Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• Plant summer-flowering bulbs now. Glads, dahlias, callas, cannas and lilies will bloom this summer if planted soon.

• Attract birds to your feeders to enjoy. Delightful gold finches will be happy to visit your thistle feeders, and rufous-sided tohees will visit seed feeders.

• Fertilize established roses now and begin spraying them for insect and disease problems. Neem oil is a very effective, less toxic spray that works against both insects and diseases.

• Begonias bulbs can be started indoors now and set out after danger of frost. You’ll enjoy their beautiful flowers this summer.

• Last chance to plant asparagus roots this year. This delicious vegetable will keep producing for up to 20 years.

Gardening with Kids

There are many fun ways to interest children in gardening. Whether you’re a parent or a grandparent, having children enjoy their time with you in the garden can be an experience they will remember all their lives.

One successful way to pique a child’s gardening interest is to have a few unusual or fascinating plants around the garden. Snapdragons are an old favorite, and many of us still remember pinching the blossoms to make them “snap”. Bleeding heart has an intriguing flower as do fuchsias and balloon flowers before they open up.

Children love the papery “silver dollar” seed heads of Honesty, a dried flower used in arrangements. And who doesn’t love to “pet” the furry leaves of Lamb’s ears?

Tall plants hold a particular fascinating for children, especially fast growing ones. Sunflowers are fun to grow because they get taller every day. Large marigolds, zinnias and cosmos and “dinnerplate” dahlias, tall gladioli and lilies will capture their interest.

Planting potatoes is a good activity to do with children. Plant a sprouting potato and check every few days to see if the green shoots are emerging. The real magic comes at harvest time, when large round potatoes are dug up out of the earth. Digging for potatoes is like digging for buried treasure, and potatoes come in some amazing colors and shapes too.

Plants that children can eat are a good way to interest them in the garden. Sugar snap peas, cherry tomatoes, and strawberries are probably the favorites. Searching through the dark green leaves looking for a bright red, ripe berry is almost like hide-and-seek. This delicious fruit is its own reward. Strawberries planted now will bear fruit this summer.

Kids enjoy garden structures like a bean teepee or a sunflower house, where they can have a secret hideaway. Other plants that are good for tall garden structures are scarlet runner beans, morning glories (in red, blue and purple) and white moonflowers.

Don’t forget to plant some fragrant flowers for them to pick and enjoy. Sweet peas make the perfect bouquet and honeysuckle flowers can be enjoyed for their sweet nectar as well. Oriental lilies have a lovely scent as do lavenders, which are fun to make into sachets or lavender wands.

When kids are a little older, they will enjoy having a garden space of their own. Let him plant what he wants in his own way. If she plants an entire seed packet in one square foot, she will see the results and may decide to spread the seeds out better next time. Encourage the planting of flower bulbs. It’s wonderful to see what grows out of a hard, dry bulb.

If you love to garden, chances are that your children will grow to enjoy being outdoors and may develop an interest in gardening if you help them discover the joys of the plant world.

• Fragrant daphne is an early-blooming shrub that will delight you with its strongly scented blooms each spring. Plant it in well-drained soil.

• Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce and other cool season crops should be planted this month for delicious spring harvests.

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

• Plant sweet peas and larkspur for bouquets of delightful blooms.

• Prune Hydrangeas now by removing old flower heads down to the first new leaves. Don’t prune stems which have no old flowers, and they will bloom first this summer.

The Diverse Family of Plums

Plums come to us from both Europe and Asia, bringing with them their characteristic traits and flavors.

Best known to us are the Japanese plums with their round, juicy fruits. Santa Rosa is the most popular plum in California with a purple skin and tangy, flavorful amber flesh. An interesting variation is Weeping Santa Rosa Plum which is a beautiful 8-10 ft. tree with long slender limbs that bow gracefully to the ground, covered with delicious fruit.

Laroda is a dark purple skinned plum with juicy, richly-flavored red and amber flesh. While Nubiana is a large, purplish-black plum with sweet flavor and very little tartness. Burbank is a well-known, red and yellow fruit that is sweet, juicy and uniquely flavored.

The European plums include the prunes. They are all very sweet and richly flavored. French Prune is California’s commercial prune, and Italian is larger and later ripening. They have purple-blue skin and amber flesh and can be eaten fresh or dried.

