Home « Gardening News « September 1, 2007

Yard and Garden News

Featured this issue:

• What's Up With That?!
• Bumblebees: Hidden Treasures of Your Gardens and Fields
• Look for Foliar Nematodes Now
• Tobacco Budworms Common in Gardens Now
• It’s Prime Time for Home Lawn Repair
• The Drama and Foundation of Variegation
• September Gardening To-Dos

Bumblebees are familiar to most people as the big, cute, fuzzy bees they see on their garden flowers. While many people appreciate their good looks, few people are aware of these bees’ good deeds. Bumblebees are very effective pollinators of many fruits and vegetables, including tomatoes, raspberries, cranberries, peppers, squash, and blueberries, as well as many native wildflowers. Good pollination not only increases production of fruits but also increases the size and quality of these fruits.

Bumblebees, as well as all other bees, have evolved alongside flowering plants and have developed interdependent relationships with many of these plants. Much of our food is reliant on bees for pollination. Until relatively recently, these pollination services were taken for granted. As long as crops were producing the needed fruits and seeds, there was no need to be concerned about pollination. As crops began to occupy more space and wild lands disappeared, wild pollinators were no longer sufficient in numbers to pollinate all the crops.

Who’s the Better Bee?
Although there are over 20,000 species of bees in the world, one bee has dominated the roster of managed pollinators. That bee is the honey bee. We are very lucky to have a bee that is as well adapted for use as a managed pollinator as is the honey bee. Honey bees forage on a wide variety of crops, have large colonies with tens of thousands of bees, and, most conveniently, they adapt well to living in boxes that can be easily moved from field to field. On an individual bee to bee basis, bumblebees are more efficient pollinators than honey bees for most crops. However, honey bees are often considered to be more effective overall due to their large colony sizes. Honey bee colonies have 10,000 to 30,000 bees per colony, whereas bumblebee colonies typically have 50 to 500 bees per colony. While an individual honey bee may not transport as much pollen as an individual bumblebee, a honey bee colony can make up for their inefficiency with sheer numbers

Recent alarm over Colony Collapse Disorder has brought concern about pollination to the world’s attention. Over the past fifty years, honey bee keepers have faced an increasing barrage of challenges including pesticides, pests, and diseases, all while adapting to increased demand for pollination services. Part of the reason why honey bee populations have been so afflicted by problems with pests and diseases is that honey bees are transported long distances across the country with many colonies in close quarters to pollinate different crops. When transporting bees, the diseases and pests are transported along with them. This is part of the reason why these problems can spread so quickly through honey bee populations. Similar problems may arise for bumblebees if they are transported across the country for pollination. These problems can be deterred by using locally raised bumblebees.

Honey bees have many different disease and pest problems, including parasitic mites, viruses, microsporidians, and fungi. While most of these are specific to honey bees, this does not mean that bumblebees don’t have their own array of problems. A similar slew of parasitic mites, viruses, microsporidians, and fungi affect bumblebees. However, in most cases, bumblebee pests, parasites, and diseases do not affect honey bees and honey bee pests, parasites, and diseases do not affect bumblebees. The causes and extent of damage from Colony Collapse Disorder are still being assessed, but one clear message is that we need to develop the use of pollinators other than honey bees. We need to develop a supply of supplemental and alternative pollinators.

Bumblebees Know How to Sip It and Shake It
Bumblebees are an excellent alternative to honey bees or a supplemental source for pollination of many crops. There are several attributes of bumblebees that promote their use as pollinators. Some bumblebees have long tongues. These long tongues give bumblebees an advantage over short-tongued bees like the honey bee when foraging on flowers with long tubes, such as red clover. Bumblebees have been shown to fly in cooler temperatures and lower light levels than many other bees, extending their work day and improving pollination of crops facing inclement weather. Bumblebees perform a behavior called “buzz pollination.” In buzz pollination, the bee grabs the pollen producing structure of the flower in her jaws and vibrates her wings. This shakes pollen out of the flower that would otherwise remain trapped within the flower. Some plants, most notably tomatoes, require buzz pollination for effective fruit set. Bumblebees also adapt very well to the greenhouse environment, making them a potent pollinating force for the greenhouse industry.

