Sacramento Garden NotesJanuary 2013

Written & Published by Robert B. Hamm 2443 Castro Way #1

Sacramento CA. 95818gardennotes@sbcglobal.net

Volume 16 Number 1

Treteleia, formerly known as Brodiaea, are native California wildflowers (bulbs). They take dry conditions well and are late spring bloomers, often blooming as the leaves are dying back. They flower on foot tall spikes, with clusters of blooms. They do well under low ground covers such as creeping thyme, delosperma, sedums etc, which help show off the blooms. Imagine these flowers against the gold or lime green of some of the lower growing sedums. Long lived and multiply, they like sun to part shade.

---------------------------------------------Garden Notes: Jan 2013 January is a month for a number of garden chores and a few warnings:a) Pruning of roses and many shrubs and

trees, however check the notes on what NOT to prune in the last issue (Dec 12) so you don’t cut off the blooms of early bloomers. There are a number of free pruning classes this month, check the Home & Garden calendar section of the

Saturday Sacramento Bee or with your local nursery.

b) Bare-root and Dormant plant material is coming into local nurseries this month and it is a good time to get many items into the ground and save a bit on them over potted plants later. HOWEVER some warnings are in order.. bare-root material should not be dried out or sprouting into early growth.. a major problem with packaged material in many box store retailers. Get in and get your material EARLY for best selection and quality.

c) Please note that the bare-root that will be at the Jan, Feb and March sales is FRESH for each sale, unlike at many nurseries, I get in FRESH material for each sale.

d) Certain summer bulbs are received early in nurseries but HATE chill, never mind cold.. so if your getting the following either plant indoors, in a greenhouse or hold off till the weather is warmer: Caladiums (need WARMTH or will just rot), colored tropical Callas ( not quite as sensitive but want warmth) and Dahlias which are often hardy here, but if you put new tubers out too early you risk them rotting before they sprout.

Tradescantia 'Blushing Bride' has new foliage that is brightly colored in green, white and pink during the cooler seasons and green in heat, though it may not be evergreen if we get hit with frost. Frost causes it to die back to the ground to re-sprout in Spring.

Above, a perennial species tulip, T. clausiana ‘Lady Jane’ Pots of this will be available at the January Sale.

Hyacinthoides hispanica (formerly Scilla). This is an easy to grow woodland plant that is late spring bloomer and multiplies. It especially looks good planted around the edges of shrubs such as the gold leafed Spirea below.

Two Columbines (Aquilegia) now available. Above is A.'Clementine Dark Purple' and below is A 'Songbird Cardinal'. I only have 16 4” pots of each of these, so let me know if you want them so we can arrange a time for you to pick them up.

e) If planning on moving plants or digging and dividing perennials, early in the season is better as it allows them to establish before our hot dry summer hits.

f) Remember the sun changes with the season when planting. That area in shade now may be full scorching sun in midsummer. The 20 ft shadow the house casts now may only be 2 foot come June. This is a common mistake people often make by not stopping to think about how high or low the sun is at different times of year.

Early Seasons Sales (Jan&Feb) - Since the weather is uncertain, and since David, owner of The Gifted Gardener will again be looking to move the store after the first of the year, any sales during these months will have to be on short notice depending on weather forecasts and circumstances. However, I will be available at the growing area at Cynthia’s by appointment if its not raining, and it only takes me 10-15 minutes to walk to her house. My cell # is (916) 617-7516.

Heuchera 'Hercules' – this hybrid combines good foliage variegation, strong growth and colorful blooms. The variegation grows stronger as the plant matures.

Oxalis “Grand Duchess” grows to about 6 inches tall in the ground or in pots, and comes in white, lavender and pink flowered forms. It is a great spot of color from Fall through spring. This is a winter grower and in summer is dormant to the ground. Flowers are large and showy and it will do well in even dry sunny spots, even in poor soils.-----------------------------------------------------------Garden Diary: Dec 3rd- with unusually warm temps through all of November, and daytime highs till running around 60 degrees, compared to early November freezes in 2010 and 2011, many things are still blooming long past regular times. Dec 9th – the first of the Daffodils are budding and should be open by the end of December. This variety is known as ‘Rejevelts Early Sensation’ and normally blooms (once established) by Christmas time in Sacramento, thus being the first Daffodil to bloom. Walking home from Cynthia’s today, I noticed a star Magnolia starting to bloom, a good 6-8 weeks early. Another effect of the warmer than normal weather. Also, the above normal temps have kept many things growing far later into the fall than normal, and is really helping get many things started for next year, since cuttings and divisions are rooting faster than normal. Some plants, like Columbine (Aquilegia) are sprouting at the same time as this years foliage dies back.

Digitalis mertonensis - “Strawberry Foxglove”, a true perennial species for sun to part shade and regular to moist conditions. Grows 24 to 30 inches tall and about a foot wide. Evergreen unless we have hard freeze, then deciduous.

