By Val Whitmyre, U. C. Master Gardener .
When The Great Hurricane of 1938 roared through Melrose, Massachusetts, with no forewarning, my sister and I were allowed to stay up late into the night (9:00 pm?) to watch nature in action. A small tree was bending all the way to the ground, and the noise was deafening.
The following morning, I was happy to see the little tree still standing, while older giants had snapped like twigs and crashed into neighbors’ homes. I was too young to realize how dangerous this hurricane was, when in fact it had left death and miles of destruction in its path. Soon after that, my father loaded his family into the Ford and drove us to California, far away from hurricanes.
Wind has played many roles in human life. In a time before flowers, it pollinated firs and pines and dispersed fern seeds. Today we learn about its force beforehand and are more prepared to cope with its consequences.
In the Napa Valley corridor, the wind blows each morning like clockwork from a northerly direction, carrying happy visitors in colorful hot-air balloons above our homes.
In March, the nearby park is alive with activity. Children run and laugh and fly their dragons with colorful tails. We walk faster and breathe deeper.
The wind scrubs the sky clean of pollutants and pushes persistent dead leaves from tree branches to finally allow spring buds to form. It is wise to know beforehand which trees have this characteristic. My lovely pin oak (Quercus palustris) has this one bad habit.
When I moved to Napa, the wind was a constant annoyance. Even in early June, a warm corner was not to be found. If you experience strong winds in your garden, barriers can temper its velocity. Hedges, small trees, tall shrubs or open-weave fencing can all block wind to some degree.
These open barriers are much more effective than solid barriers. A good ratio of solid material to gaps is two to one. This ratio will blunt the wind force considerably without damaging the barrier or the plants beyond it.
I installed a six-foot chain-link fence to keep a dog in the yard. After planting table grapes and climbing roses, I could barely see the fence, but enough spaces were left to accommodate the wind.
When wind hits a stone wall or solid fence, it is tossed upward and then dumped with force on the other side. An unyielding solid barrier may be destroyed by the force of a strong wind.
When landscaping your property, think about adding lattice panels, hedging or other wind deflectors to protect plants and outdoor furniture and to allow more useful time in activity areas. Placed at right angles to the prevailing wind, these deterrents may help sustain soil warmth and moisture, protect fragile plants and make your property more welcoming.
Brace young trees with two stakes on opposite sides of the
Continue ReadingBy Sarah Chironi, U. C. Master Gardener
March marks the beginning of spring. Buds are starting to swell, and the annual renaissance of plant life has begun. But beware of nature’s trickery. March weather is unpredictable. Monitor soil conditions. Cold soil and and chilly weather can still damage plants and seedlings. Be prepared to protect against frost.
If you are planning a spring vegetable garden, you can sow seeds for these crops directly in the soil: carrots, chard, lettuce, mustard, peas, radishes, parsnips, beets, spinach, rutabaga, kale, parsley and turnips. Seeds germinate best when the soil temperature is at least 65?F at a depth of three inches. You may need to cover seedlings at night to keep them warm.
Set out seedlings of cauliflower, onions, lettuce, cabbage, brussels sprouts, broccoli, parsley, spinach and kohlrabi. Consult seed packs for directions on how to space seedlings to allow room for growth.
Plant asparagus roots and seed potatoes this month. Avoid planting potatoes in a bed where you grew peppers or tomatoes last year to minimize the buildup of soil-borne disease. Plant onion and leek starts now for summer harvest. Start seeds for peppers, tomatoes and basil indoors, in a warm and sunny location. Wait until late April or early May, when the soil is dry and warm, to plant these seedlings outdoors.
If you planted a fall vegetable garden, your work is now paying off. Harvest parsnips, turnips, beets, broccoli, carrots, spinach, fava beans, lettuce, peas, brussel sprouts, rutabagas and cauliflower for late-winter meals.
March is a good time to start flower seeds indoors. They can also be direct seeded in April, when the soil warms. Good choices include marigolds, verbena rigida, zinnia, globe amaranth, cosmos, nicotiana, portulaca, celosia, wallflowers and salpiglossis.
