Fresno Gardening Green

The look of neighborhood yards has changed radically these last years. Landscape designs that feature highly-manicured, constantly trimmed, raked, and groomed lawns and planting beds are disappearing, by necessity.

Pick a bouquet of herbs in the early morning to retain flavor. Keep them in a vase and use them all week. Tasks Monitor soil moisture after rain and water if needed, especially for trees and shrubs. Renovate cool-season lawns remove thatch and aerate.

In 2020, when libraries were shuttered due to COVID-19 and the public, sequestered at home, began developing greater interest in gardening, an idea took form in the mind of Clovis Library assistant Amy Johnson.

Enjoy the last flush of blooming roses along with the bounty of the fall harvest. Tasks: Adjust watering systems as weather cools. Remove and dispose of any fruit and nuts that cling to the tree. Spray hedges and shrubs with water to clean and keep them free of dust to discourage spider mites.

One of the most maddening gardening tasks is pest control. Discovering roses covered in aphids, Swiss chard with more holes than Swiss cheese, or grotesquely distorted citrus leaves may have gardeners feeling all bugs are bad.