Devils Tongue, Eastern Prickly Pear

My journey as a plantsman and a nurseryman has taken many turns over the years. Most may not understand this next statement but most of the plants I grow I did not choose but rather they chose me. Many times I have ended up coming home with cuttings or seed of something completely different than what I intended and I still grow some of them to this day. 

The mention of Cactus can cause some to think of vampires, misery, pain even alien abductions. I have heard countless stories from people that fell into or onto a Cactus from a window, bicycle or while hiking the Grand Canyon. I have met and corresponded with many wonderful people all over the United States even the world that I never would have if I did not have the desire to grow and offer these interesting plants. I am growing several species from across the United States that are cold hardy for our winters in North Carolina. But our most common native  Cactus of the eastern USA Opuntia humifusa or Eastern prickly pear or Devils tongue is a very good landscape plant.And it is not quiet as fierce as it's sisters. Cactus are remarkable plants, alien in most respects to other flora. They have adapted to dry places, some with varying temperatures from winter to summer. Eastern prickly pear can be found growing on south to western facing slopes on rocky, sandy soils that drain quickly, it rarely reaches a foot high but can reach three feet wide and ancient plants can grow to wider widths. In the absence of leaves enlarged stems called pads carry out photosynthesis . Cactus has replaced leaves with sharpe spins and have small barbs called glochids. Eastern prickly pear does not have as many spines as most of its kin sometimes almost none but do have glochids. Sometimes the smaller things in life are the worst! Eastern prickly pear has beautiful yellow blooms sometimes with red centers that produce juicy edible fruit once they have been debarbed. The flesh of the fruit can be made into syrup or jelly even candy. The pads or stems are edible also. Native Americans had many uses for the plant as a food and as a medicine .

Eastern prickly pear can be used as a ground cover and makes an excellent container plant. They could even be used in a hanging basket. Some specimens pads turn a very attractive reddish winter color when cold weather comes. They are never boring. They prefer well drained soils and a more neutral ph than most of our native plants . They need low nitrogen fertilizers with higher rates of phosphate and potash. Eastern prickly pear is native to almost every eastern state to Montana and even parts of Canada. Some can survive winter temps well below zero F. Just remember the drainage. This is an easy plant to grow and will thrive if you remember a few rules, mainly don't plant it in shade or a mud hole . You can leave on vacation for several days your prickly pear will be there when you return, while your hosta will be dried up or has ended up as deer chow. 

If you would like to visit Eastern prickly pear in it's natural state and are in North Carolina , Rocky Face park near Hiddenite NC in Alexander county is the best place.    I have found a few specimens in some of the surrounding counties of Wilkes and Surry although they are not officially supposed to be there. A champion of drought tolerance, easy care, long lived and beautiful blooms, decorative edible fruit, what is not to like,

Seven Billion And Counting

Over the last ten years I have had some funny looks, sneers, and laughs about some of the plants and trees I grow at the nursery. As a person dedicated to primarily growing native plants and trees some things I have chosen to grow and offer are not commonly seen at many nurseries or garden centers. That said there are reasons I grow certain things, one I do want to grow plants and trees that will sell! Two I try to offer something that will be good for the buyer and, three something that I can have a clear conscious over and get a good night sleep after I send that plant home with someone. An estimate by the World Bank said we now have 7 billion people on this planet. Now I did not write this to get you to believe in climate change or global warming. But I do know one thing. The people in this world may not want some things we all have but they do want and need water and we just have so much fresh water for all of us. We have been blessed in North Carolina for the most part in my lifetime with ample water. But the years of 2000-2001 and 2006-2007 when we had drought years made me rethink some things. The southwestern United States, parts of the Midwest and even the southeast have had severe droughts of late. This all going on while many here have irrigation systems just to water their lawn grass so they can mow it. I can understand why you water the prize Rhododendron or Japanese Maple, but watering fescue or bermuda grass so it will grow and you can spend valuable time mowing it is a little insane isn't it?
Water may be all around us in the eastern United States but we dont have the infrastructures in place or the will to pay for it to keep up some of this water use long term. We will have droughts. Native plants are better suited for extremes in weather. And they offer benefits to native wildlife as well. The Opuntia or Prickly Pear in the picture may seem odd but it is native to the southeast, it and its relatives of the cactus family are champions of drought tolerance. And many of them are extremely cold hardy, they have beautiful blooms and are not boring, they do need good drainage. We should continue to plant trees but many will not and with more people scaling down they dont have a place to plant a nice shade tree. So if not then think of things like Prickly Pear and native warm season grasses, and other drought tolerant native perennials and shrubs. In the picture you see one culinary use of Prickly Pear. That I will try to touch on at a later date. We have to be smarter about landscaping and stop thinking we have an endless supply of water, because we dont have it. And consider what other uses a plant can offer us in the landscape. The jelly of Prickly Pear is great. We are growing several winter hardy species that have edible fruit. Other native plants have multi uses as well. We should explore them more.

