The Why and How of Home Horticulture

Preface

In response to requests over the years by many users of the first edition, I have updated the text to include as much as possible the latest information for the home and classroom. The second edition of The Why and How of Home Horticulture retains the same organization and chapter headings as the first edition; however, notable changes have been made in both the text and illustrations, primarily to include new developments in technology and perspective. A section outlining the history of gardening has been added to Chapter 1. Considerable information on mulching, composting, rotation gardening, growing without pesticides and manufactured fertilizers, and other topics of interest to organic growers has been added to the chapter on soils, the chapters on the growing of individual crops, and The Handbook. Discussions of integrated pest management, pesticide licensing, control of soil erosion, biotechnology and genetic engineering, tissue culture, plug transplants and other advancements in plant propagation, mode of action and horticultural uses of plant growth regulators, new developments in pruning practices, and a number of other recent technologically related innovations have been included or updated in appropriate chapters. In response to suggestions from several instructors who used the first edition, Questions for Review and Discussion have been added at the back of the book; these refer to material covered in each chapter. Also the list of references at the end of each chapter has been completely revised and updated to include those references most appropriate and currently available. Throughout, information has been updated and many of the illustrations have been changed or replaced to reflect modern trends and developments. I hope with these additions and changes that the book will continue to offer an exciting and insightful presentation of modern home horticulture.

I have resisted adding a separate chapter on organic gardening because basic requirements for plant growing are the same regardless of how we label our farming and gardening techniques. The principles and most of the practices of plant growing delineated in this text apply whether or not the grower chooses to use pesticides and manufactured fertilizers.

My gratitude is extended to the many individuals who have encouraged, suggested improvements in, and otherwise assisted with the preparation of the second edition. Special thanks is due Professors Robert A. Miller and Edward G. Kirby, who reviewed the entire manuscript during its preparation and made numerous helpful suggestions. I thank the staff of W. H. Freeman and Company, including Alice Fernandes-Brown and Julia DeRosa, and especially Christine Hastings, who has had the difficult task of coordinating the manuscript and illustration review and revision process, of prodding the completion of necessary details, and of final preparation of the manuscript for publication. My son, Robert, furnished a number of photographs and has had the unenviable task of producing publishable prints from my slides and my often imperfect attempts at photography. Finally I express deep appreciation to my wife, Betty, who, as with the first edition, has reviewed the added and changed manuscript for grammar and clarity, who has helped with library research and attended to countless details that only one who has written a book can know, and who has encouraged and put up with her husband through the preparation of two editions of this text.

D. R. Bienz

May 1992

Preface to the First Edition

When, as a result of the enthusiasm for gardening that developed in the early 1970s, I was asked to teach an elective, introductory horticulture course for nonmajors, I soon discovered that no appropriate textbook existed. The excellent introductory texts available for students of commercial horticulture did not focus on the interests of home gardeners, and the numerous books written about gardening included little of the scientific horticulture necessary for understanding fundamental reasons for horticultural practices. Consequently, I developed my own syllabus, Horticulture for the Homeowner Who Wants to Know Why.

Although this hurriedly written syllabus was far from polished and was never advertised for sale, I soon began receiving requests for copies from many parts of the country. Former students, instructors of horticulture and biological sciences at several universities and community colleges, and friends who are gardeners encouraged me to expand the syllabus into an illustrated book suitable both as a classroom text and as an informational guide for serious gardeners. What began as a minor revision eventually resulted in a rewriting of the syllabus, augmented with new information, additional chapters, and many illustrations. The outcome is this text, The Why and How of Home Horticulture.

The first thirteen chapters are organized in a sequence that can be used as the informational basis for a three-hour semester or a five-hour quarter course in home horticulture. The introductory chapters are concerned with reproduction, development, propagation, and planting. These are followed by chapters that deal with the relation of environmental elements to horticultural production and chapters that describe kinds of gardens and individual garden crops.

Although the chapters are sequential, each is a relatively complete unit, and they do not necessarily need to be studied in order. For example, during the fall semester I usually schedule the classes on landscaping after the material in the first four chapters has been presented, thus landscape plantings can be observed before they are covered with snow. During warm autumns the chapter on pruning may need to be assigned later so that trees and shrubs will be dormant for concurrent laboratory practice. For the same reason, when spring is early, pruning may need to be scheduled earlier than it would be if the text chapters were assigned in sequence.

The first thirteen chapters contain considerable practical information, but most of the instructions for gardening procedures are contained in The Handbook, Chapter 14. Assembling the how-to-do-it information in one place provides a convenient garden reference and also permits, in the first thirteen chapters, a presentation of the sequential pageant of gardening that is more coherent because it is not so frequently interrupted with practical examples.

No specific section is delineated for laboratory work, but a semester or quarter of laboratory exercises, including propagating, planning, planting, storing, processing, and other activities, could be designed based on the descriptive material in The Handbook.

It is my hope that serious gardeners not involved in academia will also find this book understandable, interesting, and useful. I would suggest they read the first thirteen chapters in sequence, relating the information in each chapter to their own experience. They should then read through The Handbook to become acquainted with its contents so it can be used as a reference when specific gardening needs arise.

I thank the many individuals who have contributed assistance and encouragement during my preparation of this manuscript. Naming them all would be impossible, but I would like to recognize especially F. E. Larsen and E. W. Kalin, who contributed parts of The Handbook and reviewed sections of the manuscript; R. L. Hausenbuiller, K. N. Nilsen, and K. A. Schekel, who also reviewed sections of the manuscript; Gunder Hefta, who reviewed the entire manuscript; and Patricia Brewer and Susan Weisberg, who spent countless hours correcting and editing.

I also thank Margaret Gurtel, who assembled most of the index and a considerable portion of the glossary and did library research for many of the tables, and my daughter, Marianne, who assisted with library research, glossary organization, preliminary typing, almost all of the final draft typing, and, perhaps most important, enthusiastic encouragement. Above all I thank my wife, Betty, who edited much of the manuscript, in several drafts, for grammar and clarity, who typed preliminary drafts, and who provided patient encouragement during the years of manuscript preparation.

