Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• Roses need water and fertilizer to keep blooming through the summer. Watch for pests and diseases and treat as soon as you see trouble.

• Birdbaths will attract our feathered friends to your backyard so you can enjoy them close-up. Place them a few feet from a bushy shrub to give the birds protection.

• Zinnias love the heat and will add a rainbow of color to your garden and the deer don’t like them.

• Fragrant star jasmine is in full bloom right now. Plant one in a semi-shaded spot where you can enjoy its lovely perfume.

• Prune camellias and azaleas to shape them now. If you wait much longer, you will be cutting off next year’s flowers.

Summer Beauty in the Shade

The big, round, pink flower clusters of the well-known hydrangea have decorated summer gardens in California for decades. These long-blooming bushes are ideal for shady areas of the garden, as they bloom for most of the summer.

From their home along the rivers of China and Japan, hydrangeas were brought to Europe by plant collectors in the 1800s and now are popular in many parts of the world.

The name Hydrangea gives us a clue to the main needs of this plant. It comes from the Greek word Hydro, meaning water, indicating its need for plenty of water in the summertime. Hydrangeas prefer moist, humus-rich soil with good drainage. So when planting, add peat moss and compost to the soil.

Hydrangeas cannot tolerate hot sun. It will burn their leaves quickly. Plant them where they receive only early morning sun. The north side of a building is usually a good location. They need regular watering and should not be allowed to dry out. Plants wilt if they get too dry but will recover soon with a thorough watering.

Pink hydrangeas can be made to turn blue by making the soil more acid. This is done by working aluminum sulfate into the soil around the plants in March. Flowers may turn blue naturally here where the soils are acidic under conifers. It you want to keep the flowers pink, apply lime around the plants in the springtime.

Hydrangeas are deciduous shrubs which lose their leaves in the winter. They can be pruned when dormant by removing spent flowers down to a healthy pair of buds. This should be done in spring when they first start to show new growth.  

There are many kinds of hydrangeas besides the common one. The lace-cap hydrangea has flower heads that are made up of a cluster of small flowers surrounded by a ring of large ones. They may be white, pink or blue and add a dramatic touch to the shade garden. Some have variegated leaves which add color in shady areas.

There are several new cultivars including ‘Endless Summer’, ‘All Summer Beauty’, and ‘Glowing Embers’. They add some variety to the sizes and colors of standard hydrangeas.

Few vines have as much to offer as the Climbing Hydrangea. They provide interest year ’round: cinnamon-colored, bark and dried blooms in winter; fragrant, ivory colored flowers like those of lace-cap hydrangea in early summer; lush, shiny green foliage through the growing season that turn golden yellow in the fall. This vine is the clinging type, so a trellis is not necessary.

Hydrangeas grow quite large on the coast, but usually stay under five feet here. They give us some of our best summer color. Good companion plants include hostas, astilbe, columbines and bleeding hearts. Planted with pink, lavender or white impatiens around their base, they will bring life and color to your yard all summer.

• Colorful Gerberas with their large, daisy flowers are a standout in containers. Water them infrequently and give them plenty of sun for flowers all summer.

• Spray roses every two weeks to keep them healthy and prevent leaf diseases. Neem oil is a new safe alternative to the chemical fungicides.

• Asparagus plants should be fed with good, rich compost when you have finished cutting spears. Keep the bed mulched and weed-free all summer, and the soil moist.

• Ivy geraniums make wonderful hanging baskets for partially shaded spots where they will bloom all summer.

• Tropical-looking cannas give you a big, bold look in sunny flower beds. Plant them now for bright flowers this summer.

Muskmelons from Persia

The muskmelon (Cucumis melo), like watermelon, is hardly a vegetable, but it is an important garden crop. The most popular type of muskmelon in America is the small, oval, heavily netted kind commonly called a cantaloupe. However, no cantaloupes are actually grown commercially in the United States, only muskmelons.

Cantaloupes are actually a subgroup of muskmelons. Known as Charentais, this sweet melon from Europe has a smooth light-green skin with deep ridges, while muskmelons have the characteristic netting on the fruit rind. Other subgroups of muskmelons include Honey Dew, Casaba, and Crenshaw types; the Oriental Pickling Melon, and such odd varieties as the apple melon and Armenian cucumber.

