Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• Get ready to plant your vegetable garden. Choose from the many varieties of tomato and pepper plants available now.

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

• Attract birds to your yard with bird feeders. Delightful gold finches will be happy to visit your thistle feeders, and rufous-sided tohees will visit seed feeders.

• When you plant your tomatoes, put a handful of bone meal in the bottom of the hole to help prevent blossom end rot on the fruit later on.

• Flowering dogwood trees are blooming now to help you choose a beautiful small tree for a focal point in your garden.

Glorious Rhododendrons

There are few sights more beautiful in the plant world than a mature rhododendron covered with large, rounded trusses of bright, colorful flowers. These large shrubs can be used to enclose the shade garden and give you flowers to enjoy each spring.

The rhododendrons that we are most familiar with represent a small portion of the rhododendron family. Varying from ground cover shrublets with needlelike leaves to large-leafed tree types, the more than 900 species comprise a very large family. While most of the species are native to eastern Asia — from Siberia to New Guinea — they also grow naturally in Appalachia as well as in our coastal forests.

Rhododendrons have been hybridized for more than a century. By crossing species, we now have rhododendron hybrids that are tough, adaptable and easy to propagate. Attractive foliage, vigorous, trouble-free growth and large, colorful flower clusters have been some of the goals of hybridization.

To successfully grow rhododendrons, you need the right soil and exposure. These plants are shallow rooted and need moisture and oxygen in the root area to flourish. They do best in soil with plenty of organic matter and good drainage. In poorly drained sites, build a raised bed or build a mound so that the rootball is above the existing ground level. Plants should be planted no deeper than they were in the container. It is better to err on the side of too shallow than planting them too deep.

Acid soil is also necessary for good growth. Check the pH of the soil and add soil sulfur, if necessary, to bring it down to 5.5 to 6.0. You can fertilize once or twice a year in the spring with an acid fertilizer, but established, healthy plants need little or no fertilizer.

Although rhododendrons like the shade, they need some sunlight in order to bloom. Three or four hours of morning sun are ideal, but they can also have late afternoon sun or filtered sun all day through overhead branches or trellises. Insufficient sunlight is often the cause of poor blooming and leggy plants.

Rhododendrons need water through the summer months. Keep cultivation around them to a minimum, due to their shallow roots, and use mulches to control weeds, conserve moisture, and provide more uniform soil temperatures. Mulches can be made of sawdust, decorative bark, straw, or other organic materials.

Rhododendrons come in a rainbow of colors from pure white, through shades of pink and lavender to bright reds and purples. There are a few yellow or cream-colored rhododendrons also. They all are welcome sights in the garden each spring.

Note: For over 35 years, I have written a garden column for The Willits News. I have been encouraged by many readers to compile these articles into a book, and I have done so. A Year in the Garden: Gardening in the Willits Area is now available at Sanhedrin Nursery.

• Plant strawberry plants now for delicious strawberry shortcake this summer.

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

• Put up hummingbird feeders this month and enjoy these colorful and entertaining birds.

• Begin spraying roses now for insect and disease problems. Neem oil is a good product for a less toxic solution.

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

Fragrance in the Garden

Nothing conjures up memories of the past the way a familiar scent can. Orange blossoms, jasmine, lavender, fragrant stock, gardenia – even the words seem to perfume the air. To bring back pleasant memories and create some new ones, choose a few plants to place near the door or by the walkway, or fill your garden with wonderful fragrances all season long.

The first plants that wake up our noses in the spring are narcissus, hyacinth and lily-of-the-valley. Not far behind is the sweet-scented daphne, followed by the intensely fragrant flowers of the lilacs.

Chinese wisteria is blooming now with a profusion of fragrant lavender flowers in long clusters. The evergreen clematis vine, with its powerfully fragrant white flowers, adds its sweet scent to the springtime air.

The white snowball bush is another sweet scent in the spring garden and so are the tiny flowers of Sarcococca. Mock orange (Philadelphus) is an old-fashioned favorite with its strongly scented showy white flowers in early summer. The large pompom flowers of peonies bloom in late spring. Place one in a vase in a room, and it will fill the room with its delicate fragrance.

The spring flower bed can be filled with the lovely scents of stock and sweet peas. A carpet of sweet alyssum in purple, rose and white will perfume the air from spring to fall.

Summer brings us lovely lavenders, butterfly bush, star jasmine, lilies, honeysuckle and, of course, roses. Varieties like ‘Rock & Roll’, ‘Fragrant Plum’, and ‘Julia Child’ have all been developed for their strong fragrances. Gardenias bloom in early summer with their legendary sweet fragrance so loved for corsages.