I also thank the many who, over the years, have inspired me with the knowledge and appreciation of plant growing, especially my father, Rudolph Bienz, and Professors J. E. Kraus, Earl New, Leif Verner, and G. W. Woodbury.

D. R. Bienz

August 1979

CHAPTER 1

Plants and People

With much of the native flora of the world’s cities replaced by concrete and brick, urban dwellers no longer live and work in intimate contact with the plant growth that provides the oxygen they breathe, the clothes they wear, the food supply they find so abundantly and conveniently displayed in their supermarkets, and even the rubber, plastic, and upholstery for the cars they drive. Yet almost without exception, people want to be near green foliage. Thriving flower and plant shops, carefully tended indoor and outdoor home gardens, trim lawns, popular natural parks and walkways, and the use of plastic foliage where live plants cannot be maintained attest to the human affection for plants. Some individuals may not be enamored of the work associated with making plants grow, but almost everyone enjoys a garden environment.

AGRICULTURE, GARDENS, AND CIVILIZATION

Our desire to be with plants may derive from ancient need. Human existence has always been dependent on food and fiber from plants or from the animals that feed on plants. Archaeological evidence suggests that in earlier times humans procured food by hunting, fishing, and gathering plant products. Obtaining enough to eat required almost every waking hour and also considerable area. For example, before Europeans came to Australia, during a season of normal climate each Australian aboriginal hunter/gatherer required six square miles to procure an adequate amount of food, and more during years of low precipitation. Distances involved in gathering food limited the size of groups living together to about ten.

Progress in human culture required the cooperative association of larger groups of people with some leisure time and thus paralleled the adoption of practices that increased the amount and availability of food. The use of fire, the art of cooking, and the invention of containers were among the more important of these practices. The most significant advances in food procurement however, and the ones that led to the development of what we term civilization, were the domestication of animals and plants and the art of cultivation. The more reliable food supply ensured by cultivation and herding and the physical security of community life provided opportunities for people to pursue occupations other than farming, as well as time to create and enjoy art and music, to develop writing, and to pursue learning and hobbies, including ornamental gardening.

Cultivation and the Progress of Human Culture

The earliest conclusive evidence of plant cultivation and domestication is dated about 7000 B.C. in Turkey and Iraq, where wheat and barley were the staple crops. The idea of cultivating plants seems to have begun in Egypt, Ethiopia, and east Asia at about the same time as or shortly after it began in the Turkey-Iraq region. Wheat and barley seeds are the oldest food products archaeologically associated with cultivation, although some agricultural historians believe that vegetatively propagated crops such as sweet potatoes and manioc—for which no direct evidence would remain—may have been cultivated earlier in more humid tropical climates. Archaeological evidence dates the first seed cultivation in the Americas fifteen hundred years later, about 5500 B.C., in southern Mexico, where a civilization arose that depended on beans, corn, and squash as its basic cultivated crops. At the same time an advanced, well-organized society whose major food crop was potatoes was developing in Peru.

In the Middle East, three cultivated river valleys were the centers of highly advanced ancient civilizations. Unique and very efficient irrigation cultures arose in the Nile, Indus, and Tigris-Euphrates valleys. The chronology of the Egyptian civilization, preserved in hieroglyphic writings, reveals that its agricultural economy was based on the annual flooding of the Nile River. Flooding provided not only irrigation water but also fertilizer in the form of a thin layer of mud. The annual flooding also leached away salts that tend to accumulate and make the soils of some arid regions unfit for cultivation (see Crop Damage from Dissolved Chemicals in Chapter 6). Besides wheat and barley, the staple food crops, Egyptian farmers grew dates, figs, other subtropical fruits, and most of the vegetables known in the Old World before the time of Columbus. During later periods of Egypt’s cultural dominance, complex religious orders owned and farmed large tracts in cooperative arrangements akin to certain modern communal agricultural ventures. The Egyptians also prized ornamental plants, and the populace had enough leisure to establish and enjoy public and private parks and gardens (Figure 1-1). The Egyptian civilization was the center of world culture for almost four thousand years, from 6000 to 2000 B.C., and its agricultural advancements and productivity were not surpassed until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

There was considerable interaction among the peoples of Egypt and those of the Indus Valley and the Tigris—Euphrates area (Mesopotamia), where the Babylonian and Assyrian civilizations depended on an intricate series of canals that irrigated almost 7 million acres (2.8 million hectares) and supported a population many times that of the region today. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, which Pliny classed as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and the detailed carvings of grains, fruits, and vegetables on public buildings and burial vaults demonstrate the importance of agriculture to Mesopotamian society.

FIGURE 1-1 • Tomb painting showing the garden of a wealthy Egyptian official from the time of Amenhotep III. (From P. L. Carpenter et al., Plants in the Landscape, 2nd ed., W. H. Freeman and Company, New York, copyright © 1990)

The civilization of Mesopotamia domesticated cows between 6000 and 5000 B.C. and horses before 3000 B.C. The use of draft animals advanced farming efficiency and freed some of the workforce that had been engaged in food production to follow other pursuits. The domestication of horses also enhanced military efficiency and undoubtedly played a role in instituting slavery. Dominant societies used horses to raid less powerful neighbors and bring home captives. Although a few became concubines or household servants, most of the captives were forced to till the fields. The barbarities of a slave-based agricultural economy persisted in Europe through the Greek and Roman periods and in the New World until late in the nineteenth century.

The ancient civilizations of east Africa and central and southeast Asia are not so well documented as those of the Middle East, but there is evidence of early, highly developed cultures in all these areas. One of the early centers of plant culture, long neglected by Western scholars, is China. China’s highly advanced civilization began five thousand years ago, domesticating such crops as rice, peaches, apricots, and many cucurbits.

It is no accident that ancient civilizations arose in the areas where they did. The successful growing of crops requires sufficient light, warm temperature, adequate irrigation water, a growing medium (usually soil), and a method of renewing the fertility of that medium. If some members of society are to be released from farming to pursue other activities, the location must also provide a means of transporting food from producers and marketing it to consumers. Egypt’s desert climate supplied light and heat, and the Nile River provided irrigation water and renewed the soil’s fertility. The relative ease of river transport encouraged the development of urban markets along the banks of the Nile.

