comes to retaining its needles. For this reason we mostly stocked pot-grown trees of this species, and just a handful of small, cut ones. The short, thin needles give it a feathery look compared to the others and its structure is similar to that of the Nordmann fir.
Now, just out of curiosity, I’d love to see lists made by my counterparts in the rest of the world! Also, if you have bought a tree, what species is it?
So these are supposed to be my most successful posts of the year, not necessarily my favourite ones, but I might make another list of that kind…I really hope you’ve enjoyed reading this blog in 2017, Happy New Year and let’s hope it’s a good one!
While on holiday in Lanzarote, in the super interesting area of the world known as Macaronesia, I have had a chance to observe a refreshing variety of subtropical, tropical and xeric vegetation which in Scotland I could only find under glass, if even. I guess whoever really likes plants can only be twice as excited about going on holiday somewhere far and different, as being in a different country can feel like being in a huge and exotic botanical wonderland, or at least that’s how I feel!
To start this series about the plants I have recorded there I have a chosen a wild Mediterranean Cucurbitacea, as I have childhood memories of exploring another island, in Croatia, and finding a squirting cucumber, Ecballium elaterium, which I had only seen in books before. The same happened when I was exploring the southern coast of Lanzarote, with its arid dunes and gullies, and I found this vine known with a variety of names around the Mediterranean and the Middle East, but locally known as cohombrillo melonero, the bitter apple, or desert gourd. Growing on the summit of a sandy and rocky promontory, exposed to strong winds high in salinity and sun radiations year-round, two of these plants alone still managed to thrive thanks to their successful adaptations. The long and fleshy taproot absorbs and stores any accessible ground water resulting from the winter rains, which can be quite scarce in the southern part of the island, while the leaves are reduced in size and more deeply divided if compared to those of the domestic watermelon, Citrullus lanatus.
The fruit, the size of a large walnut, contains a great number of small brown seeds which are edible, and can be ground into flour or pressed for oil. For this reason the plant has been cultivated since historical times on a small scale in countries with suitable conditions and low rainfall, and is still in cultivation today. Both the extremely bitter fruit and the seeds have been used for their laxative, emetic and abortive properties for just as long.
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