- Prepared by: Terry Lewis
Tasks
- Sharpen tools to make cleaner cuts. Clean and maintain pruning equipment.
- Keep weeds under control – remove or kill weeds before they mature and produce seeds.
Pruning
- Deadhead winter annuals to prolong bloom.
- Prune deciduous trees and all fruit and nut trees except apricot, oleander and olive.
Fertilizing
- Fertilize plants that are actively growing.
- Fertilize roses after pruning and as buds begin to break.
Planting
- Spring planting season begins and continues through April.
- Plant annuals for spring and summer color. When setting out transplants, hold them by the root ball and tease the roots apart and cut off any thatched roots on the bottom of the plant.
- Annuals: floss flower (Ageratum), bachelor's button (Centaurea), cosmos, plant from seed.
- Fruits and vegetables: beets, bell pepper, carrots, chives, plant from seed.
- Perennials: columbine (Aquilegia), artemisia, aster, butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii).
- Trees, shrubs, vines: Japanese maple (Acer palmatum), Abelia, manzanita (Arctostaphylos), azalea (Rhododendron).
Enjoy now
- Annuals and perennials: Ajuga reptans, English daisy (Bellis perennis), bergenia.
- Bulbs, corms, tubers: baboon flower (Babiana), crocosmia.
- Trees, shrubs, vines: azalea, camellia, redbud (Cercis).
- Fruits and vegetables: asparagus, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower.
Things to ponder
- Wait until the danger of frost has passed to set out frost-tender plants.
- On average, the last frost date for the Fresno area is February 15, but frost may occur later. Check the temperatures in your area.
Drought tip
- Automatic sprinklers should be turned off during periods of rainfall.
- Author: Elinor Teague
Central Valley gardeners need to develop plans for dealing with extreme weather conditions, including summer heat spikes, continuing drought and winter storms with high winds and heavy rainfall carried by bigger, stronger atmospheric rivers. Planning for the extreme weather conditions that are becoming increasingly common begins with asking lots of questions, such as:
- What to plant?
- When to plant?
- How to minimize heat stress?
- How to keep existing plants and trees alive?
- When and how to fertilize?
Experimentation, observation and, most importantly, sharing successes and failures can help us find answers and make hard decisions.
Switching out less heat- and drought-tolerant plants for even hardier varieties will be a first priority and will be based on observation. If a plant, bush or tree wilts easily or loses its leaves and drops flowers easily for more than two summer growing seasons, replacement is the best option.
Changing the planting schedule to get the roots of seedlings and transplants established before the first heat spike will entail planting at least two weeks earlier in the season than in years past, in mid-March and no later than the first week of April. We'll need to wait until mid-October to plant seeds and transplants of cool-season annuals and vegetables and to transplant perennial landscape plants and trees.
Regular, consistent fertilization is always recommended to encourage slow steady growth and flower production, but how does consistent fertilization work with unpredictable heat spikes? High temperatures (above 95 degrees) and shorter, hotter nights like those we usually experience in July and most of August cause plants to enter a state of semi-dormancy during which growth and flower production slow down, but what happens to the growth rate of plants when there are multiple heat spikes earlier in the growing season? This year's heat spikes stunted growth, scorched foliage and caused premature flower drop. Some transplants and seedlings of warm-season annuals and vegetables did not survive into summer. The October heat wave killed many established landscape plants that had struggled to regain vigor after a brutally hot summer. Reduce fertilizer amounts, apply low-nitrogen, longer-lasting granular formulations and avoid feeding heat-damaged plants immediately after a heat wave. Let plants recover very slowly, if possible, then feed them lightly at 1/4 the recommended rate.
Soil must be heavily amended to increase water retention. Mulch levels must be maintained at a depth of three- to four-inches year-round. All plants should receive deep, slow irrigation two or three days before a heat spike is predicted and leaf canopies should be kept as full as possible to provide much-needed shade.
Source: 2024 heat spikes, June 6/7, 2024 to October 3/7, 2024, Climate.gov
- Author: Rosie D
Another month has gone by! It is time to get those roses pruned! This is not difficult. First things first. Gather your rose pruning tools. That means, get your leather gloves, rose gloves or welding sleeves, sharpen your tools before each pruning session, clean your shears with alcohol wipes before pruning each rose bush. Second, cut down taller canes on your rose bushes to about 3 to 4 feet from the ground.
I prune from the bottom up. Rose pruning goes quickly by doing this (rose bushes only, you will prune a climber differently).