The swamp on which modern Mexico City was built is another example of a location suited for the development of cultivation. Crops were grown there in ancient times on artificial islands in the shallow lake around which a city was built. Heat and light were abundant at this sunny site, and water and mud dipped from the lake supplied irrigation and renewed soil fertility. Boats carried the produce from island farms to lakefront markets (Figure 1-2).

Plant domestication and improvement continued with the Greeks, Romans, Persians, Byzantines, and in cultures in east Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Even when an empire perished, and its war machines, language, and literature were no more, the plants it had developed remained to enrich the gardens of succeeding civilizations. After Rome fell in the fifth century, its traditions of cultivation survived in the gardens of the Byzantine Empire and of Christian monasteries. From the fifth to the fifteenth century, the finest gardening and probably the most advanced agriculture could be found in China and other parts of east Asia. In the thirteenth century Marco Polo described the elegance of Chinese gardens in his remarkable account of his travels. Many gardens of that period are still maintained around Buddhist and Hindu temples in China, India, and southeast Asia.

FIGURE 1-2 • Farming on an artificial island: a farming system similar to that employed by the ancient Mexicans. Near Bangkok, Thailand, crops are currently being produced on islands created from soil from a swamp. (Courtesy of Helen Tremblay/ Peter Arnold, Inc.)

Modern Technology and Agricultural Development

Spurred by the Renaissance and the European discovery of America, leadership in the development of agricultural technology moved west. The sixteenth-century explorations brought together plant heritages of Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and when these were combined the number of cultivated species almost doubled. The opening of large tracts of land in the Americas and later in Australia and New Zealand, along with the gradual evolution of the European feudal system into a free-enterprise social order, ushered in the age of the small farmer and stimulated the invention of implements that could be powered by draft animals.

Nonetheless, even by 1800 agriculture had changed little from what it had been at the peak of Egyptian civilization. In 1790, over 90 percent of American families earned their livelihood directly from farming. The hoe, the scythe, and the rake were still the principal implements of cultivation. Grain was still threshed by driving a team of oxen over sheaves spread on canvas and allowing the wind to blow away the chaff. The vegetable, fruit, and flower cultivars of the time would have been judged to be of rather poor quality by today’s standards.

Then, two nineteenth-century developments and the technological progress they engendered brought more changes to agriculture than had occurred over the previous six thousand years. The first of these was the use of fossil fuels and the invention of the steam and internal combustion engines. The steamboat and steam-powered railroad helped open vast areas to farming in the Americas and Australia. Rapid and efficient transportation enabled the specialized production of crops in the areas in which they grow best. Steam engines and, later, petroleum-fueled tractors, along with the farming implements they powered, greatly increased the amount of land that one grower could farm.

The second of these developments was the Morrill Act. Signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862, the act set aside U.S. government lands to provide an endowment for the establishment of a college of agriculture and mechanical arts in each state. For the first time in human history, agriculture was recognized as a legitimate subject for advanced study. The three cooperating divisions into which land-grant universities were organized—teaching, research, and extension—permitted, to an extent hitherto impossible, the experimentation necessary for the acquisition of new information and better techniques for growing and marketing agricultural products and the dissemination of that information and those techniques to growers.

The development of fossil-fuel energy and the experimentation and education encouraged by the Morrill Act (and the agricultural research and training fostered in other countries that modeled programs on the successful American legislation) led to a virtual revolution in agriculture. The application of basic chemistry and physics to soil science helped identify the chemical elements required by plants and the mechanisms by which they are absorbed and utilized. In turn, fertilizers that have multiplied the yields of almost all crops could be synthesized. Techniques for controlling many of the most destructive crop pests were developed. With the discovery of the ,principles of genetics came higher-yielding, better-quality, and pest-resistant cultivars. The benefits of genetic crop improvement, initially limited primarily to agriculture in the developed world, have more recently averted widespread famine in South Asia and some other countries of the Third World as a result of the high-yielding cultivars developed at the International Wheat and Rice Institutes.

Each advance in technology—fertilizers, pesticides, improved cultivars, mechanization, new storage techniques, more rapid transportation, mass marketing—has enabled growers of crops to farm larger acreages and to produce greater quantities. Between 1790 and 1940 the percentage of the North American workforce directly dependent on farming for a living dropped from 90 to 20 percent. In 1968 about 6 percent of the workforce grew food for the United States and Canada, and in 1993 about 2.5 percent were engaged in on-the-farm production. Many others earn their living from occupations related to agriculture: the manufacture and distribution of farm machines and of the motor fuels and lubricants needed to operate them; equipment repair; the development, testing, manufacture, and distribution of pesticides and fertilizers; the storage, processing, packaging, transport, and marketing of food and fiber; the provision of services for millions of avocational growers, that is, gardeners; the planning and planting of parks, recreational areas, and indoor and outdoor home beautification projects; and the research, education, and extension needed for those engaged in farming and related activities.

One alarming trend that has continued since the immigrant settlement of North America has been the failure to recognize the finite limits of agricultural resources and the resulting destruction of farmland and pollution of water resources. Large tracts of land are irretrievably lost to crop production each year by conversion to urban and industrial uses. Much of the urban development in North America is in the areas most suitable for growing high-value horticultural crops: Orange and San Diego counties in California, north central Florida and the Florida coast, the shores of the Great Lakes, Long Island, central New Jersey, the Willamette Valley of Oregon, the lower Fraser Valley of British Columbia, and the Salt River Valley of Arizona, to name a few. Many counties with large urban populations have purchased development rights or used other means to preserve farms in suburban areas, but even more must be done if enough land to grow food and fiber for the greater populations of future generations is to be kept in production. (The ravages of erosion—frequently the result of unwise farming practices —and the loss of irrigated farmland to the accumulation of salts and alkalinity are discussed in Chapters 5 and 6.)