Be a Bumblebee Booster
There are two avenues you can take to promote bumblebees. The first is to preserve or restore wild areas that provide food and shelter for bumblebees. Bumblebee nests are formed either in clumps of grass above ground or in holes below the ground, typically in old mouse nests. You can increase nesting site potential for bumblebees by leaving some areas of tall un-mown grass and untilled areas. Since bumblebees get all their nutrients from flowers, it is possible to simultaneously beautify your landscape and help your local bumblebees. Plant flowers, trees, and shrubs that will provide a constant source of blooms. Early spring flowers are particularly important as this is when bumblebee colonies are getting their fledgling starts. Bees tend to be particularly attracted to flowers that are blue, purple, and yellow. These flowers will be most effective in attracting bees if they are planted in single species clumps that are four feet or more in diameter.

The other avenue to promote bumblebees is to raise your own bumblebees. In the wild, bumblebee colonies are started anew each spring by queens who mated the previous fall and hibernated through the winter. In early spring, these queen bumblebees can be found foraging at flowers and searching for nesting areas. By capturing these queens and providing them with a home, you can raise your own bumblebee colonies that can be used to pollinate your garden, your field crops, or your greenhouse plants. See Befriending Bumblebees: A practical guide to raising local bumblebees, available in the Extension Store, for details on raising your own bumblebee colonies. Raising bumblebees is an excellent project for youth groups, garden clubs, or small scale farmers.

Keep ‘em Buzzing
It is a joy to see bumblebees diligently buzzing from flower to flower in your garden, intent on their mission to gather nectar and pollen to feed their family back at home in their nest. Beautifying your landscape with native flowers is a great way to help these bees. By raising your own bumblebees, you will gain a greater understanding of what life is like for these important creatures. Not only that, but you will be rewarded with bigger, better tasting raspberries, tomatoes, blueberries, apples, squash, and strawberries.

Elaine Evans received her M.S. in entomology from the U of MN. She is currently working on a project for the Xerces Society for Insect Conservation researching recent declines of bumble bees in North America.

 

If you asked someone on the street “What’s a nematode?” very few people would be able to answer you. This is surprising once you learn that nematodes are one of the most common animals on Earth. In fact there are over 1 million different kinds of nematodes and they can be found in every environment on the planet including deserts, rainforests, and polar ice fields!

So what is a nematode and why should gardeners pay attention to them? Nematodes are a type of roundworm. Most of them are very small and transparent, so it’s no wonder that they so frequently go unnoticed. Although the majority of nematodes live in the ocean or the soil feeding on organic matter or microorganisms, a few are plant parasites and have become specialized in feeding on plants. Plant parasitic nematodes can cause significant damage to the roots and foliage of garden plants.

The damage from one particular nematode, called the foliar nematode, is easily noticed this time of year. Like its name suggests, foliar nematodes live in and feed on the leaves and buds of plants. Foliar nematodes will attack a wide range of garden plants including peonies, hostas, chrysanthemums, begonias, columbines and azaleas. These nematodes can live their entire life within the leaf tissue. To feed, the nematodes puncture plant cells with a long needle like mouth part called a stylet and suck out the contents. Gardeners with a foliar nematode problem will notice sections of the leaf first turn yellow, than purplish brown, and finally completely brown. These infected sections are often limited by major veins of the leaf, which the nematodes are unable to cross.

Foliar nematodes may come into the garden on infected plants, or may be present in the soil. New infections start when nematodes swim up a thin layer of water on the plants stem and enter one of the lower leaves. Once inside the leaf tissue, the nematodes feed and reproduce. At some point a nematode may come out of the infected leaf through a stomate (natural openings for air exchange) and swim through a thin layer of water on the leaf surface to infect a new leaf.  Irrigation water and rain drops can splash these migrating nematodes to near by plants. Gardeners can unintentionally carry the nematodes to new sections of the garden on tools and their hands especially if they are working on infected plants when they are wet. In these ways the nematodes spread through out the garden.

The best way to identify foliar nematodes is to cut an infected leaf in several pieces and place it in water for about 24 hrs. Like many plant parasitic nematodes foliar nematodes are small (1/100th - 1/8th of an inch long), clear and worm like in appearance. Working near a bright light source,  use a magnifying glass to look for the nematodes. If they are present, they can be seen swimming about. They will look like tiny silver threads thrashing about in the water.

