Gardening Tips

Bird- table or bird feeder is a platform on which food for birds is placed, usually in a garden. Bird feeders offer the best way to turn your own backyard into a mini oasis for the wild birds in your area. They are usually filled with a variety of grains to suit the different species of our feathered friends. The most popular varieties of seeds include millet, safflower, sunflower and thistle.

Apart from satisfying the hunger of birds, bird feeders also provide an excellent ornithological treat. To everyone’s surprise the conglomeration of the rarest species of birds are often witnessed in our very own backyards rather than go miles in search of a bird sanctuary. To capture the essence of bird behavior, modern bird feeders are fitted with web cams. Bird feeders come in different varieties and design depending upon the species of bird they cater to. The most common types are ground feeder, seed tube feeder, humming bird feeder, suet feeder, oriole feeder etc.

Seed feeders are very much popular; they come either with tubes or hoppers. Mainly these feeders are laden with sunflower seeds to attract birds like chickadees, nuthatches, siskins and finches. They usually have a partition to segregate the different types of seeds. A suet feeder comprises of a cage like structure made of metal, coated with plastic. It is this plastic that contains a cake or suet. Suet is basically a bird feed containing animal fat, which prevent the feed from turning rancid and protect it from the adverse effects of moisture. Also they could be hung from windows or any tree tops thus giving us a clear view of the birds in action. These bird feeders attract birds like woodpeckers and flickers.

Unlike the seed feeders Humming bird feeders offer the feed in a liquid form. This usually consists of sugary syrup solution that is particularly preferred by humming birds. To attract the bird, the solution is painted in bright color. But care should be taken while choosing the coloring material, for often birds fall ill to harmful coloring agents.

Oriole feeders are orange in color. They too supply a liquid form of nourishment. They specially cater to new world orioles, a species of birds having a uniquely pointed beak and tongue. Apart from the quality of the feed provided in a feeder, the success of a feeder largely depends on the strategic location on which it is placed, its remote proximity from intruders like squirrels and cats. Squirrels pose a persistent problem for the birds as they tend to carry away the feed to their home, distorting our entire objective of feeding the birds. The best way to deal with them is to build feeders that can withstand the weight of a bird and collapse under any further weight.

In spite of the various advantages it offers to the birds, feeders still do have their own negative impacts on the bird community. The water and feed if not maintained clean would lead to spread of diseases among birds as they come in contact with one another. It also leads to the growth of certain dominant species leading to an ecological imbalance. So go get yourself a bird feeder and experience the vicarious thrill experienced by our avian fellow mates.

The documentation of ancient plums growing in antiquity is sparse. The best evidence of that oldest existence is best documented through America’s most famous pomologist, Luther Burbank, who reported in his twelve volume botanical literary classic, Small Fruits, Volume IV page 136, that the European plum, Prunus domestica, and its ancestor fruit originated in the Caucasus Mountains near the Caspian Sea. Burbank detailed evidence that the prune (dried plum) was a staple food of the Tartars, Mongols, Turks, and Huns “who maintained a crude horticulture from a very early period.” Several websites have put forth the absurd idea that, because the European plum, Prunus domestica, seeds were not found in the ruins of Pompeii after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, “whereas, most other old world fruits were,” that this plum could be concluded to be a recent hybrid of “spontaneous chromosome” doubling to produce a hexaploid offspring.

The earliest reference to plum history in the American colonies came from Prince Nursery of Flushing, New York, that was established in 1737 and reported in 1771 in an advertisement “33 kinds of plums” for sale. These plum trees were no doubt European plums, Prunus domestica.

After the year 1755, Henry Laurens, who was a guest and friend of Wililam Bartram, introduced olives, limes, ginger, everbearing strawberry, red raspberry, and blue grapes into the United States. From the south of France he introduced apples, pears, plums, and the white Chasselas grape which bore abundantly. Henry Laurens lived in Charleston, South Carolina and served as a President of the Continental Congress.

William Bartram described two species of American plums in his famous book, Travels, in his 1792 trip to Georgia, where he identified the Chicasaw plum, Prunus chicasaw, and in Alabama, he found a wild plum, Prunus indica.

Luther Burbank contributed more toward improving and hybridizing plum trees of different species than any other person in history. His work on the plum group of stone fruits stands apart from any other person for his unequaled contribution to improving various fruits that are grown and enjoyed today.

