Garlic Chives Beats the Heat and Feeds the Neighborhood

It's pretty tough to find so many positive and desirable attributes in one plant, but garlic chives sure work hard to tik a lot of boxes! Garlic chives (Allium tuberosum) are one of my very favorite tough and versatile plants for your ornamental foodscaping garden.

Garlic chives are cold hardy from USDA Zones 3-9, which is a very broad range of cold hardiness....combined with extreme heat and drought tolerance. Plants can tolerate both sub-zero winters and hot dry summers. While you may see plants quiesce in a very hot dry summer (meaning the may rest and lose their top foliage but they don't technically go "dormant), but I've never seen that happen here in Texas yet, and it's pretty darn brutal in the summer. Even just a little supplemental water now and then keeps them growing. Foliage will die back in winter after a hard freeze (unless you cover them).

Plants burst into bloom in the hottest nastiest part of the summer here, usually in August, when many other plants may not be blooming or are damaged due to extreme heat, which has been more common these last few years.

Pollinator Magnet Plant

Blooming when they do, they are an absolute magnet when it comes to insects and pollinators. You might not think garlic chive flowers would be so popular, but without a lot of other blooming options, I can spot at any given time at LEAST five or six different species harvesting the flowers. And those are just the ones I can see (many are very tiny). None of them are bothered in the least by the others, they all just go about their business.

And you know a plant is a solid pollinator plant when you see OTHER predators (like lizards or large spiders) setting up shop next to these plants to catch prey.

Edible Landscaping, or Foodscaping Plant

Of course the foliage and the flowers are edible for humans, and there's nothing better than running out into the garden to grab fresh chives when you're cooking. Plus, plants are SO pretty when they are in bloom they are an outstanding ornamental perennial even if you don't eat them!

Plants will tolerate some dappled or a little shade in the day but bloom best in full sun. Mine are actually shaded for a while in the morning due to the location exposure, then get blasted with all the hot afternoon direct sun. They perform beautifully.

I'm always so thankful, come the awful heat and garden stress of August in Texas, that my garlic chives come to life and burst into bloom, providing my eyes a much needed respite from the dregs of summer, and a feeding spot for all my neighborhood pollinators.

Plenty to Share

Garlic chives can spread by clump and seed. So be prepared to give them a little space, or to pull up little seedlings where you don't want them from time to time. I love to collect seed to give away to friends, or you can dig up small clumps to share when it's time to divide or reduce. You can keep it in pots if you don't have room in the garden.

Rose 'Perle d'Or' Packs a Powerful Scent

I'm often asked which is my favorite rose variety or cultivar. It's impossible for me to pick just one, but if you know me you know I have a penchant for peach, apricot, and orange colored roses. Now, Rose 'Perle d'Or' (which translates to pearl of gold) doesn't really fall into this color category, BUT it gets close with a peachy pink bloom.

But many modern hybrid roses can be finicky and disease prone, or can't stand up to really hot dry climates. Not to mention, many have lost their fragrance through the breeding process....this is not the case with 'Perle d'Or'.

Not only is 'Perle d'Or' an incredibly tough Polyantha rose introduced in 1884- which requires little to no special care to perform admirably - it's also classified as a Texas Earth-Kind rose. And it's powerful fragrance will send you swooning!

Looking for a Rose to Sent your Entire Garden or Home?

Well, you've found it! 'Perle d'Or' plants may produce what seem like smaller flowers, but come mid-morning when the sun is out and temperatures have warmed, one plant can fill your garden with fragrance. Cut some of these bloom clusters for a vase indoors and your entire space will be scented with a classic old-fashioned rose fragrance.

How to Grow Rose 'Perle d'Or'

This tough heat- and drought-tolerant shrubby rose will grow 4-5 ft tall (usually gets to 5 feet for me in my long growing season). When planning for space, plant 'Perle d'Or' 6-feet on center.

Plants are cold hardy in USDA Zones 6-9. Unlike many less-heat tolerant roses, this rose prefers to be kept on the dryer side once fully established, so don't place it where there will be a lot of supplemental irrigation. Plants are very drought tolerant once established.

