- Author: Cheryl A Potts
Soil texture is an important factor in determining the success of your gardening venture. Texture is determined by the proportions of sand, silt, and clay minerals of your soil. Clay, predominate in this geographic area, is very fine-textured, and referred to as a 'heavy soil'. Clay has one thousand times more surface area per gram than silt, and almost a million times more surface than course sand.
Sandy or silt loam is said to be the best soil for home gardening, as this provides a mixture that retains water and is able to percolate and infiltrate. Clay can become hard as rock and does not drain well.
Several things can be done to deal with our clay. One is to add raised beds to your garden, bringing in good loamy soil from a reputable source, and placing it on top of existing soil, where you want to plant.
Secondly, you can amend your existing clay soil with organic materials. Two common methods for doing this are: one, to add compost to soil and work it in. This is best done with hoes and or shovels, as tilling can destroy living organisms, such as worms, which are most beneficial to the garden. Severely compacted soil may require tilling. Of so, till down 10-12" deep. Allow soil to dry out--two to three days prior to adding amendments. Remove rocks, roots and debris. Break up any large clods with a hoe. Place two to three inches of compost on the area and work in. Do not do this when the soil is too wet or to dry. Peat moss would work as an amendment, but is expensive. Compost and well rotted manure both are organic and ideal for garden plots. A second method is to cover the area with 4-6" of rotten hay or straw and let it sit for up to a year, as this will slowly break down the soil. Easier on the back but takes much more time.
A third approach is to accept the clay and plant items that do well in that texture of soil. Here is a partial list of some flowers that actually will do fine: Black-eyed Susan, bluestar, aster, baptisia, coreopsis, purple cone flower, sea holly, perennial geranium, false sunflower, daylily, coral bells, blazing star (great for a butterfly garden), bee balm, Russian sage, yarrow, and switch grass, said to actually thrive in moist or dry clay.
So clay does not have to be a gardener's four letter word like mole, weed, or mold. Work with it, amend it, accept it.
- Author: Janet Snyder
If you knew my family, you'd know that we are big fans of all things Disney. Recently, we took a trip down to Disneyland for a short family vacation. We love the rides, the atmosphere, the music, and the characters. But…my absolute favorite reason to go is to soak up the gardens!
We spent more than a fair amount of time in lines this trip, which is fine with me as it gives me more time to study the gardens. For example, while waiting for the Buzz Lightyear ride, I was able to enjoy the herb garden planted in a small raised bed. Rows of thyme, sage, basil, rosemary, and oregano. The Haunted Mansion gardens are planted with a variety of dark-colored grasses, annuals, and perennials. Pansy, Sweet William, iris, tulips, and cosmos are just some of the flowers in black, dark purple, chocolate, or burgundy that they use. Take a ride on Storybook Land and you'll find an entire garden in miniature. They even have a "quilt" done entirely in succulents. Disney parks gardens are planted in masses, rows, groups. Nothing is random.
Who hasn't gone there and noticed the huge hanging baskets of flowers? The animal topiaries around It's A Small World? Even the riot of flora and fauna along the Jungle Cruise ride is carefully planned, planted, maintained, and changed. After you start paying attention, you realize just how much detail has been tended to. Visit any other amusement park, but you will not find any with gardens that can hold a candle to those at Disney parks. Probably one of the most well-known family photo spots is the iconic Mickey Mouse head of flowers as you enter the park. That one particular icon alone requires 24,000 annuals a year!* Disney has 650 horticulturists tending the gardens of Disneyland and Disney World.* You would be surprised at how many impressive garden and landscape statistics are available that people visiting don't even consider. I own a number of books (mostly gifts!) on the gardens of Disney. They provide me with inspiration when I need it.
Someday, one of the things on my own personal "bucket list" is to visit the Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival held in Florida every spring. Until then, our family and I will continue to make the drive to Disneyland and enjoy the gardens.
*Markey, Kevin. Secrets of Disney's Glorious Gardens. New York: Disney Editions, 2006. Print.
- 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: 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.
- Author: Janet Snyder
It's finally here! In spite of the rather mild winter we have had here in Solano County, it's nice to herald the arrival of March and the coming of spring. We are almost ready to close the book on another winter, but we do still have a few more weeks of "official" frost season. That said, it is just so hard to see the daffodils blooming, the blossoms on the flowering trees in my backyard, and not go outside and put in a whole batch of new plants. I am holding off, however, until the official beginning of spring (March 20th this year). After that date, I'm willing to take a gamble and start planting.
This year I have a whole new learning curve to work with. Up until recently, my gardens were full sun for the better part of the day. I have three flowering plum trees ('Krauter Vesuvius') in my garden that have been growing larger every year. Last summer, I noticed several roses, pineapple sage, society garlic, and coreopsis 'Moonbeam' were trying to reach for more sunlight, and it dawned on me that they were receiving more shade than sun. Now I am having to decide what to move, what to shovel prune, and what to plant in shade. I never had to shop for shade plants, and now here I am, researching and planning a whole new garden!
I am actually a little excited about some of the plants I have found. Camellias, columbines, Chinese lanterns, Japanese maples, liriope, bleeding heart are just a few of the plants I've never grown before and now have the opportunity to do so. We are so fortunate to have the resources offered to us on the California Garden Web (www.ucanr.org/sites/gardenweb) for gardening in the Golden State.
It just goes to show you that a gardeners work is never done!