Charlyn Moltane, who gardens in Fountain Valley, emailed as follows: “My friend in Garden Grove has grown four apricot trees from the seeds of store-bought fruit. These trees are now five feet tall and bear small, great-tasting apricots. I have now saved 12 pits from large store-bought apricots. How should I plant them?”

Each apricot pit contains a single seed. If you wanted to sprout a seed from an apricot you picked from a tree, you would need to put it (or its pit) in the refrigerator for 4-6 weeks to mimic the cold necessary for apricot seeds to germinate. However, store-bought apricots (and their seeds) have generally received an equivalent post-harvest cold storage chill so that you do not have to refrigerate them prior to planting. It is advisable to carefully crack open the pit with a pliers, nutcracker, or vise, and extract the seed. Plant it 1-2 inches deep in a fast-draining soil mix and, having been chilled, it should sprout within a few weeks.

Thus, you should not have any problem germinating your apricot seeds. The question is how much cold does the variety you are growing need to produce flowers so fruit can develop? The annual average number of chill hours (winter hours below 45 degrees) in Orange County is around 300. Apricots require between 300-1000 hours of winter chill to flower, depending on the variety. So if you have a variety with a low-chilling requirement in the neighborhood of 300 hours, you will get flowers and fruit within 3-5 years of planting your seed. However, if the variety of your store-bought apricots is in need of significantly more winter cold than 300 hours to flower and produce a crop, you won’t have anything to harvest.

The fact that your friend grew sweet apricots from seeds of store-bought fruit is not a surprise. Apricots, peaches, and nectarines are self-pollinating and self-fertile meaning they do not need another tree for pollinating purposes and the seeds in their fruit, when planted, will often grow into trees with fruit similar to that on the parent tree.

Two years ago, I received an email from Bob Boyd who grows peaches and nectarines in Tustin, not far from Fountain Valley. Although he does not grow apricots, he has several pluot (plum-apricot hybrid) varieties including Flavor Finale, Flavor King, Flavor Queen, and Splash. Interestingly enough, Tustin often receives less than 300 hours of winter chill, even while pluots are supposed to need 400-500 such hours to flower and fruit. Still, Boyd harvests pluots from his trees year after year, which has led him to speculate that winter chill requirements are not absolute. Boyd recommended consulting with Gary, the fruit tree expert at Laguna Hills Nursery (lagunahillsnursery.com) in Santa Ana, before making decisions regarding varieties most appropriate for your area.

Incidentally, besides the self-pollinating stone fruits mentioned above, there are self-pollinating almond varieties as well. Other fruit trees that grow true to seed (or true to type) include oranges, lemons, limes, and mandarins. The best way to ascertain that you have a clonal seedling (whose fruit will be identical to the one from which the seed was extracted) is by sprouting a number of seeds since some of them will be polyembronic. From a single polyembronic citrus seed, several seedlings will sprout, with the most robust among them likely being the clone you seek. With a polyembronic mango seed, on the other hand, all seedlings other than the smallest one are likely to be clones of the parent plant.

Jackie Hyman, who gardens in Brea, wrote as follows: “Contrary to all the publicity about bee colony collapse, there are a ton of bees in my garden, thank goodness. My zucchini patch in particular is full of buzzing every morning. This is great, but this year is also the first time I’ve noticed little holes in the dirt around my garden, kind of like you might see with ants, except the bees are going in and out of them. Clearly, they’re nesting under there.

Am I going to have a problem with them this fall when it’s time to dig up parts of the garden for replanting? Am I likely to be attacked by angry bees? So far, none have stung me or tried, as far as I can tell (I’m pretty well-covered head to toe when I garden), but should I be worried about this?”

Seventy percent of North American bee species nest in the ground and are solitary as opposed to colonizing bees. Although the females can sting, they seldom do, being non-aggressive and less reactive than the European honeybee. Males, in protecting the queen, are more aggressive and they may charge at you and buzz around you threateningly, but they are harmless, having no stingers. Furthermore, ground bees are easily sent packing by filling their nesting holes with water. They cannot abide wet surroundings and will fly away to find a drier patch of earth where it is more suitable to build a nest.

Mary Flowers emailed as follows: “My husband has asthma that is aggravated by scented flowers.  Any information on which type of flowers we could use would be greatly appreciated. I should also mention that we have both sunny and shady areas.”

The pollen of nearly all flowers pollinated by bees, beetles, or birds, is neither allergenic nor problematic for asthma sufferers. However, there are some flowers to avoid, both in the garden and when making cut flower arrangements, including those of amaranth, chamomile, chrysanthemums, daisies, most sunflowers, artemisias, dahlias, asters, yarrow, and wisteria, as well as perfumery flowers such as hyacinth, jasmine, gardenia, paperwhite narcissus, baby’s breath (Gypsophila), English lavender, and lilac. Any flowering plant not found on the above list is probably hypoallergenic and carnations, despite their fragrance, will not make you sneeze. Most roses are non-allergenic. The exceptions would be wild species. Plants that flower in the shade, such as azaleas, camellias, and clivias, are non-allergenic too.

The pollen from the flowers of wind-pollinated grasses, shrubs, and trees is the bigger problem.  Allergenic pollen is found in the generally non-descript, buff-colored flowers of ornamental grasses and in the catkins of a multitude of woody plants, including junipers, cypresses, pines, cedars, birch trees, sycamore and plane trees, elm trees, alder trees, and oak trees.

Thanks to hybridization, many sunflower varieties are now pollen free. Some grow six to eight feet tall while others are classified as semi-dwarf or dwarf sunflowers, displaying a branching growth habit. Because they lack pollen, these varieties are not a problem for allergy sufferers, whether grown in the garden or used in tablescapes, bouquets, or flower arrangements. If you plant some regular pollen-producing sunflowers next to a pollen-less variety, the latter will still produce seeds. An advantage of pollen-less varieties is that they have a longer vase life than the pollen producers. Although bees will not buzz around your pollen-less sunflowers, nectar-seeking butterflies will still visit them. There is a large number of pollen-less sunflower varieties, including ‘Chocolate Cherry,’ which grows to seven feet with burnished red petals, ‘Buttercream,’ reaching four feet tall with white petals that become pale yellow at the base, and ‘Junior,’ only 30 inches tall but with a bushy growth habit that shows off its yellow-petaled, dark-centered blooms that reach up to five inches across. Vendors of these and many other pollen-free sunflowers are readily located through online searches.

Fernleaf ironwood Lyonothamnus floribundus. (Courtesy of Martin Ogden Teddington)

California native of the week: Eight plant species are endemic to Catalina Island. Endemics are plants whose habitat is restricted to one particular spot on earth. The Catalina Island endemics do not require extraordinary care, while providing a variety of decorative effects.

The most famous Catalina endemic is Catalina ironwood (Lyonothamnus floribundus), a tree that can reach a height of 30 feet with a spread of 15 feet. It grows slowly while assuming its slender form. Leaves are deep green, stems and bark are cinnamon red, bark exfoliates, and flower clusters, which come abundantly in spring, are white. A subspecies (asplenifolius) known as fernleaf ironwood, an endemic to Santa Cruz Island, has attractively toothed foliage as well. This tree will require protection from hot afternoon sun to look its best. The name “ironwood” was given to it by sailors who found its wood of such strength that it was used in making bars of a capstan, the device employed for hoisting up sails on a ship. Other than redwoods (Sequoia sp.), the Catalina and Santa Cruz Island ironwoods are California’s most distinctive native trees.

You are invited to send questions, comments, and photos to Joshua@perfectplants.com.