As with any rose, it needs a full sun location (at least 6 hour a day, more is better!). While plants are highly tolerant of typical rose diseases such as black spot, powdery mildew, or botrytis - and you really won't see a lot of this on these plants - good air circulation and keeping irrigation water off the foliage is always best practice.

Sure, you can follow the same rose pruning practices for this plant, but it's not required to get a bounty of blooms. If you need to reduce it's size, you can prune 30-50% of the plant back (but I rarely ever prune this cultivar this heavy) in late-winter/early spring (when it time in your area). Normally I only do about a 20% reduction, mostly just removing any dead or unsightly growth from the previous year. I will strip off any left over foliage that doesn't look good. But again, these plants are very resilient and you don't need to do much. Fertilize at the same time.

In mid-August (in hot climates) you can lightly prune again (and fertilize), deadhead, remove any stressed foliage, and plants will burst into bloom again in September.

But I'm going to be straight with you...this rose, along with several other Earth-Kind roses, I mostly ignore...and rarely do all the timely pruning...and they still look beautiful, and smell divine.

If you really want to keep plants in constant bloom, you can deadhead or pinch off spent blooms as they fade. BUT again, it's not totally necessary for this rose...it just keeps things looking a bit tidier.

Breeding History

This tough, beautiful, fragrant rose was originally bred in France by Dubreuil and introduced by Rambaux. It is a hybrid cross between R. polyantha and rose ‘Mme. Falcot’. You might hear it referred to as “Yellow Cecile Brunner” or “The Buttonhole Rose”, although I think these references have become fairly rare.

Less Trees Equal More Tornados

Prevent Tree Damage with Proper Pruning

Ok folks...after the latest tornado to spin through Dallas proper, it's time to talk urban heat island and preventative tree care. Unpruned, poorly and over-pruned trees are no match for 70-80 mile an hour winds. And you know this is only going to get worse, right?

With all the building going on in the DFW....more roads, more concrete, more roofs, more hardscape...we're only becoming a bigger heat sink. Without more greenscaping and tree canopy, the urban heat island problem continues to worsen. The hotter it gets here, the more extreme and frequent the intense weather events; such as destructive thunder storms, floods, and tornadoes. We've already witnessed that first hand the last few years.

To begin mitigating the heat sink issue here in DFW, we need to get another 250,000 trees planted. But with every major storm we have, we lose more tree canopy. After having lost power for a week, I'm now back at my house and checking out the neighborhood damage. As I walked my neighborhood and around White Rock Lake this morning, the extensive tree destruction all around us is so disheartening. And what's even worse, much of the tree damage and loss could have been prevented with good tree care and structural pruning.

But Professional Tree Pruning is too Expensive!

Neighbor's trees split in storm
PC: Leslie F. Halleck

Unfortunately, most homeowners just don't want to have their trees pruned. Or, they don't want to pay someone qualified to do it RIGHT. All those guys in trucks running around with ladders and chainsaws sticking tree pruning cards on your door? Sad to say, but most of those guys have no idea what they are doing when it comes to tree structure and physiology. Sure, they know how to use power tools, but that's about it. What they are doing is a huge amount of damage to your trees, which actually makes them significantly weaker and susceptible to damage in storms. And sure, they may be nice and you might like dealing with them. But that doesn't do you much good when your tree splits down the middle or falls on your house in the next storm.

A lot of the tree damage - and fallen trees - I see is also due to rot or disease that has gone unnoticed or undiagnosed because the trees have never been inspected by a professional.

So you can pay a little more upfront to have your trees cared for (and saved) by a professional who knows what they are doing - and have a healthier tree that's much more likely to be saved from storm damage; OR you can "save" a little up front with random landscape crews running around trying to get your tree business; but it will cost you a lot more on the back end when you have significant storm damage and or lose your tree/s altogether.

Large fallen tree showing large areas of internal decay
PC: Leslie F. Halleck

No More Broccoli Trees!

All those "broccoli trees" those guys are creating around town... you know, the ones that are heavily limbed up and all the inner branches are removed so you can get more sun to that scraggly patch of useless lawn? Yeah, those trees are far more susceptible to storm damage because all the canopy weight has been left at the very ends of the branches...weighing them down and increasing the chances they'll snap in a storm.

