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Ann Arbor, Michigan
• Bill Brodovich joined Torreya Guardians autumn 2024.
His first action was stratifying seeds in his backyard for their second winter:
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Torreya taxifolia
Ann Arbor, Michigan
• Bill Brodovich joined Torreya Guardians autumn 2024. His first action was stratifying seeds in his backyard for their second winter:
Autumn of 2024, Connie Barlow gave 21 seeds from the pot of 238 seeds she was keeping for a second winter of stratification of seeds from Fred Bess's 2023 harvest of seeds in Cleveland, Ohio.19 NOVEMBER 2024 Bill Brodovich wrote:
I planted the Torreya seeds on November 4. I planted one seed in each of 21 one-gallon containers, and then buried the containers in the ground in my yard. Each container has a numbered tag. As an experiment, I added 1 cup of lime (calcium carbonate) to 2 containers, half a cup to two containers, and a quarter cup to 2 containers. Since the species is native to limestone bluffs, so I thought it would be interesting to see if the additional calcium affects their growth.
I buried two of the seeds 2 inches deep, and all the rest 4 inches deep. I then covered the containers with fencing to keep the squirrels out.
Now I have to wait out the winter — that is, if we get a winter. I can�t believe how mild this fall has been. Some trees in my neighborhood are still hanging on to their brilliant leaves.
CONNIE BARLOW notes on November 22, 2024:
The plants are deeply confused about winter on my street in Ypsilanti, too. Three houses away, the front yard has had tall YELLOW IRISES with big flowers in bloom for about 2 weeks. Last night it snowed, so I am sure that finally they will collapse. Daisies across the alley have been in full bloom too for the same period. Will the irises have the energy to rebloom in the spring? the daisies in the summer?
Your LIME IDEA has precedence, both for it having saved planted torreyas at a sanctuary due west of native range in the panhandle (Shoal Sanctuary), and because I knew to tell the owner to do that to her thoroughly yellowed-leaved saplings because I learned that's what Atlanta Botanical Garden (ABG) had done early on (I photoed that during my 2005 visit to ABG). Go to this page of Shoal Sanctuary where you will see this sentence: "agricultural lime is applied only rarely (when the evergreen leaves show yellowing)." I used to have a page that showed the set of ABG photos I captured there in 2005, with lime showing speckled in pots of torreya, but the new chief scientist who came on to ABG in 2015 hated us and directed me to remove the photos from our website, as any google search for torreya gets folks to our pages long before ABG shows up. So, of course, I did.
