- Author: David Layland, U.C. Master Gardener of Napa County
Saturday, May 18, is the date for this year's Climate-Friendly Garden Tour, a partnership between Napa County Resource Conservation District, City of Napa Water Division, and the University of California Master Gardeners of Napa County.
The tour is from 10 am to 4 pm and includes 10 private home gardens plus the Napa County Master Gardeners' demonstration garden at Las Flores Community Center in Napa. At Las Flores, you can tour garden areas devoted to succulents, pollinator plants, California natives and low water/low maintenance plants.
The 10 private home gardens come in all shapes and sizes, and all are within the City of Napa.
Also included in the tour are workshops at several of the gardens. One workshop will address the effect of tilling on soil health and water absorption; another will focus on irrigation conversion. The one I would most like to see is the “Bury Your Undies” display at Las Flores Community Center, designed to show how to measure healthy soil life.
Also at Las Flores, Master Gardeners will conduct a demonstration of the “Heat Island Effect,” using temperature guns on ground surfaces; a demonstration titled “Bread and Flour,” highlighting the effect of tilling on the soil's ability to absorb and retain water; and another on “Good Bugs, Bad Bugs.” There will also be a free compost giveaway at Las Flores.
What is a climate-friendly garden tour? To the organizers, it is an opportunity to showcase gardens, both residential and commercial, that are climate-smart and water-wise. That means you are likely to encounter gardens on the tour that incorporate drought-tolerant and native plants, or that exhibit good soil-health practices. You may see rain catchment systems, clever use of recycled materials or greywater, smart irrigation systems or model veggie gardens.
I haven't seen all the gardens on the tour, but I have seen the one in the Carneros District. It's my own. The only negative to having your garden featured on the tour is that you can't get around to see all the others. I'll be in my garden, welcoming visitors, all day.
I was probably one of the first gardeners to volunteer my garden for this year's tour. I'm not sure why I wanted to be on the tour as my garden is my personal and private “happy place,” to be enjoyed primarily by my wife, Jeanine, and me. All serious gardeners feel a sense of pride in what they have created, but we are rarely competitive. Instead, we enjoy learning from one another.
My home garden includes flowers and vegetables, of course, but also berries, olive and fruit trees and a vineyard that's currently being replanted. Our 13 goats aren't part of the garden, but they are great at weed control. If we aren't careful, they will nosh on anything within reach. We also have 13 chickens that do a great job of providing manure year-round.
To me, a garden is never complete. Mine is constantly evolving, usually due to my latest whim. A few years ago, I converted part of my vegetable garden to native plants. This year I converted part of my vegetable garden to raspberries and boysenberries. After constructing a fence to separate the goats from the garden and vineyard areas, I was left with a perfect area for four more fruit trees. Also new this year is a rainwater catchment system designed and constructed by Jeanine.
One of the tenets of climate-friendly gardening is using recycled materials. I started doing this years ago when I used scrap lumber left behind by the previous property owner to make raised beds. At a friend's garden, I noticed she planted flowers in many types of old containers. I realized I had a lot of old containers myself, so I followed suit. I began planting flowers in the old blue bins no longer used by Napa Recycling.
Most gardeners in Napa Valley irrigate their gardens, often with fancy gadgets such as timers. If this is smart irrigation, then what I do must be dumb irrigation. I prefer hand watering as it gives me a chance to monitor each plant at least once a week. Fortunately, hand watering requires just one hand, so in the evening, I can use the other for my wine glass.
Although I have not seen all the other gardens on the tour, I do know a little about them. Almost everyone has removed their lawn through the City's Cash for Grass program. Every garden on the tour includes California native plants. Attracting pollinators is an objective of almost every garden, and most of the gardeners have taken steps to lower water use. Two gardens feature apiaries, and one features a rain garden. Another gardener is an avid seed saver.
Tickets for the garden tour are $5 and will be available at the Las Flores Community Center beginning at 10 am on May 18. Don't miss this great opportunity to see what your Napa neighbors have done to make their gardens more climate conscious.
