- Author: Kathy Thomas-Rico
Like a siren’s song, the tomatoes are calling to me. Blame it on the moist soil, the longer days, and the need to plant something new and productive. And it’s gonna happen soon, the planting of the tomatoes. The threat of frost still hovers over Zone 9, but I know I will throw caution to the wind and plant before April 15.
But, this year, I will not plant our tomatoes in the raised beds tucked into the southwest corner of our lot. This year, I will slip those beautiful little seedlings into a stone-lined bed right smack in the middle of our back yard. Yep, right next to the tiny lawn and the salvia (S. microphylla 'Hot Lips') and the creeping myoporum (M. parvifolium 'Putah Creek').
Call me a rebel. I’m going to plant edibles amongst the bloomers. Heck, I might sneak in some bell peppers amongst the penstemon, some basil next to the lavender. I could get used to growing food in the beds that normally grow just pretty flowers. It seems like a much more efficient use of rich, sun-drenched soil, and the irrigation is already there.
Who knows? Today I take over a smallish planting bed. Tomorrow it may be the area where our lawn now grows. I’ll keep you posted on the “revolution” taking place in my back yard.
- Author: Jennifer Baumbach
It’s like a rainbow of colors out there! As I look out my kitchen window, it seems overnight there was a color riot in the backyard! I have a lot of plants that flower from spring until fall, so I really enjoy the garden for those months of the year. In bloom right now are sweet peas, borage, ceanothus (Ceanothus ‘Dark Star’), a variety of sages, marguerites, daffodils, Lady Banks Rose, weeping butterfly bush-that’s just to name a few!
The benefit to having such hues in the garden is the wildlife it attracts. I see bees, birds, spiders, and cats playing in the jewel tones.
Just the other day, I was having a look at the backyard with a critical eye. I decided that I need to add more colorful foliage and movement to the yard. I plan on adding ornamental grasses and bronzed, variegated or other-than-green plants to my yard. Granted, the flowers are colorful, but the majority of the yard is just green foliage when the flowers are gone.
In the next few weeks I am going to Annie’s Annuals in Richmond and also a UC Davis Arboretum Invitational for Master Gardeners. I hope to find the plants I am looking for that will spice up the yard for the 'plain green' times of the year.
- Author: Erin Mahaney
When it recently rained for days in a row, I stood at the window and watched my weeds grow. I have quite the variety of weeds, as I suspect we all do, but some I don’t really mind. For example, Oxalis is extremely invasive, but it is somewhat pretty and is almost enjoyably easy to pull up from the soil. Even if I don’t always get all of the bulbs like I should, at least I can hold some hope that I’m weakening the bulbs by pulling up the rest of the plant. Plus, Oxalis goes dormant with the summer heat. Out of sight, out of mind, right?
But my least favorite? The wild onion, Allium triquetrum, which is also known as the three-cornered leek. It’s not an ugly weed—in fact, it is sometimes cultivated as an ornamental. It has flower stems of about 1 foot tall, with nodding clusters of small, bell-shaped, white flowers. Not surprisingly, it has a strong onion smell.
The wild onion multiplies quickly, spreading by bulbs and seeds, and it is very hard to remove once established. Like Oxalis, it can be controlled by digging up the entire plant, including the bulbs. But unlike Oxalis, which pulls up easily (thus giving me a false, yet satisfying, sense of accomplishment), wild onion snaps at the soil level every time I try to pull it up. So the entire plant must be dug up, which is difficult to do given the extent of its spread throughout the yard, its proximity to other more desirable plants, and the depth to which I must to dig. And I think that’s what I find so aggravating about the wild onion. I could quit work and dig wild onions for the rest of my days, but I’m still fairly sure that I will not prevail. It spreads so quickly and so thoroughly! So at best, I try to content myself with digging a few plants and snapping off the flower stalks so that the plants don’t spread even more via seed. I know there are worse weeds, but this wild onion is the one onion that makes me want to cry.
- Author: Janet Snyder
My waiting game has begun. Every year, when spring rolls around, I have to wonder. Will they bloom?
