Dear Helen: My son has a听mystery plant in his garden. Last summer, it听looked something like a group of small hyacinth stems, but bearing elongated clusters of brilliant orange berries rather than florets. I photographed the colourful plant in early September last year.
J.B.
Your plant could be Arum italicum (painted arum, Italian arum). It is distinguished by beautiful new foliage produced in the fall. The leaves, long and tapered, with wavy edges and silvery-cream veins, last until spring, when rather inconspicuous, yellow-green flowers appear.
The flower spike is a slim, pencil-like structure (a spadix) surrounded by a tube-like formation called a spathe. Tiny flowers along the spadix develop into a听thick cluster of plump, tomato-coloured berries on short stalks. The showy berries usually last well into autumn.
Italian arum is versatile. It thrives in sunny places but the plants also tolerate dry shade and even root competition, once well established. The tubers are sold in the fall at some garden centres.
If your son鈥檚 plant did not have decorative autumn and winter foliage, it could be a similar plant, related to Italian arum 鈥� Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum, brown dragon, bog onion), whose shoots appear in mid-spring to produce green and brown striped spath/spadix blooms but with the听top of the spathe extended. The flowers give way to clusters of bright berries in late summer. The clusters are held in slightly looser formation than in Arum italicum.
This plant鈥檚 three-part leaves are large and plain green. Jack-in-the-pulpit does best in shade with moist soil, and is often used in the understory layer of plants in moist woodlands.
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Dear Helen: About a third of the听boxwoods on our property have turned orange. What to do?
D.L.
The altered colouring indicates plants under stress. Many gardeners are reporting discolouring in shrubs, which can probably be traced to the long, hot summer and drought conditions of last year. This, followed by substantial amounts of rain in听the fall, sets many plants up for some degree of root rot.
I wouldn鈥檛 do anything until the spring. Then, inspect the plants for live and fresh growth. Boxwoods take well to pruning. Even if a major portion of a plant鈥檚 upper regions has died off, the shrub can be renewed by听cutting back, even to within 15 to 30 cm of the ground.
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Dear Helen: How do I make tomato choices from among the听high numbers of varieties in听catalogues? L.T.
The only way to develop a roster of tomato varieties that grow and produce reliably in your garden鈥檚 conditions is to begin trying some. Your choices don鈥檛 have to be a stab in the dark. Ask keen gardening neighbours about their most successful varieties. Consult accomplished gardening friends too. Attend your local Seedy Saturday and ask growers selling tomato seeds about their most reliable and delicious variety or varieties. That鈥檚 how I began growing Speckled Roman, a heritage tomato.
In catalogues, look for descriptions that include qualities you most desire, such as earliness, or fruit size. I always look for notes about flavour because that is important to me.
The West Coast Seeds catalogue lays out its tomato pages clearly with varieties grouped under Early Season, Main Season, Cherry tomatoes and so on. My longstanding best tomato is Big Beef. It never fails to yield big clusters of large, tasty fruits. I like some of the striped tomatoes, like Tiger Stripe (Salt Spring Seeds) and Red Zebra (Seed Savers Exchange). Consider selecting one 鈥渁dventure鈥� tomato each year 鈥� something unusual and promising.
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GARDEN EVENTS
VRS meeting. The Victoria Rhododendron Society meets Monday, at 7:30 p.m. in the Garth Homer Centre, 813 Darwin Ave. A panel of experts will discuss 鈥渉ot鈥� topics on rhododendrons. Visitors are most welcome, at no admission charge. Bring questions for the panel. Doors at 7.
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VHS meeting. The Victoria Horticultural Society meets Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. in听the Garth Homer Centre. Speakers Robin Roberts and Sophie Wooding, co-authors (with Natalie Chambers) of听Saving Farmland: The Fight for Real Food, will present the story of how Madrona Farm in the Blenkinsop Valley was saved as a farm. Robin and Sophie听will discuss choosing models, overcoming obstacles and building community. The pre-meeting workshop at 6:30 will feature I Always Wanted a听Worm Garden with David Greig, who听will talk about these creatures that听are so crucial to soil health.