Modern Technology and Ornamental Horticulture

During the Renaissance, many of the European nobility enlisted the services of acclaimed architects and construction engineers to design formal gardens, some of which still survive. These gardens often encompassed vast areas of trees planted in straight rows, severely clipped hedges, and geometrically shaped flower beds, as well as numerous statues and fountains (Figure 1-3). Estate owners competed to be the first to grow exotic plants discovered in distant lands being visited for the first time by European explorers. Explorations undertaken solely or partially for the purpose of bringing new plants back to Europe were sponsored by Renaissance gardeners. When glass became available, glass conservatories were constructed so that tropical plants could be added to plant collections. These structures were called orangeries in recognition of the most common fruit plant grown in them.

FIGURE 1-3 • A private estate’s formal garden at The Cliffs, in Oyster Bay, Long Island. (Courtesy of Michael Mathers/Peter Arnold, Inc.)

Until the middle of the nineteenth century—and in some areas much later, except for large estates—most homes in North America were not landscaped, partly because the requisite time and money were not available, partly because there was no tradition of landscaping, partly for other reasons. But as the population became more prosperous during the last half of the nineteenth century, fine parks and public and private gardens were established. The formal garden style of the European Renaissance gradually gave way to a naturalistic style in which gentle curves replaced harsh geometric designs and in which rock outcrops, rock gardens, and natural rock or wooden fences were featured instead of statuary, formal gardens, and geometric masonry walls.

Frederick Law Olmsted (1822—1903) first introduced the term landscape architect in conjunction with his design of Central Park in New York City. He, and other designers that he influenced, stressed that when designing parks and gardens the needs of people should be considered as well as landforms and plant materials. During the late nineteenth century, arboreta and botanical gardens were established, seed and nursery catalogs and gardening magazines first appeared, and state horticultural societies and local garden clubs were inaugurated (Figure 1-4). Both public and private breeders used exotic and native species to develop new ornamental species and cultivars.

The advent of the automobile in the twentieth century has had a tremendous impact on gardening and landscaping. Roadways and parking and garaging facilities required for the widespread use of automobiles have necessitated radical changes in urban, home, and yard design and construction. The longer commutes made possible by auto transportation led to the development of suburbs, which in turn provided the displaced agriculturists who were flocking to metropolitan areas with enough yard space to satisfy their urge to grow a few plants. That the typical American residence is an individual dwelling (with a yard planted to turf, trees, shrubs, and flowers), instead of an apartment or row house, is at least partly a result of the mobility that automobiles engender. The distances that could be negotiated by auto made it possible for families to spend weekends at fairly distant locations and encouraged the development and landscape maintenance of public parks and public and private recreation sites away from urban centers.

FIGURE 1-4 • The New York Botanical Garden, the Bronx, shown in September 1910. (Courtesy of the Library of the New York Botanical Garden)

FIGURE 1-5 • Approximate geographical origin of cultivated fruits (A) and cultivated vegetables (B). (Maps reproduced by permission of Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., from Bertha Morris Parker and Illa Podendort, Domesticated Plants, copyright © 1949 by Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.)

One aspect of gardening that has received considerable attention in the recent past and continues to be popular is indoor beautification with plants, or plantscaping. To some extent this trend has resulted from the urge to grow something shared by an increasing number of apartment and condominium dwellers who do not have facilities for outdoor gardens. Additionally, commercial business and professional office supervisors have recognized that a few plants in a room can create a more pleasant and productive environment for customers and employees. Propagating and growing houseplants and supplying and maintaining indoor decorative plantings for commercial establishments are now important segments of the horticultural industry.

Food gardening reached what was perhaps the zenith of its popularity in the 1970s and has declined only slightly since then. In its November 1989 issue, National Gardening, the venerable magazine of the National Gardening Association, reported surveys showing that 31 million U.S. households grow vegetables. Between 30 and 40 percent of all vegetables consumed in North America, as well as considerable quantities of fruit, herbs, and grain legumes, are grown in home gardens. Many cities provide garden plots for apartment dwellers. National Gardening also reported that the amount of money spent on lawns and ornamental gardens increased by about 6 percent per year between 1979 and 1989. About 58 percent of the households surveyed had lawns, and 42 percent grew flowers. Having produce of garden-fresh quality, rather than saving money, was the main reason given by those interviewed for their food-gardening efforts. Ornamental gardeners gardened for pleasure and for the greater value that ornamentals gave their property.

The Challenge to Gardeners in an Age of Diminishing Resources

Today’s gardeners have inherited a priceless heritage of plant materials developed by past generations. The tremendous diversity of domestic plants adapted to varied climates is a synthesis of the efforts of countless plant scientists, farmers, gardeners, and human observers from many cultures during the thousands of years of human civilization (Figure 1-5).

Plant domestication, mainly of ornamentals, and the improvement of food and ornamental plants continue today through the efforts of public and private commercial and amateur breeders. Averting famine, by replacing cultivars that can no longer be grown because they have become susceptible to pest attack, and by developing better-adapted, higher-yielding cultivars, is a continuing challenge for breeders of food crops. Ornamental breeders face the challenge of creating cultivars that can withstand and even help ameliorate the stresses of the modern urban environment. The genetic resources to meet both these challenges will come primarily from the wild ancestors of currently cultivated species and from wild species yet to be domesticated. This is the principal reason that the accelerating extinction of native plant species poses such a great threat to our future welfare. Gardeners should repay their plant heritage debt by supporting sensible programs that will ensure the survival of species and consequently of the plant heritage for coming generations.

HORTICULTURE IN RELATION TO OTHER DISCIPLINES

Although the production of garden crops is a horticultural activity, sooner or later most gardeners face problems that require the expertise of specialists in other fields. It seems appropriate, therefore, to devote a few paragraphs to the relationship of horticulture to other agricultural and biological sciences and related disciplines and to explain briefly what the field of horticulture encompasses.