- Look at the base of the rose bush. Check out the canes. If any canes appear dead (i.e., black and no signs of life), damaged or diseased, cut those off or down to where you see a nice white pith (inside center of the cane) to an outfacing bud.
- If you have rose bushes that are grafted (have a knob in the center of the bush), remove suckers (canes growing up in the ground that are not on the knob). Make sure you dig down and remove the sucker and the root attached to it. If you don't, you will eventually get several suckers instead of one. Own-root roses will not have that knob.
- Remove canes that cross through the center of the plant or rub on other canes.
- Remove older gray canes in established plants to stimulate new cane growth. New canes are a nice, shiny green or greenish red color. Older canes may have linear streaks on them or are gray and thick. Remove old gray canes near the ground or graft, just above a bud union. It will stimulate new growth to replace the cane you removed. You want all green or greenish-red canes. If you have old canes, remove about a third of those each year to stimulate new growth. Continue this yearly until all the canes are green or that wonderful greenish-red color. This is how you rejuvenate an older rose bush.
- When you cut a cane, cut below any dieback on the cane so a healthy, white center (inside) of the cane shows.
- For those canes with a Y shape at the end of the cane, cut below any of those Ys to the main stem of that cane.
- Remove any small, weak stems. Good size for a stem is about the size of a #2 pencil.
- Open up the center of the bush to allow for good air circulation. This will help to keep diseases at bay and allow for sunlight to reach the center of the bush.
- After cutting out the canes as mentioned in steps 1 through 4 above, trim the bush for size and shape. Make those cuts slightly above a bud that faces outward about ¼ inch above the bud.
- Hybrid tea, shrub and grandiflora roses: prune to a vase shape plant with an open center. Height should be about 2.5 to 3.5 feet.
- Roses will benefit from removing between 1/3 to ½ of last year's growth.
- Pull off any remaining leaves and clean up any leaves off the ground.
- Dispose of the rose debris in the green bin. Your compost pile does not usually get hot enough to destroy rose diseases, so in the green bin they go.
Since we have been having cold mornings, I would wait to fertilize until frost/freeze danger has passed. That is usually around Feb. 15. Any new growth can be damaged by a freeze, so I would wait to fertilize until danger of frost/freeze is gone.
Pruning climbing roses (not ramblers)
Please note that climbing rose canes should be tied horizontally on a support, such as a rose trellis. If a cane is at an angle (anywhere from 45 to 60 degrees), none of the buds will have dominance and all the buds will grow and bloom (which is what you want for a climber).
- Follow the same pruning techniques in removing any diseased or dead canes.
- Keep up to six, young, vigorous canes that can be secured to your support.
- Prune any side shoots, coming off those canes by 2/3 of their length. I generally keep about 4 to 5 bud eyes on those side shoots.
- If there are a lot of really old branches on the rose, again remove about 1/3 of those to stimulate new growth at the base. Do this every year until all of those really old canes are gone. Don't remove all of those old canes at once, only a third at a time. Patience is a virtue here!
Pruning rambling roses (once-blooming climbing roses)
- Follow the instructions above but do this after the rose has finished blooming for the year (summer). Don't wait until the following spring to prune. If you do, your roses won't bloom the following year. Rambler roses bloom on old growth from prior year. That is why you prune after summer flowering.
Pruning miniature roses
Minis are easy. Prune back any weak growth, twiggy growths, old (gray or streaked) canes near the soil level to encourage new growth at the base. Remove any debris from around the rose to discourage diseases.
OK, so you made it to the end of the article (hopefully). Rosie, how do I know what type of rose bush I have? If you know the name of the rose, you can always look it up on Help Me Find Roses. We tend to grow a lot of Iceberg roses here is Fresno, so if you have a white shrub rose and don't know the name, it may be that one. Just a FYI Fresno, there are lots of other roses that do great here in Fresno County!
Tom Curruth
On a sad note, a great rose breeder, Tom Curruth (super nice guy!), lost his home of over 40 years in the Eaton fire in Los Angeles County. He and his partner were able to get out OK with their medications, glasses and the clothes on their backs as they drove through flames to safety.
Tom was in charge of rose hybridizing at Weeks Roses from January 1988 to January 2012. He currently is the curator of the rose collections at the Huntington Library in San Marino. Tom bred more than 150 rose cultivars on the market and won 11 All-American Rose Selections. He is considered the most successful hybridizer in the U.S. today. Some of his roses include Barbara Streisand, Anna's Promise, Carol Burnett, Cinco de Mayo, Fourth of July, Julia Child (great rose!), Neil Diamond, amongst others. We in the rose community are supporting Tom in different ways during this awful time.
