Last rain: 4/1. Week’s low: 23 degrees F. Week’s high: 82 degrees F in the shade. Winds were up to 40 mph in Santa Fé on Tuesday.
What’s blooming in the area: Apricots, daffodils
What’s coming up in the area: Honey suckle, Dutch iris, yellow yarrow; globe and weeping willows are leafing
What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Dandelions
What’s coming up beyond the walls and fences: Bindweed, cheat grass; leaves on Siberian elm seedlings
What’s blooming in my yard: Warm afternoons are forcing the apricot buds, then cool mornings are turning them brown
What’s coming up in my yard: Roses, potentillas, and ornamental crab tree beginning to leaf; new growth on bouncing Bess, Maltese cross, sidalcea, Oriental poppy, Shasta daisies, Mexican hats, goldenrod
Animal sightings: Chased a rabbit out of the drive and quail off the utility lines. Saw a cabbage butterfly, pill bug, house fly, and crickets
Thursday I used a string trimmer to cut down last years stems on the garlic chives. Then, sitting on the ground, I used a floral rake to remove the cuttings and dead leaves that cling to plants. When I’m on the ground, the action is like rowing a boat, and less of a strain on my back.
Everything was too wet on Friday, so I finished pruning. I did the fruit trees and privet bushes that edge the drive in January. This week I cut catalpa tips that were at eye level, and cut back some junipers that were spreading into pathways. I also cut Siberian elm and apricot sprouts that cannot be poisoned because they are too near valued plants. Each one I cut will send up sprouts that surround the slain.
Weekly update: I tend to take my junipers for granted. I notice when their branches intrude, and when they have problems, like the insect webs in 2015. Otherwise, I more often make notes of seedlings I remove from garden beds.
That said, I’m not sure this was the first year a male tree produced pollen, or if it is just the first time I happened to notice. I transplanted five from various places in 2006, and four survived. One began producing berries in 2015, and has done so every year ever since.
I did notice one tree was looking brown earlier, and wondered about drought. When I looked closer, the tips of the branches were brown. The known female was green, and the other two were bright green.
Everything one reads about Juniperus monosperma emphasizes their poor germination and slow growth rates. Normally, females do not produce berries until they are ten-years old. Mine began bearing fruit when it was nine. It took sixteen years for the first male to produce.
Kathleen Johnson, of the U. S. Forest Service, stresses everything depends of water. In droughts, trees can “stop active growth when moisture is limited but can resume growth when moisture availability improves.”
There’s no question where the seeds come from. My property abuts grassland on the south where scattered trees are growing. I know the one closest is a female. While birds are responsible for most of the seed dispersal, I have never see birds in the areas where seedlings come up.
I suspect the quail and the wind. The first used to live under the female, until a neighbor’s dogs began harassing them. Then they started trying to roost on my back porch. I often see them on the utility lines that run along the prairie boundary. I think it likely that the seeds were released when the birds were on the wires, and the wind moved them around the house. Johnson says they germinate best when they are buried. The wind also handled that.
Before I transplanted some seedlings along my drive, I moved six to the other side of the yard. Two made it through the summer, but I saw nothing after three years. The area was exposed and bare, like much of the prairie.
When I moved the others in August of 2006, I planted them downhill from the gravel drive between winterfat bushes. Johnson says researchers think shade is important. The man rebuilding my driveway in 2012 went out of his way to uproot the winterfat. He was a rancher, and saw them as a problem. The junipers seemed to have grown more since their nursemaids were removed.
They get water because I planted other shrubs and trees near them. This past summer they got more water than usual because the ground squirrel damaged the hose. It leaked in places, but not enough to justify replacing it.
The two nearest the well did better than the ones uphill. The pump house is near a culvert that runs under the drive, moving water from my neighbors metal building roof to a place beyond my drive. While junipers have long taproots, they also produce lateral roots in the top 3' of the soil that may be 2.5 to 3 times the height of the trees. I believe those, especially the southern female, have roots in the area where the galvanized pipe traps water.
Notes on photographs: Taken 30 March 2020.
1. Female juniper with last year’s fruit; color is less bright and the ends are green.
2. Male juniper; color is less bright and ends are brown.
3. Undeclared juniper; color is bright and the ends are green.
End notes:
Kathleen A. Johnson. “Juniperus monosperma.” Fire Effects Information System, 2002. Available on a U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service website.
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