Foliar nematodes can survive in live plant tissue like leaves and crowns. As many as 15,000 nematodes have been found in one leaf! They also have the amazing ability to completely dry out in dead leaves and remain alive for up to 3 years waiting for water to revive them.  Because of this, it is important to completely remove all infected leaves, both dead and alive, from the garden and dispose of them in the trash. Removing infected leaves during the growing season will greatly reduce the nematode population and their ability to spread. Removing all dead leaves at the end of the season will reduce the number of nematodes surviving to the next season.

Since foliar nematodes can move into the crown tissue of infected plants, it may be necessary to heat treat the plants. To do this, dig up the infected plants and remove all of the soil from the root system. Remove all leaves, as close to the crown as possible. Then place the plant in 123°F water for 5 to 10 minutes, and finally rinse with cool water. This will kill the nematodes inside the plant (warning - some plants are more sensitive to heat than others so start out with the lower time interval). Since the nematodes can survive in the soil for a few months, it is best to replant the heat treated plants in a new location.

No chemical sprays are available that will completely control foliar nematodes, but Zerotol (Hydrogen dioxide) and insecticidal soap have both been shown to reduce nematode populations if applied when symptoms first appear. Foliar nematodes can be a persistent problem, but following a few basic control strategies can greatly reduce their impact on a garden.

 

 

 

Do you have flower buds that have been damaged by some kind of caterpillar? At this time of year, that is probably the result of the tobacco budworm, Heliothis virescens, also known as the geranium budworm. This caterpillar has white stripes running lengthwise along the abdomen with numerous erect hairs on its body but is quite variable in color. They are commonly brownish but they can also be reddish, purplish, or greenish depending on what they are eating. This caterpillar grows to be as large as 1 3/4 inches in length.

Tobacco budworms do not survive the harsh winters in Minnesota. Instead, they find their way up to this state during late summer by riding on air currents from the south. Because of this, their appearance in gardens is unpredictable from year to year. Tobacco budworms are commonly found on petunias, geraniums and nicotiana while occasionally damaging roses and other plants. The larvae damage flowers by chewing deep holes into the buds. Flowers can still emerge from these damaged buds but flowers have large holes in the petals. Tobacco budworms may also eat the flower blossoms, giving them a ragged appearance.

There isn't any preventative action you can take to avoid this insect. Your best bet is to examine your flowers routinely and handpick and destroy any caterpillars you find. If you have a large number of susceptible flowers in your garden, you may also choose to use a residual garden insecticide, such as bifenthrin, esfenvalerate, or permethrin. Bacillus thuringiensis, while effective on caterpillars, does not do a good job against tobacco budworms. It works as a stomach poison, but unfortunately the tobacco budworm does not consume enough of this insecticide when it is chewing into the buds.

 

 

 

The hot AND dry conditions of this past summer brought significant levels of stress to many of our lawn grass areas. While many have begun to recover with the rains we have had the last two to three weeks, there will likely be some areas where those summer stresses were just too much and the grass died. Now the question is, “What can I do to repair those areas?”

Fortunately, late August through about mid-September is the best time to do some overseeding to repair those damaged areas. At this time of year the soils are warm and seeds germinate much more quickly than in cold spring soils. In addition, there is much less competition from weedy grasses such as crabgrass or yellow foxtail. This gives our lawn grasses an excellent opportunity to germinate and get established before winter.

When doing overseeding, make sure that there is good seed-to-soil contact. This helps ensure more uniform germination and early seedling growth. Where all of the grass has died in an area, scratch up the soil surface with a garden rake and remove any excess dead grass. With the soil loosened, sprinkle some grass seed over the area and lightly rake it in. For mixtures of Kentucky bluegrass and fine fescue, seed at a rate of about 3 to 4 ounces per 50 square feet. If a blend of Kentucky bluegrass is used, seed at a rate of 2 to 3 ounces per 50 square feet. Always be sure to use fresh seed.

