Gardening in Alaska : Season of the Larch

Talk Dirt To Me

Do you love to make mud pies, grow a houseplant, eat veggies, or stop to smell the bouquet on your co-workers desk? Everyone enjoys a bit of green growing around him or her and then there are those that are passionate and needy when it comes to dabbling in the dirt. With this blog, we'll try to satisfy those needs and tell you about what's going on with the Anchorage gardening scene. You know, as I finally learned, it's all about the dirt.

Photographer and gardener Fran Durner (fdurner@adn.com) writes the blog.

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2008 Anchorage garden tour

Take an interactive tour of the gardens showing in Anchorage's garden tour, with photos and audio commentary from each gardener.

Season of the Larch

Posted by talkdirt

Posted: October 19, 2008 - 6:34 pm

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A larch on the Alaska State Fairgrounds in Palmer fairly glows in the light. Photo by Fran Durner Lately I've been noticing the larches. As the leaves on the birch and the cherry and the other deciduous trees flutter to the ground, the golden larches stand their ground gloriously.

You might mistake a larch for a feathery pine or a hemlock. During the summer they are easy to overlook as their needles are as green as any other tree. It's in the fall that they really stand out when they turn from green to golden yellow. Some people mistake the change in color as a sign of illness, especially when they drop their needles, but this is perfectly normal behavior for a larch

Larches are deciduous too, they just hold on to their needles a little longer. In fact, this year there seems to be more larches with needles, period. The last few years have seen a huge buildup of the sawfly larvae which have been defoliating larch trees starting in mid-summer. Not many of the trees have been able to re-needle themselves by fall.

One of the State Fair larches inside the perennial garden. Photo by Fran DurnerDriving to Palmer last week, the Alaska State Fairgrounds seemed to be crowded with gold trees dotted all across and around. They simply glowed and the view from the highway was lovely.

I asked Becky Myrvold, the State Fair horticulturist, how she managed to keep her trees healthy. "I had a horrible problem with the sawflies a few years ago and actually thought I might start losing trees because of them. Then I started using 'Bayer Advanced Tree & Shrub 12 Month Control' on them. It's a (systemic) liquid that you apply in the fall, the trees suck it up and I have to say that it has really worked fairly well for me. I still have some (sawflies), but not nearly the numbers that I did before. We also wait until late in the fall, then go out and rake up anything under the trees - the larva of the sawfly should be lying there at that time and hopefully we at least get a few of them that way, also."

Anyone who drives west on 15th Avenue with any regularity over the summer has watched as the larch green up in spring and then get stripped bare, as if overnight, by the sawflies in mid-summer.

A dark ring around the trunk of this larch tree on 15th Avenue is evidence of Tree Tanglefoot, a sticky non-toxic product that is applied to the tree to trap insects, especially sawfly larvae, before they climb up and defoliate the needles. Photo by Fran DurnerThis year they seemed to be doing a little better so I contacted Mary Susan Goocey at the Municipal Greenhouse for her input. Mary Susan said they are using a product called Tree Tanglefoot, a sticky non-toxic liquid they paint on near the foot of the trunk, that traps the sawflies as they try to climb up. You can see the ring of Tanglefoot on the trunks of the trees as you drive by. A close-up of Tree Tanglefoot on the trunk of a larch. Photo by Fran Durner

The trees along 15th look much better for it though some were still stripped pretty bare. It's possible the sawfly found their way up from branches touching the ground or other trees. Mary Susan said the Muni crews also hit the trees with a stream of water to knock off the larvae whenever they can.

In my neighborhood, there is a beautiful tall larch that I drive by every day. My neighbor, Linda, has been using Neem Oil, a natural organic product, to protect her tree. She mixes it up according to directions on the bottle, in a sprayer that you can attach to a hose, using Simple Green as an emulsifier. "I just use a regular cheaper sprayer that I hook to the hose and I spray everything in the yard at the same time I am spraying the tree. I spread my entire yard twice each year, now that I know about it (Neem Oil) and it not only gets rid of sawfly but makes everything more vigorous....The larch is wonderful and people love it and the birds and squirrels love to eat the nuts from the cones. One last note - It (Neem Oil) has a funny odor, maybe like garlic and peanuts mixed." A larch tree laden with cones just outside the perennial garden at the Alaska State Fairgrounds in Palmer. Photo by Fran Durner