Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• Spring vegetables can be planted now.  Start your garden with broccoli, cabbage, lettuce spinach and chard.  It pays to grow your own!

• Clematis that bloomed last summer can be pruned now.  Wait on spring-blooming varieties until after they bloom.

• Plant peas in well-drained soil for a spring crop.  Protect from birds with bird netting or lightweight row cover.

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

• Pansies and violas will fill your spring flower beds with their bright faces in many shades of blue, yellow, red, pink and purple.

Roses Galore!

Many of us look forward each year to seeing the new roses. This year we have a beautiful yellow floribunda rose, and a lovely pale pink hybrid tea rose. And there are others, just a year or two old that you may not be familiar with.

The sweetly pink hybrid tea, Francis Meilland, edged out the competition to earn the All-America Rose Selections award for 2013. Statuesque form, fragrant flowers and disease resistance helped it earn the sought-after honor. Her name honors the 100th birthday of the breeder of the famous Peace rose.

AARS Winners are grown in test gardens for two years where they are judged on color, fragrance, flower production and disease-resistance. Only the most successful roses become Winners each year. This year there was only one rose given this honor.

Sparkle & Shine™ is a “bloomin’ fool” of a rose with large clusters of ruffled yellow blossoms. The long-lasting yellow color, dark red new growth, and improved disease resistance make this an excellent landscaping rose. It can be used as an easy care flowering hedge. 

For an old-fashioned rose-pink rose, the new Grande Dame™ is hard to beat. The intense old rose fragrance invites you to bury your nose in its large, glamorous blossoms. These lovely, nodding flowers grow on a vigorous, shrubby bush with fewer thorns than most rose bushes. A nice cutting rose, this is a modern antique that grows well in all climates.

You’ll find a unique rose in Ketchup & Mustard™. “Slap a layer of the brightest red onto a backside of darkest yellow and set it atop the greenest glossiest leaves” and you have this stunning red and yellow floribunda. The medium-sized flowers hold their color well and repeat bloom all summer. 

Red roses are considered the most romantic and In The Mood™ is a lovely way to say it with flowers. Its large, double, classic hybrid tea flowers hold their brilliant red color well. And the bushy, prolific plant will give you lots of long-stemmed roses for cutting.

A most unusual rose is Koko Loko™. Opening up with perfect hybrid tea form, its petals are the color of a creamy caffe latte. But as the flower matures, it turns into a round, ruffled lavender that lasts a long time either on the plant or in the vase. 

Purple Splash™ offers a new color combination in a climbing rose: wine purple striped with white. The pyramid-shaped clusters bloom profusely over a long season. It has light green foliage on a vigorous plant with climbing canes 10 to 14 feet long. The flowers have only 5-10 petals each but they carry a sweet spice and rose fragrance. 

Dress up your garden with some glamorous new roses.

• Delicious raspberries, blackberries, loganberries, boysenberries and blueberries are all available now for early planting.

• Check the watering of outdoor container plants especially if they’re located under the eaves or porch where rain can’t reach them.

• Onion plants can be set out now for early summer harvest.

• Start an asparagus bed so you can enjoy their young, tender shoots straight from the garden.

• It’s bare root season, which means you can save money on fruit trees and berries by planting them now. A wide selection is now available.

Walnuts for Beauty and Health

Nut trees are an important part of American culture. Grown since colonial times, nut trees are truly a multi-purpose crop, providing shade, beauty, edible nuts, building materials and wildlife habitats.

The black walnut is native to North America. Its brown-black, diamond-patterned bark is especially beautiful. Normally growing 50 to 75 feet tall, black walnut occasionally reaches more than 100 feet.

Black walnut trees are especially prized for their exceptional, beautifully grained lumber. Their natural beauty is enhanced by the abundance of wildlife that makes full use of their generous crops.

The Persian or English walnut grows to only 40 to 60 feet tall. The nuts of English walnut are more easily freed from their shells than those of black walnut. They are widely grown for commercial production in California.

English walnuts are always grafted to black walnut rootstock, which leaves a noticeable change in the bark on the trunk of the tree. There are over 30 varieties of walnuts grown in California, but two varieties—Chandler and Hartley—account for over 50 percent of total production. California walnuts account for 99% of the commercial US supply and two-thirds of world supply.

‘Hartley’ has been widely grown walnut in California for a long time. It has a large, thin-shelled, light-colored nut that is very flavorful. It bears as a young tree and is a dependable producer.