After seeding, keep the area damp but not saturated with water. Germination should begin in a week or two. Continue keeping the newly seeded areas moist until you are about ready to mow for the first time. Gradually, increase the interval between waterings so that the soil dries out slightly before watering again. This will help harden off the grass going into the winter months. The first mowing should occur when the initial grasses to germinate and grow have reached about 3 inches. At that time cut back to about 2.0 or 2.5 inches. Continue mowing until leaf growth has essentially stopped for the year, about late October.

If overseeding into an existing thin lawn, keep the existing grasses mowed fairly short until the newly seeded grasses have had a chance to germinate and catch up with the other grasses. If the existing grass is allowed to grow too long, they will compete significantly with the new seedlings often resulting in their death.

Your new lawn area will usually benefit from a late season application of nitrogen fertilizer. Again, in the Twin Cities area, this should go down at or just prior to Halloween. However, never apply fertilizer to frozen ground.

A little bit of overseeding and some good fall lawn care will help restore your lawn to a healthy, dense condition.

 

 

 

Bold and beautiful, the dramatic foliage contrast of variegated plants command our attention. Variegated hostas, bishop’s weed (Aegopodium podograria ‘Variegatum’), and lamium (Lamium maculatum) have become staples to brighten otherwise dim, shady locations. Furthermore, variegated versions of many of our favorite sun or shade loving tree, shrub, herbaceous perennial, and annual species are available and are useful to add splashes of additional excitement to the landscape. Placed with purpose and in unity with our overall landscape intention, the impact of variegated plants can be spectacular.

What causes variegation?
There are a handful of common causes for variegation. Understanding these causes and knowing the characteristic features of each can help us decipher what is going on and what, if any, action may be warranted. Perhaps we will conclude variegation is due to a pathogen, herbicide injury, or genetic changes within the plant itself. Periodically we may encounter a newly variegated shoot on an otherwise non-variegated plant. Pointing to the cause of it as well as determining how stable it is are useful in the process of determining if it should be destroyed or pampered because of its commercial potential. Have you ever found a chance variegated leaf, stem, or flower on an otherwise non-variegated plant?

Going gold or white
Chlorophyll is the critical molecule for photosynthesis. Chlorophyll primarily reflects the green part of sunlight, giving plants and other organisms (algae) that undergo photosynthesis their typical green color. Chlorophyll absorbs light strongly in the blue and red part of the spectrum, capturing this light energy which is stored in sugars, transported, stored, and used throughout the plant.

Chlorophyll molecules are connected to a specialized protein called chlorophyll binding protein. These chlorophyll-covered proteins are housed within rounded structures called chloroplasts. Chlorophyll binding protein helps to orient and position the chlorophyll molecules in the most efficient manner. Chlorophyll has a lifespan where it functions optimally, and over time it degrades and needs to be replaced. Typically, many chloroplasts are within a photosynthetic cell. As a cell divides, the chloroplasts get split up between the two daughter cells. After division, more chloroplasts are needed to bring each daughter cell up to a suitable number. Chloroplasts are unique to other organelles within plant cells because they contain a small amount of DNA, separate from the cell’s nucleus. The genes which govern synthesis of new chloroplasts and chlorophyll are typically located on both the DNA of the chloroplast and the nucleus. Mutations which lead to chlorophyll deficiency can be located in either the DNA of the chloroplast or the primary storehouse of DNA within the cell’s nucleus.

A genetic change (mutation) can occur which disrupts some point in the pathway to healthy, photosynthesizing chloroplasts. A mutation occurs in one cell. If that cell is in the right place at the right time, copies of itself can eventually comprise a significant portion of the growing point and be observed in the tissue that develops from those cells. Plants that are variegated are often smaller than their solid green counterparts because they have a compromised ability to undergo photosynthesis and generate sugars.

The growing point: Tracing tissues to their source
The shoot meristem, or growing point, of most plants contain three distinct layers of cells. These cells undergo division in order to produce many new cells. Cells finding their way behind the growing point eventually expand in size, develop into the different plant tissues, and ultimately allow for plant growth. The outermost of these three layers is called Layer I (layer is capitalized and layer numbers are designated by roman numerals) and the innermost is Layer III. Cells from each layer give rise to specific types or regions of plant tissues.