Muskmelon is so named because of the delightful odor of the ripe fruits. Musk is a Persian word for a kind of perfume; melon is French, from the Latin melopepo, meaning “apple-shaped melon” and derived from Greek words of similar meaning.

Muskmelons originated in Persia (Iran) and Pakistan, and they are also grown in India, Kashmir and Afghanistan. Although truly wild forms of Cucumis melo have not been found, several related wild species have been noted in those regions.

The oldest supposed record of muskmelon goes back to an Egyptian picture of the period around 2400 B.C. In an illustration of funerary offerings of that time appears a fruit that some experts have identified as muskmelon, although others are not so sure.

Cantaloupe should be planted when soils are warm (65°F), after all frost danger has past. Plant 4-6 seeds in mounds 4 feet apart in full sun. Water deeply and infrequently, 1-2 inches per week.

Many gardeners wonder why the earliest melon blossoms do not set fruit. The first flowers developing on the vines are male or pollen-bearing flowers. Only the female flowers are capable of developing into fruit. As the vines mature, both male and female flowers are produced at the same time and pollination occurs with the help of bees and other insects.

Allow melons to ripen on the vines.  When ready to harvest, the stem will loosen and break away from the plant. The melon will also develop a ripe golden color. You need to watch closely as they will crack open and rot very quickly if left too long on the vine. Once the melon cracks open, bugs quickly attack the melon and you have waited too long.

Muskmelon will not cross with watermelon, cucumber, pumpkin, or squash, but varieties within the species intercross freely, however this cross-pollination is not evident unless seeds are saved and planted the following year.

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

• Mulch blueberry plants with aged sawdust and feed with cottonseed meal or an acid fertilizer.

• When you plant your vegetable garden, why not grow a little extra to donate to the food bank this summer.

The Beautiful Dogwood Family

The Eastern dogwood (Cornus florida) is the species most people think of when the word dogwood is mentioned. Although it is the favorite of the dogwood trees, there are other species that grow here as well.

Members of the dogwood family are fine ornamental shrubs and small trees that are beautiful in every season of the year, but are most conspicuous when in flower.

The Eastern flowering dogwood, Cornus florida, grows in the shade of other trees in the forests of the eastern United States. In the landscape it usually reaches 20 to 25 feet tall and has a graceful, layered branching habit.

Over sixty varieties of this tree have been named, offering a variety of leaf and flower colors. Flowers bloom in April and May and come in white, pink or red. Actually, these are bracts, which are colorful leaves that surround the real flowers. The leaves are usually green but some cultivars offer variegated leaves. The fall color is a brilliant scarlet before the trees drop their leaves to reveal picturesque branches.

The Japanese dogwood, Cornus kousa, is very similar to the Eastern dogwood, but blooms about three weeks later as the leaves are coming out. The tree is more vase-shaped than the Eastern dogwood, and the mature bark has an attractive mottled look.

The Pacific dogwood, Cornus nuttallii, is native to the forests around Willits. It is a beautiful tree but, unfortunately, very hard to grow. A fine variety, Eddy’s Wonder, is a cross between the Eastern and the Pacific dogwoods and makes a handsome tree that grows very well here. It has large white “flowers” on a vigorous tree.

The “Stellar” dogwoods are a cross between the Eastern and the Japanese dogwoods. They are very vigorous and make a tree 20 feet tall and wide in 20 years. “Stellar Pink” is particularly lovely with its bracts of pale pink flowers that cover the tree.

Dogwoods can also be shrubs. Cornelian cherry, Cornus mas, tends to be multi-stemmed and is formed more like a shrub than a tree. It is slow-growing to 20 feet tall and 15 feet wide, and is a rounded, multi-stemmed shrub or small tree. The Cornelian cherry produces showy yellow flowers in late winter and early spring, before the leaves emerge. Fruits are bright red and edible, used for tart jellies and attractive to birds.

The beautiful red-twigged dogwood, Cornus sericea, has bright red stems which intensify in color during the winter. Small flowers bloom with white bracts in clusters in the spring followed by bright red berries that attract birds in the winter. It makes a beautiful addition to the woodland landscape. A closely related variety, ‘Flaviramea’ has bright yellow stems.

Flowering dogwoods prefer an acid, well-drained soil high in organic content. They grow naturally in partial shade, but will also grow in full sun with ample summer watering. Too much shade will cause them to produce fewer flowers.