Workshop: Join the UC Master Gardener of Napa County for a workshop on “Worm or Backyard Composting” on Saturday, May 18, from 10 am to noon, at Napa Valley College, Upper Valley Campus, 1088 College Avenue, St. Helena. Learn about backyard composting, hot composting, cool composting, and worm composting—choose your own adventure. Attendees may purchase a discounted backyard compost bin for $20 or take a home a free worm compost toolkit, including the worms. Register here.
Garden Tour: Enjoy a “Climate-Friendly Garden Tour” on Saturday, May 18, from 10 am to 4 pm, sponsored by Napa County Resource Conservation District. Tour 11 private and public Napa Valley gardens that showcase climate-friendly and water-wise landscapes. Mini workshops will be held at some sites throughout the day. Purchase a ticket to receive the tour map.
Library Talk: Join UC Master Gardeners and Napa County Library for “All About Lavender,” on Thursday, June 6, from 7 pm to 8 pm, via Zoom. Have you ever wondered what you can do with that gorgeous lavender growing in your backyard? Learn what lavender needs to thrive, and harvest ideas for how to incorporate it in your own homemade creations. Register to receive the Zoom link.
Help Desk: The Master Gardener Help Desk is available to answer your garden questions on Mondays and Fridays from 10 am until 1 pm at the University of California Cooperative Extension Office, 1710 Soscol Avenue, Suite 4, Napa. Or send your questions to mastergardeners@countyofnapa.org. Include your name, address, phone number and a brief description.
- Author: Drew Tomasyan, UC Master Gardener of Napa County
Have you ever wondered how you can learn about plant care, water conservation, botany, tree pruning, soil amendments, lawn alternatives, pollinators, pest management and more while making friends and being part of a mission driven team? Become a Napa County Master Gardener, and you'll see.
The Master Gardener program is offered by the University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE). Programs vary slightly by county, but all must meet certain UCCE requirements.
Master Gardeners are volunteers whose main purpose is to develop and deliver educational programs to the community, using research-based knowledge and information.
The Master Gardener training is a 12-week commitment. Classes meet weekly for 4-1/2 hours. (Don't worry—there are snacks and breaks.) When you enroll, you pay a nominal fee and receive four excellent books, the foundation for most of the assignments. Homework consists of a lot of reading and highlighting, but there are also interesting videos to watch most weeks, experiments to do, and plant problems to diagnose. You can expect to spend 8 to 10 hours weekly on homework.
A field trip is usually part of the program, along with many interesting class speakers and demonstrations. In one of my favorite classes, a top entomologist from UC Davis educated us about insects, then we looked at specimens through microscopes to learn their distinguishing features.
In another class, other Master Gardeners spoke about aspects of climate change. There was even a scavenger hunt at two local nurseries.
I can't say enough about our instructors. Each class tapped into their collective knowledge and experience, and they were always very supportive of us trainees. There is a final exam, but it is an open-book, take-home test and you have a week to complete it. It's a reflection on the quality of our instructors that every person in our class passed. Once you pass, you are assigned one of your instructors as a mentor, which is helpful as you start investigating and signing up for Master Gardener events.
Master Gardeners serve the community in many different ways. We conduct workshops on the value of composting and vermiculture, on garden design and vegetable planting, on pollinators and plant pests, and on plant types like natives and succulents. We lead educational tree-identification walks and rose-care classes in Fuller Park, and deliver monthly library talks on a variety of gardening subjects.
Master Gardener volunteers maintain a Help Desk at the UCCE office in Napa. We also staff a booth at the Napa and St. Helena farmers markets if you have questions or problems or need research-based advice.
Master Gardeners advise about how to create and maintain a low-water garden, how to be more fire-wise with your landscape, and how to be sure you are putting the right plant in the right place. Check out our website for the schedule of our workshops and events. Many are offered at no charge.
To maintain their certification, Master Gardeners must volunteer a certain number of hours each year and accumulate the required hours of continuing education. These requirements are easy to achieve. You earn volunteer hours every time you help with a workshop or activity, and the hours add up fast. Master Gardeners earn continuing education hours by attending monthly seminars, which are always fun and feature great speakers. So far, every activity I have volunteered for has been a source of personal continuing education.
Last month, I volunteered at the Master Gardener Tomato Festival. It was a cold and rainy Saturday, but what a cohesive team we had. There was no complaining, just camaraderie and a lot of enthusiasm. Every Master Gardener event I have ever participated in has been a model of teamwork and cooperation.