With the very earliest domestication there was a sharp division between the occupation of the animal agriculturist, who was primarily a nomad following flocks and herds from one grassy area to another, and the more or less sedentary plant agriculturist. This division is exemplified in the biblical story of Abel, the herdsman, and Cain, the gardener. Later, as more animals became domesticated, animal agriculturists were further divided according to the kind of animal in which they specialized, as cattle, sheep, hog, or poultry producers. With the domestication of fowl and swine, the development of planted pastures, the production of hay, and the recognition of the value of manure as fertilizer, a somewhat closer relationship between some plant and animal agriculturists ensued.

As long as planting, sowing, and reaping were accomplished with hand tools and as long as farmers produced food primarily with the help of and for their families, a farmer was a farmer. With the invention of machinery that permitted each grower to produce extensive acreages of certain crops, however, plant agriculturists split into two groups: agronomists, who grew field crops on large acreages, and horticulturists, who grew garden or intensively cultivated crops. This distinction between horticultural and agronomic crops persists, even though today some horticultural crops are produced in larger fields than are agronomic crops.

The term horticulture is derived from two Latin words meaning garden cultivation. Botany and related plant sciences are closely allied to horticulture, and in the past botany and horticulture were often included in the same university department. Horticulture is sometimes referred to as applied botany. Vocational fields related to plant pest control—entomology (insects), plant pathology (plant diseases), and weed control—as well as soils and agricultural economics, are other disciplines often studied in conjunction with horticulture.

Divisions of the Field of Horticulture

Horticulture as an educational discipline is considered both an art and a science and usually includes five different subfields. In some universities these are grouped together in a horticulture department. At other schools some of these subfields may be separate departments, or horticulture may be taught with agronomy and plant pathology in an overall plant science department. These five subfields are pomology, the culture of fruit; olericulture, the culture of vegetables; ornamental horticulture, the production and utilization of flowers, shrubs, and trees; postharvest horticulture, the processing, preservation, and storage of horticultural products; and landscape horticulture, the use of plant materials for beautification.

All or some of the subfield of postharvest horticulture is often part of an interdisciplinary field of food technology dealing with all aspects of storing, preserving, and processing foods. Landscape horticulture is often a part of a much larger discipline that goes by various names and may include different subfields. In the past, landscape training has been allied with either horticulture or architecture departments; now it is frequently also associated with environmental or outdoor recreation disciplines that may ally it with environmental science, forestry, or physical education. Viticulture and enology, the culture of grapes and the art of wine making, are sometimes treated as fields separate from pomology.

Horticulturists need a knowledge of various related fields, including those just mentioned as well as business, climatology, and engineering. People interested in ornamental areas of landscape architecture should have a knowledge of surveying, design, art, city and recreational facilities planning, and perhaps social science. Horticultural education and garden writing are two other rapidly growing subfields.

CLASSIFICATION OF HORTICULTURAL CROPS

The human mind most easily retains a body of knowledge if its various components can be grouped in a related and orderly fashion. For example, the names of the states of the United States and the provinces of Canada are more easily remembered in groups according to geographical location or in alphabetical order than they are randomly. Analogously, garden plants can be more easily studied if they are grouped in a meaningful relationship. There are many ways of grouping and thus of classifying horticultural crops.

Horticultural Classification

One way of classifying garden crops is referred to as horticultural classification, which groups products according to their use:

I. Edible crops

a. Fruit

1. Tropical

2. Subtropical

3. Temperate

a. Tree fruit

b. Small fruit

b. Vegetables

1. Cool-season

2. Warm-season

c. Drugs, condiments, and beverages

II. Ornamentals

a. Flowers and foliage plants

1. Flowers for indoor use

2. Flowers for outdoor use

b. Shrubs and trees

Obviously, not all horticultural crops can be classified neatly into one of these groups. For instance, the term fruit as used in a horticultural sense is somewhat different from the term used in a botanical sense. Botanically, a fruit is an enlarged ovary with attached parts, but horticulturally, a fruit is a plant part that can be consumed as a dessert or snack with little or no preparation. A vegetable is a plant part that may or may not require cooking but is usually consumed without much refinement and with the main course of the meal (agronomic crops usually require milling or refining before they can be consumed).

Some fruits and vegetables do not, however, readily fit this classification. For example, tomatoes, peppers, and beans, all botanically fruits, are considered vegetables because they are put to culinary uses that we ordinarily associate with vegetables. Rhubarb, usually grown as a vegetable, is normally used as a dessert, and the avocado, botanically and horticulturally a fruit, is frequently used in vegetable salads.

In addition, edible plants such as kale, hot peppers, and herbs may sometimes be used as ornamentals, but hot peppers and herbs can also be classified as condiments, a term that describes spices and other products used to enhance the flavor of foods (Figure 1-6). Coffee, tea, and cocoa are the most important beverage plants. Morphine from the opium poppy, caffeine from the coffee tree, and digitalis from the foxglove plant are among the useful drugs produced from horticultural crops.

FIGURE 1-6 • Piper nigrum, a condiment. Both black and white pepper come from this plant. Black pepper is made by grinding both the seeds and the dried berries; white pepper is made by grinding the seeds after the berry pulp has been removed by fermentation.

Useful or Not Useful. One basis for classifying plants in the garden is their usefulness, or lack of it. Plants that are not useful are usually termed weeds. Sometimes a plant is useful in one location but may be a weed in another. Scotch broom, for example, is considered a weed on the Oregon and Washington coasts, whereas in those parts of the country where it must be planted and nurtured, it is regarded as a desirable ornamental. Indeed, it is conceivable that many plants considered weeds today may someday be found to have useful properties and may be the crop plants of tomorrow. Sunflowers and safflowers are examples of plants once considered to be weeds that have become useful in our own time.

Growth Habit. Another useful method of classifying plants is according to their habit of growth. A herbaceous plant has nonwoody stems (as occurs on coleus or asparagus) that usually last only one season. The contrasting woody plant has woody stems and generally lives for several to many years, adding new growth each year (Figure 1-7). Herbaceous plants can be classified as upright or vining, and woody plants are divided into lianas (woody vines), shrubs, and trees. Plants also may be classified as deciduous or evergreen. Deciduous plants shed all their leaves at one time, usually in the autumn. Evergreens, although they also shed their leaves, do so gradually during the entire year as other leaves form to replace those that are lost. Thus, evergreens are never without leaves. Evergreen plants may be further subdivided into broad-leaved and needle evergreens.

