Dormancy, flitting visitors, and food for extinct elephants
seasonal notes
January 2021
APPRECIATE THE SEASON
It’s winter. January always feels like a strange time for us gardeners—there is this sense that you should be preparing for a season change soon. Perhaps you will start some seeds indoors (or in a greenhouse or coldframe if you have one) of tomatoes, peppers, or squash for early transplant outdoors. This is especially helpful for those long season crops which take some time before they fruit.
But, it’s still very much the cool season. You can still plant many crops from seed or transplant—all those greens, root crops, parsley, cilantro, dill, it’s all still on the menu. And you should really relish the cool season. It’s easy to forget how much easier winter gardening is relative to warm-season gardening. Winter crops are tidy, and take up a predictable amount of space. And those salads!
FEEDING IN WINTER
We get asked a lot about what the feeding schedule should be in the winter. The conventional advice is not to feed until spring for fear of stimulating new growth on plants. But this advice was made for people who use synthetic fertilizers. Synthetic fertilizers DO stimulate new growth—think of them as akin to drinking a big old pot of strong coffee. You receive energy immediately. But that dose goes away as quickly as it came.
Organic fertilizers work differently. Slower. Organic fertilizers break down naturally and feed the microbes in the soil first, and the results of that activity is food for your plants. Organic fertilizers don’t inspire growth right away. This is sometimes a bummer for a gardener who wants to SEE the results of their input. But we recommend patience, and keeping in mind that feeding microbes is an important aspect of repairing the damage humans do to soil. It is far better for plants to get their nutrition this way too.
While we are on the subject, we should probably mention that you should avoid, and beware of, “organic” fertilizers (notice the quotes) that also have ammonium phosphate or some other synthetic in them. Businesses know that people want to do the right thing, but they also know that people love to see immediate results of their efforts. So some fertilizers are marketed as being organic or natural, but really aren’t. It should be noted that synthetic fertilizers provide nutrients in unnatural concentrations that kill most microbes—thus the inorganic part of those so-called “organic” fertilizers defeats the whole purpose of feeding organically. One indicator that a fertilizer may not be truly organic is that its N-P-K numbers (the three numbers on the packaging that indicate the relative amount of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium offered by the product) are high. Most organic fertilizers have N-P-K ratings like 5-1-2 or 8-4-1. If you see something like 20-15-10, be wary. And purchase your fertilizers from people you trust.
And just remember that there is no short cut. Making your soil healthy for plants (whether for a native shrub, or your vegetable garden) takes time and patience.
THEM BIRDS THO!
January is the time when birds really start to get active. It’s almost torture. I mean, it’s still cold in the morning. But lately, I hear bird calls (why do they have to be such morning animals?) and I wanna crawl out of bed to see what they are. But it’s chilly. It means I have to put on pants, and even a jacket or sweater. The conflict! But I’ve been doing it. This morning I heard a call I haven’t heard in a long time. It was vaguely familiar, but I just couldn’t place it. I got outside and up in the canyon hackberry tree were a female and male cardinal. These are usual visitors in our yard, but this call was different—obviously a courting call judging by their behavior.
The birds are a riot right now. All our resident birds are more active—the mockingbirds with their endless John Coltrane-like solos, the riotous rumbles of the goldfinches, and the meddlesome verdin are all feeling the cool season’s foreshadowing of spring. But we have some unusual visitors this time of year too, birds that often hang out in the mountains in summer but enjoy our warmth in the winter. Phainopepla come down for the mistletoe. You might see raptors mating in the air, or wintering water fowl in the various ponds and other water sources. But you may also see some other birds that are not quite as common, some migratory visitors you may notice right now in your yard, if you keep your eyes peeled:
Ruby-Crowned Kinglet (Regulus calendula)
In the summer they’re in the mountains. They usually breed in the Pinaleño Mountains, but can be found in any of our mountain areas when it’s scorching hot in the Tucson basin. In winter, however, they are hopping around in large shrubs and trees restlessly hunting for insects. They don’t always show their red “crown” and may be mistaken for a Hutton’s vireo, but have the white eye ring, and prominent white wing bars set against a black patch.