• Layer I- This layer gives rise to the epidermis, or outermost layer of cells on stems and leaves.
• Layer II- The reproductive (egg and sperm) cells typically trace back to this layer as well as much of the leaf and stem tissue.
• Layer III- The center of the stem (pith) and inner portions of leaves and stems traces back to these cells.

Chimeras
A chimeric plant or animal is one comprised of genetically different cells. Chimeric plants can be maintained when cells that differ genetically in some way are housed in different layers of the meristem. If a mutated cell is in the right place of the meristem, eventually many copies of it can be generated and then incorporated into plant tissues. Copies of a mutated cell can occur in just part of a layer of the meristem (mericlinal chimera), overtake multiple layers of a sector of the meristem (sectoral chimera), or overtake a complete layer or two of the meristem (periclinal chimera). In addition, a mutated cell can eventually replace the previous cell type and overtake the complete meristem. Variegation due to chimeras tends to be most stable when there is a periclinal chimera.

Tissue resulting from cells lacking chlorophyll will typically appear light yellow or white. If all the layers of the meristem are overtaken with chlorophyll-deficient cells, the shoot will be albino. If there is a mericlinal or sectoral chimera containing chlorophyll- deficient cells, sporadic regions of variegation often result. However, if a complete meristem layer contains chlorophyll-deficient cells, all the tissue derived from that layer will consistently appear white or yellow, while tissue from other layers will still produce typical levels of chlorophyll.

Some plants have a much clearer delineation for what tissues each meristem layer gives rise to, while other plants are a little bit more "messy". Species with clearer delineations tend to give rise to more distinct variegation patterns with greater uniformity between leaves. Spider plant (Chlorophytum comosum) is one such plant. There are forms that have green leaf margins and a yellow or white center and forms with the reverse pattern. The difference is due to which meristem layer contains cells with a chlorophyll deficiency. Other plants have leaf and stem tissue where cells from different meristem layers tend to intermix more freely. That typically results in more variable variegation pattern such as in hydrangea, rubber tree (Ficus elastica), and rose. Multiple shades of green can be seen because layers of cells with and without chlorophyll deficiency overlap.

Plants that keep the cells of their meristem layers distinct over time retain variegation patterns better and have a lower reversion rate for shoots becoming completely green or albino. For plants where periodically there is a disruption in the meristem and the three layers need to be reestablished, there tends to be less stability to the variegation. For the less stable plants (for example, variegated cultivars of creeping Charlie and Norway maple) one can keep a close eye on them and prune out all but the variegated shoots. Stability of variegation is a critical factor when nurseries decide if a variegated plant makes a good candidate for introduction.

Non-chimera genetic control of variegation
Most of the variegated cultivars of typically green plants are periclinal chimeras. They are propagated vegetatively in ways which maintain the meristem layer arrangement (i.e. cuttings, grafting, or tissue culture). Periclinal chimeras typically do not come true from seed. Sex cells arise from meristem Layer II cells and variegated plants that are due to periclinal chimeras typically generate seedlings that are albino or green, not variegated. Interestingly, some variegated plants do come true from seed. The genetic control for variegation may be associated with meristem layers, but is primarily due to gene(s) that interfere with chlorophyll and are carefully turned on and off in a specific tissue or stage in the plant’s lifecycle. For instance, two variegated plants that have tissue-specific variegation expression and do not follow typical meristem layer origin variegation patterns are ‘Loraine Sunshine’ heliopsis and ‘Kumson’ forsythia. ‘Loraine Sunshine’ has deep green leaf veins and bright white between veins, while ‘Kumson’ is just the opposite. An example of a plant that expresses variegation most strongly at a particular life stage is variegated, ornamental peppers. After the plant reaches a critical size and maturity, variegation tends to appear more and more strongly on most shoot tips simultaneously.

