Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• Bare root season is here. Choose and plant your favorite fruit trees and roses now.

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

• Strawberries can be planted any time now. Get them in early, and you’ll be picking strawberries this summer.

• Fill your winter garden with color from primroses and pansies.

• Prune fruit trees, grapes, berries, and ornamental trees this month. Take in a pruning class and sharpen your shears before you start.

Hot New Roses for 2009

The new year always gives rose enthusiasts tempting new varieties to add to the garden. This year we have three new Hybrid Tea roses that are surely worth a prominent position in the rose bed.

‘Pink Promise’ won the hybrid tea division of the All America Rose Selections for 2009. It is a pink-and-cream blend that reaches its peak of color before the summer heat. With long stems and perfect buds opening to an elegant, classically formed flower it is beautiful in a vase as well as the garden. Its fruity fragrance makes it especially appealing, and, in addition, a portion of the sales from each plant will go to the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

A beautiful new Hybrid Tea rose is named ‘Legends’ thanks to Oprah Winfrey. She was involved with the development of this rose from the beginning and she originally considered lending her name to it. But she decided instead to pay tribute to the 25 African-American women she honored in her 2005 Legends Weekend and named it the ‘Legends’ rose.

It is one of the largest hybrid teas ever created. The rose is red with black tips and ruffled petals, with large, shapely buds unfurling to massive ruby red blossoms. It takes only one to fill a vase and lend its fruity perfume to the room.

There’s nothing that lights up the garden better than a touch of soft luminous yellow.  ‘Summer Love’ is a new Hybrid Tea with large, full flowers of gentle lasting yellow – sometimes tinged with just a touch of pink.  Its shapely 6-inch blossoms exude a mild, sweet fragrance, and the compact, bushy habit make it easy to tuck into smaller spaces.

An attractive new bicolor rose is called ‘Rock & Roll’. As the 4 to 6 inch blooms open on this vigorous Grandiflora, they reveal stripes and splashes of burgundy, red, white and pink with cream reverse of the petals. Each flower has its own unique patterning. The strong rose and fruit fragrance and disease resistant foliage make this new rose worth planting.

One “oldie but goodie” climbing rose is ‘Don Juan’. Possibly the best red climber, it has luscious deep velvety red flowers on an extremely healthy plant. The highly fragrant flowers on ‘Don Juan’ appear singly or in small clusters and have a lovely hybrid tea shape. Grow it on a wire fence or on a trellis where it gets plenty of sun.

Bring in the New Year with some bright new roses for your garden.

• Fruit trees can be pruned this month. If you’re not sure how, take advantage of one of the fine classes being offered this month.

• Primroses will give you the most color during this cold weather. Choose some pretty ones now for your boxes and beds.

• Roses are the longest blooming shrub in this climate. Fill your garden with their colors and fragrances by planting bare-root rose bushes now.

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

Flavorful, Fresh Fruits

Each year the list of mouth-watering summer fruits grows longer with new hybrids introduced and sometimes antique varieties making a comeback. Home grown fruit is becoming increasingly popular as we learn the benefits of local food production.

Discovering new flavors and even new fruits can be an exciting taste experience. Here are some varieties that may be new to you.

A delicious new pear, introduced in 1999, called “Blake’s Pride” is now available. With a golden yellow and slightly russeted skin, the fruit has a sweet, rich taste and pleasing aroma. Importantly, “Blake’s Pride” is resistant to fire blight, a major disease of pear trees.

Just the word peach or nectarine starts my mouth watering. But how about “Flavortop” Nectarine. This beautiful yellow freestone is a taste test winner with a smooth texture and excellent quality. It’s skin is mostly red over a bright yellow background. “Independence” Nectarine is another red skinned, yellow freestone. It has rich, tangy and sweet flavor, and is rated one of the best.

“Elegant Lady” is a beautiful peach (“almost too pretty to eat”) with red over yellow skin and yellow flesh that is red at the pit. It is perfect for tree ripening because it holds well on the tree, and allows you to harvest the peaches when they are the most flavorful.

