Saturday, November 24, 2012

Let the Sunshine in

My apologies for having been away from my blog for so long. This Fall has been brutal on me. Am I complaining? NOT A CHANCE! Matter of fact, I am sorry that many of the events that I was working came to an end. I use the word "events" because that is what I was doing, Home and Garden Shows, Lectures, and a slew of other Garden related events.
I started to see somewhat of a pattern working many of these things. The stories were slightly different, the plants were usually fairly close, but there was still a pattern.

Let me tell you one of them.
There was a gentleman that came to me with a Citrus question. It was a Meyer Lemon that he had, (my wife and mother just started chuckling....inside joke). He has had it for 4 or 5 years. When he first got it, there were tons of Lemons on it. The following year, it only had half of what it did the previous year. The next year was even worst. He wanted to know what was wrong. It was not even producing as many flowers.
I started with my usual questions:
Is it in the ground or container? 
"Ground"
How much water has it been getting?
"I water about every other to every third day."
Have you been feeding it?
"Yes, I feed it about every 6-8 weeks with Citrus-Tone."
How much sun is it getting?
"Full Sun"
I was getting frustrated. Usually a situation like this is easy to figure out. I started going for the off the wall stuff like insect pressure and dog watering it. Everything seemed fine.
I went back to what I was SURE was the problem. 
I asked, You say it is getting full sun, if you had to put a number on how many hours it was getting, what would you say?
Then, like a voice from the heavens, the answer came in one small word....."FOUR"
BINGO!!
His idea of full sun was four measly hours. A live oak nearby had continued to grow and started to shade the Meyer Lemon more and more each year. I told him what he needed to do and he walked away satisfied.
This is the pattern I was describing, I have numerous stories, very similar to the one above. There is just a misunderstanding as to what exactly is considered "Full Sun".

Conventional thinking is 6+ hours of unfiltered sun is considered full. I tend to lean a little longer than that, I go for 7-8.  Four to six hours per day is considered partial sun. Many companies use partial shade. These two terms are often used interchangeably to mean the 4- 6 hours of sun each day, preferably in the morning and early afternoon. However, if a plant is listed as partial sun, greater emphasis is put on it needing the minimal sun requirements. Less than four hours is considered shade. Anything less than two is deep shade. This does not mean that it needs no sun at all, there aren't many plants, except mushrooms, that can survive in the dark. 
 Sunlight is a necessity for plants to perform photosynthesis which is how they make food. Photosynthesis means ''putting together with light.' They use light energy to change the materials - carbon dioxide and water into food substances (sugars).
 If a plant does not receive enough sunlight, it will not produce enough sugars and will not grow as much as it would otherwise. A fruiting plant needs a great deal of energy to produce that fruit, that is why you hardly ever see a fruit plant grown in shade.
All plants have a threshold of how much sunlight is too much and how much is too little. Too much sunlight can also harm plants. Try planting a Hosta in Full Sun!  Plants usually come labeled with their sun exposure requirements. Measuring that sun exposure is not an exact science. There will always be variables such as cloudy days and places where it gets to be 100 degrees in the shade. There are some plants that are listed as shade tolerant, but will grow in full sun, IF they have access to adequate moisture.
The intensity of sunlight varies depending on the time of day. A plant that gets sun all morning, but is shaded in the afternoon has a much different growing environment than one that does not get the morning sun, but is exposed to sun all afternoon.

There are many other variables to sunlight. A good gardener should know their yard and the side of the house that the sun comes up on. I have tried to explain many times to a gardener that a certain plant will do better if they plant it on the East side of their house. The immediate response is usually, "I don't know which way that is."
Simple answer, the side of the house the sun comes up on. Once you have that figured out, you can get the other directions. If you are facing the rising sun, North will be to your left, South to your right and West is on your back.
I usually tell people here in my Zone 8 that Citrus should be planted on the South or West side of the house. That way they have more heat directed to them.Citrus trees will do just fine in the morning, East sun, but they are usually a little more apt to get hurt in the Winter.
Now, just to muddy it up a little more. In the Winter time, as the sun settles down onto the southern horizon more, your intensity will tend to decrease here too. That 8 hours of sun you were getting a month ago will not be as strong. If you notice your plant starting to reach for sunlight, this could be the reason. Try to find an even brighter location until the sun starts coming back to the North in the Spring.
Latitude and elevation play a role too. Gardens in the South receive more intense sun than those in the North. And gardens at higher elevations are brighter than landscapes at sea level.

