Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• Japanese maples and snowball bushes are some of the most colorful shrubs in the fall. Plant them now and give them a head start on spring.

• Check houseplants for insects. Spray leaves with insecticidal soap and wipe them off to leave them clean and insect-free.

• King Alfred daffodils, those big, showy, golden, trumpet-flowered daffodils, can be planted now from bulbs for glorious spring flowers.

• Broadcast wildflower seeds and annual ryegrass on hillsides to stop erosion and give you lots of flowers next spring.

• Transplant shrubs that need to be moved this month. It’s also a good time to transplant natives.

Backyard Composting

Composting is a process that takes place naturally on the forest floor, in your own backyard, or in your refrigerator. When you walk through a lush forest, stop and examine the forest floor. You’ll see that the top layers are recognizable as leaves, twigs and needles. But below these are last season’s leaves, which have been transformed into rich crumbly soil. This is the process of decomposition.

When we pile up vegetation so that it can decompose all in one spot, we call it composting. Leaves, grass, manures, food scraps, paper towels and other organic materials are digested by worms, insects and bacteria to create rich compost. All they need is air, water and plant materials to do their work. The end product is a natural fertilizer which will make your plants lush and healthy.

With cool autumn days and leaves filling your yard, it’s a perfect time to begin composting. Composting provides a useful and environmentally conscious alternative to bagging up your leaves and sending them away as waste.

There are as many different ways to build a compost pile as there are gardeners. And they all make usable, soil-enriching compost.

You can compost in any kind of a bin, which keeps things neat and tidy, or you can make a heap directly on the ground. Either way, the pile will start shrinking immediately, and will be about half its original size a week after you build it.

Leaves, grass, weeds, herbs and flowers are all ideal for your compost bin and will break down rapidly. Fruit and vegetable food scraps are also ideal. Leftovers from canning or making fresh juice are a great addition to your pile.

A good compost pile contains a balance between green materials and brown ones. The green ones provide nitrogen and heat up the pile, while the brown ones provide necessary carbon. Green materials include fresh plant material, grass clippings and food scraps. The browns include dry leaves and straw or wood shavings. Using up to one-half green material and the rest brown material will create a good hot pile that will decompose quickly.

You can also just make a pile out of the leaves you rake off the lawn. Your leaf pile should be four to 10 feet around and three to five feet high. A correct pile size ensures proper temperature and air flow needed for composting. Keep your pile moist and by next spring you should have some dark and crumbly, earthy-smelling compost to dig into your soil.

Composting is Nature’s way of recycling. No matter what you do, you can’t stop compost from happening.

• Bulbs, bulbs, bulbs! It’s time to plant tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, crocus and many other flower bulbs for beautiful blooms next spring.

• Clean up the garden by raking leaves and old flower blossoms out from under your shrubs. Roses and camellias especially appreciate this.

• Spray citrus and other tender plants with Cloud Cover to give them some protection from frosts.

• Enjoy birds in your garden by hanging bird feeders around the yard. You’ll see many different kinds as they migrate through this fall.

• Cut asparagus down to about two inches above the ground once all of the foliage has died. Mulch asparagus beds with three inches of well-rotted manure.

November Gardening

These beautiful fall days are a wonderful time to get out in the garden, plant some bulbs and flowers, and put your garden to bed before the cooler days arrive.

November is a good month to plant many evergreen shrubs and trees. Hollies, rhododendrons and camellias, as well as junipers, pines, firs and redwoods, all do well when given the winter to get established. Some natives and Mediterranean shrubs like Ceanothus, fremontias, rock roses and manzanita will need little or no water next summer if planted now.

When planting trees, remove any stake that is next to the trunk. Restake only if the tree cannot support itself. Use two stakes, placing one on either side of the rootball and connect them to the tree with rubber ties so that the tree can move some in the wind. This will strengthen the trunk so the stakes can be removed in a year or two.

Set out winter bedding plants this month. Snapdragons, pansies, violas, calendulas, primroses and Iceland poppies will all go through the winter nicely. Spring-blooming perennials to plant now include foxglove, columbine, and lupine.

You can plant spring-flowering bulbs up through Thanksgiving. Bright colored tulips, proud daffodils and fragrant hyacinths will reward you next spring for your efforts now. Crocus, Glory-of-the-snow, anemones and ranunculus will also give you lovely spring flowers.

