Yuccas or Sotols!?!

My segment on how to care for yuccas will be on TWCNews Austin and San Antonio this Saturday. It was a fun segment to shoot- my producer/cameraman/editor extrordinaire, Drew, was blown away by the before and after comparison of the "yuccas" I pruned. I am learning more about the different types of yuccas we have in Texas. I had a long conversation last year with Max at Barton Springs Wholesale and he explained some of the differences. I was trying to decide what type of yucca I was pruning today- thinking maybe it was Yucca rostrata aka Big Bend Yucca or Beaked Yucca, but it just occurred to me that maybe those are a type of thornless sotol! The flower looks more like a sotol flower because it didn't have showy white petals/sepals. So, color me embarrassed! I'm going to ask around and look at the original plan for that garden to see if they are named on the plan. If you know what they are tweet me @colleendieter #yuccasotol. 

This is a 'before' photo of a softleaf yucca-

Yucca recurvifolia-

 prior to pruning.  

Here is the softleaf yucca after I pruned it.  

It's a disease-y year

Today I felt like I was talking about plant diseases all day long. Fungal problems on oak leaves, bacterial issues on redbud leaves, root rot on rosemary and other herbs, redbud trees loosing huge branch portions, more fungus on St Augustine grass, rust on mealy blue sage. The excessive rain we have been enjoying is the main cause of most of these problems, along with high humidity between rain events so that nothing is drying out. But most of these issues are happening in yards with poorly draining chocolate or sandy loam soil. In some cases the problems are on older plants that are near the end of their lives anyway. I'm really pushing the use of areobic compost tea to help with these problems. It helps improve the soil by encouraging soil microbial life. The little microbes move around in the soil and they make heavy, gummy clay soil more pourous so water can drain out faster and more air can get to the roots. This makes for a healthier soil system and happier plants that are more disease resistant. Anyway it is a bummer that this year and last year were both weirdly rainy and caused all kinds of fungal growth and bacterial diseases. In most cases it is most economical to remive ailing plants and replace them with something different. Make sure you add lots of compost to the soil when you plant something new to help improve drainage. 

Pink skullcap was one of the plants that fell ill this year and last year, especially older, unkempt plants like the one in this photo. Symptoms of root rot include entire branches dying suddenly, and the dead branches pull off the plant very easily. 

Pruning Palm Trees

I recently did a TWCnews Austin segment about pruning palm trees. The trees I pruned in the segment are dwarf sabal palms aka Sabal minor. You can use that method on all kinds of palms though. I was really surprised when I started pruning them and saw there were more than two trunks in there! I thought there were only two trees in that group but then I saw there were four! No wonder that bunch all looked so messy. I am not sure if the folks who planted them put that many in close together or if the palms had started growing pups. Lots of palm trees can grow multiple trunks, especially the Mediterranean Fan Palm aka Chamaerops humilis,  but I didn't know our little native dwarf sabals could do that. So that is kinda cool. Luckily I didn't run into any roaches in there. Have you ever heard any Texans affectionately refer to big Texas roaches as "Palmetto Bugs"? It's because they often live in palm trees because they like the dry, dead leaves for habitat.  That name makes them sound so quaint... I didn't mind them when I first moved to Austin 15 years ago, but then I listened to this episode of Stuff You Should Know and it really changed my mind about them. They can run so fast that they can lift up the front of their bodies to run on two legs!!!! Aaaaaaarrrrreeeeeewwww! Usually when I learn more about something it makes me less afraid of it but that episode had the opposite effect. I'm happy to see them in my compost pile now and then though so I know they are eating stuff and breaking it down for me.     

I like Grumpy Cat.