Burbank states that his importation of twelve plum seedlings in the year 1885 was the “most important importation of fruit bearers ever made at a single time into America.”

Burbank brought plums from all over the world and intercrossed them in a giant “melting pot” to produce the best characteristics and to reject the wrong ones. These genetic plum mixtures were recombined for many generations and resulted in plum hybrids today that are so different from the original species as to appear to be new species.

Burbank stated that he spent more time hybridizing plums than with any other plant breeding program, and he reported that he screened 7.5 million plum hybrid seedling crosses before releasing outstanding cultivars for sale. His famous line of plum trees that were popular in the late 1890’s are still admired and grown commercially for sale and in backyard gardens today, such as Burbank, Santa Rosa, Wickson, Golden, Satsuma, Shiro, and Ozark Premier. His first huge success was applauded by USDA Professor, H.E. Van Deman, who suggested that the pick-of-the-lot creation of Luther Burbank be named after its creator, thus, the “Burbank Plum.”

Most of Burbank’s plum tree successes come from his combining the genetic materials of 4 major types of plums whose ancestry came from Japan, Europe, America, and China.

The most successful crosses between plums come from the Japanese plum, the most exotic, ‘Satsuma,’ the name suggested by Professor H.E. Van Deman of the USDA, who identified it as being imported from the Satsuma province in Japan. This unique plum grew a red skin with a pale-blue netting bloom overlay. The pulp was dark purplish-red, firm, tasty with an excellent quality to be preferred for home use.

Burbank’s experimental species were Japanese plums, Prunus triflora, that grew wild in Japan and were pickled by the natives. The Japanese plums grew in many colors in skin from white to purple, were large and rather tasteless, but the Japanese natives ate them while green and hard. The Japanese plum genes appear to dominate most hybrid plum offspring. Chinese plums, Prunus simonii, were aromatic, with rich colored skins, a small pit, but the skin cracks and the fruit tastes bitter.

European plums, Prunus domestica, are varied in sizes, largest to small, sweet or sour, complex genes, many colored skins, very widely adaptable, good for fresh eating, drying, or canning. The disadvantage: they are too juicy or watery. “Green Gage” is a well known standard European cultivar. Prunes are very high in sugar content.

Several species of America plums are very hardy and productive to the extent of covering the ground in spring with several layers of fruit. These plums can be tasty but have poor shipping quality. Burbank released an excellent hybrid strain of this cross called “Robinson plum.”

Several American native plum species have been used in hybridization experiments by Luther Burbank. American plums, Prunus Americana, wild goose plums, Prunus hortulans, the chicasaw plum, Prunus augustifolia, Western sand plum, Prunus besseyi, the beach plum, Prunus maritima, and the California wild plum, Prunus subcordata. These native plum trees are unusually cold hardy and frigid temperatures do no harm to them, even in the northernmost part of the central United States.

The “Myrobalan” plum originated as a French species, Prunus cerasifera is used extensively as a peach tree and plum tree rootstock that tends to be compatible with the resulting fruit tree union and appears to be highly resistant to nematodes and root diseases.

Burbank’s goal in hybridizing plums was to produce a tree that had “stability, novelty, variety, hardiness, beauty, shipping quality and adaptability.”

The plum leaves and twigs exhibit many subtle characteristics that can be experienced by the plant hybridizer to predict the future characteristics of fruit that will be grown from small seedling crosses. Most hybridizers known from experience a predictable outcome, even though these plant qualities are too intangible to explain to an audience, like changing facial expressions or minute variations of color changes. If the leaves of a plant are dark red, the fruit will be red. This same phenomenon is applicable to flowers such as the canna lily leaf color, and the red rhizome color; or in the crinum lily cultivars, a red bulb means a red flower; a light green bulb means a white flower.

Luther Burbank developed a seedless plum by hybridizing a French plum cultivar, “Sans noyaii.” These plums develop into various skin colors ranging from white to yellow, orange scarlet, crimson, violet, deep blue, almost black, striped, spotted, and mottled. These seedless plums were delicious and unique, but were never commercially successful with growers or with public demand.

Burbank crossed many plums that had a tendency to produce fruit with a high sugar content, like the sweetness of figs, pineapple and oranges. This high sugar content makes it possible for the plum (prune) to insure long term preservation, when it is dried. The prune contains a thick and tough skin of such texture that is required to not crack when the commercial drying process begins and proceeds to deliver a tasty, honey-sweet fruit that lasts well.