I became a Master Gardener last year, Class of 2023, and I am honored to be a part of this incredible organization. As a long time Master Gardener friend, Carole Kent, told me, "I came for the gardening information and stayed for the people."
If you are interested in becoming a Master Gardener, you will find information about applying on our website soon. In the meantime, I hope to see you at a few of our workshops. You won't be disappointed.
Workshop: Join the UC Master Gardener of Napa County for a workshop on “Growing Olives” on Saturday, May 11, from 10 am to noon, at a private grove in Napa. Learn about olive varieties and how to plant, fertilize, irrigate, and prune these trees. Olive pests and diseases will also be discussed. Register to receive the workshop location.
Workshop: Join the UC Master Gardener of Napa County for a workshop on “Worm or Backyard Composting” on Saturday, May 18, from 10 am to noon, at Napa Valley College, Upper Valley Campus, 1088 College Avenue, St. Helena. Learn about backyard composting, hot composting, cool composting, and worm composting—choose your own adventure. Attendees may purchase a discounted backyard compost bin for $20 or take a home a free worm compost toolkit, including the worms. Register here.
Help Desk: The Master Gardener Help Desk is available to answer your garden questions on Mondays and Fridays from 10 am until 1 pm at the University of California Cooperative Extension Office, 1710 Soscol Avenue, Suite 4, Napa. Or send your questions to mastergardeners@countyofnapa.org. Include your name, address, phone number and a brief description.
- Author: Cindy Kerson, UC Master Gardener of Napa County
As the lead of the “Low-Maintenance, Low-Water Garden” at the Las Flores Learning Garden at Napa's Las Flores Community Center, my job is to keep the plants heathy and appealing. This includes seasonal pruning and, at this time of year, weeding, weeding and weeding.
As Master Gardeners know, a weed is any plant that is not where you want it to be. That would include the volunteer tomato plant that's growing between the cracks on your front steps, already flowering. You'd have to move it to your vegetable beds to promote it from weed to plant.
The low-maintenance, low-water section of the Learning Garden was the first to be planted and is now in its fifth year. The plants we chose for this area thrive with little care. Unfortunately, the surrounding soil isn't familiar with the idea. Weeds, weeds, and more weeds appear in all their glory, especially in the spring, encouraged by the warm, moist soil.
With my Master Gardener teammates and our fancy weeding tools, we've weeded three times already this spring. Some of us bring our Hori Hori garden knives; others prefer what is commonly known as “Grandpa's weeder,” a metal pole with a lever on the bottom that will take out the root along with the weed. You can find these implements easily online. It's important to dig up the root so the weed doesn't come back. It's equally crucial to remove weeds before they flower and spread their seeds around.
It has been interesting to see the variety of weeds this year. Weed seeds are transported by many methods: by animal droppings, by the wind and by people who carry seeds on the bottoms of their shoes. Given that Master Gardeners are the only people allowed to work in the garden, I guess we are somewhat to blame.
Nurseries are also culpable. Weeds can lurk in the pots of plants you purchase, so inspect carefully before you replant. Creeping woodsorrel (Oxalis corniculate), that pretty little dark-leaved ground cover with the yellow flowers, rode into the Learning Garden with the glossy abelia. We know this because it's rampant under the abelia and it is spreading.
Oxalis is a hard one to eradicate. Its survival mechanism is to scatter its seeds whenever it's agitated. And we agitate it when we pull it up or walk on it; the wind also spreads it. Unfortunately, no organic herbicide will kill it. As Master Gardeners, we always favor integrated pest management (IPM) practices to care for landscapes. That means no inorganic chemical use, if possible.
This year, we had a vast array of weeds in the Learning Garden, so we asked our Master Gardener weed identifier extraordinaire, Patty Jordan, to help us name them. She did, and she admitted she relies on the UC IPM weed photo gallery. Young plants can look different from mature ones, and this site shows the weeds at different stages.
Our weed collection included many we've come to know over the past years, such as the common sow thistle and prickly lettuce. But we also welcomed some new ones, including prickly lettuce and bedstraw. While these are not uncommon in Napa Valley, they had not shown up in the Learning Garden before.