Fall Foliage Interest

A few years back I wrote about propagating Oak Leaf Hydrangea from seed with success. Since then I have even taken cuttings of some of my seedlings. Many of the seedlings have finished growing out of three gallon containers and are now in many of my customers landscape.

Decidous flowering shrubs have a hard acceptance. Many are beautiful when they bloom in the spring or summer for a few weeks but it takes something special for one of them to reach "Rock Star" status in the plant lovers world. Oak Leaf Hydrangea, Hydrangea quercifolia is one that has reached that status for some and should be for more folks. Oak Leaf Hydrangea comes as close as a year interest plant as any deciduous shrub. Besides the large elongated white blooms in late spring and early summer fall is a season that the shrub shines as much if not more. The leathery foliage turns shades of garnet with sometimes a hint of scarlet or orange mixed in. With its thick leaves the color and leaves often last on the shrub until January. A southeastern native, Oak Leaf Hydrangea is hardy throughout the South and cold hardy throughout much of the Midwest and the Northeast. Here in North Carolina it can tolerate full sun through most of the day but is better with a half day of sun and shade. Which time of day it receives either exposure does not seem to matter. They can also be happy in almost full shade. If you have never given Oak Leaf Hydrangea a try let me convince you more.

Holly Jolly

This time of year makes us reflect on the happenings and our blessings from the past year. This year I entered social media on Twitter and on Facebook and I have met online and or in person some wonderful people in the horticulture field. A couple of which I want to mention is Anna (Flowergardengirl) Looper who is a joy of a person and Sheri Lee Pierce who was one is not the first person I followed on Twitter. Sheri Lee is formulater and owner of Paradise City Herbal in Northampton MA. She helped cultivate my interest in my newest favorite native plant the American Elderberry. And also Jackie Cross late of the state of Florida but native to TN who is an excellent garden writer, blogger and friend. and last but not least Michelle Tune (The Raw juice girl who coached me over the internet one day and saved my my burned hand, thank you for being there Michelle.

The plant that really drove my interest in natives back in 1993 was the yellow berried American Holly(Ilex opaca).Of course my interest in this plant was due not only to the odd but cheerful berry color but to the fact that I love winter interest plants probably more than others because they brighten up our winter landscape. One day back in 1993 a friend and myself drove an 8 hour round trip just to obtain a yellow berried American Holly from the then President of the American Holly society Hal Elmore in Knoxville TN. Hal didn't think we were crazy since he was a holly nut himself. The yellow berried form of American holly is rare and is mostly found in parts of North Carolina, Virginia and other southeastern states. Several specimens have been registered and named by the American Holly society. Some of the more famous ones and better ones to grow are Longwood(original tree at Longwood Gardens) Morgan Gold and Canary. Longwood was my first purchase and is my favorite. Yellow berried American hollies are identical in growth habit and looks to the red berried forms we are most familiar with except that the yellow ones in my experience may be a little slower than the red although that may not always be the case. Either way don't ever turn up your nose at this gem because it is a different color for they do stand out.