Some variegated varieties that come true from seed include ‘Alaska’ nasturtium, many Japanese morning glory cultivars such as ‘Cameo Elegance’, and some varieties of corn such as ‘Japonica Striped Maize’. The transmittance of variegation from parent to offspring for many variegated seed strains is controlled maternally because a critical factor which allows for variegation is housed in the DNA of the chloroplast. Chloroplasts are typically inherited only from the female parent and the male parent most often contributes only nuclear DNA to the offspring. For such species it is important to save seed from a variegated female parent. Many hosta breeders attest that in order to have variegated seedlings one needs to have a variegated female parent. Even so, the rate of variegated hosta seedlings can be quite variable depending on the parents and particular crosses. Fortunately for hosta breeders, once a superior seedling is identified it can be clonally propagated and perpetuated. Variegation in some plants is controlled by nuclear gene(s) and variegated offspring can be obtained without regard to the sex of the variegated parent. Some nuclear genes controlling variegation are dominant, while others are recessive. For instance, a recessive nuclear gene governs the inheritance of variegation in a St. John’s wort relative, Hypericum androsaemum (Olsen et al., 2006).

Some plant species are well known for their unique variegation patterns which are seed transmitted. In fact it would be very rare to find a pure green version for some of these plants. They include polka dot plant (Hypoestes phyllostachya), cyclamen, and rex and other begonias.

Additional causes of variegation:

Virus
Viruses can also lead to white or yellow regions of plant tissue. Variegation due to viral infection is often associated with less vigorous or stunted plants and variable or erratic variegation patterns that typically do not follow tissue type or meristem layer patterns. In addition, the variegation is often weak with a gradient of color from green to white/yellow, rather than a distinct separation of differently colored tissues. Tissue can sometimes be twisted and contorted as growth rate of nearby cells differ based on variable virus concentration and cell damage. Depending on the virus, plant, and point of infection, there can be patterns of infection seen throughout a group of plants. Patterns can develop based on where infection first took place and also within certain tissue point in time when infection occurred. Leaves may appear large and green before infection and then after infection there may be notable differences in size, shape and color of new foliage. Early identification and removal of virus-infected plants can help stop or slow spread of the virus to nearby, susceptible plants. Some viruses spread more or less easily depending on how they infect and multiply in a host and the presence of suitable vectors.

Herbicide Injury
Sometimes plants treated with herbicide or plants having had herbicide inadvertently drift onto them can show variegated patterns in developing foliage. Often such variegation will affect just a portion of tissue and they can grow out of it if the exposure was not too severe. This can readily be seen in that tissue all about the same age was affected indicating a particular point in time where the damage took place. In addition, affected tissue will typically be relatively small, narrow, and twisted or otherwise distorted.

Take home points

• Prune out green or albino shoots on variegated plants to help favor and perpetuate variegated growth.

• Plants that give rise to newly variegated shoots in your landscape can be the source of a new cultivar or it may be a sign of virus infection or herbicide injury. Carefully looking at variegation patterns and location(s) of variegation on the plant can offer clues to its cause.

• If you find a new variegated mutant that you think is particularly beautiful, you may find it rewarding to explore different types of vegetative propagation including stem cuttings and grafting and also try seed propagation.

References
Olsen, R.T., T.G. Ranney, and D.J. Werner. 2006. Fertility and inheritance of variegated and purple foliage across a polyploid series in Hypericum androsaemum L. J Amer Soc Hort Sci 131:725-730.

 

 

 

• Get those flower bulb orders in soon and aim at getting narcissus planted by the end of the month (they need a longer rooting period than some other bulbs like tulips).

• September is an excellent time to plant many herbaceous perennials, shrubs, and trees. Keep new plants thoroughly watered after planting.

• You can still sow a few seeds of quick-growing greens like arugula, spinach, mizuna, cilantro, and leaf lettuce.

• Peonies can grow happily in one spot for decades, but if you do need to divide or move peony clumps this is the month to do it.

• Early September is an excellent time to sow grass seed (see Bob’s article).

• Pick fall-bearing raspberries frequently to avoid attracting insects to overripe fruit.

• Check apples for ripeness - different varieties have different maturity dates. Ripe apples should detach from the branch with only a moderate lift-and-twist motion. Also, try a taste test: ripe apples should not have a starchy taste.

• Tropical houseplants don’t like temperatures much below 50°F, so start moving them back indoors as temperatures cool.

• Continue to remove weeds and diseased plant parts from the garden - this will mean fewer weeds and less disease next year.
  

 

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Nancy Rose
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Regional Extension Educator - Horticulture

The information provided in this publication is for educational purposes only. References to commercial products or trade names do not imply endorsement by the University of Minnesota Extension nor is criticism or bias implied of those products not mentioned.

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