Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• Fall is for planting! Trees, shrubs and perennials planted now will grow twice as much next year as those planted next spring.

• When blackberry vines are done fruiting, prune back the canes which bore fruit this summer. Twine young canes around the fence or trellis.

• It’s time to divide overgrown perennials that bloomed in the spring or early summer. It’s also a good time to choose and plant some new varieties.

• Plant cover crops in areas of the garden that have finished producing for the summer. Crimson clover and fava beans will grow over the winter and enrich the soil for next year.

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

Color for Cooler Days

As the petunias and marigolds wind down, and chilly nights come on, it’s time to clean up the flower beds and plant some new flowers for the cooler months. Snapdragons, calendulas, stock, primroses and chrysanthemums are the best choices to keep your garden and containers colorful.

Snapdragons come in a variety of sizes and colors. They range from 8-inch tall “Floral Carpets” to 36-inch tall “Rockets.” The color range spans all the pinks, reds and lavenders as well as yellow and white. Although they are sold as annuals, in our climate they will winter over and rebloom profusely in early spring.

For mass plantings, plant medium and dwarf varieties 6 to 8 inches apart and tall types a foot apart. Give them a sunny location with good garden soil that is well-drained. Snaps look very nice when interplanted with delphiniums, irises and daylilies.

Calendulas are very easy to grow. They are sometimes called winter marigold, though they are not marigolds at all. They grow in the sun and come in all shades of yellow, gold and orange. They like cool weather and will provide lots of color between now and next summer.

Stock is well-known for its wonderful fragrance. Flowers come in lovely rich colors of pink, purple, rose and white. Most flowers are double, and set against their gray-green foliage, they are beautiful. They make wonderful cut flowers, mixing nicely with snaps to have a riot of color as well as fragrance.

English primroses are the best bedding plants for shady areas in the winter. Their flowers sit in a cluster directly in the center of the plant, some on central flower stalks and some with lower flowers on individual stems. The color range is incredible, covering red, blue, yellow and all shades in between.

If primroses are started early enough they will bloom in the fall. All plants will bloom from February through April, putting on a terrific show of color. If planted in a spot that receives shade in the summer, they will become well-established and be bigger and more beautiful next winter.

Chrysanthemums make some of the best cut flowers around. They last up to two weeks in the vase, and give fresh color to the garden when nearly all other perennials have finished their show for the year. In your garden, they will grow 2 to 4 feet tall, and have long stems for cutting.

Fall-blooming mums come in a dazzling array of colors. The “fall colors” of yellow, gold, rust and magenta are very appealing. But they also come in pink, white, purple and lavender. Choose colors that will compliment your indoor decor or the color of your house.

Perk up your garden with cheerful fall bloomers.

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. In addition to a delicious variety developed by Burbank, there are new hybrids developed by Floyd Zaiger, 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.

Pluots are smooth skinned, like plums, while Apriums are slightly fuzzy, like apricots, but they have unique flavors and generally higher sugar levels than the standard Japanese plum varieties. The new fruits, which are called interspecifics, are complex hybrids of plum and apricot that are created by making several generations of crosses and selecting for desirable traits such as high sugar content.

Pluot and Aprium trees were introduced first to the home garden market in 1989. Some Pluots have strange, speckled skins, but it is the taste that wins people over. Pluots do not have the bitterness in the skin that plums often have, and Apriums have a more full-bodied flavor than an apricot.

“Dapple Dandy” is a pinkish colored pluot with maroon flecks across the skin. It is very unique looking. The taste is definitely like a half plum, half apricot. It is very large and highly flavored. It is also known as “Dinosaur Egg” because of its speckled, egg-like appearance.

“Flavor King” is a wonderful tasting pluot bred with Santa Rosa plum. It is very large and resembles a huge heart-shaped Santa Rosa. One of the most highly flavored pluots ever developed, it has a sweet, spicy flavor. The inner color bright red tinged with yellow-orange near the pit.

“Flavor Supreme” is a taste test winner with sweet, richly flavored, firm red flesh. The skin is mottled greenish-maroon and it bears early in the summer with a flavor similar to Elephant Heart plums.

For a taste experience and something different in the orchard, try a Pluot this year. Fruit trees of all kinds are available to plant especially during “bare root season.”

• Choose chrysanthemums in a variety of colors now. They are hardy perennials which will brighten your garden each fall.

• Cool season vegetables should be planted right away to grow fresh produce this fall.

• Holland flower bulbs are now available for fall planting. These lovely gems will bloom for you next spring.

• Fertilize lawns now to build up root systems for a healthy lawn.

• Fruit trees can be planted in the fall from containers to get a head start on next spring.

Cover Crops to Improve your Garden

Healthy plants begin with healthy soil. Often, the best way to improve your soil is to increase the amount of organic matter in it. Doing so will improve the soil structure and increase the activity of microorganisms that help create a rich, productive soil.

Organic matter is usually added by hauling in truckloads of manure or other compost. But there is an easier way. By seeding green manure crops in the fall and letting them grow over the winter, you are growing your own compost which can be turned into the soil next spring, about three weeks before you are ready to plant the summer garden. These “cover crops” also protect the soil from erosion, decrease the leaching of nutrients, and reduce compaction caused by winter rains.

There are two kinds of cover crops: grasses and legumes. Grass cover crops germinate quickly and put on enough growth in the fall to protect the soil over the winter. Annual ryegrass is the best plant for breaking up hard soil. It sends down miles of tiny roots adding pounds of humus to the soil when it decomposes. Winter rye, or ryegrain, is also an annual grass which is very hardy. It can be planted from late summer to late fall and will grow in poor soils.

Legumes include fava beans, crimson clover and vetch. Legumes are slow to develop in the fall but grow rapidly the following spring, providing nitrogen and biomass for the summer vegetable crop. These important crops are able to take nitrogen from the air and convert it into a form that is usable by plants, thus adding nitrogen to the soil. At the same time, their root systems loosen and aerate the soil, improving the soil structure.

Crimson clover is an annual which blooms with beautiful red clover flowers in the spring. It likes well-drained soils and has a dense root system. Purple vetch prefers loam soils and should be planted before the weather gets too cold. Hairy vetch is the most winter-hardy of the vetches. It tolerates wetter soils and can be planted with ryegrass.

Fava beans come in two types: horse beans and bell beans. Horse beans can be grown to maturity and eaten. Bell beans are used strictly for a cover crop. These plants grow three to four feet tall and it is best to compost the stalks in the spring and turn in the stubble.

Mixed cover cropping with bell beans and ryegrain has long been used by farmers. The ryegrain produces large amounts of biomass and suppresses weed growth while the bell beans add nitrogen to the soil. Studies have shown that this combination actually increased the soil nitrogen more than the bell beans alone.

As soon as summer crops come out, cover crops can be planted in their place. The sooner they are planted, the more they can grow before the weather turns cold. Plants grow through the winter and are tilled into the soil in early April. By enriching your soil through cover cropping each winter, your garden will become increasingly fertile, reducing the need for fertilizers and soil conditioners, and providing you with bountiful harvests every year.