January In The Garden

Here, courtesy of Dustin and the other fine folks at Sloat Garden Center in Danville, is your to-do list for January.  If you live in the SF Bay Area, that is.  If you live in the frozen Midwest or the stormy East, you have the month off.  And if the weather doesn't thaw soon, you might not be gardening until June!  I'm not sure right now whether I envy you or feel sorry for you.  I guess it depends on whether I'm on my way out to the garden, or on my way back in.  

January In The Garden

• Plant deciduous flowering cherries and plums, dormant fruit trees and Japanese maples. Look for deciduous vines as well: wisteria, akebia, and Boston Ivy.
• The first of our summer bulbs (gladiolus, dahlias and lilies) arrive in select stores this month. Call ahead to the Sloat Garden Center location nearest you for information.
• Dormant roses have arrived.  Learn how to plant and care for them. Plant roses with E.B. Stone Sure Start and Greenall Rose Grow Planting Mix.
• Top dress roses and tender plants with Sloat Forest Mulch Plus.
• If it has rained, continue to dormant spray. Dormant sprays help prevent peach leaf curl, fungal rot and other diseases. We recommend Monterey Liqui-Cop for disease. Bonide All Seasons Oil or Monterey Horticultural Oil for insects. They can be mixed and sprayed at the same time!
• Protect your plants from slugs and snails with Sluggo or Sluggo Plus.
• Protect citrus from rodents with Bonide Repels All.
• Don’t forget to water houseplants, especially if the heater has been on.
• Deadhead cyclamen to keep them in bloom.
• Protect plants and tender succulents from cold with a frost blanket such as Easy Gardener Plant Blanket or N-Sulate and Cloud Cover anti-transpirant spray.
• Clean up the garden: Prune roses, shrubs and trees. Prune and cut back perennials & ornamental grasses. Need a little guidance? Contact us!
• After pruning, be sure to clean your tools.
• Stop the weeds! Weeds that begin with winter rains go to seed in March & April. But the clever gardener never lets them get that far. Pull weeds now before they go to seed. Apply Weed Prevention Plus made from natural corn gluten to prevent weed germination.
• Now is the time to remove plants that aren’t thriving to make room for healthier plants. Sad, but true!
• Feed the birds: We carry Wild Delight Gourmet Bird Seed, Songbird Blend, Nut & Berry, Nyjer thistle, and Sunflower Seed. Also we have suet in 6 flavors to attract a variety of birds from woodpeckers to phoebes. Finch Socks with Nyjer are easy to use and popular with the birds!

To Do In The Garden - October

Okay - courtesy of Dustin and the other wonderful folks at Sloat Nursery in Danville, here's what you should be doing in the garden this month.  And check out the cool pumpkins and squashes they have for sale!  No watering required.  

(And if you sign up for their e-newsletter, all this info  - and more! will appear in your inbox.  Lucky you.)

Sloat's Bay Area Gardening Guide: October

PLANT

• Plant it Now! Fall is the best time to plant foxglove, canterbury bells and other biennials. Plant cyclamen in October/early November. It’s also a great time to plant ground covers and sweet peas.
• Think fall & winter color: Violas and pansies are perfect for creating mass color in containers or flowerbeds. Available in a variety of hues, they are a terrific ground cover for spring bulbs.
• For a hardy alternative, consider planting ornamental grasses. Grasses require little upkeep and can create a beautiful screening effect against the house or fence.
• Fall is for planting! Get container shrubs, perennials and trees into the ground this month. Winter rains will help develop a strong root system.
• Decorate for fall: We have ornamental kale, mums, iceland poppies, snapdragons, stock and ornamental grasses for waves of autumnal color. Also, stop by for pumpkins, then carve something ghoulish and enter it in our Pumpkin Carving Contest.
• Select and plant maples for fall color (now is the time to see fall color).
• Select bulbs for spring bloom and winter forcing. Begin chilling bulbs that need an artificial winter: Tulips, freesia, crocus & hyacinth need 4–6 weeks of refrigeration before planting.

FERTILIZE

• Top-dress perennial beds, azaleas, camellias, and rhododendrons with Sloat Forest Mulch Plus and feed with 0-10-10 fertilizer monthly until bloom (E.B. Stone Organics).
• Feed spring blooming shrubs with 0-10-10 fertilizer. Feed citrus with Maxsea.

PRUNE/MAINTAIN

• Prepare planting beds for winter. Clear weeds and rocks. Till soil and add soil amendments.
• Divide the roots and rhizomes of perennials such as agapanthus, yarrow and iris.
• Lightly prune Japanese maples while still in leaf.
• It’s time to fill your bird feeders for winter. You can also try a suet feeder!