The term used more frequently in the industry for this type of bad pruning is "lion's tailing"

An example of lion's tail pruning, or a broccoli tree! This type of pruning is a recipe for disaster for your tree...and no small patch of lawn is worth it...

Texas Trees Foundation Urban Heat Island Study

Study Highlights

• Tree planting and preservation in Dallas can change the weather – producing cooler days and nights than will occur if tree canopy continues to be lost.

• The benefits of greening strategies can be as high as 15°F of cooling in some areas on hot summer days.

• Tree planting and preservation can save lives when implemented in concert with more reflective roofing and paving materials, with these combined strategies found to reduce the number of deaths from hot weather by more than 20%.

• Tree planting and preservation was found to be more than 3.5 times as effective in lowering temperatures as cool materials strategies.

• Dallas can achieve significant cooling and health benefits by planting 250,000 trees

Urban Heat Island Management Study, Dallas 2017

Personal Accountability & Responsibility

As a Certified Professional Horticulturist who has managed tons of landscapes and trees over the years, and worked along side with experienced arborists who know what they are doing, I'm begging you take better care of your established trees. Proper preventative pruning - that doesn't remove too much canopy and respects structural integrity and physiology of the tree - not only helps you keep strong valuable trees on your property but is also a more sustainable practice that helps increase our much needed urban tree canopy. In the face of intense climate change that's playing out before our eyes, it's the logical and responsible thing to do.

A big reason power was down so long in Dallas was due to vegetation down on lines. So the next time the power is down for a week due to mostly "vegetation" don't get mad at the city...don't get mad at the crews working hard to get it back up. How about as residents we focus on proper management of the trees on our own properties first? That means:

• Do not plant trees in city easements under power lines. Not only are you not supposed to do that in the first place, but most of you aren't having those trees properly pruned AND you're all screaming to high heaven when the power company has to send their contractors out to "butcher" them...if that's you, you probably shouldn't scream when your power is out because that tree lost branches and took down power lines. If you insist on planting trees in the easement, make sure their mature size is shorter than the power lines...that means NO LIVE OAKS. And know that if you do plant in a parkway/easement, you are responsible for maintaining the tree to code, even though it becomes the city's property.
  
  
• Have your trees inspected at least every 2-3 years by an experienced certified arborist, or certified professional horticulturist, and have preventative pruning performed to prevent damage. If you have a lot of large trees, I'd recommend scheduling an annual inspection. You may not need pruning that often, but other issues may be found in an inspection.
  
  
• If you have large trees on your property that are adjacent to lines, or are on your alley near lines, know the pruning code. You may have your own tree company prune tree growth that is 6-feet or farther away from power lines; they can also prune your trees near your house service drop line connection (you are responsible for pruning clearance around the service drop, not the city or powerline company). BUT you may not prune, or have your own company prune, tree growth that is within 6-feet of power lines. You must call the company that manages the power lines (such as Oncor) first to report pruning needs and they will send their contractors out to prune. Know that in this situation you don't get to decide HOW the tree is pruned. Whatever growth is encroaching on the lines will get pruned away...and yes, that might mean half the tree canopy and that's just how it us. Otherwise, those branches could take down your power lines.
  • Remember, the trees on your property are just that - your property. You are responsible for their care, not the city.
    
  • Remember, before you plant a tree, look up for power lines and call the “Call Before You Dig" toll-free line at 1-800-344-8377 to locate any buried power lines.
    
    
• Right Plant, Right Place....when planting new trees, know the mature size, both height and canopy (crown) width, of the tree species you're planting. If there are powerlines nearby, make sure the tree you're planting won't grow to impede them. We also need more species diversity in DFW, and most smaller urban lots won't accommodate live oaks so it's good to look at other tree species (not to mention live oaks can be seriously damaged in the severe extended freezes we get here in DFW every few years -and the consequences of such damage may not manifest until years later). Here is a list of trees and sizes from the City of Dallas.
  
  
• Tree Pruning Pick Up by the City: It's not the city's job to pick up all the trimmings or downed tree remains when you have tree work done. It's YOURS- that is part of the cost of tree pruning and removal. Good tree companies will chip and haul away all debris for composting. They will NOT dump it on your easement. Dallas has limitations on when and how much brush you can put out so be prepared for a citation and fee if you overload them with your entire tree.
  
