Newsletter Cochise County Master Gardener High on the Desert Vol. 13, No. 5 MAY 2002 The University of Arizona and U.S. Department of Agriculture Cooperating Inside this issue: Potting Up Aquatics or round styles. They have to be lined with untreated burlap. This has to be done Cuttings ‘N’ Clippings 2 Renewal Notice 3 For the water garden it is best to keep to keep in the soil, but eventually the plants in submerged containers. Planted in roots will find their way into the pond. The Virtual Gardener 3 the bottom soil, most aquatics would This makes them unattractive to me. I May Reminders 3 personally prefer containers without either take over the pond or get choked Wildlife Habitat Garden 4 out by more aggressive species. Container holes. For the water gardener who keeps a Agent’s Observations 5 planting allows plants to be easily moved “clean pond,” few nutrients are available and confines invasive species. This to the wandering roots of an aquatic plant Bisbee Farmer’s Market 6 month’s topic is how to pot up aquatic outside of its container. Consider that if a plants. pond is free enough of excess nutrients to prevent the growth of green water algae, There are several types of aquatic pots how many nutrients can be present for available. Keep in mind the most impor- higher plant forms? tant goal is to confine the soil because spilled soil will dirty your pool and give Most aquatic plants such as water lilies nutrients to the algae. The mesh-type or marginal plants grow from water- containers are called “laundry baskets.” saturated soil from which they get their These containers are available in square (Continued on page 2) Cochise County Cooperative Extension www.ag.arizona.edu/cochise/mg/ 1140 N. Colombo, Sierra Vista, AZ 85635 450 Haskell, Willcox, AZ 85643 (520) 458-8278, Ext. 2141 (520) 384-3594 P AGE 2 (Continued from page 1) and functions as a biological filter Cuttings because it gives the nitrifying food. They need to be fertilized bacteria a place to hold on to. In case ‘N’ with special pond fertilizer tabs. you have fish, especially Koi, it These are available in aquatic helps to prevent uprooting. The Clippings shops or some hardware stores. bigger the fish, the coarser the T Saturday, May 4 from 9:00— Standard terrestrial pots with gravel. After potting and before 10:00 a.m. a free Water Wise drainage holes can be used, but placing the pot in the pool, wet down Workshop will be held at the the holes in the bottom should be the soil to remove all air and to avoid University of Arizona South called plugged up with stones, untreated “bubbling out.” It is advised to place When Do I Water? burlap, or pond liner. That keeps the pot into the pond gently. Water soil and fertilizer contained. lilies can be placed on the bottom of T Also on May 4 from 9:00— Using black or dark green the pond. Marginals do better with 1:00 p.m. a self-guided low water containers lessens their visibility. no more than one or two inches of landscape Xeriscape Tour will be Since most aquatics are shallow water over the crown. Once a year held sponsored by the Cochise rooting plants, select wide the plant should come out of the County Master Gardeners and mouthed containers that are pond and the soil should be renewed Water Wise. Call the Cooperative wider than they are deep. and fertilizer added. You will see Extension Office for a map. This is after one year the soil is black mud also a free activity and open to the The most commonly recom- and smelly. Also water plants grow public. mended soil for planting aquatics fast and need to be divided. Have fun is “heavy garden loam.” This with your water garden. T Cochise County Master Gar- term can mean different things in deners will meet May 8 from 5:00- various parts of the country. Here 7:00 p.m. at the Sierra Vista our heavy clay mixed with Library. builders sand is just right. Do not ever use potting mix as it is too T The Bisbee Bloomers will light and full of nutrients. Being hold a garden tour on Saturday, light, it can float out the pot and May 11 beginning with a 9:00 a.m. having nutrients it will feed the lecture on butterfly gardening at 47 algae and cloud the water. Fill Wood Canyon. At 10:00 a.m. a some of your loam mixture into self-guided tour of 9 gardens in your pot, place your fertilizer Old Bisbee, Warren, and San Jose tabs, add some more loam, then will begin. Maps are available for a place your plant and give it some small fee from the Bisbee C of C, more loam. Now add a layer of the Southeastern AZ Bird Observa- sand, about