Gardener's Checklist
October 28 - November 3, 2007
November 4 - 10, 2007
November 11-17, 2007
November 18 - 24, 2007
November 25 - December 1, 2007
November Garden Fillers
Christmas cactus is a lovely blooming houseplant that displays multi-petaled, tiered flowers that hang from the tips of succulent green stems in bright Christmas red, pink, cerise or a combination of white and pink. It makes a wonderful present and don't forget to include one for yourself.
Did you know roses have been cultivated in Greece and the Orient for over 3,000 years? All roses are thought to be descendants for R. canina, the dog rose. Fossilized remains of this species of rose date back 35 million years. Modern roses gained popularity when they were brought in from the Orient for the marriage of Catherine of Braganza of Portugal to Charles II of England. The rose adapted to the English climate and a new love affair was born between the rose and the gardener. This is a good month to make a list of the new rose varieties you'd like to include in your garden. Before introducing a new rose to the garden, you'll want to prepare the planting hole. Work in liberal amounts of organic matter and fertilizer. Select a sunny spot with enough room to accommodate several bushes. Roses were meant for each other and are far more effective when grown en masse. Your garden will benefit from planting roses and so will the indoor when you cut a vase of beautiful, fragrant roses right from your own garden.
Californians can count heavily on potted chrysanthemum for color at Thanksgiving. What other flower gives us the color of the season so profusely as this one? You can use them as centerpieces, on mantles, and on coffee tables. These potfuls of color are one of the first sights that greet you in the nursery these days and should do the same thing in your home. After blooming, trim them back and plant them outside.
Some of the more popular bulbs we enjoy have been around for centuries. For instance, the popularity of daffodils came about during Queen Anne's reign in England. Her love for this particular bulb resulted in the founding of Kensington Palace Gardens, which were the first public gardens In England. And because of their popularity, the first wildlife protection legislation came about in England to protect the native plant population from depletion. Tulips have graced water jars from cultures as long as 1600 B.C. They were probably the first flowers grown solely for their beauty. Early explorers found tulips growing in the gardens of Turkish sultans in the early 1500's. And by the mid 1600's tulipmania had seized Holland. There were reports of one particular bulb selling for today's equivalent of $2500. Join in the fun of planting bulbs in your own garden. You don't need lots of room to enjoy them. Containers are a wonderful way to experience bulbs. "Double Deck" planting in containers gives you months of colorful enjoyment. Plant your favorite bulbs in a container and then plant bedding plants over the top. While you're waiting for the bulbs to poke through the soil you have the blooming bedding plants to enjoy.
November Garden Articles
Snowballs For California Springs
Vibrunum is often called the snowball bush for many of its varieties have pompoms of white flowers covering the plant when it blooms. From a distance, the flowers have the look of snowballs; they are actually clusters of very small flowers.
In the spring, the fragrant snowball (Viburnum carlcephalum), makes its show with large, six inch clusters of white flowers with a little pink or red on their outside. This plant grows eight to ten feet in height and half as wide with lustrous foliage providing an excellent background for the flower heads. Fragrant snowball is a deciduous shrub putting on a display of very brilliant red foliage come fall.
The Japanese snowball (V. plicatum) is considered the finest of the snowball bushes. It is a deciduous bush growing to ten feet tall and has wide spreading, arching branches. In spring, two to three inch wide heads of long lasting white flowers adorn the plant. It is of direct descent from the Japanese Snowball. It is also known as the doublefile viburnum, (V.p.Tomentosum), which is one of the most beautiful of all viburnums. Because of its horizontal branching and showy displays of flowers, some have noted that from a distance it has the same effect as that of a flowering dogwood. From the Japanese snowball bush, the doublefile vilburnum differs in its flowers with a more flat cluster facing upward. The flowers are also larger and showier. The fruits that follow are red and then turn black.
There are many more viburnums to choose from and a visit to your local nursery will show you which ones are right for your type of climate. Once you bring a viburnum home, you will find that they are delightful to grow and not at all picky. They all are equally content in either acid or alkaline soil and seem to even do well in heavy soils though they require that soil to be more fertile and damp than normal soil. The viburnums offer gardeners an astonishing variety of useful shrubs or occasionally small trees that blend well into almost any landscape. Many are suitable for grouping in shrub beds and borders and many are useful as foundation plantings. On lawns, single specimens can be displayed to advantage. Tall viburnums are useful as formal or informal screens. Some are adaptable for display against walls. Mostly, viburnums are appreciated for their good looks and abundant production of flowers.
Plants are a Part of Thanksgiving When we look around we are constantly reminded of how much we have to be thankful for. The special holiday set aside to give thanks is Thanksgiving, a day which is celebrated next week. Our thanks can extend to our family, friends, job and home as well as our country, which allows us more freedom than many others, enjoy. How often do we think about what plants do for us?