CALIFORNIA’S SECOND SPRING

October & November are truly the most advantageous months of the year to get perennials, trees, vines, shrubs and cool season vegetables into the ground. Planting now will allow roots to become well established for much stronger, more vigorous plants come springtime. Fall and winter rains mean nature does the weekly watering for you, plus most gardeners see fewer pest and disease problems in the fall. 

REMINDER: Plant bulbs this fall and enjoy a festival of color next spring!

It's Back!!!!

I used to write a monthly column for a garden newsletter.  And an advice column - Sage Advice by Mary A. Gardener.  Excellent advice, if I do say so myself.  Then I stopped.  And lots of people said they missed it - so I began to count, and I promised myself if it got to 100 asks, I would start again.  Just the column, unless you start asking questions.

So here it is - complete with a monthly to-do in the garden, courtesy of Sloat Garden Center (I go to the one in Danville, and if you haven't been there lately, you are missing out.  Cool stuff, kind caring smart staff, plants that will make you drool.)


Postcard From The Hedge - July 2013

We were away for more than four weeks, and I barely recognize my garden.  Hollyhocks that were ruffled leaves all in a clump when we left, sort of like a horticultural mop, have bloomed on tall spires and are now bent over, with a few shiny hot pink ballet dresses at the ends of the branches, and black seeds bursting out of wheel-shaped papery casings.  I bet they were spectacular - I'm sorry I missed it.  I'm spreading seed and hoping I'm home for the show next year.  Call me if you want some seeds.

The quince has grown three feet taller, and has flung out arms to block the path.  As I tried to breeze by a big fuzzy fruit knocked me on the the arm.  Ouch.   It was hidden by leaves - not any more.  It's now in a vase on the hall table.

The Boston ivy is trying to become curtains, sending feelers over the kitchen and family room windows, and thru the bedroom screens.  It's gonna be a bear to get out of the screens.  The wisteria had blocked my garage door, and I couldn't get my car out.  If I were my aunt, I'd move.  She used to say "Johnny, the ash tray is full.  It's time to get a new car!"

The Philadelphus has blocked the window by the tub, the one that goes all the way down so I can sit in the tub and see out.  Not any more - not until I prune.  But I could bathe at mid-day and have total privacy.  Of course I'd be even more wrinkly...maybe I'll grab the loppers and head out.

I remember the first time we swam in the pool - the gunite guys had just left, it wasn't balanced or chlorinated - but we couldn't wait a week, so we slipped off our clothes and went skinny dipping.  After dark.  Then we could rest our chins on the downhill edge of the pool and see the street, and the car lights illuminated us slithering out without clothes - or towels.  Oops.

Now you can't see the pool from the path just a few feet below the downhill edge, and you can't see into the garden from the street, for the English laurel is tall and dense.  When did that happen?

I remember that first December, our garden was new, and Najat was giving a wreath workshop.  Bring your own greens.  I tiptoed around the garden, snipping a leaf here and a leaf there, dismayed at the vastly reduced and sometimes lopsided plants that were left.  That year I brought one produce bag full.  Not nearly enough.  Thank goodness for generous friends.  This year I had Norberto haul away truckloads of greens and branches, and there will still be enough to cut for wreaths for all my friends and family.  And probably the whole town of Danville.  Greens, anyone?

Rose campion, the unfortunately named Lychnis coronaria, has bloomed and seeded in the front, forget-me-nots that I cut back in spring are sheets of blue.  I used to have an organized garden, plants carefully placed for color and texture, but I am enchanted by the self-seeders and I think I'm moving toward a cottage garden.  Complete with herbs and vegetables among the flowers.  Including some truly dreadful tomatoes.  If you're going to home-grow tomatoes, the least they can do is be tasty!  They were labeled Sweet 100.  They are not.  Mealy and thick-skinned and boring.  Oh well, there's always next year...

To Do this month in the garden - from Sloat Garden Center: 

July 2013

TO DO IN THE GARDEN: July

PLANT
• Summer flowers abound! Fill your garden with color that will carry you through until fall such as cosmos, snapdragons, salvias, lisianthus, vinca rosea and zinnias.

FERTILIZE
• Feed vegetables, perennials, containers, hanging baskets with a water-soluble fertilizer such as E.B. Stone Fish Emulsion or Maxsea All Purpose Fertilizer. Avoid feeding during the heat of day.
• Fertilize camellias, azaleas and rhododendrons with E.B. Stone Organics Azalea, Camellia andGardenia Food.

PRUNE/MAINTAIN
• Cut or pinch off spent flowers to promote more blooms. Finish pruning all spring-flowering shrubs.
• Spray evergreens & shrubs with CloudCover to reduce drought stress.
• Mulch all garden beds with Sloat’s Forest Mulch Plus to protect from summer heat and keep garden maintenance down