- Author: Anne E Schellman
Giving Tuesday is next week! Please join us in this opportunity to give to your local Stanislaus County Master Gardener Program. On Tuesday, November 30, 2022, we are kicking off a day of giving to raise funds for two exciting gardens, the Sensory Garden and the Pollinator Garden.
Where will the gardens be located?
The gardens will be located on the east and west sides of the Stanislaus Building at the Ag Center*. The gardens will be used as an outdoor classroom for upcoming classes and workshops and be open to the public every day of the week.
The Sensory Garden
Our Master Gardener volunteers are designing this garden that borders the walkway of the Stanislaus Building. They've chosen plants you can see, touch, hear, and feel. Plants will be labeled, so if you see any you want to add to your garden, you can make a note of it. In addition, the garden will include a water feature and benches where you can sit, relax, and enjoy.
The Pollinator Garden
Thanks to a generous donation from the West Stanislaus Resource Conservation District, we have a head-start on creating our Pollinator Garden! We plan to install a pollinator garden inspired by plants suggested for hedgerows to showcase plants farmers can use along their property. Hedgerows provide food for pollinators, help keep dust levels low, and create privacy. The garden will also include the larval food plants for pollinators like the endangered monarch butterfly.
Where We Are & Our Goal
How You Can Help
We appreciate any amount you can give. Our parent organization, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, has matching funds to give if we meet one of their donation challenges, we can earn an additional $500 for our project! Only gifts made by online/credit card donations on the day of the event qualify for the prizes.
Now is a great time to make a tax-deductible donation to our organization! Please consider how you can help. Follow our fund raising progress on Facebook, Instagram and twitter @UCMGStanislaus.
UCCE Stanislaus County Master Gardener Program
*3800 Cornucopia Way, Ste A
Modesto, CA 95358
- Author: Anthony Presto
Residential wood burning is the largest single source of particulate matter pollution in the Valley during winter months. For this reason, the District's residential wood smoke reduction program imposes restrictions on the use of fireplaces, wood stoves, fire pits and chimneys. The District recommends using other methods to heat your home unless wood burning is your sole source of heat. For full details on the District's Residential Wood Smoke Reduction Program, visit www.valleyair.org/rule4901.
Another source of air pollution are small engines on gas-powered yard care equipment, which have no emission controls. One gas-powered lawn mower can pollute as much as 12 late-model cars.
For every gas-powered lawn or garden tool, there is an electric or manual alternative that works just as well.
The District's Clean Green Yard Machines yard care incentive program provides significant rebates on electric lawn mowers, trimmers, edgers, pole saws and chain saws. For details on these incentives visit www.valleyair.org/cgym.
In addition, the Valley Air District suggests using a rake or broom instead of a blower. Leaf blowers create particulate matter in the form of dust and can be a nuisance to your neighbors.
Anthony Presto is the Outreach & Communications Representative for the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District
Citrus trees need care throughout the year, including cultural practices to keep trees healthy and pest management. During the fall season, several pests can attack citrus trees in many California regions.
Brown Rot
Monitor for this disease by checking for damaged fruit on your tree, as well as fruit in storage. Sometimes affected fruit develops a pungent odor and can ruin fruit held in storage. See the UC IPM web page on Brown Rot to learn more.
If you see what look like small “tunnels” on your citrus tree leaves, your tree might have citrus leafminer. The adult stage of this pest is a small, light colored moth; the larval stage feeds and develops inside the leaves of young citrus and other closely related plants.
Citrus leafminer rarely causes problems for mature trees, however, it can seriously damage very young trees. Read the UC IPM Pest Notes: Citrus Leafminer for recommendations for prevention or management.
Snails and Slugs
Asian Citrus Psyllid and Huanglongbing
You may have heard of the Asian citrus psyllid (ACP) and the deadly disease huanglongbing (also called citrus greening) that has been featured in the news. This disease doesn't pose a threat to humans or animals, but is deadly to citrus trees. Once a tree develops huanglongbing, there is no cure, so for this disease prevention is key.
UC IPM Web Site
For information on managing other citrus pests in the garden, see the UC IPM webpage on Pests in Gardens and Landscapes: Citrus.
- Author: Ed Perry
When thinking about light levels for indoor plants, consider light intensity, duration and quality. Light intensity influences the manufacture of plant food, stem length, leaf color and flowering. For example, a plant that needs bright light that is grown in low light tends to be spindly with light green leaves. A similar plant grown in bright light would generally be shorter, better branched and have longer, darker green leaves.
The distance the plant is from the light source and the direction the windows in a home face determine the light intensity a houseplant receives. Southern exposures have the most intense light. Western and eastern exposures receive about 60 percent of the intensity of southern exposures, while northern exposures get only 20 percent of the light of southern exposures. Light intensity is also affected by the presence and type of curtains, the weather, shade from buildings or trees, the cleanliness of the windows and the reflectiveness of the surroundings.