Check your rose garden. Bushes that are old and no longer give you bowers of flowers should come out to make room for new varieties. Also make sure that tree roses are firmly staked to handle winter storms. Don’t prune roses yet, but you can cut off faded flowers and remove dead branches.

Clean up fallen leaves from planted areas and lawns. Turn them into rich leaf-mold by piling them up in an unused corner, where they will decompose slowly but surely. This is a cold process and takes a year or two before it’s ready to use. You can speed up the operation by shredding the leaves before you pile them up. Be careful not to include leaves from black walnut trees, which are toxic, or from evergreen magnolias or live oaks, which break-down very slowly.

Prune berry bushes by removing canes that fruited in early summer. Train new canes onto trellises. Do not prune trees when the leaves are falling. It is better to wait until January or February so that the cuts will not be exposed to the cold, wet weather which invites rot and disease problems.

Spruce up the garden with plants that produce colorful red berries during the winter. Cotoneaster, holly, Heavenly Bamboo and pyracantha do well in our area.

Spray your peach and nectarine trees this month for peach leaf curl, after the leaves have fallen. Use a form of copper-sulfate for the best protection.

Finally, collect pine cones, autumn leaves and branches of bright red berries to use as table decorations. Enjoy November in your garden.

• Plant pansies, snapdragons, stock, calendulas and primroses now to replace summer annuals.

• Garlic sets can be planted now for an easy crop that you can harvest next spring. Choose from hard-neck, soft-neck or Elephant garlic varieties now available.

• Compost your leaves as they fall, don’t burn them! Leaves make wonderful compost that breaks down into rich humus by next summer.

• Chrysanthemums can be planted in pots or flower beds for bright and cheerful flowers to enjoy this fall.

• Look for rich, bright colors in the foliage of deciduous trees and shrubs. Burning bush, Liquidambar, snowball bush and maple trees are beautiful right now.

Pest-resistant Flower Bulbs
What to plant this fall where deer & squirrels are voracious

Garden pests such as deer and squirrels are a real problem, especially in the fall. Despite centuries of land development, the deer population in the U.S. is far greater now than when the Pilgrims landed. For gardeners in rural areas where such creatures are voracious, the big question is: what won’t those animals eat?

In fall, gardeners gear up to plant spring-blooming bulbs. Some of the most popular bulbs, such as tulips and crocuses, are considered treats by animal pests. While others, such as daffodils and hyacinths, are generally shunned because of their bitter taste.

Of course, if deer are truly starving, they’ll eat just about anything, including the bark off trees! But planting bulbs they don’t like will greatly improve a garden’s overall survivability in problem areas.

Daffodils and Hyacinths are poisonous to squirrels and rodents, and when interplanted with edible bulbs, will protect them from burrowing animals. All kinds of Daffodils are shunned by deer. You can plant the large King Alfreds or the small, fragrant Narcissus and they will bloom for you year after year without fail. The bulbs spread and multiply each season, so you’ll have more to enjoy every year.

Hyacinths come in beautiful bright colors: red, pink, blue and white. Their strong fragrance is a sweet breath of spring, so plant some where you can enjoy their rich perfume.

Chionodoxa or glory of the snow is one of the first flowers of spring. Its elegant, sky blue flowers with white centers have 4 to 12 florets per stem. The delicate six-inch tall flowers bloom in February-March. They prefer full sun, but tolerate partial shade, and adapt beautifully to the rock garden, the flower border, or under trees and shrubs, and naturalize easily.

Grape hyacinth, Muscari armeniacum, is an all-star performer. Its long lasting flowers and long blooming season make this brilliant blue flower a champ in endless garden applications. Mass plantings are spectacular, especially when combined with other bulbs like yellow daffodils or tulips of any color. Four to eight-inches tall, muscari performs best in well-drained locations. Try planting these little bulbs close together in mass plantings in the lawn or garden to create a blue “river of Muscari” effect made famous at Holland’s Keukenhof Garden. Muscari also naturalizes easily.

Snowflakes, Leucojum aestivum, are among the easiest bulbs to grow. The nodding, white bell flowers tipped in green on 12-inch stems have as many as nine flowers to a stem. They flower in full sun or part shade and bloom more profusely if left undisturbed for several years.

Enjoy creating a beautiful spring garden with bulbs that are ranked high on beauty and low on pest-appeal.