GARDEN FANATIC: Kicking back with your garden

“On Thanksgiving Day all over America, families sit down to dinner at the same moment — halftime.”

From my personal perspective, Thanksgiving weekend has always meant a “rest” from work and a time for being with family and friends. We are entitled to occasionally “kick back,” as one’s business and gardening life will tolerate a few days of benign neglect. I am thankful to have a few days off and that my family is well.

We generally associate the resting period of plants, beginning with the arrival of autumn, cooler temperatures and the possibility of rain. In temperate climates like Laguna, these periods of quiescence also coincide with shortened and decreased intensity of daylight hours.

Most plants require a break, just as we require sleep and an occasional vacation. This is necessary to prepare a plant for its mission... namely, to grow, flower and produce fruit. Under natural conditions, a plant may remain at rest for weeks or even months, with the presence of snow.

Plants are said to be resting when they simply quit growing (not to be confused with an annual completing it’s life cycle). No matter how much we fertilize or water, Bermuda grass and St. Augustine grass will not grow or turn green during their dormant period.

Likewise, once a deciduous tree loses its leaves, it will not releaf until its environmental conditions are favorable for regrowth: warmth, light and the availability of water. Quiescence is an internal mechanism of a plant, affected by external temperature, quantity and quality of light, and available moisture.

In other words, a plant knows when it is time to start growing again.

Many plants have adapted to their climes. They grow during the rainy season and rest during the dry season. Plants as diverse as cactuses of the Baja deserts, orchids of the Hawaiian tropics and natives of the local chaparral are all examples of this adaptation. Resting prepares the plants for blossoming and prevents them from weak and puny growth, a possibility if nature attempted to keep them in a period of activity throughout the year.

I couldn’t help but notice that Catharine’s toyon, Heteromeles arbutifolia, was beginning to set berries this week.

Reluctantly, I’ll soon be muttering “Happy Holidays” to friends and family, because the bright, red berries are the final clincher that the holidays are upon us.

See you next time.

STEVE KAWARATANI is happily married to award-winning writer Catharine Cooper, and has one cat and four dogs. He can be reached at (949) 497-8168, or e-mail to [email protected].