We also came across a couple of arbutus sprouts, which we could have taken home and potted to make more of those beautiful trees. Remember, a weed is just a plant in the wrong place.
The most intriguing weed was the oyster plant (salsify), found on the outer rim of three of our ten pink muhly grasses (Muhlenbergia capillaris). Maybe the rains woke up the seeds this year. This weed is taller than the muhly grass and has a different leaf structure, so it's clearly not a part of it. The purple flower is beautiful.
It was hard to extract the oyster plants, not because they were deeply embedded but because they were so pretty. Not knowing how invasive they might be, we decided not to take a chance. Out they came.
Weeds aside, the low-maintenance garden is just that. Seasonal moderate pruning and shaping is all that's necessary. The low water feature is also appealing, especially considering our current climate. Alas, weeds do not distinguish between high- and low-maintenance gardens.
Workshop: Join the UC Master Gardener of Napa County Rose Team for a workshop on “Summer Rose Care” on Saturday, May 4, from 10 am to noon, at University of California Cooperative Extension, 1710 Soscol Avenue, Napa (rear entrance). After the first spring blooms have faded, many rose bushes begin to show stress. Do you have black spot, rust, mildew or aphids? The Rose Team will provide research-based answers about all aspects of rose care. Attendees will be invited to join a hands-on workshop at Fuller Rose Garden in Napa on May 9 to practice what they have learned. Registration required.
Workshop: Join the UC Master Gardener of Napa County for a workshop on “Growing Olives” on Saturday, May 11, from 10 am to noon, at a private grove in Napa. Learn about olive varieties and how to plant, fertilize, irrigate, and prune these trees. Olive pests and diseases will also be discussed. Register to receive the workshop location.
Help Desk: The Master Gardener Help Desk is available to answer your garden questions on Mondays and Fridays from 10 am until 1 pm at the University of California Cooperative Extension Office, 1710 Soscol Avenue, Suite 4, Napa. Or send your questions to mastergardeners@countyofnapa.org. Include your name, address, phone number and a brief description.
- Author: David Layland, UC Master Gardener of Napa County
I find great pleasure in planting and growing perennials. In contrast to annuals, perennials are the vines, bushes, trees, and other plants that come back year after year.
Planting in spring, the season of rebirth, is particularly gratifying. Your new plants are joining the perennials that are waking up from their winter nap and sprouting new growth.
Recently I planted four fruit trees. They won't produce any fruit for a few years, but the anticipation will hold my interest as they establish themselves. I also planted raspberry and boysenberry vines and am already envisioning the fresh fruit they will yield in a few years.
Planting is a relatively easy process if you pay attention to a few factors, like site selection. If you plant a sun lover in a shady spot or situate a plant that needs good drainage in a low spot, you'll probably be replanting next year.
The area where I wanted to plant my fruit trees is the lowest spot on our property. After digging a hole, I saw ground water accumulating. This wasn't a game-ending discovery but rather a warning sign that I had better do something. My solution was to create a 15-inch berm as a planting site. The elevation would keep the roots out of harm's way.
Just because you've planted something doesn't mean you're done. Getting plants to grow is much more of a challenge. Perennial plants, bushes and trees require attention every year, such as pruning and fertilizing. You also need to watch for pests and diseases that could prevent your new plants from performing at their best.
In 2000 my wife and I planted a small Syrah vineyard that produced great fruit. However, a few years ago, the vineyard became infected with Pierce's disease, a bacterial malady spread by leafhoppers. We had to tear out the vines and either replant or find another use for the land.
With the vineyard gone, we had a large open field that was good only for growing weeds. In the warmer months, it required constant mowing. However, to quote Alexander Graham Bell, when one door closes another one opens.
Today, where Syrah vines once thrived, we now have 13 goats. This development is thanks to a chance meeting with a local family that had the goats but no home for them. I miss the Syrah made from our grapes, but going through a birthing season with the goats has given me a new appreciation for anyone raising livestock.
After grapevines, olive trees have been my biggest challenge. They aren't difficult to grow, but they do have some issues. I have 22 mature trees that, fortunately, don't require fertilization. I apply a few inches of compost, which doesn't cost much, and the trees are happy.
