Plant Lovers' Almanac: New variants of familiar plants are fascinating

On our western adventure, my wife and I stopped for apple pie, thanks to the historic orchards in Fruita, Utah, at Capitol Reef National Park, and peaches at a high-altitude fruit stand in Palisade, Colorado, where the last peaches are still being harvested. No local peaches in Ohio right now but, oh, those apples! At Utah’s Arches National Park we saw the improbably Balanced Rock formation. In Colorado we saw elaborately maintained flower gardens in Vail and ornamental tobacco (Nicotiana) against the blue sky in the mile-high, milelong Washington Park in Denver, and near the 49-year-old soccer fields, delightfully pumpkin-colored fall foliage of buckeyes.

Unfamiliar familiar plants

When traveling it is fascinating to see new variants of familiar plants.

At first it seemed that the sky-high pines in Tennessee were white pines, but once we noticed the bark was different, that the needles were longer and stiffer, and in bunches of three instead of five, we realized they were in fact loblolly pine (Pinus taeda), very common farther south.

There were unusual oaks in Tennessee and Arkansas; ponderosa pines farther west; Utah junipers (Juniperus osteosperma) — with their star-shaped female cones — in Utah and Colorado; skunkbush (Rhus trilobata), a western version of a fragrant sumac and shrub serviceberries (Amelanchier utahensis) at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. Yet one tree stood out, common and prominent out West, but also present here…

… Quaking aspens

One of the delights of traveling the West this time of year is the quaking aspens (Populus tremuloides) of Utah and Colorado, with their shimmering, golden foliage. Golden-yellow due to the carotenoid pigments that prevail as chlorophyll degrades as summer wanes. Shimmering and quaking due to the 90-degree-angle juxtaposition of their flat petioles and their planar leaves. The rivers and groves of aspens amid the conifers is quite a show, especially when caught by sunlight in the morning and early evening.

Quaking aspens are the same aspen species we see in Northeast Ohio (including at Secrest Arboretum in Wooster), along with bigtooth aspen (P. grandidentatum). In fact, a Smithsonian book, “The Tree Book: The Stories, Science, and History of Trees,” suggests they are “North America’s most widely distributed tree … growing from central Alaska to central Mexico.”

Much is written about the fact that a quaking aspen is considered the largest tree on earth, in terms of its clonal nature.

The Smithsonian book notes that in Utah there is an aspen grove covering 100 acres, with 48,000 trunks, all part of a single tree, connected underground, with all the shoots part of a genetically identical clone. Since each stem is only as old as that particular shoot, the age of the clone is difficult to measure, say by counting annual rings, but it is estimated for that clone at 14,000-plus years. Old and gargantuan.

From the book, this quote: “The quaking aspen, light and thin;/To the air quick passage gives” from Patrick Hannay, a 17th century Scottish poet.

Climate, writ small and large

In western Colorado we were drawn to orchards alongside the road in Palisade, altitude 6,591 feet. Most prominently were peaches, but much more, including plums, cherries and apricots.

Remarkably to us Ohioans, there were still some peaches being harvested. This is so different from Ohio where peaches are an early summer crop. Asking at the farm stand if they had problems with freezes (cold winter temperatures that kill stems) or frosts (damage to developing flowers/fruits in spring), the proprietor replied that they lost 50% of their crop this year to freezes, but rarely do they have killing frosts. Different climate, different fruit-growing.

In a Palisade park there were lovely crab apples, exhibiting pale, pumpkin-orange teardrop to roundish fruits, complete with some pale orange and pink fall foliage.

I finally realized that these were ‘Indian Magic’ crab apples, a tree that we once trialed in our Crablandia I plot at Secrest Arboretum, but which we left out of newer trials because it is so susceptible to the fungal disease apple scab, resulting in loss of most leaves by late summer. Scab is so much more prevalent in Ohio because of our spring and summer wetness compared to Colorado.

Plant Lovers' Almanac: Looking up caterpillars and cooking up crab apple butter

Again, local climate is key to plant selection and success — and plant disease pressure. It is actually the main reason the International Ornamental Crabapple Society set up crab apple plots around the country to help nurseries know which crab apples grow best for different markets.

Which brings us to the importance of climate issues on a much larger scale. Mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) and related beetles are a major tree-killing problem in Colorado and western states and into Canada. These beetles have spread northward in recent decades as populations of the beetle survive the warmer winters and trees such as lodgepole and ponderosa pines are stressed by increasingly droughty conditions.

As Dan Herms, vice president of research and development at The Davey Tree Expert Co., pointed out at our recent Secrest Arboretum Plant Diagnostic Workshop, there are concerns about this beetle traversing the northern Rockies and spreading eastward to species of pines in the North Woods and then southward in the eastern United States. These pines are susceptible to mountain pine beetles but have escaped their infestation because of geography.

In 2001, entomologists Jesse Logan and James Powell in an article in the American Entomologist titled “Ghost Forests, Global Warming, and the Mountain Pine Beetle” predicted the possibility of such spread. The predicted day is now arriving.

The month of October

A week ago, October was ushered in with Denver’s answer to the fun of Akron’s PorchRokr. A block from my daughter Sara’s house, a creative neighbor began their annual monthlong evening spectacular presaging Halloween that will usher in the end — of October.

You haven’t lived — or died — if you have not seen and listened to "Monster Mash" and "Ghost Busters" and "Billie Jean" to a dancing Michael Jackson and a red maple leaf shaking from Freddy Kreuger. We did the Monster Mash — it was a Graveyard Smash. Every weekend day, and then comes Muertas de Dias from Oct. 31-Nov. 2. Perhaps Bobby (Boris) Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers could be reincarnated for a future PorchRokr.

As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry penned (at least on my gourmet hot dog toothpick flag in Moab, Utah): “Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.”

Plant Lovers’ Almanac: Enjoy autumn as it slowly unfolds

Jim Chatfield is a horticulture educator and professor emeritus at Ohio State University Extension. If you have questions about caring for your garden, write to chatfield.1@osu.edu or call 330-466-0270. Please include your phone number if you write.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Plant Lovers' Almanac: See new variants of familiar plants when traveling