Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• Roses have more flowers all summer long than any other shrub. Plant them in a sunny location and feed monthly for continuous blooms.

• Cut back leggy annuals by half and feed to encourage a longer bloom season.

• Impatiens and begonias will give you instant color in shady areas and continue blooming right through the fall.

• Trim grapevines to allow more sun to reach the fruit and sweeten the grapes, if they are being shaded heavily by the foliage.

• Divide Oriental poppies and bearded iris now. Add some bonemeal in the bottom of the hole when you replant them.

Trees for Summertime Livin’

Trees are never appreciated more than in the summer when their welcome shade provides a cool escape from the brutal sun. Trees provide many benefits including beauty, wildlife habitat and increased property values. They can also save you money by reducing your cooling bill in the summer and your heating bill in the winter.

Shade trees act as evaporative coolers in the summer time. A column of warm air rises up through the tree causing a slight breeze at ground level. This gentle air movement makes the shade under trees much more pleasant than the shade from buildings.

In the summer, heat enters the house through the walls and the roof, but the most heat enters directly through the windows. Heat builds up during the day and homes become the most uncomfortable in the late afternoon. Walls shaded by trees are generally 15 degrees cooler than unshaded walls on a hot summer day.

In our climate, winter heating is a much greater expense than summer cooling. Winter sunlight through south-facing windows can be an important factor in heating. Branches and twigs of bare trees block 20 to 50 percent of the sunlight passing through them.

For energy conservation, and creature comfort, trees should be planted where they will give the most shade to the house in the summer and the least shade in the winter. Trees planted to the west or southwest of the house are more effective than those planted on the south side.

Planting trees that grow to 25 feet or more toward the west side of the house will shade western windows during June, July and August. This will reduce air conditioning needs and increase comfort in non-air conditioned homes. Since the sun is at a lower angle in the wintertime, these trees won’t block warm, midday sun coming from the south.

Maple trees are some of our best shade trees. They provide shade and beauty with a minimum of messiness. ‘October Glory’ red maple grows to a height of 40–50′, providing dense shade. In late fall, the dark green leaves burst into shades of orange and red.

Catalpa is a large tree with showy white flowers that attract hummingbirds, followed by long bean-like seed pods. The large, heart-shaped leaves provide considerable shade from the canopy that grows to 40 ft. tall and 20 ft. wide.

If you have a moist location, nothing is more beautiful than a graceful weeping willow. It is a very fast-growing tree and can block an unpleasant view in just a few years. The soft green, pendulous branches are very beautiful.

Chinese pistache is one of our toughest trees. Though irregular in form when young, they grow into magnificent, round-headed trees that have outstanding fall color. It makes a beautiful shade tree at 30 feet tall and wide.

Sycamores are large, elegant trees that are tolerant of heat, drought and poor soil. With large, maple-shaped leaves and attractive peeling bark, they are a mainstay of the urban landscape. The variety ‘Bloodgood’ is disease resistant and will provide lots of summer shade.
Consider your shade tree needs now to enhance your outdoor living areas.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 4th, 2017 at 9:32 am and is filed under Garden Article, Willits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.