I'm talking about the six common lilac bushes, Syringa vulgaris 'President Grevy', in my front yard. We planted them soon after we moved in to our home 13 years ago. They were the first major planting we did after the lawn and fences went in. I wanted a nice tall row of bushes along the edge of our front yard, and my only requirement was that it had to be something that bloomed. Roses were not an option, because I didn't want to take the chance of my kid(s) falling in to them while playing on the grass. I considered the butterfly bush, Buddleia, because of it's beautiful flowers that hummingbirds and butterflies love (not to mention it's unique scent). However, the ones I had in my previous garden had a tendency to look straggly, and I didn't want that because it would be the first thing you see when arriving at my house. Anyway, the lilacs just seemed the best fit for the area. Besides, imagine how beautiful they would be covered with all of those intoxicating flowers! I knew they were just what I wanted.
Syringa vulgaris, a species of Syringa in the olive family Oleaceae, is an upright deciduous shrub, approximately 10-15 feet high. The flowers are fragrant, upright clusters, most commonly lavender or white. They grow best in full sun in a neutral or lime, well-drained soil. They do prefer a nice, cold winter, something we didn't see much of this past winter. Any pruning should be done immediately after flowering, or you run the risk of not having flowers set for the following year. Regular watering, especially during our hot summers, is a must. While I just put an occasional shovelful of compost around mine, you can give them a dose of a general purpose fertilizer before new growth. Overall, I have found my lilacs to be quite low maintenance plants.
Back to my waiting game. In the 13 years they've been here, I have had several spring blooms that were pretty, gave me some flowers to smell and place in vases in my house, and enjoyed. I have also had a few springs of virtually no flowers blooming. Twice I have had some flowering in late August, and this past December, I had two shrubs with a number of small flower clusters. So why do I bother with lilacs in our area if flowering can be such a gamble? Five years ago, my lilacs had a spring bloom that was jaw-dropping. Each shrub was absolutely covered in the most beautiful, breathtaking, fragrant flowers. They were gorgeous! I figure if it happened once, it will happen again. I just have to be patient and willing to play my waiting game.
- Author: Edward Walbolt
Recently I was walking through one of the home improvement warehouse stores and I noticed that color bowl’s are back in season. A color bowl is a container of almost any size or shape filled to the brim with many different kinds of flowers. These container displays are perfect on a front porch, in a courtyard, or virtually anywhere you want to spruce up and add color instantly around your home. I thought to myself that I could probably create myself a few color bowl’s relatively inexpensively by piecing them together instead of purchasing the pre-fabricated version the store was selling. I decided to do just that. I already had 4 matching 5 gallon containers at home earmarked that would be perfect to fill with colorful plant life. All I needed was to get some good quality potting soil and choose some foliage and flowers that I enjoy. I meandered back to the bagged potting soil and found several choices that could offer a fertile home for the roots of my selections and supply them with needed nutrients in order to thrive all summer. I decided on a potting soil specific to container gardening that already contained about 2 months worth of organic fertilizer in the mix. Then I was off to the outdoor garden department for some six packs of flowers and some 4 inch “center piece” flowers. Out the door, I spent about $15 and I had all the ingredients for 4 full color bowls. The color bowls the store was selling were priced at $13 each so I figured that I will save about $35 in total with my project. I took my purchases of three 6 packs, four 4 inch flowers and the soil home, sunk my hands into some gloves and got to work. I filled the containers slightly more than half-full with the soil mix and I arranged an outer circle of 4 smaller flowers with a 4 inch flower in the middle as a risen center piece. I placed the flowers into the container the way I liked, leaving some space in between all of them to be able to fill in as they grow. Next, I gently filled in the container with more soil so that all the flowers were firmly planted. I watered each bowl lightly and placed the containers on my porch to get full sun. A key to success with this project is to make certain you get the right flowers for the location you intend to place your color bowl (sun versus shade). I find that I am watering my color bowl only twice a week and after 2 weeks they have really taken off.