reproduce before you die ....?

2 years ago

Two of the most colorful things in the garden at the moment are the red balls of fruit on the Milky Way dogwood tree and the red fruit on the holly tree/shrub. Both have never produced such a display before! Hopefully it is just because they have reached a higher level of maturity. But this September has been the driest September since we started keeping rain records from our rain gauge in 2003! I thought last September was dry at 36mm. But this year Sept. has only had 25mm. here so far and there is nothing but sun in the forecast for the next week. (1 inch = 25.4mm.) I wondered if the dryness contributed to the winterkill on the heptacodium tree; if it did the rest of the tree might die this winter! July had 162mm. of rain and August had 79mm. I can only hope October had good rain but it didn't last year... :-(

I hope the dry conditions don't damage the dogwood or holly and that they aren't trying to reproduce because they feel they are going to die!

This picture is lousy but hopefully you can see the fruit. It is much redder than it shows here: Milky Way dogwood:

Closer picture:

Holly from home-office window:

Closer view of holly fruit:

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Comments (5)

katob Z6ish, NE Pa
2 years ago
Well it sure is a nice goodbye if they chose to go ahead and die! -Which I don't think they will...

Maybe it was just a good season for pollinators, or a male holly in the neighborhood bloomed at the perfect time, or conditions were great when the plants were deciding whether or not to keep the setting fruits? Or maybe like you say they just happened to hit their fruit setting maturity, all I know is you have a nice berry set and I don't and I think last fall I was also regretting not having more colorful fruits in the autumn.

I still didn't plant that winterberry, or found a nice crabapple, or have room for either ;)
woodyoak thanked katob Z6ish, NE Pa
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
2 years ago
many trees have mast years...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mast_(botany)

i noticed some of my crabs went nuts this year with fruit production... and the oaks are in a normal year...

fruit or seed production this year.. would be in response to something last year.. not whats happening today... after all.. its tree time...on the dogwood anyway...

i think a bad winter can also result is such a result...

anyway.. think on a longer time span.. as to whats occurring this season.. imo ..

ken
woodyoak thanked ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
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ruth_mi
2 years ago
Interesting that your oaks are in a "normal year" Ken - I've never seen so many acorns here and I'm only an hour or so from Adrian. The ones I've noticed dropping record numbers of acorns are white oak varieties. The crabapples are going crazy too.
woodyoak thanked ruth_mi
porkchop_z5b_MI
2 years ago
I had a great bloom year on my young-ish dogwood, the fruits have just recently colored up. I think they're pretty cool-looking, kinda alien-ish. I wonder if the birds like them. I have deciduous holly bushes which are always loaded with plump red berries, and the birds don't seem to care much for them, they're always gone by the end of the winter but they get left for last -- like the birds dine on tastier things first and resort to the holly berries as a last resort. They must be fussy LOL!
woodyoak thanked porkchop_z5b_MI
porkchop_z5b_MI
2 years ago
Oh, I also have berries on my Koreanspice and Mohican viburnums up by the house, not an abundance but first year on the virburnums and they're quite attractive. Inky blue berries on the silky dogwood, but those must be highly favored because they're usually eaten in a flash.
woodyoak thanked porkchop_z5b_MI