Herself’s Houston Garden

It would seem trees are not as dumb as they first appear. When wasps try to lay eggs from outside the flower with out pollinating the flower, instead of inside the flower while spreading pollen the trees drop the fruit containing the baby wasps to death.

While trees often drop unpollinated flowers, they will often hold onto the galls containing the wasps and provide themselves with a future generation of pollinators.

Figs and fig wasps have evolved to help each other out: Fig wasps lay their eggs inside the fruit where the wasp larvae can safely develop, and in return, the wasps pollinate the figs.

But what happens when a wasp lays its eggs but fails to pollinate the fig?

The trees get even by dropping those figs to the ground, killing the baby wasps inside, reports a Cornell University and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B (published online Jan. 13). ( read more read more about tree retaliation )

More information
Abstract
Download the paper (pdf)

Fruit trees need frequent proper pruning to reach their full potential.  You’ll want to spend some time once a year, after the fruit finishes and before the new buds appear to give your tree a serious pruning, but don’t let water spouts or crossing branches stay when you find them.

Remember when pruning to step back and circle the fruit tree frequently to see how it looks while you are working.  You want a slighly domed shaped top, and the bottom should look like a steep bowl.

1) Remove water spouts.  Water spouts are branches that grow at 90′ angles to the branch they stem from. They will take all of the nutrients and water away from the rest of the branch if you let them grow.

2) Remove all branches that bend down toward the ground.  Your branches should curve or reach up not down.

3) Remove all branches that cross another branch.  On windy days those crossing branches will rub each other.  This causes breaks in the bark where insects, fungus and bacteria can enter and harm your tree.

4) Thin branches so that sunlight reaches deep into the tree.  Fruit trees especially need lots of sun to grow well and remain healthy.

5) Shape the top just for appearace, cut back to the beginning any branches that stick out too far from the rest.

The branches you remove can be used to propagate new trees.  Cut the branches so that only 3 sets of leaves remain.  Remove the bottom set of leaves.  Dip the bottom of the branch in rooting hormone.  Plant in light soil and keep warm, moist and humid until new growth appears.  Then treat as you would any other young tree.

I first heard about Fireman’s Cap at a lecture I attended for under used plants in Houston. This plant is a hummingbird and other bird attractor. They can’t resist those bright red flowers.

Blooms appear late spring, mine started late May this year. It should bloom through out the summer now. Flowers appear first followed by leaves.

It will reach about 8′ tall with a 5′ spread. Fireman’s Cap can go as high as 20′ tall with a 10′ spread. It is fast growing. I stuck this sorry looking one foot tall twig in the ground in March and you can see how large it is the first of June. It is very fast growing, the branches are almost vine like when they first appear, soft and rapidly reaching for anything.

It prefers full sun, but will accept part sun. So they say, however I found mine did much better in part shade than it did in full sun.

Watering needs are average to low, drought tolerant once established. It wasn’t the least bit bothered by the 6 week spell of hot, dry, windy weather we had a few months back.

Be careful where you plant it, the thorns are impressive. You don’t want to have to be pruning it often.

This is a cross between E. crista-galli which is a member of the pea family, and very much like the Fireman’s cap but is not frost hardy and E. herbacea ( Cherokee bean ) which has bright red tube like flowers and is more woody than e. crista-galli.

Seeds are reportedly sterile. It is very cold tender and will drop its leaves and may die back to the ground in colder winters.

Awarded the Merit award by the Cal. Horticultural Society in 1981.

Poisonous do not eat it.

If possible protect from wind and also from hard freezes. Go easy on the fertilizer in the fall to help it prepare for winter but don’t underwater. This one died back to the ground after several hard freezes last winter, but re-appeared mid May 2010.

Propagate by seeds or cuttings.

Cutting propagation:
Remove a new growth that is just beginning to get woody that has at least 3 sets of leaves.
Remove the bottom two sets of leaves.
Dip the stem in rooting hormone powder
Plant in moist soil covering the stem where the two bottom sets of leaves were removed. Using lots of peat moss in your soil helps keep fungus down.
Keep in a moist place and keep soil damp.
Be sure to remove air spaces between stem and soil as these tend to get moldy.
Do not let stem touch bottom of pot. It should have an inch of soil below it.