  
  • Bulky Trash Pick Up Storm Schedule: This could take months folks, as it has in the past. Residents are being asked to HOLD any non-storm related bulky trash. Remember Dallas also has volume limitations now on bulky trash. You may get lucky and they'll pick up your excess without a fine this time, but don't count on it and don't get mad. We all have to pay for social services, which this is.

Some FAQs from the Dallas City Tree Code - Note maintenance requirements of the parkway adjacent property owner.

Property Rights: Who is responsible for pruning?

I'm adding this section into the original post due to some questions I received. Depending your your city code, this information may vary - but here in Texas, any tree growth hanging over your property line is yours to prune. I'd recommend you taking full responsibility for your trees and paying for all the pruning/care to be done by qualified professionals. But that means you need to have good open communication with your neighbor and work together to keep your trees healthy.

Question: "One thing you did not address is when to trim neighbors' trees hanging over one's house or property. Also, if the homeowner has a universal right to trim her own tree growing over the property line, does that extend to the arborist she hires? What happens if she hires an arborist and the neighbor threatens them away from trimming her trees which are growing onto his property? Etc.!"

My Answer: Legally anything hanging over your property line is yours to prune at your discretion (and vice versa for your neighbor), which can be problematic for the health of the tree if the neighbor who doesn't "own" the tree, applies extreme/poor pruning. I have large trees for which 50% of the canopy extends over my neighbor's property line and roof. Being a professional, I told them from the get go I needed to manage my own trees- I would pay for all the pruning, if they would let my crews onto their property to prune and clear their roof line. Yes, I have to bear the full cost for the pruning, but it's the only way to keep the trees healthy. I work with my neighbor to give them notice about when pruning crews will be coming and need access, and they let me know if they feel there are any issues. Legally, your neighbor doesn't have to let your arborist onto their property to prune what hangs over their property line - so it takes having good communication with your neighbor to negotiate that. But it is what's best for trees overall!

DFW Pros I can Recommend

This is not a sponsored post and I've spoken to no one about listing them here. Consider this a Public Service Announcement!

Dallas/Fort Worth: Personally, with my own trees (which have never had any storm damage), I've worked with Scott Dahlberg and his dedicated crews -first with Preservation Tree Services, and now Tree Tech. I've also worked professionally with Scott for many years with clients and properties I've managed. Preservation Tree was also my client for almost 10 years.

Other experienced and qualified companies I can personally recommend (in no particular order):

Sam Hill Tree Care

Arborilogical Services

SaveATree

Bartlett's Tree Experts

Texas Tree Surgeons

Davey Tree

Note: These tree care companies will likely be overrun with storm damage assistance requests - they will prioritize existing customers first so you may need to be patient. But once a customer you'll be able to get faster service in the future.

Interested in transitioning from plant passion to practice and profession?

Interested in transitioning from plant passion to practice and profession? Starting your own plant-based business, improving a green industry business you’ve already started, or are currently employed in the horticulture industry and want professional development and advancement opportunities?

Exciting news! I’ve just signed on the dotted line to create and teach two horticulture business courses through UCLAx. Both courses can be taken either in sequence or individually, depending on your needs. Each course will be 6-weeks, online and asynchronous (to be more flexible with your schedules) and with weekly live Zoom office hours with me as a group or scheduled one-on-one as needed. This week I’m starting to build the first course so please chime in if there are specifics you’d love to cover!

Course 1 (Fall ’24) “The Business of Horticulture” will introduce the green industry and its inner workings and the basics of starting and running business operations as they relate to the horticulture industry. We’ll cover some basics of financials, bidding and contracts, customer relations, sales, staffing, and marketing in the context of the horticulture industry. We’ll also work on an initial business plan project if you’re starting a new business.

Course 2 (Winter ’25): “The Business of Selling Plants” will focus on the basics of buying and selling plants (as a grower and reseller) and we will be covering legalities, how to manage live inventory, learn savvy buying and inventory skills, plant pricing, sales, and marketing.