Until next month… “A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives you roses.” – Chinese proverb
- Prepared by: Terry Lewis
Tasks
- Irrigate citrus and almonds at night if frost is expected.
- Apply pre-emergent herbicide in early February to flower beds and water-permeable paths.
- Provide frost protection. Move or cover tender plants. Use floating row covers or fabric and uncover plants during the day. Plastic is not recommended.
Pruning
- It is now or never for pruning hydrangeas. Remove a third of the old wood for maximum bloom.
- Prune evergreen shrubs such as pittosporum, podocarpus, euonymus, lavender, sage, buddleja, rosemary.
Fertilizing
- Apply one third of the needed annual amount of fertilizer to fruit, nut and citrus trees. They need feeding two to three weeks before bloom.
- Fertilize annuals and perennials that were planted in the fall.
Planting
- Make certain a plant's basic sun and shade needs are considered before planting.
- Bare root planting season ends in early February.
- Perennials: Lenten Rose (Helleborus), Salvia ‘Rose Pink' (Salvia greggii), Euphorbia ‘Ascot Rainbow,' Euphorbia ‘martini'.
- Perennial Grasses: Needle Grass (Nassella), Pink Muhly (Muhlenbergia capillaris), purple fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum ‘Rubrum').
- Fruits and vegetables: potatoes and rhubarb.
- Annuals: phlox drummondii, plant from seed.
- Trees, shrubs, vines: sweet gum (Liquidambar), Chinese pistache (Pistacia chinensis), Chinese tallow (Sapium sebiferum).
Enjoy now
- Annuals and perennials: annual phlox drummondii, sweet peas.
- Bulbs, corms, tubers: hyacinth (Hyacinthus).
- Trees, shrubs, vines: forsythia.
- Fruits and vegetables: navel oranges, spinach, chard.
Things to ponder
- In years when rainfall is below normal, consider planting drought tolerant plants. Look for native or Mediterranean labels.
- When forsythia begins to bloom, apply pre-emergent herbicide to your lawn to prevent crabgrass.
- Author: Susan Rosenthal
The so-called small leaf salvias, Salvia greggii (autumn sage) and Salvia microphylla (mountain sage), are so similar in appearance they are often mistaken for each other, but there are subtle differences. Flowers are almost identical, but greggii has smaller leaves with smooth margins while those of microphylla are slightly larger with serrated margins and visible veins. Other more important differences should be considered when choosing a species for your garden.
Greggii tends to be a little smaller, in the 2- to 3-foot range. It tolerates our full sun a little better, needs less water and is more likely to continue blooming through the hottest part of summer. However, greggii grows from a single stalk, tends to become very woody over time and is best replaced periodically. Stems are also very brittle and break easily.
Microphylla is a little larger, 4 by 4 feet or more. It tolerates more shade and even prefers some afternoon shade. It also needs a little more water. Microphylla will often pause blooming mid-summer, then resume when temperatures fall. Rather than having a single trunk, microphylla is more clump forming, spreads slowly and can be divided from time to time. Stems are more flexible, making it a better choice for gardens with active children or pets.
For the best of both worlds, look for a greggii-microphylla hybrid. Salvia x jamensis is a naturally occurring hybrid discovered in an area of Mexico where the greggii and microphylla habitats converge. Breeders have developed many other hybrids, including the popular Elk, Heatwave and Mesa series salvias. All do well in our area in full sun or part shade. Most are in the 4-by-4-foot range. They resemble microphylla in having more flexible stems and greggii in blooming more consistently through the heat of summer.
Care is pretty much the same for all. Good drainage is a must. Plants will look best with regular water, but definitely don't over water. Deadheading is not needed, but plants can be trimmed throughout the season to shape and keep plants bushier. Reserve heavier pruning for late winter/early spring when plants can be cut back to healthy new growth 12 to 18 inches above the ground. Neither of these species likes to be cut completely to the ground, although microphylla might tolerate it. Feed with a top dressing of compost in spring and avoid high nitrogen fertilizers. It's frustrating, but garden centers, especially big box stores, will often label small leaf salvias as just Salvia, with or without a variety or cultivar name. So look at the plant closely and do some quick research to insure you're buying the best plant for your particular situation.