Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• Azaleas, rhododendrons and camellias provide lots of beautiful flowers for the shady spring garden. Choose them now.

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

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

• Dahlias come in a wide variety of colors and shapes. Plant the roots now for flowers this summer.

• Hang up Codling moth traps now to reduce the number of wormy apples in your harvest this year.

Protecting Our Pollinators

More than 75% of flowering plants are pollinated by insects, birds or bats. Some plants need a specific pollinator, and others can be pollinated by a variety of insects. Most fruits and vegetables are pollinated by insects. With many of our pollinators in decline, it is important for gardeners to protect pollinators in order to insure good yields and good quality food.

We can protect pollinators by avoiding pesticides and providing food, water and nesting sites in our backyards and gardens. Bees and other beneficial insects such as ladybugs, lacewings and parasitic wasps are easily killed by insecticides. Targeted insecticides, such as Bacillus thuringiensis (BT), and soaps, oils or botanicals minimize damage to pollinators.

Since bees are major pollinators, you can help them by planting a bee garden. Bees like flowers, sunlight, warm temperatures and open spaces. Honey bees visit many different kinds of plants, while native bees are more particular.

  Since native bees are around all through the growing season, it is important to plant flowers that bloom successively over the spring, summer and fall. By grouping the flowers that attract bees together, you are more likely to draw bees to your garden. Gardens with ten or more species of attractive plants will attract the largest number of bees.

Wildflower seed mixes can provide forage in open areas. Perennials and annuals can be chosen so that there are always flowers in bloom. Some common plants that attract bees are cosmos, dusty miller, bachelor’s button, black-eyed susan, blackberries and sedum.

Choose several colors of flowers.  Bees have good color vision to help them find flowers and the nectar and pollen they offer.  Flower colors that particularly attract bees are blue, purple, violet, white, and yellow.

Herbs such as borage, catmint, mints, feverfew and yarrow attract bees. In open areas you can plant shrubs and trees like redbud, California bay trees, coyote brush, Ceanothus, white sage, and tan oaks. Native asters, penstemon, wood sorrel and California poppy are good bee plants.

Protecting pollinators has many advantages. Many of the same plants that feed bees, birds and butterflies also provide refuge for ladybugs and lacewings. You can have both better pollination and fewer pests feeding on your garden. California poppy, coriander, fennel, sweet alyssum and yarrow will attract these beneficial insects.

Weeds can also provide nectar resources for bees and butterflies, and should be tolerated whenever possible, and when they are not a fire hazard. Allow cover crops, on fallow fields and in orchards, to bloom before plowing them under.

Let your garden be a little “wild” with a variety of plants to make a bee-friendly garden.  What’s good for the bees is good for our fruits and vegetables and a good thing to do for the planet. 

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

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

• 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.

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

• Evergreen candytuft is a hardy perennial with bright white flowers set against dark green foliage. They bloom now and make a fine border plant.

California’s Wild Lilacs

California Lilacs, or Ceanothus, are some of our most fragrant and colorful native shrubs. Evergreen and very drought tolerant, they provide us with ground covers, shrubs and small trees for various landscape situations. About 40 species are native to California, with many selected varieties also developed.

Many wild lilacs prefer coastal slopes but some are well-adapted to inland conditions. They all like well-drained soil, and prefer light watering and little or no fertilizing. Plants often work best in perimeter areas, on slopes and as background masses.

Ceanothus are fast-growing plants. This makes them useful for quick effects and covering large areas.

They begin blooming at an early age and cover themselves with beautiful, fragrant blossoms in the springtime. Flower colors include white, pale blue, deep blue and purple. Many small flowers are arranged like small lilac blooms at the end of the branches.

Ground cover Ceanothus do best in coastal areas, but some varieties will grow in inland conditions. ‘Yankee Point’ is a wide-spreading, low, dense shrub with shiny, dark green leaves and one-inch clusters of medium blue flowers. It is drought and heat tolerant.

Wild lilac shrubs grow anywhere from 3 feet to 16 feet tall. Most types are wider than they are tall. Many varieties grow well inland including ‘Dark Star’, ‘Julia Phelps’ and ‘Concha’ with deep blue flowers, ‘Frosty Blue’, with light blue blossoms, and ‘Joyce Coulter’, with large clusters of medium blue flowers. ‘Snowball’, with white flowers, also does well here.

‘Ray Hartman’ grows as a large shrub or small tree with large, glossy leaves and profuse displays of medium blue flowers. Sometimes they are grown as patio trees making a very showy display in spring.

Ceanothus grow best with little attention or care. Three things that they dislike are soil amendments, summer water and drip irrigation. Just water occasionally with a hose until the plants are established, then leave them to grow on their own. They will live a long and healthy life this way.

Deer-resistance is often an issue with Ceanothus. Most varieties are eaten by deer since, being natives, they have long been part of their food supply. Some small-leaved or prickly-leaved varieties, like ‘Dark Star’, ‘Julia Phelps’ and ‘Blue Jeans’, are usually more deer-resistant. But given protection when the plants are young, they are vigorous enough that they can withstand some browsing once they get large.

Wild lilacs are a nice addition to the natural landscape and they will delight you each spring with their wonderful, fragrant sprays of flowers.

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

• Sweet peas, with their memorable fragrance, can be planted now from nursery starts for wonderful bouquets later this spring.

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

• 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.

• Last chance to spray peach and nectarine trees for peach leaf curl before the buds break open. Use copper sulfate powder for the best results.

Smiling Pansies

The happy faces of pansies are a delight in the garden or in a bud vase on the table. Developed from three wild species, the modern pansies have large flowers, beautifully marked “faces” and a wide range of colors. They add color to the winter and spring garden over a long season.

Pansies are one of the earliest flowering plants, blooming right alongside your spring bulbs. They are low-growing annual flowers that are nice for borders and look very pretty in containers of all kinds. Their heart-shaped, shiny green leaves cover the ground and the flowers rise above them on six-inch stems.

The flowers, up to three inches across, come in almost all colors of the rainbow: violet, purple, blue, pink, red, orange, yellow, white and many exciting bi-colors. Fill an entire bed with pansies for a dramatic spring effect! They also are great in window boxes and containers.

The “old fashioned” pansy has many new varieties to bring early color to your pots and garden beds. Breeding improvements in recent years have produced hybrids that bloom longer, show better weather tolerance, and display a wonderful range of colors and patterns. Seed companies release new varieties yearly.

Pansies have become more popular as gardeners have seen how well they preform through wet, wintery weather. They are unaffected by a covering of snow, and pop right back when the snow melts.

The Delta Series is a group of spring flowering pansies with flowers measuring 2.5″ – 3″ across. They are both very heat tolerant and winter hardy, and offer many pretty bi-colors with faces as well as solid colors. Delta Pure Mix has solid colored flowers in bright yellow, red, blue, white and other colors.

Matrix pansies are vigorous plants that are bred to provide abundant large blooms over a long season and add vibrant color to any landscape setting. They branch quickly and resist stretching so they look their best all through the spring.

Pansies are good companions for spring-flowering bulbs. By choosing colors that compliment the bulbs you can create some very pretty living bouquets. Blooming over a longer season than the bulbs, they will fill in and provide color as the bulbs are finishing their cycle.

When you plant your pansies, water them well but don’t fertilize them for a week or so. They need time to settle in before they can absorb fertilizer. Enjoy some pansies in vases indoors. The more you pick them, the more they bloom.

Springtime isn’t complete without pansies’ smiling faces in the garden.