These are of course just quick descriptions of each, and if you know me or have taken one of my courses, you know you’re going to get a lot of information and guidance.

Both courses will be interdisciplinary, meaning they are for those who aspire to work in or own their own business in the fields of garden design, garden center/plant shop retail, horticulturist, landscape maintenance, landscape architecture, plant growing, plant stylists, plantrepreneurs, arborists, and all allied trade. We can tailor conversations around everyone's individual disciplinary needs.

The courses are open enrollment: you don’t have to be a UCLA student, anyone, from anywhere, can enroll. You can take the courses for credit, pass/not pass, or not-recorded as simply continuing education. If you are a UCLA student, or are pursuing the Horticulture Certificate or Landscape Architecture Certificate in the UCLAx Horticulture program each 6-week course will be worth 2-credits. You can also hit your employer up for continuing education benefits!

Course 1 starts September 24, 2024 and ends Nov. 5th; registration opens July 29th.

More details to come, as well as course links, as I get further into development, and we get the course descriptions and syllabus up online. I’ll post links once we get to that point, but please feel to contact me with questions.

You know, the Zone 5 Mafia right? You gotta watch out for ‘em! Look, I say this all with a giggle all in good fun (this is an industry insider’s joke I didn’t make up), but the reality is a TON of generalized accepted gardening information, recommendations, schedules, instruction, assertions, plant introductions, plant tags, etc. come to us from Zone 5/6 gardeners (discussions of zones another time), researchers and educators.

But the reality is that often such information is totally irrelevant or inaccurate for those of us living in huge regions around the rest of the country; and especially those of us who live in extreme, hot climates, with challenging soils and a very different plant palette, both native and introduced.

Be mindful when seeking out gardening and plant information (or designers and LAs) to remember you often need to get zip code local, and may need to make a lot of changes/substitutions to a technique, recommendation, timing, plant choices, that’s coming to you from someone who has no experience in your environment (me included).

So don’t get frustrated if certain recommendations haven’t worked for you…it may not be FOR you! Or for your particular environmental conditions, both outdoors and indoors. . .

Why is My Yucca Plant Turning Yellow?

It's spring, and many of your plants are pushing out new growth and blooming. But your yucca plant, on the other hand, has started turning yellow! What's going on? Well, you might need to take a closer look at the leaves because you MIGHT just have a few uninvited guests dropping by to suck them dry!

Yucca plant bugs Halticotoma valida (order Hemiptera), which are cousins to other sucking insects such as stink bugs (but much tinier), have already been out in force on my yucca plants for a good month already this spring. I usually try to stay on top of it but I’ve been busy…so the REALLY yellow foliage color today really caught my attention.

Yucca plant bugs are in the order Hemiptera and are related to other sucking pests such as stink bugs and leaf-footed bugs, but are much smaller. Both stages of the insect pierce plant tissue and suck out water and nutrients. This leaves small black dots and a progressive chlorosis (yellowing) of the foliage.

How to Treat Yucca Plant Bugs

Now, I usually don’t treat them - nature usually takes it’s course and my plants are fine; but I’d say this is the worst I’ve seen them. It’s been a particularly cool and humid spring and that’s meant a boom in insect populations.

Due to the severe impact the infestation is now having on the plants, I’ll probably try hitting them with a rotation of alternating insecticidal soap and horticultural oils. But, you really have to get good coverage for these to work as they smother the pests they come in contact with.

There’s no need for me (in this context) to use anything stronger or a systemic pesticide, as again, usually the yuccas pull through with no treatment. In fact, I’ll probably just start with a hard water blast from the hose.

Want better results when starting seeds indoors?

When starting seeds indoors, it's important to manage several environmental conditions...one of those being humidity during germination and sprouting.

When seeds germinate, and the initial but shoot and root initial (radical) emerges, that seedling doesn't yet have root branching or root hairs with which to take up water and nutrients yet. It's surviving off of the resources stored in the seed.

So as the seedling emerges it can quickly shrivel and die if the relative humidity in the space is too low (especially if temperatures around the seedlings are warm or hot due to close grow lights).

