A Couple of Plants in Bud

I recently gave my garden a little water when we had a few days of cloudy, below average temperatures. Two of them responded by putting out buds right away. The first is Lemonade Berry (Rhus integrifolia). I've had this plant for a long time, and it has never produced any fruit. However, it blooms reliably, so I don't understand why there are never any fruit.

Here are the buds forming at the ends of the stems. Maybe the birds are getting all the young fruit. I like the fruit because they have a juicy/gooey coating on the outside that is quite sour. The native people of this area enjoyed the fruit.

The other plant that put out buds is a mission manzanita (Xylococcus bicolor). It is an unusual manzanita in that it is not in the genus Arctostaphylos where other manzanitas are classified. The genus Xylococcus is monotypic, meaning that it has only this one species in it. I am fascinated by monotypic genera, although in some cases it may be simply an artifact of our classification system.

My Xylococcus has been through some ups and downs. I planted it at the southeast corner of my garden, next to the street where it is very difficult for me to water it. In addition, through a series of events it ended up on the wrong side of the property line with my neighbor's mailbox right next to it. My neighbor's garden is on the left, mine is on the right, with the fence in the middle.

For whatever reasons it has had a lot of branch die-back. It will put out new growth in winter and spring then they will die over the summer. In the photo you can see how hacked up it is from cutting off dead stems. This year my new neighbor has been giving it some water and it is putting out buds right now.

Although it's too soon to say if this is a lasting victory, I'm very happy to see how well it's doing at the moment.