Heliotrope has large violet flower heads with a strong vanilla fragrance in warm weather. It’s hard to find a more sugary fragrance than purple petunias, especially the variety ‘Sugar Daddy’. And ‘Prism Sunshine’ petunia is deliciously scented at night.

The large, beautiful, white flowers of the Southern Magnolia tree bloom in the summer and their heavy fragrance and welcome shade create the perfect place to relax on a hot summer’s day.

Late summer bloomers with strong fragrance include the exotic and heady fragrance of tuberoses. Sweet Autumn Clematis blooms profusely with wonderfully scented tiny white flowers. The pink flowers of Naked Lady Amaryllis have a strong fragrance that wafts on the air.

Don’t overlook the herbs for their fragrant foliage. Rosemary can be grown as a shrub or a ground cover. Thyme has many varieties with scents ranging from lemon and lime to caraway. The mint family has a long list of fragrant varieties as do the basils: lemon, cinnamon, spicy globe and Thai basil. Many Salvias, or sages, have beautiful flowers and fragrant foliage. And it’s hard to walk by a lavender plant without stroking the leaves to release its sweet fragrance. There are lots of other herbs that can help create an edible, fragrant garden.

Fragrance plays an important role in our enjoyment of the garden. Plant some memories in your garden with fragrant plants you’ll enjoy all season.

• Last chance to plant asparagus roots this year. This delicious vegetable will keep producing for up to 20 years.

• Plant summer-flowering bulbs now. Glads, dahlias, callas, cannas and lilies will bloom this summer if planted soon.

• Fertilize established roses now and begin spraying them for insect and disease problems. Neem oil is a very effective, less toxic spray that works against both insects and diseases.

• Plant artichokes now. Fill a hole with one part humus and two parts soil and set out plants in full or part sun.

• Petunias can be planted now. Their bright flowers will bloom all summer in hot, sunny locations and they will take a light frost.

Crazy Ways with Potatoes

Potatoes are a staple both in the kitchen and in the garden. And winter without home-grown potatoes is just not the same. Spring is potato-planting time and gardeners are anxious to get their spuds in the ground, but with the continuing rains, that has become a difficult job.

Fortunately, potatoes can be grown in a number of different ways that don’t involve digging in the wet soil. They can be grown in cages, in bags, old tires or even in a bag of potting soil.

Potatoes grow differently from most “root” vegetables. They grow from the stems of the plant rather than from the roots. This means that they will develop above the seed potato that you plant. So if you keep adding soil around the stems of the plants as they push upward, more and more potatoes will grow.

This makes potatoes uniquely adapted to growing in cages. And by growing them vertically, you get a nice crop in less space, and they are easy to harvest.

To make a cage for potatoes, take a length of 3-foot wire fencing, and form it into a cylinder, 2–3 feet in diameter. Secure the cage in the soil and line it with straw, cardboard, or even newspaper.

Put 6 inches of soil in the bottom and place the sprouted potatoes on the soil, 6–8 inches apart. Cover them with 4 inches of potting soil, compost or straw. After the potato sprouts poke through the soil’s surface, allow them to grow about 6–8 inches tall and develop a few leaves, before gently filling around them with more of the potting soil, and water well. Continue layering with more potting soil for about a month as the plants get taller. Then neglect them for a while.

When you see blooms on the plants, that means new potatoes are forming. The potatoes are ready to harvest when the plants begin to yellow and die back. Remove the cage, and unearth your crop of potatoes.

Keep an eye on the moisture content of the soil throughout the season, because caged potatoes dry out more quickly than those planted in the ground.

An alternate method is to use old tires. Fill one tire with a soil mixture and poke 4 or 5 potatoes into the soil. Water them and wait for them to grow. When they reach 6 inches high, add a second tire and start adding potting soil around the sprouts. Continue mounding up the potting soil around the growing plants until your stack is 3 tires high. Young potatoes will form all the way up the stack of tires.

For an even simpler container, use a trash bag. Cut several drainage holes in the bottom of a 30-gallon black plastic trash bag. Roll down the sides of the bag and fill about one-third of the way up with potting soil. Plant the potatoes and continue mounding up the soil as the potatoes grow. To harvest, slit open the side of the bag to release the potatoes.

And here’s the lazy gardener method: take a bag of potting soil and empty 2/3 of the soil into a storage bin. Poke a few holes in the bottom of the bag, plant the potatoes into the soil in the bag, water and proceed as for the other methods.

Don’t let the weather stop you from growing your own potatoes this year.