Last while I have this opportunity I want to thank all of my family and friends for being supportive to me in this year full of changes and moves. And especially my daughters and for Donna, who gave me a breathe of life again and showed me that I was maybe not quiet as crazy as I thought I was and for putting up with me pulling over on the side of the road to take a picture or to ask for seeds for some plant that I see. Happy Holidays everyone and thank you for reading.

Bliss

Defeat and rejection are some of the challenges of life to overcome. Only when we have experienced some of these disappointments then and only then can we truly appreciate when we succeed or our goal has been achieved or the lost love we have secretly kept hidden in our heart returns. People want that feeling in there lives but only certain moments in life usually do they get to experience that feeling. Drugs, illegal and legal, have been searched out through time to give us that feeling that we wish for so much when we cannot find that feeling through experiences or feelings on our own.

I have recently been moving my nursery to a new location and while overlooking the property we were out walking to see if we could discover any unusual plant features in the property. What we found were an unusual amount of Sassafras trees on the old fence line. Sassafras albidum is one of the oldest species of trees in the world according to the fossil record and is native to the eastern United States. It is unusual for other reasons as well. A single tree can have three distinct types of leaves on it. The tree is usually small but they tend to live for a very long, long, time. They have excellent fall color and can be anything from yellow to bright scarlet red. I have even saw two trees side by side with different color extremes on them. Native Americans and early settlers used the bark of the roots of the Sassafras to make a tonic. This tonic which gave root beer its claim to fame was rumored to be a cure all to what ails the body for that feeling of euphoria if you will, to lift the spirits. It was deemed as a stimulant for tired and weary souls as well as an herb to fight off any other illness. There is an old story that near the coast of the new world with Columbus's crew near mutiny the odor of Sassafras permeated the air and quietened down the crew and land was shortly sited. The national champion tree of the United States is in Owensboro, Kentucky and was saved from a road crew by a lady with a shotgun. The governor pardoned the tree and her. Besides used as a tonic or stimulant the ground and dried leaves of the Sassafras tree is the File in File Gumbo, used in it as seasoning and as a thickener.

While the Sassafras tree does not contain the fountain of youth or the key to happiness the tonic of will never replace the feeling of mutual love, the long awaited kiss, victory or achievement it is a beautiful and very interesting tree and has been on this earth a long, long, time.

Elders Among Us

It has been a while since I last posted. Times are challenging, going through a divorce makes you question many things in life. Through my 46 years growing up and living the nursery industry I have been through many phases and many changes in this business. The nursery industry originally started as a fruit and vegetable plant industry in its early days. In those days most people did not have disposable income to spend just on plant beauty as they were concerned more with just living and trying to survive. As our society prospered after World War 2 and our parents and grand parents struggled to make a better society and a better world they became more concerned during the baby boom of dressing up their landscape with beautiful flowers and green hedges, and less about what kind of food they would try to grow themselves, after all the had the money to just go down to the new chain grocery store to pick up whatever they needed, because it was there and could be bought cheaper than they could grow it.

Today times are changing again with the collapse of our financial system and many American companies failing, with high unemployment and the uncertainty of our future has many thinking about growing more of what they need to eat themselves. A return to the land and of sustainable living is found almost everywhere these days. Not only in topics on the internet through articles and blogs but with crowds and conversations at the local Farmers Market and even the local convenience store and local gas station.

One plant that has come up in many articles and conversations that seems to fit suistainable living to the highest point is our native American Elderberry(Sambuscus Canadensis). Native to the lower eastern half of the United States it has been overlooked as a landscape plant and somewhat forgotten as a fruit crop at least for family and individual use. I am no Elderberry expert but I am learning also. With one purchase of Elderberry jelly from one of my neighbor vendors at my local farmers market I was hooked. Herbalist friends on Twitter and Facebook taught the herbal, nutritional and health uses of the Elders fruit. It has many benefits and have even more nutritional value than blueberries. It is a great looking plant as well. Perhaps when we face hard times perhaps we should go back and listen to those who have lived through hard times and listen to them instead of thinking we know better, and yes as corny as it sounds respect our Elders. In the photo is my friend 90 year old Mrs Billie Daniels of Harmony North Carolina and her native Elderberry on her property.