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moderator/espaliered citrus

>From: nsterman@ucsd.edu (Nan Sterman)
>Subject: Medit plant topics and espaliered citrus
>Sender: nsterman@aqua.ucsd.edu
>Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 19:10:06 -0800
>
> Thanks to Sean for clarifying the polic of this list, unlike some others to
> which I subscribe, this one seems to be the most lively and versatile, and
> I think attribute much of that to the "light handedness" of the moderator.
> By the way, who DOES moderate this list???

Hi Nan -

Technically, Medit-Plants is an unmoderated list, which means that
items can be posted directly to the group without being 'approved'
by a list moderator.  Functionally, I act as a pseudo-moderator at
the request of Dave Burger, the list-owner (he has all the access
priviledges to perform maintenance tasks, etc.).  When Dave helped
be establish Medit-Plants a number of years ago, he asked that I
might perform this role and, in general, there has been little need
to intervene - i.e. this is a great group!  Normally, I merely act
as an agent of information or perhaps 'light handedly' help direct
the discussion from time to time.

As an outgrowth of this experiment, I am taking this Mediterranean
climate gardening focus to the WWW, hopefully due to go online
sometime this fall.  If anyone has questions or is interested in
participating (featured gardens, businesses, nurseries, groups,
articles, etc., etc.), let me know.

> My big question for today is this -- does anyone have any experience,
> ideas, or suggestions for growing blood oranges or any other citrus as
> espalier?  A few years back, I visited the Sunset Publishing demonstration
> garden in northern California, I was enchanted by an espaliered hedge of
> either lemon or limes, encircling a patio.  Now I have a West-facing wall
> that I want to paint light gold and grow an espaliered blood orange (or
> maybe a tangelo) against.  Whatta ya think?

Citrus can make handsome espaliers, though they are perhaps best
treated more informally (i.e. trained to grow 'flattish' against
a wall rather than heavily trained).  I pruned a very large lemon
this year to a flat plane against a wall, and it is happily
adapting to this type of growth.  Your wall color sounds like a
handsome contrast to the citrus foliage and fruit!  I recently saw
a beautiful stucco wall, a warm yellow-orange, which was accented
with Mexican tile, over which was spilling the common Scarlet
or Blood-Red Trumpet Vine (Distictis buccinatoria).  The dark
green foliage and red/purple flowers were handsome against this
color, while the flower throats 'echoed' the hue - very nice!

 Sean A. O'Hara                     sean.ohara@ucop.edu
 710 Jean Street                    http://www.dla.ucop.edu/sao
 Oakland, California  94610-1459    h o r t u l u s   a p t u s
 (510) 987-0577                     'a garden suited to its purpose'
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