Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• Prepare for planting season! Turn in cover crops and do a soil test if your garden had trouble last year.

• Summer flower bulbs can be planted now. Choose from gladiolus, dahlias, begonias, lilies and more.

• Plant sunflowers now from seed or plants. Choose either the multi-stemmed kinds for cut flowers or the giants for edible seeds.

• Plant artichokes now. Fill a hole with one part humus and two parts soil and set out plants in full or part sun.

• Spring feeding of trees and shrubs can begin now. Mulch with manure or apply fish emulsion or commercial fertilizers.

Fragrant Showy Lilacs

One of the joys of spring is the appearance of fragrant sprays of lilacs all over town. This old-fashioned favorite is always a welcome sight and a sign that spring has arrived.

Lilacs are known and loved for their beautiful blossoms, legendary fragrance, and heart-shaped leaves They prefer a climate with plenty of winter chill and they do very well here, blooming in April in Willits. Full-grown shrubs can reach 12-15 feet.

Lilacs require at least 4 to 6 hours of sun daily for good flower production and good drainage. Space plants 5-8 feet apart for hedges, and farther apart for specimen plants. Once they are established, they need minimal watering in the summer. They are heavy feeders and need a good 10-10-10 garden fertilizer in early spring and after flowering. Failure to bloom can be caused by a lack of fertilizer.

Since lilacs bloom on old wood, prune immediately after blooming to shape plants and remove spent flower clusters. Remove a few of the oldest stems each year by cutting them back to the ground. This will keep the plant growing vigorously.

A mass planting of lilacs will produce a very showy effect. The colors are complementary, so mix and match as you desire. They make excellent screens, background plants and tall hedges.

There are many wonderful varieties on the market, from the common lilac to the French hybrids in all shades of pink, purple and white. The common lilac with its single lavender flowers is the most fragrant purple lilac of all.

The French Hybrid Lilacs are most noted for their bloom size and fragrance. They were the work of Victor Lemoine, a French hybridizer, who bred about 200 different lilacs in the 1870’s. Following are descriptions of some of the nicest hybrids.

Katherine Havemeyer — Large, lavender-purple, double buds open to soft lilac pink. The florets have wide petals that are twisted and irregular, giving a slight double effect to the fragrant flowers.

Krasavitsa Moskvy (Beauty of Moscow) — The unusually large double flowers resemble pink pearls in bud, and open to pure white. Delightfully fragrant, the clusters are excellent for cutting. Extremely hardy and weather resistant, this lilac has a long blooming period.

Ludwig Spaeth — This very old variety is still one of the best of the reddish-purple flowering lilacs. The deep flower color is irresistible, and the very large trusses of fragrant single blossoms come late in the season.

Sensation — One of the most spectacular of all the lilacs, its single blossoms are wine red, edged with white. Borne in tall trusses that have a silvery luster, this fragrant beauty will be a show piece in any garden.

When Jack Frost is nipping the morning air, remember that he’s the reason we can grow beautiful lilacs in Willits.

• Potatoes like to grow in the cool weather of spring. Plant them as soon as possible.

• Tomatoes can be set out with protection. “Season Starter” will protect them down to 20°F and will give them a warm environment during the day.

• Lettuce, cabbages, broccoli, onions and other cool-season vegetables can be set out with no frost protection. They will give you a delicious early harvest.

• Gladiolus bulbs come in every color of the rainbow. Plant them this month for beautiful flowers this summer.

• Lily-of -the-valley is a sweet, shade-loving perennial that can be planted now from “pips” available at the nursery.

Enjoy Radiant Sunflowers this Summer

Sunflowers, with their warm yellows and spicy reds, add a touch of sunshine to any flower bed. With a variety of sunflowers in your garden, you can enjoy their colorful blooms from mid-summer until frost.

The common sunflower is native to North America and grows 6 to 8 feet tall. But there are many varieties that have been developed from it ranging in height from 18-inch-tall dwarfs to 5-foot-tall multi-flowered varieties to the 12-foot giants.

Of the giant sunflowers, ‘Mammoth’ is the best known. It is a giant heirloom sunflower with enormous flowers. The large yellow flowers bloom atop 9-12 ft. tall stalks and yield heavy loads of edible seeds. Fast and easy to grow, ‘Mammoth’ sunflowers are great for creating a sunflower forest for kids or a tall annual hedge or screen. Each plant produces one flower 12 to 20 inches across that hangs its heads with the weight of its seeds.