When a plant gets too much direct light, the leaves become pale, sometimes sunburn, turn brown and die. During the summer, houseplants need to be protected from too much direct sunlight.
Flowering plants require higher light levels for the development of good flowers. These plants grow best where they receive direct sunlight for at least half a day. Placing them near windows with an eastern exposure usually suits them best.
Here are some suggestions of houseplants for various light situations taken from the UC Master Gardener Handbook.
Low Light Plants
Common Name | Botanical Name |
Corn Plant | Dracaena fragrans |
Parlor Palm | Chamaedora elegans |
Pothos* | Epipremnum aureum |
Snake Plant | Sansevieria trifasciata |
Medium Light Plants
Common Name | Botanical Name |
Peperomia (species) | Peperomia or Pellionia |
Rubber Plant | Ficus elastica |
Schefflera | Schefflera actinophylla |
Swedish Ivy/Creeping Charlie | Plectranthus australis |
Bright Light
Common Name | Botanical Name |
Christmas Cactus | Schlumbergia bridgesii |
Spider Plant | Chlorophytum comosum |
String of Hearts | Ceropegia woodii |
Zebra Plant | Aphelandra squarrosa |
*These plants are poisonous, keep away from kids and pets.
Ed Perry is the emeritus Environmental Horticultural Advisor for University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) in Stanislaus County where he worked for over 30 years.
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- Author: Denise Godbout-Avant
People often rake their leaves and put them out to be picked up as trash. I have always preferred to leave the leaves for my garden.
If you take a walk in a forest, you'll see leaf layers several inches deep around trees and bushes. Fallen leaves have a complex relationship with trees and nature, providing many benefits which can be reproduced to some extent in our gardens.
Natural Mulch
Fallen leaves have the same weed suppression and moisture retention properties of shredded wood mulch—and they're free! Where mulch is desired as a decorative element, what could be more seasonally appropriate than a pile of brightly colored fall leaves? This natural mulch also provides insulating winter cover from cold temperatures for roots, seeds, and bulbs.
A Web of Life in Leaf Litter
Leaf litter isn't just free fertilizer and mulch. It provides food and shelter for a wide variety of living things including spiders, snails, worms, beetles, millipedes, mites, toads, frogs and more—these in turn support mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians that rely on these creatures for food.
Detritivores (organisms that eat dead or decaying plants or animals) break up and excrete leaf litter. Fungi and bacteria then take over and complete the recycling process converting these smaller pieces into nutrients which then sustain neighboring plants. They in turn help support biodiversity by becoming food themselves.
Numerous bird species such as robins and towhees forage in the leaf layer searching for insects and other invertebrates to eat.
Raking up leaves and putting them in the trash could have the unintended consequence of removing some of next year's garden butterflies and moths, many of which are pollinators. Most butterflies and moths overwinter in the landscape as an egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, or adult. In all but the warmest climates, they often use leaf litter for winter cover. Fritillaries and wooly bear caterpillars will tuck themselves into a pile of leaves for protection from cold weather and predators. Some Hairstreaks lay their eggs on fallen oak leaves, which become the first food of the caterpillars when they emerge. Swallowtail butterflies disguise their cocoons and chrysalises as dried leaves, blending in with the “real” leaves.
Bumble bees also rely on leaf litter for protection. At the end of summer, mated queen bumble bees burrow an inch or two into the earth to hibernate for winter. An extra thick layer of leaves is welcome protection from the elements.
All of which makes leaf litter an integral part of a complex web of life.
What You Can Do
Composting leaves is a terrific way to recycle and create a nutrient-rich garden soil amendment at the same time. Some gardeners opt for shredding their fall leaves for use in compost piles. Like people who mulch their lawn leaves with a mower, consider leaving some leaves undisturbed in garden beds and lawn edges. If space allows, you could create a leaf pile, allowing it to break down naturally, or add the leaves gradually to your compost pile over time. Such efforts will keep leaf litter critters safe and allow you to benefit from the rich garden gift that falls from the trees above.
While it is ideal to “leave the leaves” permanently—for the benefits mentioned above—if you do decide you need to clean your garden and remove the leaves in spring, try to wait until later in the season, so as to give the critters that have been protected by fallen leaves over the winter time to emerge and depart.
Some gardeners may be concerned that autumn leaves, matted down by rain or snow, could have a negative impact on their perennials. However, a thick layer of leaves provides additional insulation against chilly weather and protects newly planted perennials from frost which could damage tender roots and shoots. Anyone who has spotted fragile spring seedlings popping up in the woods knows that all but the most fragile of plants will erupt through the leaf litter in spring without trouble.
So, leave the leaves. While you can't perfectly emulate a forest, your garden will be healthier and more diversified, you'll help support a vast array of wildlife, and you'll reduce the strain on landfills.
Denise Godbout-Avant has been a UCCE Stanislaus County Master Gardener since July 2020.
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