‘Franquette’ is the last English walnut to leaf out in the spring, making it less susceptible to spring frost damage. It also produces high quality nuts and makes a good pollenizer for ‘Hartley.’ The large tree grows to 60 feet tall and wide, making an excellent large shade tree.

‘Chandler’ bears nuts all through the tree, not just at the ends of the branches, making it less susceptible to frost damage. It makes a small tree and is late-blooming. It is self-fruitful, but will produce larger crops when planted near a ‘Hartley’ or a ‘Franquette.’ It begins bearing 2-3 years after planting.

‘Pedro’ is a fine flavored nut that grows on a very small tree, about 60% of the size of other walnut trees. It is self-fruitful and an excellent choice for home planting.

One of the most surprising recent introductions is the ‘Robert Livermore’ walnut. The trees and the whole nuts look like conventional walnuts, but the thin seedcoat covering the kernel is vivid scarlet. In all other respects, this walnut is similar to ‘Chandler’ harvesting a week earlier.

Walnut trees have a deep taproot, making them drought tolerant and unsuited to shallow soil. They requires deep watering and well-drained soil. Very few plants grow under walnut trees because their black walnut roots produce a substance that inhibits growth of other plants.

Walnuts are wind pollinated and partly self-fruitful. For best pollination and production plant two different varieties.

With new studies showing more and more health benefits, including heart health and some anti-cancer benefits, it’s a good time to incorporate walnuts into your diet.

• Asparagus, whose delectable spears are even sweeter when home-grown, are available now for planting. Prepare a fertile bed for these long-lived vegetables.

• Start seeds of broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and other cool season crops indoors for planting outside in March.

• Spray fruit trees with a dormant oil spray. Spray from the bottom up, including the undersides of limbs and the ground around the tree, to prevent early spring insect infestations.

• Pansies will brighten your flower beds with their happy faces. They will bloom all through the spring.

• If you’re short on space in your orchard, you can plant 2 or 3 varieties of the same fruit in one large hole. This will allow cross-pollination among apples, pears, plums, cherries and Asian pears.

Marvelous Mulberry Trees

What a surprise it is to first discover a blackberry growing on a tree! Mulberries, these are, and what an interesting family.

The White Mulberry, (Morus alba), is native to China where the ancient silk culture developed using their leaves are the primary food source for silkworm larvae. It was transported to Turkey and then to Europe where it became naturalized centuries ago.

It was introduced into America for silkworm culture in early colonial times. First sold to farmers, it has spread unchecked throughout much of the country. It’s fruit varies from white to pink and is sweet but mild-flavored.

In California, a fruitless cultivar is widely grown as an ornamental tree. The familiar “Fruitless Mulberry” is a male hybrid that makes catkins but no fruit.

Teas Weeping Fruiting Mulberry (Morus alba ‘Pendula’) is a beautiful weeping tree. It mounds up slowly to 10’ – 12’, and produces large quantities of juicy fruit. Its slender, weeping branches cascade down to the ground, making the red fruit easy to pick and a favorite with children. Its leaves are also tasty to silkworms.

The red or American mulberry is native to eastern United States, from New England to the Gulf coast. Although native, it is a threatened species because it hybridizes readily with the invasive White Mulberry. It has dark purple fruit with very sweet flavor.

A century ago, every farmer in the U.S had mulberry trees planted at his farm garden. They grew rapidly and made excellent shade and, planted near the hog lot or over the chicken coop, they were an excellent food staple for the farm animals.

Persian Black Mulberry (Morus nigra) is native to southwestern Asia and has been grown in Europe since before Roman times for its flavorful, purplish-black fruit. The tree grows 20-30 feet tall and spreads about 20 feet wide. It is very long lived, and develops gnarled, picturesque branches with age.

Black mulberries are also available in bush form. This plant is popular in England where the nursery song originated: “Here we go ‘round the mulberry bush…”

Mulberries are greatly loved by birds. Plant one to feed the birds, and or to attract birds away from other fruit trees. The fruit can stain patio areas and decks, so it should be planted away from outdoor living areas. Plant one next to a chicken pen!

A good place for a Mulberry tree is in a lawn. This makes harvesting easy: just spread a sheet below the tree, shake the branches gently and the fruits drops onto the sheet for easy gathering. The fruits can be eaten fresh or used for making jam, jellies, pies, tarts, syrups or cordials. Dried fruits are used for snacks and in puddings, cookies, muffins and confections.

Mulberry trees have very attractive, dark green leaves. Although somewhat drought-resistant, they need to be watered in dry seasons, or the fruit is likely to drop before it has fully ripened. They are easy to grow and fun to eat.