The bountiful crop of edible seeds, high in healthy fats, protein, fiber, minerals, and vitamins, are loved by people, birds and animals. You can begin to harvest sunflower seeds as soon as the center flowers turn brown or the backs of the heads turn yellow.

You can start sunflowers indoors right now, and plant them out when danger of frost has passed. Or they can be seeded directly in the ground and protected from late frosts. They are simple to grow in ordinary garden soil. They grow quickly and are fun for children to watch.

Sunflowers love the sun. The faces of the flowers follow the sun, from east to west, each day. So plant them where you can enjoy their colorful flower heads. Remember that they will grow very tall, so don’t put them where they will shade other sun loving plants. Be prepared to stake them if necessary.

‘Sunspot’ is a dwarf sunflower with a large, 10-inch, nodding heads of seeds on bushes only 2 feet tall. Bright, golden yellow petals surround brown centers which are filled with tasty seeds.

‘Teddy Bear’ makes big, rounded, fluffy, golden yellow sunflowers, 5 inches across, on sturdy 3-foot stems.

Another group of sunflowers make 5- to 6-foot-tall, branching plants that make great cut flowers. ‘Autumn Beauty’ has 5- to 8-inch flowers in deep yellow, gold, brick-red, burgundy and bicolored flowers. It has multiple flowering branches that bloom over a long period.

‘Orange Mahogany’ is a striking bicolor with large single flowers that are dark mahogany at the center.

‘Lemon Leopold’ is a lush plant producing a good sized flower with lemon petals and dark centers.

Mexican sunflower, Tithonia, makes a big bush 5-6 feet tall and 3-4 feet wide. Bright orange-red flowers are about 3 inches across are loved by butterflies, especially Monarchs. The variety ‘Goldfinger’ grows to only 3 feet tall.

Besides a bounty of blooms, the ripening heads of sunflowers draw lively goldfinches, colorful towhees and friendly blue jays as long as the stalks stand. So light up your summer beds with colorful sunflowers.

• Mouth-watering strawberries should be planted now for delicious berries this summer. Plant them in a sunny, well-drained bed.

• For blue hydrangeas, apply 1 tablespoon aluminum sulfate mixed in 1 gallon of water around mature plants this month.

• Spring vegetables love cool, moist weather and don’t mind a little frost. Set out lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, spinach and Swiss chard starts now.

• Rhubarb, the “pie plant”, can be planted now for mouth-watering pies for many years to come.

Sprightly Lily-of-the-Valley

The lily-of-the-valley, Convallaria majalis, graces the shade garden with her delicate, nodding, white, bell-shaped flowers each spring. A small, woodland perennial, it reappears each year around the time of spring festivals and Easter.

This herbaceous perennial plant is native throughout the cool temperate regions of the northern hemisphere. It forms extensive colonies, spreading by underground roots called rhizomes, which send up numerous stems each spring. Growth buds along the rhizomes are called “pips”. The flowering stems grow 6 to 12 inches tall, rising from two light green leaves, and each hold 5 to 15 dainty flowers.

The attractive leaves emerge in spring and are quickly followed by pretty white bells that make a lovely cut flower. The fragrance is heavy and sweet. This is one of the most beautifully scented flowers in the garden, and has been used in perfumes for decades. Lily-of-the-valley also has a long history of medicinal uses, and is poisonous if eaten.

Several legends are associated with lily-of-the-valley. According to one legend, the tears Mary shed at the cross fell to the ground and turned to lilies-of-the-valley so the flower is also known as Our Lady’s tears. Other names include May lily, May bells, lily constancy, and ladder-to-heaven.

Lily-of-the-valley likes moist but well-drained soil with added compost or leaf mold. They love a yearly application of leaf mold, peat moss, compost or manure each fall. They can grow in conditions ranging from filtered shade to deep shade such as the north side of a building. They need some winter cold to thrive.

Plant pips 1½ inches below the soil surface and 4 to 6 inches apart. They will need water during the growing season, and should be baited for snails and slugs.

Lily-of-the-valley can be planted amongst grape hyacinths, Muscari, bleeding hearts, forget-me-nots and hostas. The pips are attractive when massed in garden beds or scattered in drifts along a garden walk. As a carpet planting between camellias and rhododendrons, Lily-of-the-valley is ideal since it requires the same garden conditions.

The sweet fragrance and dainty white flowers make lily-of-the-valley very popular as wedding flowers. They can also be brought indoors in a pot where they will bloom in just 3 to 4 weeks so you can enjoy their sweet perfume.

Lily-of-the-valley requires very little care, and you will be rewarded with sweet-smelling bell-shaped flowers every spring.