A prune will not dry properly into a marketable fruit, unless the plum contains a sugar concentration of at least 15%. Before drying, the prune is submerged briefly into an alkali solution that prevents future fermentation by preventing microbes from growing on the surface of the skin. For satisfactory prune production commercially, a prune tree must be a reliable grower with an annual substantial crop of fruit. The prune must ripen early, when the days are long and warm and must drop from the tree to avoid expensive picking costs at the proper ripening time. The prune fruit must cure and dry to a black color and grow a small pit. Most prune hybrids have been hybridized from the European plum, Prunus domestica.

Many cultivars of Plums are recommended for planting: Blue Damson, Chicasaw, Elephant Heart, Green Egg, Methley, Morris, Stanley, Au Amber, Au Homeside, Au Rubrum, Black Ruby, Byrongold, Ruby Sweet, Six Weeks, and Plumcot are just among the few varieties of trees offered in the market today.

There are also three ornamental varieties of flowering plum trees recommend for planting: Newport, Prunus cerasifera ‘Newport’, Purple Pony Prunus cerasifera ‘Purple Pony’, and Red Leaf Plum Prunus cerasifera ‘Thundercloud’, flowering plum trees.

Burbank developed purple leaved plum trees from a French plum ancestor with purple leaves, Prunus pissardi, that commercially are sold as ‘Thundercloud’ flowering plum, Vesuvius, and Othello. Some of these red leaf flowering plums developed by Burbank grew delicious red fruit in addition to the beautiful red ornamental leaves.

Plum fruit is rated high in antioxidant content that offers many health benefits like Vitamin A, Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Vitamin C, Niacin, and the minerals; Calcium, Potassium, Phosphorus, and Iron.

Burbank sifted out the complexities of plum hybridization and even crossed the plum with the almond, Prunus dulcis, hoping to create a tasty almond kernel and a tasty pulp. He created many crosses with the Apricot, Prunus armeniaca L., and created plumcot trees, a 50/50 blend of plum trees and apricot trees; Pluot trees demonstrate a 75/25 blend of plum trees and apricot trees; and Aprium trees a 75/25 blend of apricot trees and plum trees.

The Roman de la Rose gives the best possible idea of both the French and English gardens of the Middle Ages. It was chiefly written by Guillaume de Loris, in the first half of the thirteenth century, and was probably well known in England before it was translated by Chaucer into English. There are several manuscript copies of it containing descriptions in the text, accompanied by illustrations giving vivid pictures of the pleasure garden. Its form—the walls enclosing it with their surrounding moat, the subdivisions of latticework, the “flowery mede,” shaded by fruit trees, with a fountain in its center, and the stone-coped beds, containing clipped shrubs and other smaller plants—are clearly shown from various points of view.

In the most important of these illustrations (which is on the opposite page, and was taken from a fourteenth-century Flemish manuscript preserved at the British Museum), the garden is shown as a whole, ornamented with many quaint details. It is enclosed by a crenellated wall, surrounded by a moat. The subdivisions are formed by a fence of wooden trellis-work, on the topmost railing of which is balanced a peacock. In the left-hand division is a copper fountain head, where the water, spouting from lions’ mouths, drips into a circular basin, and runs off through a marble channel embedded in the turf. Velvety grass, thickly sprinkled with daisies, surrounds the fountain and forms a soft seat for the little company of merrymakers who are singing and playing upon musical instruments.

A garden, according to the derivation of the word from zerd, garth, or yard (three nouns from the same Aryan root as the French word Jardin), originally signified a walled but unroofed enclosure containing cultivated vegetation. Usually this vegetation principally consisted of herbs, grass, or fruit trees.

This enclosure protected the vegetation from marauders, and secluded its occupants. Privacy was a very important characteristic of the garden. Inside the castle there was scant opportunity for confidential conversation. So when people wished to talk without being overlooked or overheard, they were apt to retire to the pleasure garden.

The earliest fences were commonly wattled, that is, woven of osiers. Others, more ornamental, were formed of rails or of pickets, and painted green. Hedges often enclosed the later gardens, instead of walls. The bushes used for this purpose were privet (thus called perhaps because it served to insure privacy), thorn, sweetbrier, and yew. Moats were also common, the water accommodating fish and swans.