Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• 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.

• Primroses and pansies will add color to your flower beds and containers all winter.

• Fragrant daphne is an early-blooming shrub that will delight you with its strongly scented blooms each spring. Plant it in well-drained soil.

• Rhododendrons are hardy shrubs that are particularly beautiful in the spring when they bloom. Choose plants now so they can get established over the winter.

• Check your nursery for stocking stuffers: kids’ gloves, watering cans, bonsai figurines, seeds and bulbs.

An Endless Variety of Garden Tools

At heart, garden people are plant people. But dedicated gardeners also know the pleasure of quality garden tools. Cheap tools bend and break and can be the source of much frustration. A good garden tool is something to treasure.

The spade, the shovel and the spading fork are three primary tools with overlapping functions. The spade is essential for “double-digging”- adding organic materials to the soil to loosen the soil and add nutrients. The spading fork is easiest to use in light loamy or sandy soils, or in heavy soil that has been well-worked. The pointed-blade shovel can do both jobs and is generally the first choice of the beginning gardener. It serves the additional purpose of moving gravel and sand.

There are two main types of garden rakes. The leaf rake can be used on lawns and patios, and a smaller version is ideal for raking leaves out from between shrubs. An “expando” rake can be used for both jobs. The steel tined rake is used in the garden for the final soil preparation before sowing or planting, as well as many other garden tasks.

Hand tools are essential for all gardeners. Choose the best aluminum or steel-bladed trowel available. Flimsy, low-priced tools won’t last one single use in tough soil – they just bend out of shape. A hand trowel, a 3-pronged cultivator and a weeder make a nice “tool trio”. The Japanese Hori-Hori weeder knife is especially strong and versatile.

Another fine gift is a good pair of hand shears. Beginning gardeners usually choose the anvil type, in which the blade comes down on a soft steel “anvil.” This type will cut larger branches without springing the blade. The more experienced gardener likes the scissor or “bypass” shear which makes a clean cut every time. New shears have handles curved to fit your hand, which are more comfortable than the old designs and leave you with fewer blisters. Top quality Felco shears are made with replaceable blades and are built to last a lifetime.

A pruning saw is especially appreciated by the serious orchardist. Nothing is nicer than a sharp saw that cuts with ease. The folding saw easily fits into a pocket when not in use. The more expensive saw blades hold a very sharp edge and do the job quickly and cleanly.

Well-built, quality tools will reward you for decades to come with greater ease, a healthier body and a job well done.

• Plant Paperwhite narcissus in pots this weekend for holiday gifts.

• Don’t overwater your houseplants in the winter. Empty saucers after watering.

• Spring bulbs can still be planted now. They make lovely gifts for friends and relatives.

• Wild bird feeders will attract migrating birds so you can enjoy the pleasure of their company.

Living Christmas Trees

If you celebrate Christmas, you’ll undoubtedly have some form of decorated tree. If you buy a living potted evergreen tree this year, rather than a cut or artificial one, you can plant it outdoors after the holidays. This way you can enjoy it for years to come.

Some of the biggest advantages of using living Christmas trees are the lessening of fire hazard, their future use in the landscape and the fact that they may often be used for more than one year as a living Christmas tree in the home.

These trees offer year-round beauty when planted in the landscape and can be decorated outdoors for many years to come. They also become a yearly source for cut greens to make wreaths and other decorations for the holiday season.

Colorado Blue Spruce are the most popular living Christmas tree. It has very stiff, horizontal branches that easily hold up the ornaments. Foliage varies in seedling trees from dark green through all shades of blue green to steel blue. It makes a fine landscape tree in our area, with branches that grow all the way to the ground.

True fir trees also are beautiful, perfectly shaped trees. The Grand fir has lustrous dark green needles borne that are very fragrant. It grows in a perfectly pyramidal shape and is native to North America.

Douglas fir trees are well known, especially for their fragrant foliage. They are native to this region and are quite fast-growing, so they can only stay in the container for a year or two. Other trees that can be used as Christmas trees include pines, Deodar cedars, Coast redwoods and giant sequoias.

When you bring your tree home, keep your tree outside in a shady spot out of direct wind, or inside an unheated garage. The trick to keeping it alive is not to break its dormancy with too much heat, and to avoid extreme temperature changes. Water every two to three days, but don’t allow the root container to sit in water as roots will rot.

          Indoors, choose a spot away from wood stoves, fireplaces, heating vents, and drafts.  A cool room is best, perhaps 65 to 68 degrees in the day, less at night.

When you bring your living tree into the house, leave it there for no more than two weeks. Water it slowly and thoroughly by dumping two trays of ice cubes onto its soil surface every day.

Decorate your tree with small, cool bulbs — flashing bulbs are best of all. Don’t use tinsel as it’s too hard to get off. You can use strings of popcorn or madrone berries which the birds will enjoy when you move the tree back outdoors.

With care and planning, your Christmas tree will serve as a living memory for many years.

• There’s still time to plant spring-flowering bulbs, but don’t delay. Daffodils, tulips and hyacinths are still available.

• Spray for peach leaf curl with copper sulfate. Peach and nectarine trees may suffer from this fungus disease without a protective spray.

• 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.

Incense Cedar

One of the finest conifers for large gardens is our grand, native California evergreen, the Incense Cedar (Calocedrus decurrens). Its rich green foliage is aromatic with scale-like leaves that grow on pendulous branches. In the fall, it is ornamented with miniature, urn-shaped, reddish-brown cones that make a subtle contrast to the green leaves.

Another striking feature, particularly noticeable on mature trees, is the soft-textured, shredding, cinnamon-colored bark on their wide, tapering trunks. People sometimes mistake the Incense Cedar for a redwood tree because of the similarity of shredding bark.

Frequently seen as a single tree or in small groves in the Coast Range, this evergreen will grow anywhere from sea-level to 8,000 feet. Mature trees vary from 75 to 100 feet tall with trunks from 2 to 4 feet in diameter.

Since they are so slow growing, Incense Cedars can be used in the landscape. Young trees are very decorative, with a dense, narrow, columnar form. They make a handsome screen or hedge and are an attractive background for mixed borders. Older specimens make a beautiful evergreen background for small flowering trees such as redbuds and dogwoods.

Incense Cedar can also be planted near walls since it has a well-behaved root system. With foliage that extends down to the ground, it is good for hiding areas that are unattractive, or for a windbreak. In the landscape it typically grows 30 to 50 feet tall and 8 to 10 feet wide.

This tree is tolerant of a wide range of conditions. Shade tolerant when young, it thrives in full sun or partial shade in moist, well-drained soil. It is drought tolerant when established and will tolerate marginal soils.

For best results, but trees in 5-gallon pots. Mulch newly planted trees with a deep, organic mulch of compost or bark. Water them regularly through the dry weather until established.

Once established, water trees deeply and infrequently – 3 to 5 times per summer. Incense cedars are practically pest free, and need no fertilizer or pruning.

These trees will attract many birds to your property as they provide good food and shelter for sparrows, hermit thrushes, siskins, flickers, nuthatches and others.

John Muir found the Incense cedar particularly beautiful. He said, “no waving fern-frond in shady dell is more unreservedly beautiful in form and texture, or half so inspiring in color and spicy fragrance.”

This fine tree is attractive year-round and will add beauty and stature to your landscape or property.