Vitex 'Bailtexone' 

Summary

The trade name Flip Side® was derived from this Vitex cultivar’s foliage, where the upper side of the leaf is green while the underside is silvery lavender. As the breezes blow, the leaves flip around giving a two-tone shimmery look. At UC Davis Flip Side® was completely deciduous, dropping its leaves in late November 2018. At South Coast REC Flipside dropped most of its foliage in January 2019, though some foliage remained on the plants. At both sites plants had completely leafed out with new foliage by April 2019. To maintain uniformity and prevent these from encroaching on neighbors during the 2019 growing season, all plants were pruned in March 2019 to reduce the size by 1/3.

At UC Davis, participants rated Flip Side® highly at the open houses, with mean overall appearance scores for most treatments qualifying in the top three highest scoring plants for both summer and fall (Table 20b). At South Coast REC, spring open house scores were depressed as the plant had just started to leaf out (Table 20d). Researchers poorly timed this first event and Flip Side® was among several plants that had not fully emerged from dormancy. As the season progressed scores increased. At South Coast REC, however, Flip Side® was somewhat negatively affected by the same early summer herbicide drift issue that affected some roses, and some new growth emerged distorted just in time for the summer open house. Symptoms disappeared by July and foliage was rated highly on all treatments from July through October (Table 20c). These blooms were among the favorites of our pollinators in the field.

At UC Davis and South Coast REC no differences in growth between the treatments were observed (Figures 14b and 14d). At both locations Flip Side® bloomed heavily in mid-summer, in July and August in Davis, and August and September at South Coast REC (Tables 20a and 20c). In August there was a significant difference in floral quantity between the moderate and low treatment in Davis. Other than this difference there were no other statistically significant differences between the treatments on either a month-to-month basis or over the entire deficit season in Davis. At South Coast REC, a significant difference in overall appearance ratings was observed between the high and moderate treatments, with the moderate treatment achieving higher scores. No other significant differences between treatments appeared at South Coast REC. Based on the data collected, we recommend irrigating Flip Side® on low water in WUCOLS zones 2 and 3.

Growth and Quality Data

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