“Snow Beauty” White Peach is another beautiful fruit. This white-fleshed peach is low in acidity and high in sugar, and packs a tantalizing flavor.

The “Laroda” Plum looks like a classic plum in color, shape, and texture, but it has an extraordinary wine-like flavor, and has long been considered one of the best-flavored Asian plums. Purple on the outside and amber-streaked with red on the inside, it is very juicy and slightly sweet, with a touch of acidity; excellent for making jams and jellies.

The flavor of a good ripe plum has a sweet-tart balance. “Mariposa” Plum is a large, round plum with a glossy maroon skin and dark red flesh. The plum is extremely juicy with an excellent, lingering flavor and can be used fresh or cooked.

“Nubiana” is a large, shiny black to reddish purple plum with deep amber, moderately sweet and pleasantly flavored flesh. Sweet, flavorful, with very little tartness at skin or pit, it is a favorite in the fresh fruit market, and excellent for the home orchard.

“Celestial”, also known as Celeste, Blue Celeste, or Sugar Fig, is a small, dark fig with very sweet, high quality flesh. It has high yields and good cold tolerance. Delicious fresh, it is also excellent for preserved.

Now is the time to plant fruit trees of all kinds from bare-root trees available at local nurseries. Be sure to add some of these tasty varieties to your orchard.

• Choose living Christmas trees now. Most will be able to be kept in their containers and used for one or two more years as a Christmas tree.

• Stop peach leaf curl by spraying soon with copper sulfate to help prevent this disfiguring disease from attacking your trees next spring.

• Clean up rose bushes by removing spent flowers and raking up old leaves, but wait until February for heavy pruning.

• Feed the birds this winter and enjoy the pleasure of their company. Bird feeders come in many styles and make wonderful gifts.

• Rhododendrons are hardy shrubs that are particularly beautiful in the spring when they bloom. Choose plants now when selection is the best.

Need Gifts for a Gardener?

When times get tough, many of us turn to practical gifts rather than luxury items. For the gardener on your list, there are many practical items that will enhance their gardening experience in the years to come.

Start with a nice pair of leather gardening gloves to prevent injury and chapped, rough skin; or flexible, rubberized cotton gloves that keep fingernails clean and hands dry. There are long-sleeved gauntlet gloves that protect from sharp thorns of roses or berry vines, and “Bionic” gloves made especially to offer people with arthritis a glove with comfort and flexibility.

Kneepads or a kneeler seat make weeding and planting less of a strain, without knee and back pain. The Garden Kneeler Seat can be used for kneeling in the garden and it has handles to help you get up and down. Or flip it over for a seat for resting or working in raised beds.

When it’s time to clean up the garden, there is no finer tool than a “Bos Bag”. This tough, self-standing, washable, tear resistant bag stands open for easy loading and folds flat for storage.

There are few tools more important to a gardener than a good pair of pruning shears. Felco has long been the leader in pruning shears with a dozen different models to accommodate large hands, small hands, lefties, or equipped with a rotating handle to reduce fatigue. Ratchet pruning shears may be just the ticket for light work or delicate hands.

And speaking of tools, the Hori-Hori Digging Tool is a traditional Japanese gardening tool that can be used for just about every kind of gardening, digging, cutting or weeding activity. The stainless steel knife blade is very sharp and concave shaped for scooping soil and other materials.

One of the most coveted garden tools is a good quality digging fork. Beautiful tools from England have a reputation for quality and durability, and are made to be used for a lifetime and passed on to the next generation.

Add a gardening calendar and you and your gardening friends can look forward to another great year of gardening pleasures. Ecology Action has produced a “2009 Garden Calendar” with a handy “things to do” list for each month. The “Gardening by the Moon” Calendar gives detailed timing for appropriate gardening activities, and the “Old Farmer’s Almanac” is a helpful and fun book to have on hand.

We wish you all a very happy holiday season, and hope we can help you be successful gardeners in the year ahead!