Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• Take care of your roses: feed, water, weed, mulch and remove faded blooms regularly. Spray if necessary at first sign of insect or disease problems.

• After the June crop of raspberries is finished, remove canes that produced fruit leaving new green canes, which can then be trained on trellises.

• Keep flowers and vegetables in peak condition by giving them a midsummer feeding with a fertilizer that is higher in phosphorus than in nitrogen.

• Budworms eat the petals of geraniums and petunias, leaving you with no flowers. Spray plants weekly with BT for complete control.

• 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.

Summer Fruit Tree Care

Summer is the time when fruit trees grace us with their abundance of sweet, juicy fruit. It is also the time when fruit trees need your care and attention. They must be kept healthy and strong so they will produce well for you for many years to come.

Young fruit trees need particular attention. The most important cultural practice during the first year is watering. No other single element of plant care causes more problems or failures than over or under-watering. Water supply must be consistent. Drought followed by flooding can cause trees to stop growing due to the shock of these extremes conditions.

Check the soil weekly. A new tree needs approximately 10 gallons a week during the hot summer months. A tree two years old may need 20 gallons a week. A mature fruit tree can use 50 gallons a week or more. Fruit trees need water to size up their fruit properly. It’s best to water deeply and infrequently rather than shallowly and frequently. Water trees on clay soils every 2 to 3 weeks as clay holds moisture for a long time. For young trees, make a moat around the base of the tree so the water stays in the root zone. On older trees, water at the drip line of the tree.

Keep the base of your fruit trees weed free. Spread a 2- to 3-inch thick layer of organic mulch, such as pine straw or bark mulch, over the root zone but keep it a few inches away from the trunk. Organic mulch also breaks down gradually, providing organic matter to the soil.

Pick up fallen fruit as soon as possible after it drops, and destroy it. Fruit that drops to the ground can contain insect larvae, which burrow into the soil where they overwinter, to reemerge in the spring. A clean orchard is a healthy orchard.

Inspect your fruit tree bark, branches, leaves, and developing fruits often. Look for signs of insects and diseases and apply the appropriate organic controls. It’s usually easier to control pests if you act before or just as they are getting established, than to control them after they have caused lots of damage.

Paint trunks of young trees with white latex paint or Tree Trunk White to prevent sunburn which causes the bark to crack. This leaves openings for boring insects to enter. They can cause serious damage and even death in young trees.

While most pruning of fruit trees is done in the late winter, some can be done in the summer as well. Summer pruning can eliminate any dead, diseased, or broken branches. Prune off any new branches that are growing from the base of the tree (suckers) or straight up from horizontal branches (water sprouts).

Summer pruning uses thinning cuts (where the branch is cut off at its point of attachment, instead of part way along the branch) to train young fruit trees to the desired tree limb structure. If you want to keep your mature fruit trees at an easy-to-harvest height, summer pruning is essential.

Keep your fruit trees healthy and they will give you many years of abundant harvests.

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

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

• Plant fresh herbs from young plants. Basil, rosemary, thymes, mints and sages are just a few ideas.

• Check for squash, or “stink”, bugs on squash and pumpkins. Hand-pick grey-brown adults and destroy red egg clusters on the leaves. Use pyrethrin spray to control heavy infestations.

• Shade-loving begonias will add color and beauty in both planters and flower beds.

The Fruits of Summer

Growing fruit in your own orchard is one of the delights of summer. Since you cannot buy fruit that is tree-ripened, the only way you can enjoy the full sweetness of summer fruits is by growing your own.

Strawberries begin the season, bearing fruits as early as May and producing their largest crops in June. Everbearing strawberries continue the harvest through the summer with sweet, tasty berries for fresh use or processing.

Raspberries produce bountiful crops in the home garden. June bearers produce a heavy crop of berries from June through early July. Everbearing raspberries produce two crops, one in June and another in the fall. Harvest daily or every other day for perfectly ripe fruit.

Blueberries also give us delicious, ripe fruit from June through July. Size of fruit varies widely, so choose varieties accordingly. You may prefer smaller berries for muffins or pancakes and larger ones in fruit salads and as toppings for cakes and pies.

Cherries arrive in June. There are two types of cherries: sweet cherries and sour or pie cherries. Use them for baking, preserving or freezing when you can’t eat any more. They are both easy to can for winter use.