Plants are sometimes categorized on the basis of the part consumed or used by humans (Figure 1-8). Examples of this classification include the leaf (lettuce), stem (asparagus), root (carrot or sweet potato), petiole (celery or rhubarb), bud (broccoli or globe artichoke), fruit (apple or pineapple), and seed (pea or sweet corn).

FIGURE 1-7 • Conifer (woody) trees underlain by grasses and herbaceous plants. (Courtesy of Grant Heilman)

Length of Life. Plants may also be classified according to the number of seasons they survive. Annuals are plants that over the course of one season produce vegetative growth, flowers, and seeds and die. Biennial plants produce vegetative growth during their first season; usually their flowering is triggered by a period of cold weather. They produce flowers, fruit, and seeds in their second season and die at the end of their second year. Perennial plants are those that survive from three to many seasons.

Plants are usually classified as annual, biennial, or perennial on the basis of the part that lives the longest. Thus, even though a tree has annual leaves, it is considered to be a perennial. Rasp-berries and other bramble berries have biennial canes, but because the roots are perennial, these plants are considered perennials. Most perennial flowers have tops that are annual. Carrots are considered biennials because the roots live for two seasons, even though the tops are annual.

FIGURE 1-8 • Various plant parts useful to humans. (A) Rose, flower; (B) globe artichoke, flower bud; (C) onion, leaf (bulbs are morphologically platelike stems surrounded by fleshy leaves); (D) carrot, root; (E) potato, stem (tubers are the enlarged fleshy tips of underground stems); (F) chard, leaf and petiole; (G) apple, fruit; (H) pea, seed; (I) asparagus, stem and apical bud.

Some crops are grown as annuals, although under certain environmental conditions they may be biennial or perennial. For example, when tomatoes are grown in the tropics, they may survive for several seasons; however, in temperate zones they are grown as annuals. Also, when biennial vegetables—celery, carrots, cabbage, beets, turnips, rutabagas—are not being produced for seed, they are grown and harvested during one season.

Temperature Tolerance. Plants are also classified according to their temperature tolerance. Tropical crops are those that originated in tropical areas of the earth. Plants such as bananas, pineapple, rubber, cacao, coffee, and even vegetables like watermelon and cantaloupe are of tropical origin and are subject to cold injury at temperatures considerably above the freezing point. Subtropical crops can tolerate some freezing temperatures but cannot survive in areas with a cold winter climate. Most temperate-zone plants are able to adapt so that they can survive temperatures considerably below the freezing point. Vegetables and flowers that grow in temperate-zone gardens may also be classified as cool-season or warm-season crops. Cool-season crops, such as radishes, peas, and pansies, are those that can withstand some degree of freezing and consequently can be planted as soon as the ground can be worked in the spring. Warm-season crops, such as tomatoes, muskmelons, and sweet potatoes, are mostly of tropical origin and are killed as soon as temperatures drop slightly below freezing. They should not be planted until the danger of frost is past.

Botanical (Binomial) System of Plant Classification

The botanical system of plant classification is based largely on the hypothesis that plants evolved from a single, less complex organism and that all plants are therefore more or less distantly related. The traditional plant categories, or taxa, are (in hierarchical order) kingdom, division, class, order, family, genus, and species. Subgroups are frequently used in this classification system.

Categories of Biological Classification. Although biologists have never fully agreed on the classification of living organisms, textbooks written during the first three-fourths of the twentieth century contained a relatively standardized system of higher plant classification based on, among other categories, two kingdoms, Animalia and Plantae. Largely as a result of accumulating evidence from both fossils and living organisms, groupings in the broader taxa—kingdom, division, and class—have undergone considerable reshuffling since 1965. As a consequence, most biologists now recognize five kingdoms: (1) the traditional Kingdom Animalia; (2) Kingdom Monera (bacteria and blue-green algae); (3) Kingdom Protista (algae, protozoans, and slime molds); (4) Kingdom Fungi; and (5) Kingdom Plantae. Unfortunately, there is much less agreement on how organisms of the plant kingdom should be grouped within division and class taxa and whether or not subkingdoms, subdivisions, and subclasses should be distinguished.

Fortunately, however, although they are concerned with some of the other taxa when they deal with organisms that cause disease and with microorganisms used in brewing and preserving, horticulturists work primarily with a few well-defined higher groups of the plant kingdom. The simplest grouping lists the divisions and classes of the plant kingdom as follows:

1. Division Pterophyta (ferns)

2. Division Cycadophyta (cycads)

3. Division Ginkgophyta (ginkgos)

4. Division Coniferophyta (conifers)

5. Division Anthophyta (flowering plants)

a. Class Monocotyledonae (leaves with parallel veins, flowers with three or six parts, a single seed leaf or cotyledon, and vascular bundles scattered throughout the stem).

b. Class Dicotyledonae (leaves with netted or branching veins, flowers with four or five parts, two seed leaves or cotyledons, and vascular bundles in a ring around the stem or in a vascular ring).

A few other higher-order classification terms that gardeners are likely to encounter should be mentioned. All of the above groups of plants are tracheophytes, plants having a vascular system. (The vascular system is discussed in The Stem section of Chapter 2.) The ferns, which reproduce by spores, are called pteridophytes in contrast to the rest of the group, spermatophytes, which reproduce by seed. Cycads, ginkgos, and conifers are gymnosperms, plants having seeds without a definite seed coat. In contrast, flowering plants are angiosperms, having seeds with a seed coat.

Ferns, cycads, and ginkgos are used as ornamentals (Figure 1-9). As horticultural plants, conifers are also used mainly as ornamentals, although they are of major importance to foresters for lumber, pulpwood, and recreation. Angiosperms are by far the most numerous and most important group of plants used by gardeners. Division Angiophyta is divided into the classes Monocotyledonae, or monocots, and Dicotyledonae, or dicots (Figure 1-10); these are subdivided into orders; the orders are subdivided into families; the families into genera; and the genera into species.