You can plant perennials now, too. Consider dusty miller, salvia, columbine, artemesia, phlox, coreopsis, penstemon, Shasta daisy and scabiosa. Plant tubers and bulbs, such as calla lilies, dahlias, tigridia and tuberoses. And if you dream of backyard citrus, March is the month to plant, although these trees may need some frost protection.
Check your irrigation system this month before you need it. Emitters and sprinkler heads can clog over time. Take the ends off of the runs and flush out the tubing and pipes. Install filters to maintain consistent flow rates and reduce clogging. Young trees and shrubs might need extra emitters.
Moist soil plus warm sunshine equals weeds. Keeping them at bay now will pay off later. Mulching helps prevent weed growth, but wait to mulch until May as the soil needs some solar warming first.
March is a good month for pruning. Trim old and dead growth on perennial plants. Dig up and divide overgrown clumps and replant the healthy portions. Prune back herbs halfway to promote healthy new growth. After spring-flowering shrubs h
Continue ReadingBy Val Whitmyre, U. C. Master Gardener
If you’re not interested in gardening, this is the column for you.
Let’s say you don’t care about gardening, but you do want the most fabulous garden on the block, for the least amount of work and, preferably, not your work. The neighbors would probably appreciate your garden makeover as well.
Do you have a maintenance person who doesn’t know much about gardening? Are plants being tossed into the yard-waste bin, even though they could have bloomed many more times during their lifetime? Perhaps there is no maintenance person and the garden is a sea of weeds.
It’s time for a garden facelift. No more looking for the morning paper in a field of weeds. No more pretending the weeds aren’t there.
First, learn the names of the plants on your property. Then interview a couple of maintenance people and ask if they know the names of these plants. I learned to do that after I left a note asking my “gardener” to cut back the roses and came home to find the camellias cut back by half. Ouch. (Note: Camellias don’t need pruning. A selective cut here and there will do fine.)
Find out if your prospective gardener knows the difference between deciduous (loses its leaves) and evergreen (keeps its leaves). Ask if the words “annual” and “perennial” mean anything.
An annual grows from seed to maturity, blooms, sets seed and dies all in one season. A perennial may survive for several seasons.
If you have a lawn and a few nondescript shrubs, follow the advice of horticulturist and author Felder Rushing: lose the lawn. Unless you are prepared to put your money into continual mowing, fertilizers, chemicals and high water bills, ditch the grass.
Instead of hiring a maintenance person, put your money into stone or gravel paths and a patio of the same material, a shade tree, a bench and a birdbath. The paths won’t die if you forget to water them. The tree will attract birds and create shade as you relax on your new bird-watching bench.
Add one low-maintenance plant that can serve multiple functions. Trachelospermum (star jasmine) can be a ground cover, replacing your lawn, and it can provide height in your landscape when planted as a vine. It’s evergreen and fragrant, and it won’t invade your neighbors’ yard.
My favorite shade tree is the Chinese pistache (Pistacia chinensis). Look no further for a tree that seldom, if ever, needs pruning, has non-invasive roots and displays brilliant fall colors. Choose the largest one you can find, because these trees can be slow growers.
They need a little water until well established, but after a couple of years, many survive on rain water alone.
Some plants really do take care of themselves in our Napa Valley climate unless hit with extreme weather. These plants, mostly of Mediterranean origin, include herbs such as rosemar
Continue ReadingBy Ron Griffiths, U. C. Master Gardener
For many of the trees and shrubs in our Napa Valley gardens, late February is pruning time. We prune plants for many reasons: to control their size, to promote flowering or fruiting, to shape them, or to introduce light and air and lessen the possibility of wind damage.
When it comes to controlling size, you can fight Mother Nature but you may lose in the end. If the plant is in the wrong location for its eventual size, then the best pruning may be “shovel pruning.” Dig the plant up and relocate it, or recycle it.