It doesn't take much to look around and take in our environment to realize how differently things would be and look without plants. Trees give us shade, absorb a great deal of the air pollutants, help block noise, replenish oxygen in the air, give us food in the way of fruit and enhance the area where it is planted. Shrubs help us define property lines, separate various areas of the yard, serve as a screen, block an ugly view or the wind, help control erosion, provide seasonal color with flowers and berries and much more.
Who can forget the yards of our childhood when we played on the lawn and climbed trees? How about the flowers we picked to give to mom or our teachers? Do you remember those open fields of wild flowers that were great to run through, build a fort or set up house in as a child? What about a trip to the mountains where you probably saw your first growing Christmas tree or the majestic redwood that was so tall you couldn't see the top? Even fishing trips would be bleak without all of the plants around the river or lake.
In thinking of all this and more, we will receive anew appreciation for our "green" surroundings. Even homes without plants indoors seem colder and not as warm as those who have plants decorating the various rooms. Maybe your favorite spot for utter peace and serenity is found in the middle of a forest, up in the mountains, in a lanai room or on a patio, on a bench in the corner or your yard or even on a roof garden.
What they all have in common is plants. Recent studies done in hospitals and sanitariums show that the introductions of plants to the patient's room and surroundings had a calming effect taking away the starkness of the sterile atmosphere.
When someone has a baby, is ill at home or in the hospital, even just to celebrate special occasions, we think of taking them flowers or a plant. Even when we lose a loved one, plants are used to express our feelings.
Plants are part of our life and we should be thankful for the way they fill the various needs of living in this world today.
Time for Some Plants to Take Root
Fall is the ideal time to rearrange the garden. Many plants are going into their dormant stage and can handle a change in location with very little stress. Even those that are not dormant have less stress in the cool comfort of fall rather than the warmer months. Take a look about your yard and analyze what plants you like and dislike. Then consider how you can change things to give a look that is more reflective of your tastes and desires. Perhaps a rose or two are in the wrong spot. In late fall you can move them. Consider changing shrubs from ho hum corners of the garden to a spot where they can really shine.
All of these plants have certain things in common when moving them. The first step is to select the site of their new home. Then prepare the area by digging a hole at least twice the size you dug when you first put the plant in the ground. Late fall is a good time to move trees, but wait until they have lost their leaves and gone into a dormant state. If the trees are evergreen the best time to move them is December and January.
Have on hand an ample supply of organic matter and pre-planting fertilizer. If the soil is heavy such as clay or under composted granite, the hole should be dug in square shape so that the roots will not be forced into a circular growth. The advantage of this shape comes from the corners that are more inclined to crack open and allow roots to penetrate. Roots forced into circular growth limit the growth of the plant and for some, can cause death.
Another item that helps with heavy soils is to obtain one of the many products available at the nursery that help break down the soil for better root and water penetration. Apply as the directions indicate. Remember that the directions have been written to give you the maximum effect without harming anything. Once this has been done, you can start digging up the plant for moving.
Obviously, pre-watering of the plant makes the soil easier to dig in and therefore helps to prevent too much damage to the roots. Dig as far out from the trunk as you can and as deep as you can. As you circle the plant, you will find that you are able to loosen it considerably. This is fine as long as you can do this with as little tearing of the roots as possible. When you are ready to lift the plant, do so taking as much of the root ball and soil as you can. The heavier roots of the plant anchor it to the soil and the smaller roots are the feeder roots.
Transfer the plant to the hole you have prepared and plant as if it were a new plant. At this point the one thing you do that is different is the trimming. When you disturb the roots you are disturbing the lifeline of the plant. Therefore for the amount of roots you have lost, you must trim back the top growth by the same percentage. Otherwise, there aren't enough roots left to support feeding and to anchor the plant (ie: if you lose one quarter of the roots, trim the top growth by one quarter. For more information contact your local California Certified Nursery Professional.)
Rhododendrons Are Wonderful Plants
The beauty of the rhododendrons that grow along the coasts of northern California, Oregon and Washington is such that many people wish for them in their own gardens. Those days have come for all areas of this state. Of course, those plants grown in extra hot or cold areas need to be containerized do they can be moved for protection. nevertheless, this is a small price to pay for having the prolific flowers of the rhododendron in your garden.
Like azaleas, the rhododendron is a shallow rooted plant that wants its roots cool, with excellent drainage but a pleasingly damp, very acidic soil. While that may sound complicated, it isn't. There are many soil mixtures available today that are made commercially especially for azaleas and rhododendrons. All you have to do is plant it in a hole about one half the size of the root ball of the container the plant is in. Remove all the soil from the plant and use the special planting mix in the hole. On the other hand, if you have a well draining soil on the neutral to acid side, then mix in 50% peat moss and a wetting agent with this soil when you plant.