Youth vs Maturity: a reprint of an article from 2008 for newer readers. Snap Quiz!! Which recovers from minor injuries and changes in surroundings better?

a) A toddlerb) A young adultc) An older adult

The answer obviously is a toddler, since children grow, heal and adapt to changes better than adults. What does this have to do with gardening? It puts a simple fact into perspective. That is that smaller, younger plants ADAPT to change easier than older mature plants and having adapted, grows much faster. This is why, for a gardener with a bit of patience, a young starter is often the better investment than a larger, and more mature plant Not only does it adapt better to new conditions and have more resistance to infection and stress, but grows faster

naturally and has a root system that is larger in proportion to the plant size, which allows it to take off growing faster than a larger plant that often has to sit a year or two to develop a good root system. This is why planting a smaller perennial, shrub or tree often outstrips a larger version in a relatively short period of time. As an example a gallon size tree and a 5 gallon, at the end of 3 years in the ground, the odds are the original gallon size will be larger than the 5 gallon you planted. This is because the larger size has to grow a root system in proportion to its top size before it will take off, while the smaller one will take off immediately. In many perennials and shrubs the difference is even sharper, since those small starters in spring are what a commercial grower would put in a gallon or even 5 gallon to sell you at a much higher price in as little as two to 4 months. Each year I have a number of new people at the Benefit Sales express doubt about buying starters or bare root plants (bare root scares many people because they have had such poor luck with packaged bare root bought in retailers and they can’t tell if it is really alive or not) yet if they do buy bare root, dormant pots or smaller plants, they often come in later express pleasant surprise and shock at how that little nothing”, ”empty looking pot”, “little stick” or “dried up looking root” became such a nice specimen plant so quickly. I don’t see why they are so surprised, except maybe they don’t remember how fast their kids grew, or perhaps they have been mislead once too often with dried up material at one of the retail outlets. Of course another thing smaller plants do is save you money compared to their older, bigger siblings. I do have to say that you have to start out with healthy youngsters, and not some of the over fertilized, chemically growth retarded items often found in the big chain retailers ( I refrain from calling them nurseries, they never GREW a plant, they are retailers plain and simple). So don’t be afraid to try that small starter, or bare root, you may be surprised!

Ipheion 'Wisely Blue' is a small growing (4-6”) bulb that starts blooming in early spring and continues for a good while. It is often seen naturalized in lawns in some older parts of Sacramento. It puts up foliage in fall, is green all winter, is very drought resistant and can be planted in with grass or low ground covers, in sun or part shade, to grow and bloom through them. I will also stand being dry in summer. A good filler under deciduous shrubs also.

Garden Diary Continued.. Dec 13th – finally normal temperatures with lows in the 30's and highs in the 50's the next week here in Sacramento. Maybe it will slow the early stuff down and get us back towards normal. Most of the stuff that is trying to bloom early will slowdown with the lower temperatures. The first of the seedlings for Spring 2013 are up, and will be planting more seed under the lights over the next week. The lights add to the electric bill, but even with that, starting seed is cheaper than buying starters of many things. It also has the advantage of being able to do small numbers of plants, rather than having to buy 72 trays of starters, plus many older and rarer varieties are available as seed that can't be found as starters.

Unfortunately, most of the new patented varieties HAVE to be bought as starters from licensed propagators.

Above is Lobelia speciosa 'Queen Victoria' one of the tall growing perennial Lobelias with red blooms and dark bronzy red foliage that attracts hummingbirds and butterflies. This group of tall perennial Lobelia comes in flower colors of red, blue, mahogany and other shades, with foliage that can be either dark green or bronze depending on variety. Flower spikes can reach 3 ft. tall. The plants prefer sun and moist soil (regular water) and also make great specimen pots. Dec 14th – saw another Star Magnolia coming into bloom today, again way early. The Watsonia coccineus 'Orange' is still sending up flowers, not only on my plant, but on a plant I often pass going downtown. While I've often had a few fall flowers on this variety, the clump has been blooming for months this fall. This variety also tends to have bloom spikes that curl rather than going straight upward as most do. See picture on next page.

Above – Watsonia coccineus 'Orange'

I put down seed for Tuberous Begonias, Knautia, Dianthus and Saponaria today under the lights. Also up potted some Begonia starters under the lights. Dec 16th – The Bletilla in the front yard haven't even gone dormant yet, and its putting up a bloom spike! Months ahead of schedule.

To All Who Helped!Thank You all! - Again this year we managed to cover all the kids (with toys and a hot meal) from both Sunburst Client base and those referred to Sunburst Projects by other agencies such as CARES, Breaking Barriers, RX Staffing etc.

Trends and looking ahead – with the 2013 Plant Catalogs coming in, its obvious the dual trends of lots of new patented varieties, with raising prices is continuing. While oil prices keep bouncing, they still trend higher over time, and so does the cost of plastic pots, fertilizer, shipping, greenhouse heating and most other plant production costs. This will probably continue for all phases of agriculture, be it food or ornamental crops. Unfortunately, I do note that a lot of great plants seem to be dropping out of culture in the constant quest for new “patentable” plants that a big producer can make more money off of. At times, I've found the new so called improved patented variety does no better, or at times worse than the old standby form. A good example is in Phlox, where the newer form “David” has become the standard, yet many people here tell me the older variety “ Mt Fuji” does better for them yet it has almost disappeared from the market. Downtown /midtown is now without a nursery, with the closest now being Talini's Nursery on 58th

Street and Folsom Blvd, Hopefully it will continue since it has such a great selection of unusual stuff. Green Acres is now the big full service Nursery in the area, but it isn't convenient to many in the downtown Sacramento Area, the closest being in the College Greens area. Plus, with the closing of the area Capital Nurseries, it will be interesting to see if Green Acres prices rise now that its main competitor is gone. True, there are still the big box stores such as Home Depot and Lowe's but they don't carry the range that a full scale nursery does, and the quality is often lacking. It will be interesting to see if the void in the midtown area will be filled with a more city center type nursery/store like some of the ones in San Francisco that are aimed at small yards, containers and house plants, rather than large landscaping projects. It would seem a viable proposition with the amount of new in fill housing, condos and apartments in the midtown area and the increasing use of container gardening.