Green Gage Plum is a small to medium sized green plum with very sweet, richly-flavored flesh. It is a long-time favorite for dessert, cooking and canning. Emerald Beaut is a greenish-yellow plum that becomes exceptionally sweet as it ripens.

Plant breeder Luther Burbank was the first to cross plums and apricots, thought to be impossible at the time. His goal was to produce an apricot-like fruit which would bear consistently in our wet north coast climate where apricots fail to set fruit most years. Floyd Zaiger developed some new hybrids in the 1980s which he called Pluots and Apriums. Pluots, which are 75% plum parentage and 25% apricot, do well here while Apriums, which are 75% apricot and 25% plum are difficult to grow here. He went on to develop peach/plum hybrids and nectarine/plum hybrids.

Flavor King is a wonderful tasting pluot with a sweet, spicy flavor. It is very large and resembles a huge, heart-shaped Santa Rosa. One of the most highly flavored pluots ever developed, it is a reliable producer in this area. Flavor Queen is yellowish-green with a candy-sweet flavor. Flavor Supreme has a mottled skin with richly flavored, firm red flesh.

Spice Zee Nectaplum is a cross between a white-fleshed nectarine and a plum. The skin turns pale pink when ripe and it has outstanding nectarine/plum flavor. Tri-Lite Peach/Plum has a delicious flavor with both the sweet white peach flavor and a tangy plum aftertaste.

For a variety of delicious flavors, be sure you have a good selection of plums, prunes and pluots in your orchard. Fruit trees of all kinds are available to plant now, though the end of “bare- root season” will be here soon.

• Asparagus will provide you with delicious, low-priced spears for years to come if you plant them now from dormant crowns.

• Spring vegetable starts are now ready to be planted. Set out starts of broccoli, cabbage, lettuce and other greens for delicious home-grown vegetables.

• Thin raspberry canes to 4-6 inches apart. Cut back remaining canes to 3 feet tall.

• Lilacs and wisteria have beautiful spring flowers. They come in a variety of colors and can be planted now from bare-root plants.

• Plant strawberries now for delicious strawberry shortcake this summer.

Clematis Pruning Made Simple

These beautiful vines have a reputation for being hard to understand when it comes to pruning. This probably comes from the fact that there are so many different kinds of clematis, and different kinds are pruned differently.

Actually, when it comes to pruning, there are only three kinds of clematis: spring flowering, summer flowering, and those that flower in spring and again in summer. The first group flowers on wood formed the previous season, the second blooms on new wood formed since spring growth started, and the third group flowers on year-old wood in spring and on new wood in summer.

All first-year clematis should be pruned in February or March. Leave two sets of buds on each stem between the soil level and where you make your cut. In later years, follow the rules below.

Spring bloomers should be pruned to remove weak or dead stems just after flowering in May or June. Pruning later will result in fewer blooms the following spring. They need only be pruned lightly if space is limited. These include small-flowered Clematis montana varieties and the fragrant, evergreen Clematis armandii.

Clematis that bloom only in summer should be pruned in late February or March. Cut back all of last year’s growth to just above a good pair of buds about 10-12 inches from the ground. Over the years, a stump will form at that point from which new stems will grow. This will give you a plant with blooms that start near ground level and continue to the top of the plant. Clematis ‘Jackmanii’ is in this group, as are many hybrids such as ‘Ernest Markham’, ‘Gypsy Queen’, and ‘Hagley Hybrid’.

Those that bloom in both spring and summer should be pruned in late February or March. Remove any dead or weak stems, leaving an open, evenly spaced framework of strong growth. Cut back all other stems to a pair of healthy buds 1 to 4 feet above the ground. This group covers the rest of the large-flowered varieties and includes ‘Nelly Moser’, ‘General Sikorski’, ‘The President’, and ‘Henryi’.

If you don’t know which type you have, watch it for a year to see when it blooms and then prune accordingly. Always prune just above a joint where there are two healthy buds. If a plant has been neglected for many years, it can be rejuvenated by severely cutting back most of the old growth.

Remember that dormant vines often look dead, so trace the stem up to see if it supports new growth before cutting it off. The object in pruning clematis is to produce the greatest number of flowers on the shapeliest plant.

You can train clematis in many ways: on a trellis, on a fence or wall as a handsome tracery, twining up a tree, around a post or on an open framework for twining. Enjoy the “Queen of the Vines” in your garden.