Choosing a correct place to plant a rhododendron is important. They delight in partial shade in most areas and in the sun along the coast. They should never be placed near a wall or the house where watering might be a problem. Placing them under trees that have invasive surface roots will also spell problems. If you do not have an area that meets its needs, then consider building a raised bed of some sort. The bed should be at least two feet deep with the bottom half being a mix of your soil and a great deal of organic matter. The top foot of soil needs to be at least 50% organic with peat and redwood compost being ideal. In planting, the root ball should be placed where the soil surface is even to slightly lower than the surface roots. Never allow the soil to cover the base of the plant. Mulch, such as loose bark, makes a fine cover to cool the roots and still allow water to drain well and this also goes a long way to prevent weeds and other possible problems.
Rhododendrons are pruned and fed in the spring months. Fertilizing for acid loving plants should be done monthly starting in the spring through August, at bloom time or immediately afterwards. Use the fertilizer according to directions. The importance of good drainage can't be stressed enough and root rot can set in. The plant will respond to this by looking wilted and seemingly collapse besides its leaves turning yellow. Salt burn caused by fertilizer or alkaline water gives brown edges to older leaves while the browning new growth is more likely to be windburn.
There are so many rhododendrons available, in fact over 10,000 named varieties. They range from the dwarfs a few inches high to rhododendrons in their native settings in Asia, which can reach a height of 80 feet.
Give Your Tulips The Chills
Tulips are so pretty and so desirable that it seems a crime to have to put them away in cold storage so to speak. But, unless your area of the state has a very cold soil, you better do just that! This is the time to have tulips tucked away and stored at about 35 degrees F.
Your refrigerator (not the freezer) can achieve the cold that tulip bulbs need before planting. If you have an adjustable refrigerator where the vegetable bin can be kept on the dry side as one does for fruit, this would be ideal. They should be kept here at least for four weeks. If your area has mild winters, seriously consider extending this to six weeks or wait until February to plant.
There are over 4,000 tulips for planting with several hundred readily available to the homeowner. Some are excellent for potting, others will naturalize easily; and with the proper selection you can have tulips blooming over a longer time. Check for the proper varieties for your area and your needs at your local nursery.
Once you've sufficiently chilled the tulip bulbs, they are ready to plant. The depth of planting is very important and based on your soil temperatures as well as what you want from the tulips. For instance, the size of the bulb does matter and the rule of thumb is to plant it to a depth of two to three times its size. The ground is usually cooler at about six inches down so that should be the minimum depth for the average bulb. However, if you are in an area where they will naturalize, you will need to know a little more about the tulip and what to expect.
Like all bulbs, the tulips will multiply and as it does, the flowers become smaller every year. But, if you were to plant them a little deeper, say to a depth where they would have ten inches of soil over them, they will not multiply as rapidly and the flowers will remain large for up to eight years.
Planting bulbs can be fun and their placement as interesting as you want to make it. Make the hole a little deeper than you intend and use a good, time-release fertilizer placed at the bottom of the hole. Cover this with some soil and humus mix and then place the bulb in the hole covering the remaining soil. Water well at planting time and allow the soil to be only slightly damp until you see growth. Use normal watering practices while they grow and bloom. Where to plant? Well, you can take a container full and toss them across an area of the garden. Wherever they land, plant for a natural look. Or, plant them in pockets of soil among your shrubs. Use the tulips as a border plant, in containers or simply plant them for their cut flowers.
Bare Root Season Is Ahead
As the fall and winter months begin to make themselves known, it is time to plan ahead as to what you want to enjoy next year in the garden of your dreams.
One of the most practical things to do is consider what can be obtained in the upcoming bare root season and to make ready for that moment which is just around the corner. The most common plants we find in bare root are fruit trees, both dwarf and standard, and roses. They have a common need for a place in full sun and a planting area that drains well as has a good portion of humus in the soil. Whether you wish to try one of the new roses such as the All American Rose winners or just replace a rose that doesn't do well in your area, now is the time to pick the spot and remove the plants that are there.
Fruit trees are becoming more and more popular and well they should. A little investigating on your part will help you make the right decision and give you the results you really want. Too often, fruit trees are discarded as suitable trees for the home landscape because not enough is known about them. Dwarf trees can be grown in containers for those who are short on space. The fruit is the same size and flavor as that on the larger trees, just not as much of it. For the smaller family or the family with no room for canning and freezing, the dwarf fruit tree can be a blessing. Also their decorative qualities should not be disregarded. The fruit and the flowers that precede it are just as decorative as the flowers on any other plant.
Sometimes, the question arises as to what tree is the right choice. The first consideration should be given to selecting a tree variety that will bear well in your area of the state with your hours of chilling time. A good nursery will stock trees that will produce fruit and consider the climate you're in. Many fruit trees are self-fertile and do not need a second tree to pollinate.
If a second tree is needed, consider a method of planting that allows you to plant up to three varieties of the same tree in the same hole. Select these varieties for the blooming time - early, mid-season and late. This way your harvest time and enjoyment of the fruit is extended over a longer period of time and you do not have to contend with all three producing fruit at the same time. The planting hole must be large to hold the three trees and the soil well prepared with humus and slow release fertilizer. For exact planting instructions, ask your California Certified Nursery Professional.
Garden Calendar For November