However, olive trees are susceptible to the olive fruit fly and require application of GF-120 NF Naturalyte Fruit Fly Bait to protect them. According to Napa County's agriculture commissioner, this product is the most popular and effective pesticide registered for olive fruit fly control.
A few years ago, we lost our entire olive crop to this little pest, so we are diligent about protecting our trees. Purchasing GF-120 is painful. For 22 trees I need at least two gallons, which costs about $700. That's a giant “ouch” in my book. You need a back sprayer for application so that's yet more expense.
In 2023 we had some good news and some bad news. The good news was that we had a record olive crop and very little fruit-fly damage. The bad news was that we didn't realize the actual size of the crop until after we had picked the olives and were starting to prune the trees. That's when we saw, hidden high up in the trees, even more olives than we had already harvested. It has been painful to harvest overripe olives that immediately went into the yard-waste can.
How did that happen? For various reasons, we couldn't prune our olive trees for two years. They had become overgrown, and by overgrown, I mean way too tall and too thick with branches. There's an old saying that a sparrow should be able to fly through an olive tree. There was no chance of that with our trees. Today, thanks to a few professional pruners, almost any size bird can fly through our olive trees.
We took our olives to a local olive mill on “community day.” They were crushed for oil along with all the other olives delivered that day. We paid 85 cents a pound to mill the olives plus the cost of plastic containers, so it cost us about $300 for 3-1/2 gallons of olive oil.
Add the fruit-fly spray to that and you have some of the most expensive olive oil in existence. If we wanted to save money, we could drive to Corning and purchase a few gallons of olive oil from a local mill, then stop for a nice dinner at Buckhorn Steakhouse in Winters.
A stroll around the garden shows our perennials are waking up and ready for another year. Plants are blooming, vines are growing, and our olive trees are ready to bloom. All in all, a good spring in the garden.
Workshop: Join UC Master Gardeners of Napa County for a “Worm or Backyard Composting Workshop” on Saturday, April 27, from noon to 2 pm, at City of Napa Senior Center, 1500 Jefferson Street, Napa. Learn about composting in your own backyard, hot composting, cool composting, or worm composting—choose your own adventure. For those taking the backyard portion, after concluding the workshop, you may purchase a discounted compost bin for $20 (one bin per household). Worm class attendees will receive a free worm compost tool kit, including the worms that you will set up with the UC Master Gardeners to take home. Register here.
Workshop: Join UC Master Gardeners of Napa County for “Irrigation for Low-Water Gardens” on Saturday, April 27, from 10 am to noon, at Las Flores Learning Garden, 4300 Linda Vista Avenue, Napa. Get instruction on how to create an efficient system for your garden. Presenters will also show how the drip system at the Las Flores Learning Garden was created. Register here.
Help Desk: The Master Gardener Help Desk is available to answer your garden questions on Mondays and Fridays from 10 am until 1 pm at the University of California Cooperative Extension Office, 1710 Soscol Avenue, Suite 4, Napa. Or send your questions to mastergardeners@countyofnapa.org. Include your name, address, phone number and a brief description.
- Author: Natasha Mantle, UC Master Gardener of Napa County
In the gardener's view of the world, vacationers can be divided into two categories: those who sit around the pool and those who scurry around taking copious pictures of unfamiliar plants.
As a Master Gardener, I belong to the second category. So, when my husband and I flew to Puerto Vallarta to get away from the atmospheric river rains, there was one thing on my mind: tropical plants.
PuertoVallarta used to be a humble fishing village. It became a vacation destination sometime in the 1960s, after Sir Richard Burton (accompanied by Elizabeth Taylor) went there to film “The Night of the Iguana.”
The town is practically wedged into the Sierra Madre tropical jungle, which spills out into the city in the most enchanting ways. Step one street away from the main drag and you are likely to encounter a mind-boggling mix of tropical, Mediterranean, and desert flora: thickets of bougainvillea, cocoa and cinnamon trees, mountain coffee, heavily scented lemons and oranges, Mexican blue palms, tamarind, banyan, fig, and rubber trees, to name a few that will make your head spin.