The botanical scheme of plant classification is called the binomial system of nomenclature because in it each plant is identified by two italicized Latin names, a capitalized genus name and an uncapitalized species name. These may be followed by the initial or name of the person who first assigned the botanical name. For example, Daucus carota L. is the botanical name of the carrot; L. stands for Linnaeus, the father of biological nomenclature, who first assigned a botanical name to the carrot. It is customary to abbreviate the generic name, using only the first letter, when it is repeated immediately following its initial use, for instance, D. carota.

FIGURE 1-9 • Three evolutionary primitive plants: (A) Mexican cycad (Divan edulis); (B) maidenhair fern (Adiantum pedantum); (C) maidenhair tree (Ginkgo biloba). Ginkgo biloba is dioecious (see The Flower in Chapter 3). Female ginkgo trees are seldom planted as ornamentals because the fruit, shown here, is messy and has a disagreeable odor. (A, courtesy of W. H. Hodge/Peter Arnold, Inc.; B, courtesy of Grant Heilman; C, courtesy of Runk/Schoenberger, Grant Heilman)

Plants belonging to the same genus (subgroup of a family) have similar structure, appearance, and chromosome makeup (chromosomes are discussed in Chapter 3). Frequently the various subgroups (species) within a genus can be intergrafted, and occasionally hybridization between species within a genus is possible.

FIGURE 1-10 • A monocotyledonous plant compared with a dicotyledonous plant.

The species (sp., plural spp.) is the basic unit of classification on which all botanical nomenclature is based. For horticultural plants, a species (e.g., Spinacia oleracea, Rubus idaeus, Pinus nigra) often, but not always, is equivalent to a horticultural kind of plant (spinach, red raspberry, Austrian pine). Plants belonging to the same species have numerous morphological (structural and developmental) similarities, and for plant groups that produce seed, a species usually constitutes an exclusive interbreeding population.

Subspecies (subsp.), variety (var.), and forma (f.) are three terms that designate subgroups within the traditional species. The use of these terms is sometimes confusing, and even trained taxonomists disagree on the classification into these groupings.

There is no clearly definable distinction between a botanical variety and a subspecies based on the degree of morphological variation. The term subspecies is more often used with natural than with cultivated populations and is likely to be associated with geographical distribution. Plants belonging to the same botanical variety are generally readily discernible from those of other varieties of the same species. For example, Brassica oleracea var. botrytis is cauliflower, and B. oleracea var. capitata is cabbage. Cabbage and cauliflower have the same chromosome number and similar leaves and readily intercross, but they have head characteristics that are distinctly different.

Although barriers to natural intercrossing are more frequently associated with subspecies than with varieties, there can be barriers to the natural intercrossing of two varieties of the same species. Also in the cabbage group, broccoli, Brassica oleracea var. italica, is an annual, whereas cabbage is a biennial (Figure 1-11). Although broccoli pollen can readily pollinate and cause seed to be produced on cabbage flowers, the two varieties normally do not intercross, because broccoli blooms during the fall and cabbage blooms during the spring. (The botanical variety should not be confused with cultivated variety, now referred to as cultivar, which will be discussed later in this chapter.)

FIGURE 1-11 • Two different kinds of crops that belong to the same species: (A) cabbage, Brassica oleracea var. capitata, and (B) sprouting broccoli, Brassica oleracea var. italica. (Photographs by Peter C. Kruithof, courtesy of Alf. Christianson Seed Co.)

A forma is a group of individuals within a population that differs from the rest of the population in a consistent but botanically insignificant way. Usually there is less difference between two formae of a population than between two varieties or subspecies. In horticulture the term forma is often used with ornamentals to distinguish groups with different growth characteristics not reproducible with seed. For example, two important formae of Japanese yew are Taxus cuspidata f. densa, an upright form, and T. cuspidata f. nana, a spreading form. New plants are always developed by rooting cuttings of the form desired. Seedlings of either form grow into plants of various shapes and sizes but seldom produce a plant that is typically either T. cuspidata f. nana or T. cuspidata f. densa.

Advantages of the Binomial System. Using the binomial system of plant classification has a number of advantages. First, it avoids confusion: Each plant has an internationally recognized name. In fact, North Americans are probably less familiar with the Latin names of plants than are people from other countries where language localization encourages linguistic diversity. The second big advantage of the binomial system is that it reveals relationships. This is helpful because cultural practices, pesticide tolerances, and soil and climatic requirements are often similar for plants of the same group. The success of grafting one plant to another or of cross-pollinating also parallels botanical relationships.

Table 1-1 lists a few of the horticulturally more important families, and Table 1-2 provides the botanical classification of three typical crop plants.

TABLE 1-1 • Plant families of importance to horticulture (and some common examples)

Kind, Cultivar, Strain, and Clone

Four other classification terms frequently used with horticultural crops are kind, cultivar, strain, and clone. Examples of accepted usage probably provide the best explanations.

Horticultural plants of the same kind usually differ from other kinds in several important aspects. For example, cherry, peach, raspberry, and apple are different kinds of fruit. Kind often, but not always, includes all members of one species. An important exception involves the crucifers mentioned earlier: Broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower all belong to the same species but are different kinds of vegetables.

The term cultivar is an internationally accepted contraction of cultivated variety and is exactly equivalent to the old horticultural term variety. In the International Code of Nomenclature of Cultivated Plants—1969, cultivar is defined as an assemblage of cultivated plants which is clearly distinguished by any character (morphological, physiological, cytological, chemical or others), and which, when reproduced (sexually or asexually), retains its distinguishing characteristics.

TABLE 1-2 • Botanical classification of pear, Colorado spruce, and cauliflower,

Variety was used as a horticultural descriptor long before it became a term of botanical nomenclature, and only recently was cultivar adopted to replace (horticultural) variety. Thus, most older horticulturists have referred to fruit, vegetable, and ornamental varieties all their lives, in both their speaking and their writing. But the term cultivar should be encouraged in order to avoid confusion with botanical variety. The cultivar name is capitalized and enclosed in single quotation marks, as ‘Hales Best’ muskmelon or ‘Red Delicious’ apple.

