Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• Plant potatoes! St. Patrick’s Day is a traditional day to plant potatoes, so the season is upon us now.

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

• Apple trees are still available as bare-root trees, but only for a short while longer. Start your orchard now!

• Last chance for asparagus roots this year. Prepare a fertile bed for these long-lived vegetables.

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

Elegant New Roses

Oh My! Wait till you see the new roses. Yes, one of the new roses this year is named ‘Oh My!’™ and it’s a beauty. This velvety red Floribunda is loaded with clusters of 3 to 4-inch ruffled flowers that look gorgeous against the glossy dark red-green leaves, which have very good disease resistance. Plant it as a flowering hedge or as a single handsome shrub and enjoy its rich red flowers in the vase.

If you think roses are too much work, try the new rose ‘Take It Easy’™. You won’t have much work to do in the garden with its wonderful disease resistance. This classic red shrub rose has elegant pointed buds that open into 3½-4 inch velvety dark red blooms with lighter pink reverse. The plant’s excellent vigor and the naturally self-maintained habit are other reasons to enjoy this beautiful rose.

The warm colors of ‘Sedona’ are reminiscent of the craggy red bluffs and high desert sunsets of the Southwest. The pointed, sculptured buds spiral open to reveal layers of reds, corals, and orange tones in the stunning 5-inch blossoms. Add a strong, fruity fragrance and you have a tower of jewels on these tall Hybrid Tea bushes. The large, full flowers on straight, sturdy stems are excellent for cutting.

For a more subtle beauty in a new rose look to ‘Crescendo’™. The elegant, creamy white, pointed buds open to reveal enormous, 5-inch blooms are that are white, blushing to light pink at the edges. The strong spicy fragrance of this shapely Hybrid Tea rose, with superb disease resistance and an attractive, medium-tall form, provides a perfect ensemble of beauty, elegance, and outstanding garden performance.

‘Above All’™ is a new hybrid with large clusters of salmon-orange blooms that cover the branches of this tall climber. The old fashioned style flowers, 3-4 inches in diameter, are produced in large clusters. With a nice fruity fragrance, good disease resistance, and continuous blooming from spring to fall, it will brighten up a fence all summer long.

If fragrance means the most to you in a rose, add ‘Perfume Delight’ to your rose garden. This bright pink Hybrid Tea rose has large, full flowers with a strong, damask fragrance. Introduced in 1974, it is still a beautiful rose with excellent form and good disease resistance. Established plants will produce blooms up to 6 inches across. Try that on your table!

‘Midnight Blue’™ brings us a dark, velvety purple rose with a spicy clove fragrance. The 2½-3½ inch blooms come in big clusters on this shrub rose that is grown on its own roots. The compact rounded plant will lend itself to smaller spaces and enrich any landscape.

It’s time to add a new rose to your garden and enjoy their classic beauty.

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

• Potatoes can be planted any time now. Choose from red, white, yellow and blue varieties.

• 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.

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

• Plant sweet peas for bouquets of delightful blooms.

Celebrate Trees!

Luther Burbank, California’s famed horticulturist, was a legendary figure in his own time. Born in Massachusetts, on March 7, 1849, he made his home in Santa Rosa for more than fifty years and it was here that he conducted many plant breeding experiments that brought him worldwide fame. His life’s labor produced hundreds of plants and trees that have contributed to the natural splendor and food production in our state.

In 1909, seventeen years before he died, the state legislature designated Burbank’s birthday, March 7, as Arbor Day in California. And every year since then, school children and others have celebrated the event by planting trees.

The idea of an Arbor Day began in Nebraska in 1872, when J. Sterling Morton convinced the Nebraska state board of agriculture to set a day for tree planting and name it Arbor Day. Since then, most states have declared an Arbor Day which is appropriate to their climate. National Arbor Day is celebrated on the last Friday in April.

The value of trees can hardly be overstated. Trees solve problems by cooling the house in the summer, reducing the force of the prevailing winds, screening out undesirable sights and reducing noise. They improve water and air quality, provide habitats for animals and plant life and prevent flooding and erosion. In addition, trees have many aesthetic advantages offering pleasant fragrances, beautiful colors that change with the seasons, fruit in abundance, and even a place to hang a swing.