Sometimes trying to help people with their plant problems is like pulling teeth. You have to pull and yank to get all the pertinent information from them. Then if they are misinformed about a certain thing, it can make it even harder. I hope this brief description of what the sun does, how much is needed, and where you get the most was helpful. 
If you ever have a plant that is just not doing well, evaluate the environment you have it in, water, food, sunlight...the plant will tell you what it wants, that tag that came with it.....not so much. I can give you a list of plants that the tag says one thing, being sunlight amount or that it will grow in a certain Zone, and it is wrong.
If you get nothing from this blog but one thing, please remember this. ALL of this is academic, Mother Nature will do What she wants, How she wants and Why she wants....one quick case in point....Oleander is usually considered a Full Sun kind of plant that should not be grown in anything colder than a Zone 8. My mother has one in Zone 7, partial shade, that flowers.....just don't tell the Oleander that it's not suppose to do that, it hasn't read the book.
Happy Growing!
Darren






13 comments:

  1. Hi Sandi,
    Conventional wisdom says Yes.
    I am under the belief that you would have to consume a large quantity to be deadly though.
    Will it make you sick? Probably. I would not go out and purposely eat it on a salad, but I have seen critters chewing on it and as far as I know, they are still here.
    Some people will not plant it because they are SO SCARED of it being poisonous, there are many, many plants that are, but they plant those.
    Hope that helps.

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  2. I have a question about my grapefruit tree. It has lost all of its leaves and it's only recently been hot here. I live in Montreal. I put it outside in the front that gets full sun for 9 hours. Today it was hot and the UV might have been high. When I brought it in some of the branches looked brown whereas the others are still bright green. My question is, can the sun, if it is too hot, kill the branches on the grapefruit tree?

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    Replies
    1. Hello Avalee.
      Basically, the short answer is yes, it will burn the leaves and even small branches. It will not kill the tree. It will drop the burnt ones, then send out leaves that are more accustomed to the sun.
      MY question to you. If it was hot, why did you bring it back in? Unless it was going down below freezing, you could have left it outside.

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  3. When I went on vacation 2 weeks ago my dwarf orange tree, which I've been growing in a container for 2 1/2yrs., looked great. I live in SoCal and while I was gone temps got to upwards of 105. To top it off my auto watering system was knocked out of my poor little tree. When I got home ALL the leaves were burnt. Soil was completely dry. Can she be saved? She means so much to me. Please help me save her.

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    Replies
    1. Hey Steph,
      Do a small scratch on the top part of the tree. If you see green, you are good to go, if you see brown,continue down until you see green.
      Water the begeebers out of it, soak it in a tub for a few hours, make sure you get all of the soil wet again. If there was any green to be seen, your tree will be fine.

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  4. What a fantastic Blog- so happy I stumbled on it! And, sheepishly wondering if I can ask you a question related to this article. I live in a generally fantastic growing climate about 75 miles northwest of San Francisco (Sonoma County), about four or five inland miles from the coast. Put in a pretty serious mixed fruit orchard on a south facing slope, and, because I couldn't resist, added half a dozen citrus in a block in the orchard. Good drainage, attentive soil amendment, deep mulch, have a dedicated irrigation zone so they get their specific water needs met. Trees got trashed by some intense atmospheric rain events soon after planting, but are recovering (lost leaves, but I built shade frames to protect branches from intense sun until leaves grow back fully). Now, the question....it's almost June, and as the sun climbs higher into the sky, I'm realizing a grove of redwoods is starting to shade the uppermost trees in the citrus block starting at around 4pm (trees here are a pixie mandarin and two australian finger lime). They get sun from dawn until this time, but thinking when the sun hits its zenith late June, the shade may creep in by 3pm. Worrying the already marginal heat for citrus in my area (open orchard, ocean modified temps) would mandate moving them to a spot that gets late afternoon sun as well. Would be so very grateful for your thoughts...