For many years, horticulturists have designated as strains those groups of plants within a cultivar that have been selected and cultivated because they differ from other plants of that cultivar. The solid red sports are examples of strains of the ‘Red Delicious’ apple cultivar. Sometimes one strain differs from another in its resistance to a disease. For example, ‘Hales Best PMR’ is a powdery mildew-resistant selection of the ‘Hales Best’ muskmelon cultivar. Those responsible for horticultural nomenclature now recommend that groups of plants with recognizable differences from the cultivar from which they originated be classed as separate cultivars; however, the term strain is still frequently used by those long associated with the industry.

A clone is a genetically uniform group of plants derived from a single mother plant by asexual propagation; for example, by cuttings, crown divisions, grafts, or layering. Many clones are also designated as cultivars. Thus ‘Russet Burbank’ potato and ‘Golden Delicious’ apple are clones as well as cultivars. Clones are discussed further in Chapter 3.

WHY GROW A GARDEN?

The reasons for growing gardens are as many and as diverse as are the people who grow them. Often the main purpose of a garden is to supplement the family food supply. As we have seen, 40 percent of American families now grow some type of vegetable garden. Gardens could become an even more important source of food should there be a national emergency. Although North Americans take for granted an ample supply of basic and luxury foods, production, processing, transporting, and marketing have become so complex that the continuing availability of food is extremely vulnerable to such events as strikes, natural disasters, or transportation disruptions. The two weeks’ supply stocked by most supermarkets would be quickly depleted if any phase of food distribution were interrupted.

Numerous Americans garden because gardening makes them feel better. Unlike many popular sports that are primarily recreations of youth, gardening is a hobby that provides moderate to vigorous exercise for people of all ages. The benefits of gardening in treating emotional stress are becoming widely recognized, and horticulturists cooperating with medical centers at several locations have had spectacular success using gardening to alleviate mental and emotional problems. Gardening can be an especially beneficial hobby for North Americans, many of whom are engaged in indoor occupations that involve considerable stress and a minimum of physical activity.

In most localities today if a family wants to eat fresh peas from the pod, edible podded peas, kohlrabi, kale, cress, currants, dewberries, many other fruits and vegetables, or most herbs; if they want to enjoy the beauty of most kinds of annual flowers; or if they want to savor the garden-fresh flavor of fruits and vegetables, they must grow a garden. With today’s mechanized harvest, only the kinds and cultivars that can be mass produced are likely to find their way to supermarket shelves. Moreover, because they must be harvested when still immature and shipped long distances, such items as tomatoes, sweet corn, peas, and strawberries purchased in a supermarket do not have the quality of those grown in a home garden. Often, too, the characteristics that enable a cultivar to withstand the necessary handling and still have eye appeal when it reaches the market (solid flesh for strawberries and tomatoes, tough skin for sweet corn kernels) do not provide the ultimate in eating quality.

Gardens also are grown to beautify the surroundings, to give sanctuary to wildlife, and to provide shade and wind protection around the home. For some people, assembling different kinds of garden plants satisfies the human urge to collect.

Recent nutritional research has resulted in considerable publicity about the effect of diet on health and longevity. Most of these studies report that public health could be improved if people consumed more fruits and vegetables.

These foods add flavor, variety, and color to meals. Dinner would be rather bland without the flavor of onions, herbs, or various fruits, the texture of a crisp salad, or the color of carrots, beets, peas, tomatoes, or peaches. Fruits and vegetables are important dietary components because many of them add bulk without calories, improving the digestion and elimination of our sedentary society. Finally, these foods are important sources—in some cases the only source—of vitamins and minerals essential to the growth and functioning of the human body. Table 14-25 lists the nutrients contained in selected fruits and vegetables.

e9781466813946_i0018.jpg Selected References

Bailey, L. H. Hortus III. New York: Macmillan, 1976. (Reprint with some revision of this earlier classic.)

————. Manual of Cultivated Plants Most Commonly Grown in the United States and Canada. Rev. ed. New York: Macmillan, 1949.

Better Homes and Gardens Editors. Better Homes and Gardens Step-by-Step Successful Gardening. Des Moines: Meredith, 1987.

Cronquist, A. The Evolution and Classification of Flowering Plants. 2nd ed. New York: New York Botanical Garden, 1988.

Heiser, C. B., Jr. Seed to Civilization. 3rd ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990.

International Code of Nomenclature of Cultivated Plants—1969. Vol. 64: Regnum Vegetavile. Utrecht: International Bureau for Plant Taxonomy and Nomenclature of the International Association for Plant Taxonomy, 1969.

Janick, J. Horticultural Science. 3rd ed. New York: Freeman, 1985.

Jones, S. B., and A. E. Luchsinger, Plant Systematics. 2nd ed. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1986.

Sauer, C. O. Agricultural Origins and Dispersals: The Domestication of Animals and Foodstuffs. 2nd ed. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1969.

Sawyer, C. E. American Gardens: A Traveller’s Guide. Brooklyn Botanic Garden Handbook 111 (A special printing of Plants and Gardens, vol. 42, no. 3). Brooklyn, N.Y.: Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 1986.

CHAPTER 2

Structure and Growth: The Vegetative Phase

From the day a nurse pins on our first cotton (or disposable) diaper until the day the sexton nails the pine cover on our coffin, we use, eat, and enjoy countless plant products that have characteristics of value to us. It is important to realize, however, that these products did not come into existence because a beneficent goddess of plants decreed that they should be produced to please people. Plant stems, roots, leaves, flowers, fruits, and seeds in all their forms and modifications exist because they are required for the survival, growth, and reproduction of the plant producing them. Therefore, gardeners who want to know the why and how of plant culture and plant propagation must first have some knowledge of the makeup and function of various plant structures.

Most books show the structure of plants in neatly labeled cross or longitudinal sections, with each part in its appointed place. Plant growth is likewise neatly cataloged in standardized phases. This work is no different in this regard, not because I am happy with this method but because a book does not lend itself to a more dynamic approach. The problem with such presentations is that readers often gain the impression that all plants have the same unchanging structure and growth pattern.