Shade from trees can reduce room temperatures in poorly insulated houses by as much as 20 degrees in summer. To be most effective, trees should be planted on the west and southwest sides of the house to block the hot rays of the western sun. If you plant a deciduous tree which will lose its leaves in the fall, it will let in light in the winter months when it is most desired.

Trees and large shrubs make excellent windbreaks if they are properly chosen and pruned to do the job. The most effective and safest way of planting a windbreak is to combine trees and shrubs over a considerable distance to create a wedge which lifts the wind up and over the tallest trees. Bushy shrubs are planted on the windward side and among the trees with the tallest trees nearest the house. Such a wind break will greatly reduce the wind-chill factor and thereby reduce the cost of heating buildings.

Trees also make the most attractive screen between you and the neighbors, whether they are just next door, or 20 acres away. They can block bothersome glare from artificial lights and make your home environment more to your liking.

For beautiful spring flowers, consider a beautiful weeping flowering cherry with double pink flowers, Krauter Vesuvius flowering plum with its red leaves and light pink flowers or one of the flowering crabapples with flowers ranging from white to pink, red or purplish-red.

October Glory Maple with its brilliant fall color makes an excellent, tall shade tree. Purple Robe Locust offers dark pink flowers in spring and a fast-growing, full tree for shade in summer. Fruitless Mulberry and Raywood Ash are also fast-growing trees for summer shade, and flowering pear trees are beautiful in spring, summer and fall.

For beauty and comfort, celebrate this Arbor Day by planting a tree!

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

• Fill your spring flower beds with pansies and violas and enjoy their bright faces in many shades of blue, yellow, red, pink and purple.

• Prune wisteria trees and vines by cutting out unwanted long runners and removing old seed pods. Don’t damage flower buds that are clustered at the end of short branches.

• Raspberry, blackberry, loganberry, and boysenberry vines should be planted now for delicious, home-grown berries.

• Cut back suckers on lilac bushes. Wait until they bloom to prune them, then you can bring the fragrant branches indoors.

Crisp, Tasty Lettuce

An ever-expanding selection of lettuce varieties are available to home gardeners, adding variety, texture and color to the salad bowl.

Lettuce varieties can be divided into four groups: crisphead, butterhead, leaf and romaine. Each group has its own growth and taste characteristics.

Crisphead lettuce is probably the most familiar. It makes a tight, firm head of crisp, light-green leaves. In general, crisphead lettuce is not tolerant of hot weather and bolts readily under hot summer conditions. Since it needs 80-90 days to mature, grow a few plants in spring, and more in the fall.

The butterhead types, also called Boston or bibb lettuce, have smaller, softer heads of loosely folded leaves. The outer leaves may be green or reddish with cream-colored inner leaves that have a buttery flavor. Buttercos varieties grow upright like a romaine but have a heart like a butterhead and waxy leaves.

Leaf lettuce has an open growth habit and does not form a tight head. Some cultivars are frilled and crinkled and others deeply lobed. Color ranges from light green to red and bronze. Leaf lettuce matures quickly and is the easiest to grow.

Romaine or cos lettuces form upright, cylindrical heads of tightly folded leaves. The plants may reach up to 10 inches in height. The outer leaves are medium green with greenish white inner leaves. There is also a red romaine that is very tasty and attractive.

Lettuce is a cool-season vegetable and develops best quality when grown under cool, moist conditions. Lettuce seedlings will tolerate a light frost and do they best in spring and fall. Seeds of lettuce can be planted early in the spring or transplants can be set out starting in early March.

In the summer, lettuce prefers to get it’s sun in the morning and late afternoon, rather than the hottest midday sun, so you can plant it in the shade of taller plants.

Lettuce can be grown in a wide range of soils, but loose, fertile, sandy loam soils, with plenty of organic matter are best. Till in well-rotted manure or compost and top dress with alfalfa meal. The soil should be well-drained and moist, but not soggy.

Several successive plantings of lettuce will provide a continuous harvest throughout the growing season. You can set out plants and start seeds at the same time and you will have two crops on the way. Space plants of leaf lettuce nine inches apart and head lettuce plants 12 inches apart.

All lettuce types should be harvested when full size but young and tender. Leaf lettuce, butterhead, buttercos or romaine types may be harvested by removing the outer leaves, or cutting the plant about an inch above the soil surface. A second harvest is often possible this way. Crisphead lettuce is picked when the center is firm.

Start your lettuce patch now and enjoy delicious fresh lettuce straight from your garden.