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    1. I would imagine that you have the perfect spot!
      I guess I am slightly confused by your (Worrying the already marginal heat for citrus in my area (open orchard, ocean modified temps). Are you saying that you get cold/freezing? 60's-80's are prime citrus temps. They do not want nor need 90+ all the time. Yes, they can handle those temps, but citrus are very much like people, if you are comfortable with the temperature, so are they.

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  5. Darren- thanks so much for your thoughts... Sounds like I've been worrying without cause. Sort of been neurotic about how I can get the mandarin to ripen, but our summer temps are definitely in the 70 degree range, so, with thanks to your wisdom, guessing I'll be okay. Thinking to move the block getting that afternoon shade to an into-evening sun zone as an insurance policy, but your words are music to my ears! Always believed citrus to need much more heat, thank you so much for correcting my thinking. Very grateful for your time and expertise....

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  6. WOW! My story exactly. My key lime tree is 5 years old. When I first planted it (18" pot) I had 8 limes. Next time 4, then 1. I have had a few flowers since then and they just fall off. It's on an enclosed balcony so I play busy bee with a cotton swab. My balcony faces east. I get a couple of hours of morning sun at best. I'm guessing I should move 1 or 2 of my led lights from my indoor herb garden out to the balcony or move my lime tree into my herb garden located in my second bedroom. I also have fig trees and olive trees on the same balcony. All seem to grow well vegetative wise but produce no fruit. Just wondering what my neighbors will think if they see grow lights on my balcony :) Thanks for your help! BTW my coworkers are tired of me trying to dump pounds of basil, parsley, cilantro and chives on them. I grow these hydroponically. I may build a PVC support for the lights or just move everything indoors. Thanks again!

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  7. Hello ! I'm experiencing a couple of issues with an indoor kumquat tree that I was wondering if you could help me with... I've had the tree for a few months now and about a month ago, the leaves on the top foot of the tree started curling longways. The tree gets full-on southern facing sun, and we water it once a week. It has a drainage hole, but I haven't transplanted it yet so it's still in the plastic pot it came in. On top of the high up leaves being folded, recently all of the leaves have started to discolour slightly (they aren't their beautiful dark green anymore) and now (as of the past 2 days) small white dots have appeared on some of the leaves (which I assume are bug larvae.) From what I'm reading, it would appear to be a combination of a number of issues... pests, maybe a nitrogen deficiency, maybe too much sun, plus something unknown (I haven't seen anything that addresses the specific way the leaves have curled up at the top of the tree.) I've been reading a lot, but nothing feels definitively helpful. It's my first time taking care of a citrus tree, so any help would be very appreciated !

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    Replies
    1. Hello, Mia.
      Send me some pictures of the curled leaves. TheCitrusGuy@netzero.com
      It sounds like not enough water. Once a week seems a little light. The soil should stay the consistency of a wrung out dish sponge, damp, but not soaking wet.

      It also sounds like lack of food. When was the last time, and with what, was it fed?

      The spots I will need to see pics.

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  8. Hello Darren, thank you for that post. I suspected our lemon tree needed more sun. I have a question about some mandarin trees we recently planted on the east of the house. We always thought this was a very sunny location. But just discovered that in the spring as the neighbors' trees gain their leaves that one section is slightly shaded until about 10:30-11:00am but stays completely in the sun until at least 6:30pm. Is that going to be bad for them? The afternoon sun is strong, but they'll miss the morning sun. They're still small so if we need to move them we can. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

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