Plums begin fruiting in June and continue through September. You can choose black, red or golden yellow fruit with sweet or tart flavor. Prunes bear late in the summer with their sweet fruit that is so good for drying.

Peaches bear fruit in late July or August, depending on the variety, with some trees fruiting in September. As with plums, production will vary from year to year depending on the spring weather. But when a good crop comes in, it makes it all worthwhile.

Pluots are a relatively new fruit. They are a cross between plums and apricots with a firm texture and delicious flavor. Most varieties ripen in September. Some people are suspicious of pluots thinking that this strange fruit must be genetically engineered, but this is not the case. It is a hybrid that took several generations of cross breeding before the pluot we know today finally emerged. Enjoy their tasty flavor in fruit salads.

Blackberries ripen in August and provide a continuous harvest throughout the month. They are very easy to preserve by freezing.

Grapes ripen toward the end of August and on into September. There are dozens of varieties to tantalize your taste buds.

Apples and pears begin bearing fruit in August. Gravenstein is the first apple to fruit and Bartlett is the first of the pears. By carefully choosing varieties of apples and pears, you can have fresh fruit on through November.

These fruits are the most successful in the Willits area. Apricots are seldom successful and figs need a special hot spot to bear well. You can also try persimmons, which will be ready to harvest in November.

Don’t let your property be without some of these delicious home-grown fruits.

• Start seeds of broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and other cool-season crops now. Transplant them to the garden next month and they will be producing for you this fall.

• Penstemon are bushy, evergreen perennials that attract hummingbirds with their red, pink, lavender or purple trumpet-shaped flowers all summer and fall.

• Roses need water and fertilizer to keep blooming well throughout the summer. Watch for pests and treat immediately to prevent infestations.

• Feed annual blooming plants and hanging baskets every two weeks for prolific bloom. Keep dead flowers pinched off.

• Dig and divide crowded spring-flowering bulbs and tubers including daffodils, scillas, muscari, and bearded iris.

Add a Peaceful Pond to your Landscape

The introduction of a pond into the garden creates a new environment where the flora and fauna will live together in a mutually beneficial relationship.

In order for this to happen, the pond must be designed to reflect natural conditions as closely as possible. It should have marshy or shallow water areas, as well as deeper areas. In the shallow areas live the frogs and newts, beetles and other little creatures along with marsh plants like iris, cannas, arrowhead plant and rushes. Ideally, the marshy area should comprise about one-third of the area of the pond.

The deeper waters of the pond are the home of fish, water lilies and other aquatic plants. Make this section at least 2 feet deep.

The more planning you do, the less work the pond will be later on. Locate the pond where it receives 4 to 6 hours of direct sunshine a day, if you want to grow water lilies and have them flower. Even plants that can take partial sun require 3 hours of sunlight a day to thrive.

If possible, place it away from trees so that the falling leaves and seeds won’t foul the water. The pond should have a surface area of at least 20 square feet so that it will be able to create a balanced water community. The larger the pond the more natural it becomes.

The soil that you remove can be used to landscape the area around the pond or to construct a waterfall. A garden with a natural slope lends itself very well to a waterfall or cascading water feature. Heavy rainfall will cause the pond to fill up, so be sure to install a proper overflow pipe.

A recirculating pump used to run water through a stream or into a fountain will aerate the water, which is particularly beneficial to fish on hot summer days. Ponds don’t use a great deal of water — only that which must be replaced due to evaporation.

Do not locate a pond in a low, wet spot. When the water table is high in the winter, the force of the water underneath will lift the rubber liner, damaging the pond.
Water gardens open up many new possibilities for unusual plants and garden effects. From water lilies and water irises to floating plants and bog plants to go around the edges of the pond, your choice of water plants is wide and varied.

There are two types of water lilies: tropicals and hardies. Hardy water lilies do well in our climate and survive the winters in their pots at the bottom of the pond. Their flowers bloom throughout the summer, with each blossom lasting three or four days. The large, round leaves and splendid flowers float on the surface of the water, opening in the morning and closing in the afternoon. Flowers come in red, white, yellow and pink.

Water lilies require five to six hours of direct sunlight each day. They need 6 to 18 inches of still water over the root ball. Roots are planted in heavy garden soil with no compost.

A garden pond will become more beautiful over time and you will find that it is one of your favorite spots in the garden.