Seeds from these plants are lying everywhere, tempting visiting plantaholics to take them home. Don't even think about it. To protect the state's agriculture, California has strict laws about bringing in living plant material. Fortunately, I got that urge out of my system long ago, after a handful of seeds I brought back from Palm Springs grew into a sizable fan palm grove that altered our backyard in unexpected ways. As my husband dryly noted, defying an old gardening adage, “No, there isn't always room for another plant.”
Sometimes it's better to leave plants where they are and enjoy them in their natural habitat, which brings me to the highlight of our trip: Vallarta Botanical Garden.
The garden was founded in 2004. For many years, it has been a leader in nature conservancy, discovering, studying, and preserving native Mexican plants. It has a “sister garden” relationship with San Francisco and Santa Barbara Botanical Gardens. American Public Garden Association ranked it third on a list of the “Top 10 Best Botanical Gardens.” I suspect that they did not take into consideration the garden's delightful restaurant overlooking Río Horcones and serving great margaritas. Otherwise, it would have been number one.
The garden covers 79 acres, so it is impossible to see it all in one day. Most visitors spend their time in the manicured main area and do not venture into the tropical forest outside which has a vast living collection of oaks and Mexican magnolias. The Aztecs revered magnolias for their beautiful scent and shape as well as their medicinal properties.
Inside the main area are three notable attractions: orchids, a pollinator garden and a collection of succulents and cacti. The latter are part of a whimsical display featuring Mexican pottery, statues of various beasts and many ingenious plant stands.
The pollinator garden is really an alley with lush, blooming plants on both sides and the constant buzz of insects flying from one border to another. Walking through it, you almost feel like an outsider eavesdropping on nature's most intimate activity.
Although bees typically get the most credit for pollination, Mexico has a tremendous variety of beetles and flies that often perform specialized tasks due to their size, such as pollinating tiny cocoa flowers. The butterfly family (with everybody's favorite, the monarchs) is the fourth largest pollinator group.
The most important project in the garden is conservation and propagation of Mexican orchids. In contrast to Napa Valley, where virtually all the orchids for sale in stores are the same species, Mexico is home to 1,300 orchid species. Some are unique to Mexico and found nowhere else. Unfortunately, even though they grow mostly at high elevations, they are still endangered due to deforestation, poaching and climate calamities.
Replicating the orchid's natural reproduction process in a lab is a complicated affair. Consider the rare Mexican orchid, Vanilla pompona, one of the most valuable spices in the world. Its pod contains over 3,000 seeds. To successfully propagate, a single seed needs specific light, temperature, humidity, and nutrient conditions, including the presence of certain fungi that will nourish the baby orchid for its first three years.
Learning about new cultures, plants and ecosystems is always inspiring, but by the end of our trip, I was ready to head home to Napa and my own garden. Luckily, my husband was happy to oblige. We said goodbye to Puerto Vallarta but vowed to return: him to the pool, and me, back to the jungle.
To learn more about pollinating plants, visit Las Flores Learning Garden in Napa, home to more than 60 pollinator-attracting plants. In April, it will be buzzing with insects.
Tomato Plant Sale: UC Master Gardeners of Napa County holds its annual tomato plant sale on Saturday, April 13, from 9 am until sold out, at 1710 Soscol Avenue, Napa. Choose from 25 varieties grown by Napa County Master Gardeners. Plants are $5 each, cash or check only.
Workshop: Join UC Master Gardeners of Napa County for “Growing Tomatoes” on Sunday, April 14, from 2 pm to 3 pm, via Zoom. We'll discuss types of tomato plants and how to care for them, including soil and watering needs, staking, pest prevention and more. Register to receive the Zoom link.
Workshop: Join UC Master Gardeners of Napa County for “Irrigation for Low-Water Gardens” on Saturday, April 27, from 10 am to noon, at Las Flores Learning Garden, 4300 Linda Vista Avenue, Napa. Get instruction on how to create an efficient system for your garden. Presenters will also show how the drip system at the Las Flores Learning Garden was created. Register here. Help Desk:
The Master Gardener Help Desk is available to answer your garden questions on Mondays and Fridays from 10 am until 1 pm at the University of California Cooperative Extension Office, 1710 Soscol Avenue, Suite 4, Napa. Or send your questions to mastergardeners@countyofnapa.org. Include your name, address, phone number and a brief description.