an inch, and finish it Plant of the month: HORSETAIL – tory, or by calling 432-8073. off with gravel. The gravel Equisetum hyemale should be river rock and needs to A native species here in Arizona. It T The June 1 Water Wise be washed well. The gravel keeps can be grown inside or outside the workshop is Lawn-B-Gone and the soil and the plant in the pot pond. Keep in mind outside the pond Native Grasses with Jim Koweek it is very invasive and it can take of Diamond JK Nursery, Sonoita, over your garden. It can take some AZ. The free workshop takes place drought and is very difficult to get at the University of Arizona South, rid of. It is better confined to a pot. 1140 N. Colombo, Sierra Vista at The hollow stems are green with 9:00 a.m. black bands that give it a bamboo- Robert E. Call like appearance. Extension Agent, Horticulture Angel Rutherford, Master Gardener Carolyn Gruenhagen Editor P AGE 3 • NOTICE • This will be your last Cochise County Master Gardener Newsletter unless you have completed and forwarded an update form to the Willcox or Sierra Vista Cooperative Extension Offices by the end of May 2002. Call the Willcox or Sierra Vista office for information. You may also sign up electronically on our Web Site: www.ag.arizona. edu/cochise/mg/ The Virtual Gardener—A Rose by Any Other Name As everyone knows, most plants The names themselves are usually ing materials and money. John C. have both a common name and a derived from Latin or Greek roots or Fremont visited him to learn about scientific one. The scientific names are are Latinized versions of words from plant collecting before embarking on preferred by botanists because unlike other languages. Sometimes the names his western explorations. He botan- common names they uniquely identify are purely descriptive and sometimes ized with Charles Parry in Colorado a plant and are part of a large classifi- they are based on the names of people and with Asa Gray in Virginia. His cation system that shows family (often the botanist who discovered the association with the Englishman relationships between plants. Many new plant). Henry Shaw, who resided in St. Louis people are put off by the scientific and dreamed of building a Kew names because they are unfamiliar and Michael Charters, an amateur Gardens in the New World, resulted in are sometimes difficult to pronounce. botanist from California, has put Shaw's Garden, now world famous as It somehow seems easier to say together a Web site (http://www. the Missouri Botanical Garden. “mesquite” (now there’s a nice Anglo- calflora.net/botanicalnames/index. Saxon name for you!) than Prosopis html) containing an extensive list of Palmer Agave (Agave palmeri) glandulosa or “Prickly Pear” rather the names and meanings of plants of Named after Edward Palmer (1831- than Opuntia phaeacantha. What you Southern California. Since Southern 1911), an Englishman who spent his may not know, however is that there is California and Southern Arizona have adult life in the United States explor- a rich and interesting history behind many native plants in common, ing and collecting more than 10,000 many of the scientific names. Michael’s list provides a resource for plants from Florida, the Southwest, us as well. His brief biographical Mexico, South America and the Before we discuss some of those sketches of the botanists whose names islands off Baja California. He was a interesting names, we need to briefly have become immortalized as plant botanist, employed by the Department talk about how plants get those names names are particularly interesting. of Agriculture, who led the expedition in the first place. The scientific naming Here is a sampling. in 1891 to collect samples of exotic system we use today was developed flora and fauna across a large part of during the 18th century by the Swedish Apache Pine (Pinus engelmannii): California and Death Valley espe- botanist Linnaeus who developed a Named after George Engelmann system that gave every plant two (1809-1884), a German-born St. Louis (Continued on back page ) names a genus name and a species physician and botanist, and prolific name. You might think of the species author on cacti, North American name as the given name of the plant conifers and oaks. Like many other May Reminders and the genus name as the family famous botanical explorers and name. The botanist who first publishes collectors, he began his career in the description of a newly discovered medicine, but soon was spending more Þ Deep water plant has the honor of naming it.