Hit the Dirt; Tenacious Plants

This is crack right and they are listening to hit the dirt. It occurred to me that it would be a useful topic to talk about would be to talk about plants that you can use when all else fails and my understanding of American football terminology is correct. This is plots used when the alternatives are to drop back and punt. These are plants that under most circumstances will thrive where everything else has given up on you. The sort of circumstances that these plans are useful and which are not uncommon in Maine which is really hard. You have a hard job finding good soils in Maine anywhere. Poorly drained and poorly educated soils heavy clays this clays are very difficult to work with bad banks where soils have been cut into and you exposed some sort of low grade fill below the topsoil you're trying to vegetate a bad bank. Areas of dry shade are always difficult and areas that get snow and salt the road dumped on them. Those are typical of the situations where. The plant he would like to grow aren't going to make it so here's a few

plants that you might not have heard of as possibilities as alternatives to other over use easy to grow plants that are also are being careful to eliminate from my list anything that could be classified as a junk plant. It's not a sort of last resort plants these are plants with genuine ornamental quality. They just happen to be very tough characters. Now the problem I have with the first two is that I start sounding like some sort of sleaze salesman selling swamp land in Maine as waterfront property because both of these plants are European relatives of plants that in this area are native and really more or less trash plants. I have to go as long as possible without mentioning the name of the first one to get people enthusiastic about understanding what it's going to be. So they are not too shocked when they find out that my first selection of a plant that people should know better and

experiment with more is an alder. It's very hard to get people in Maine to understand all there is an ornamental scent is really over most of Maine a really difficult and invasive nasty weed that has almost no qualities to it at all. But the European although the so-called black Alder has almost gluten oh so also a sticky note is the sticky older is a legitimate. Handsome ornamental tree instead of being their own sort of suckering falls over when he gets to be about 5 years old saying that the native alders are here. It grows to be a real tree. Girls are a central stem with a nice hard shiny rather muscular looking black bark. The winter birds have a rather interesting purplish cast to them which does show up against the snow. The female flowers which open early eventually develop into a rather sort of nutty looking little cone have a sort of purplish hue to them as well which is pretty. They develop beautiful long

lambs tail catkins in the spring. Which comes of pollen and through the summer the tree has a sort of round hard shiny very dark green leaves. The advantage is the European older. Apart from the fact that it is a good looking tree is that it will grow in very poorly rated very poorly drained soils. It will take almost anything has a peculiar tendency to die back the ones that we've planted tend to sort of lose their tops the first winter we've planted them and I can't explain that except that it's only ever happened in the first year after we've planted them there after they get going and get up and grow and turn into a nice small shade tree suitable for a small property. And if there are areas of your yard where you don't want to fight to make the soil suitable to grow. Birches maples beeches things that like a better soil than you may have. I suggest you try. European There's also the Italian Alder which is almost core data has a nice Alder as well. The European Alder has one very beautiful

selected form which has a very finely cut leaf which is as finally cut as the beautiful leaves on the Japanese maples and so it gives the tree this very light and feathery texture and is totally unrecognizable as an alder and if you can find that that is a very classy option as well. Plant number 2 has the same sort of credibility problem because it's native. New England relative is a rather spidery and not altogether valuable ornamental. This is the European large or Tamarac as it's known as here the European large has a lovely tree the large trees are altogether very interesting they are one of the very few deciduous conifers it's a true conifer. So I think cones just like a pine tree but they lose their needles in the winter. Letter X the city or the European large grows too. It's a big tree will grow 800 feet. And it has varying seasons of appeal. The early needles when they come out of these

adorable little sort of tough little bottlebrush the tufts of bright line green needles that run in long strings down the new growth. Those are accompanied by very cute bright pink little female cones which are. The sort of things that get photographed and then used in sort of artsy calendar photographs the bright pink cones again sort of a lime green needles are very very pretty. The cones as they mature become rather sort of hard shiny small decorative very durable little cones at a popular Christmas tree Christmas decoration. Cones you can buy them from the sort of people who sell cones for Christmas crafts people. The European Lodge is a popular one so you can if you grow European large you can harvest your own cones. In the summer the tree is a full thick. Rather pyramid all shaped. Bright green tree whose needles

develop long and very large the fuller and larger than the American large and they're almost stroke all in looks almost like animal hair. You can sort of stand and fumble the tree it's very soft and plush feel to it. When the tree turns color in the fall it's one of its pretty seasons of all it was a bright golden yellow and on a very still frosty morning when the needles are dropping you can hear them falling they make a lot of thinking noises a little bit like the Sprint pin dropping you can hear the little large needles falling down through the tree and they make a lovely golden carpet around the tree in the four way should the needles relatively early they make a beautiful grove many of them planted together have a very sort of still rather spooky effect. It will grow almost anywhere it has a remarkable ability rather like the older of being able to tolerate drought and flooding. There are a lot of plants that will tolerate one or the other. Both the large and the older will take both. One reference I checked just to see whether I had all my facts right suggests that the European lot can't take soil compaction In other words you can't drive trucks

over its roots and have it survive and probably won't like having salt dumped on the roots. But if you can stay away from those two problems it's a very useful tree for poor conditions. So those are my two trees that I like to use under poor conditions. Next week I'll talk about shrubs for similarly difficult situations. This is correct Croyden you've been listening to hit the road.