The only way to control the growth of such a plant is to repeatedly prune it back. Plants that are continually pruned back develop a hedge-like appearance because they respond by activating more buds than are required to replace the missing branch. The new branches also typically have more and smaller leaves. If you want a hedge, keep cutting back.
Hedges can provide the “bones” of a garden, delineating areas and preventing the eye from confronting too many features at once. But hedges can also create problems as their density limits light and air penetration, inviting insects and disease. Mites love the dusty conditions in a hedge’s dark recesses.
Thick, small hedges can be attractive. But taller hedges, such as oleander, can develop a leafless and unpleasing interior. When that happens, the best response may be cutting the plant to the ground. With oleander, the result will be a healthy, three-foot-tall replacement plant in 12 to 18 months.
Such dramatic action is not appropriate for all plants. Some will not sprout from old wood. Others, such as rhododendron, will regrow but will not flower for several years.
The best way to shape shrubs and trees is to remove selected branches. When choosing candidates for removal, remember the three “D’s”: dead, damaged and distorted. Dead and damaged go first. Distorted branches are those that cross other branches or that impair the shape of the plant.
Beyond the three “D’s,” pruning involves case-by-case judgment. Make a cut and then step back. What other branches should be removed? Don’t fret if you prune the same branch several times. Careful pruning of an overgrown plant can sometimes reveal an interesting structure.
Leave extensive pruning of large trees to a professional; it is dangerous work. For shrubs and smaller trees, consult books for proper technique. Typically, long branches need to be “undercut” before making the top cut. The resulting short branch is then cut back to just outside the“collar,” a ridge just before the branch meets the trunk. This collar contains rot-resistant wood; do not penetrate it. If you do, the wound may heal but the rot will continue invading the core of the tree. Trees suffering from rot may appear healthy but be hollow inside. These are the trees that suddenly fall over.
Continue Reading
by Penny Pawl, U. C. Master Gardener
With spring in the air, I am preparing to plant my home vegetable garden. If you, too, would like the satisfaction of growing your own produce but don’t have garden space, consider renting a plot at the Napa Community Garden.
The plan for a community garden hatched in the minds of two newcomers to Napa who wanted a place to garden and to meet others. After a long process, they were able to lease a property on the corner of Trower and Jefferson Streets from the Napa Valley Lutheran Church.
Then the physical labor began: tilling the land, adding compost supplied by Napa Recycling Service and installing a drip-irrigation system. The parcel was divided into 100 plots, each 100 feet square and renting for $50 a year, including water. By midsummer, the garden had 60 percent occupancy.
Participants can garden year-round here. No synthetic chemicals are allowed, so no one has to worry about what a neighbor might be using.
I visited several times last summer and was amazed that people had accomplished so much so quickly. I saw ripe crops all around me, including many varieties of tomato, corn, basil, zucchini and patty pan squash. People were also growing salad greens, gourds, peppers and many other vegetables. For some, growing vegetables was a new experience. One gardener told me she loved that people were sharing their crops with others.
For handicapped gardeners, the property has wheelchair-accessible pathways and halved wine barrels for easy container gardening. When I visited, these container-grown crops were doing well. The City of Napa is planting a water-wise garden to demonstrate how attractive and productive these less thirsty gardens can be.
Napa County Master Gardeners maintain four plots in the community garden to educate others about successful gardening techniques. Last summer, one plot demonstrated the use of sheet composting to improve soil texture. For sheet composting, the soil is watered well and then covered with moistened layers of plain cardboard, newspaper (black and white pages only), fertilizer, compost and dried leaves. Soon worms and microbes move in and begin decomposing the layers, creating an enriched soil that is ideal for growing vegetables.
Another Master Gardener plot was used to show different methods of germinating seed. This year, the Master Gardeners plan to install gopher deterrents in one of their plots and track the results. The neighborhood cat has not proved up to the challenge of controlling these garden pests.
The plot dedicated to the gopher-control experiment will be dug to a depth of three feet and lined with hardware cloth. The cloth will extend above ground several inches to deter the gophers from going over the top. The Master Gardeners will also lead free workshops for community garden members and will frequently be present in the garden t
Continue Reading