Yellow Rumped Warbler (Setophaga coronata)
Yellow-rumped Warblers come in two forms, the Myrtle form with a white throat and the Audubon's form with a yellow throat (ours is the Audubon’s). Like the ruby crowned kinglet, they are also active, flitting, insectivorous birds, preferring trees, especially near any riparian areas. But they drop through our yards in Tucson often in the winter. Every time I see one in my yard, it has just rained. Not sure how much we’ll see these in our yard this year, but I won’t give up on hope for that rain.
BACK TO THE GARDEN
It’s not always easy to prune back something this pretty.
January is generally an ok time to start pruning—nothing crazy. But those perennials that froze back a month ago, and those grasses that you’ve been letting look wintery for the while, they can be pruned back. We especially encourage you to prune grasses soon. Don’t wait until there’s a whole bunch of new growth, and cut the actively growing leaf blades, they will look weird for a while. We see this especially in summer when people, for whatever reason, decide THEN is the time to prune their grasses, and they just look terrible for months. Many grasses will not need to be pruned. You really only need to cut back the grasses that look like they need a refreshing—some grasses are evergreen and only need to be cut back every four years or so. Sometimes a young, evergreen grass can look brown in its first winter. You can cut that back. In general, don’t overthink it—if it looks like it needs a haircut, snip away. Leave a few inches from the ground.
DORMANCY, DEATH, REBIRTH?
Lots of our plants go dormant in winter. Dormancy looks different for different plants. Some turn bright colors and drop their leaves dramatically. Some only drop a few leaves and look a little yellow. Some plants just look sick or even dead. Often, people unfamiliar with the seasons of a plant, mistake it for being sick or dead this time of year. Many of the milkweeds (Asclepias spp.) for example, go dormant in winter. They will look like they dried up and died. But under the ground, they are active, and preparing for reemergence in spring. Some pop up right away in late winter (which feels like spring to some of these high elevation species). Others wait until May. Be patient, and don’t forget where you planted those dormant plants, especially the ones that leave no above-ground remnants.
This milkweed looks very dead, but is just dormant.
FRUITS FOR ELEPHANTS?
The other day Katy and I were walking around the University of Arizona campus. It has been a while since I’ve specifically went there looking at plants. You see, many years ago people in various plant-related departments planted very interesting plants, some native, many not. But certainly they planted some botanical curiosities. I used to keep close tabs on these plants. But the years have gone by, I’ve been distracted with other things, and frankly, I’m afraid to see how many cool plants were destroyed by all the development.
Many of the plants are still there. Some really need some love (some nutrition). But many persist. And yes, many have succumbed to the ever expanding university expansion or sometimes plain neglect.
Calabash tree, and my finger
We found one of my favorite plants still there, and still alive, and it’s a weirdo. Upon first glance, the calabash tree (Crescentia alata) has some overbearing religious motifs going on. The leaves look like crosses, and since this small tree is native to southern Mexico, south throughout Latin America, you know it has a lot of stories and myths regarding its cross-bearing foliage.
But that’s just the start of it. This plant is in the Bignoniaceae family, which is the same family as desert willow (Chilopsis linearis), yellow bells (Tecoma stans), and a number of vines used in landscaping in Tucson—not too weird. But instead of the usual bell-shaped flower one expects of the family, this freak is cauliflorous which means the flowers emerge not from the twigs like most plants, but from the trunk. And the flowers look like weird mouths.
Weirder yet, it produces a cannonball sized gourd-like fruit that is very difficult to break into. It is suggested that a very large animal called Gomphotheres (extinct elephant-like creature) may have previously been responsible for the dispersal of C. alata seeds. With their extinction, the calabash tree became threatened with the possibility of habitat loss and suffered an extremely limited ability to migrate, but the introduction of domestic horses has allowed the species to maintain its viability—horses can stomp on the shells and eat the seeds.
The tree on UA campus blooms often (in the warm season), but I’ve never seen it, or heard of it, fruiting. I’m not sure if it needs another individual to pollinate the flowers, or if the pollinator isn’t present (it is known to be pollinated by bats). Our UA individual has suffered some severe frost damage over the years but always grows back. You can find it on the southeast side of the UA Main Library, tucked in a nice, protective microclimate (surrounded on three sides by walls).
I am not sure if we will ever grow this plant, but if I got my hands on seeds, I would have a hard time preventing myself from doing so.