You'll need to keep relative humidity (RH) pretty high - around 60% - to keep your young seedlings healthy. You'll need to maintain this RH for several weeks, at least until the seedlings put on their first set of true leaves. Now, this is relative also the species you're growing. Even so, when you're germinating cactus seeds and seedlings, you'll still find higher humidity is going to get you the best results.

Same goes for when you're germinating microgreens seeds.

So, how do you manage to temporarily keep RH high around you seedlings to get them off to a good start? Use a humidity dome!

PC: Leslie F. Halleck

Many humidity domes have top or side vents. After the seeds have germinated and begin growing or cuttings begin to root, you can open the vents to slowly reduce humidity. If too much water begins condensing inside the dome, or you keep the humidity dome on too long, fungal diseases or rot could set in. So if you're using a humidity dome with no vents, you may need to take it off for short periods of time now and then.

Some humidity domes come in taller sizes with a vent you can open and close to conserve or vent moisture and heat. I prefer to use tall humidity domes with vents because it makes moisture management easier, allowing you to grow the seedlings under cover for longer.

If you're germinating a smaller group of seeds, say in a single pot or cup, you can use clear plastic cups turned upside down, or even plastic bags, as a humidity dome. You can also use glass jars or cloche.

If you want to learn more about successful seed starting, check out my book "Plant Parenting" where I guide you step-by-step!

Is your cutting only growing roots with no shoots?

Plant propagation is pretty popular these days. Much of the latest houseplant craze was fueled by a couple specific plants: coin plant (Pilea peperomioides) and fiddle leaf fig (Ficus lyrata). Once more plant parents got their hands on these plants, they of course wanted to try propagating them. But wouldn't you know, not all vegetable plant cuttings are alike, and these two species just happened to throw a lot of first time propagators for a loop. When people tried taking leaf cuttings of both of these species, they may have gotten roots on their cuttings....but never a bud shoot!

Why?

Blind cuttings.

An important thing to know about leaf cuttings is that just because a certain plant can easily develop a callus or adventitious roots on a leaf, petiole, or stem section, it may not be able to develop a new adventitious bud or shoot from that same location. In fact, some leaf cuttings can survive on their roots for a very long time, yet never develop a new bud or shoot. We call these blind cuttings. You'll also see this same phenomenon in Hoya kerrii or heartleaf hoya.

The petiole of this fiddle leaf fig plant can develop roots, but it won’t develop a new bud shoot.
PC: Leslie F. Halleck

Totipotency in Plants

Did you know that not every part or tissue (cell) of every plant can grow roots, or shoots, or both? In each species, each part of the plant - be it the stem, the petiole, or the leaf, each have (or do not have) a particular type of reproductive potential or potency. A seed is an example of plant tissue that has totipotency. That means it contains ALL the necessary genetic information to differentiate into EVERY different type of tissue that plant species will develop. But some plant tissues are pluripotent or multipotent, meaning they may be able to differentiate into some different tissues, not all.

Coin plant, fiddle leaf fig, and heartleaf hoya (to name just a few popular species) won't develop new bud shoots from leaf-petiole cuttings alone. (and none can be propagated just from a leaf cutting). The petiole tissue (the small stem that connects the leaf to the main stem) can differentiate into new root tissue. But not new bud tissue. There needs to be at least some main stem meristem cells attached to the petiole in order to form new bud tissue.

In fact, some leaf cuttings can survive on their roots for a very long time, yet never develop a new bud or shoot.

So if a few of you say "oh you're wrong, MY Hoya kerrii leaf-petiole cutting DID make a new but shoot!" that's likely because there was at least a small piece of main stem tissue still attached to the petiole. It's all about the different types of meristematic tissue that are present in each plant tissue, and that's species specific. (try and take a leaf petiole cutting from your citrus plant and it won't root at all).

And THIS my, plant friends is also why vegetative cuttings of variegated plants that are chimeras (for example variegated Monstera deliciosa) is so difficult. It all comes down to which cells happen to have the genetic code for the variegation (which you won't be able to discern) and are those cells included in the cutting you took.

If you want to learn more about how to take and grow cuttings of your plants, check out my book "Plant Parenting", and if you want to dig deeper into the science of plants and botany, you can join me in my UCLA Botany for Gardeners course.