Native Plants
Q. Who is Mr. Smarty Plants?
A: There are those who suspect Wildflower Center volunteers are the culpable and capable culprits. Yet, others think staff members play some, albeit small, role. You can torture us with your plant questions, but we will never reveal the Green Guru's secret identity.
Did you know you can access the Native Plant Information Network with your web-enabled smartphone?
Ask Mr. Smarty Plants is a free service provided by the staff and volunteers at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
rate this answer
Sunday - August 10, 2008
From: San Antonio, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Best of Smarty, Pests, Shrubs
Title: How to keep persimmons from staining patio
Answered by: Nan Hampton and Barbara Medford
QUESTION:
We have approximately 4 female persimmons bearing fruit around our back patio. Birds are carrying the berries to our patio and eating them which leaves a dark stain on our patio. I'm having to go out daily to clean it off because i fear that if I leave it sitting too long the stain will become permanent. Is there any way to either keep the trees from bearing fruit or somehow keep the birds from coming on to our patio with these berries.ANSWER:
Mr. Smarty Plants assumes your persimmons are Diospyros texana (Texas persimmon) and not Diospyros virginiana (common persimmon). If so, we have a few suggestions to solve your problem.
1. There may be a way to keep them from producing fruit—short of chopping them all down! Since the male flowers and female flowers are on separate trees, in the spring before they bloom drape your female plants with a fine mesh netting that will exclude pollinators such as bees. It will require a piece of netting that is large enough to cover the entire tree and you will probably have to tie it around the bottom to ensure that insects don't find their way into the flowers. This should work if the trees aren't too tall.
2. Alternatively you could let the insects do their pollinating and then cover the trees and the ripening fruit with bird netting so that the birds can't remove the fruit.
3. Or, you could leave the persimmon trees as they are and concentrate on keeping the birds away from your patio. There are various devices that discourage birds. You could try some of the visual Bird Scare Devices. There are also repellent devices that use sound, but you would probably want to avoid those unless you have very tolerant neighbors.
4. You could enclose your patio with Bird Net. It is touted as being "long lasting, humane, nearly invisible...100% bird exclusion".
5. You could consider treating your patio surface with an epoxy or a polymer coating to help it resist staining so that you wouldn't have to rush out and clean up the mess as soon as it happened.
From the Image Gallery
More Best of Smarty Questions
More than you want to know about planting a pond in Austin Texas
December 10, 2010 - Winterizing Water Garden QA from Nov 27 Austin American-Statesman: Would the garden (60-gal aluminum) with those plants (papyrus, horsetail, water lily) be placed in the sun, shade, part shade or ? I ...
view the full question and answer
Leaves turning brown in Fredonia KS
June 16, 2009 - Leaves turning brown.
view the full question and answer
Can tulip tree sap be used to make syrup in Bunker Hill IN?
July 10, 2009 - I was just wondering if tulip tree sap could be used to make syrup. I saw the sticky stuff on the leaves and decided to taste test it and it was very sweet, unfortunately I later found out that I was ...
view the full question and answer
Using Bumelia for Firewood
February 25, 2011 - I have 2 trees in my yard that I think are Gum Bullies. They're tall (25 feet) and straight, thorny, leaves look like live oak, but they're deciduous. I need to remove them and wondered if I could...
view the full question and answer
What is wrong with the bluebonnets?
April 04, 2008 - This doesn't seem to be a very good year for bluebonnets. What's up with that?
view the full question and answer
Support the Wildflower Center by Donating Online or Becoming a Member today. |