It is time to order spring-blooming bulbs from the many catalogs that may be turning up in our mailboxes. Daffodils are perhaps the easiest bulbs to depend upon for a colorful display that can last for several months, if you choose varieties carefully.
For outdoor display, daffodils should be planted in the fall, between September and December (November is perhaps the best time). Select high-quality bulbs that have not dried out. Generally, the larger the bulb, the better. Plant in full sun or part shade. Daffodils tolerate a range of soils but grow best in moderately fertile, well-drained soil that is moist during the growing season. They prefer neutral to acidic soils.
Daffodils are most effective if planted in groups of ten or more of a single type. Pay attention to bloom times and plant heights if you are planting different varieties in the same area. Bury bulbs with their pointy ends up, two to three times as deep as the bulb is tall, spacing them three to six inches apart. To prevent bulb rot, avoid watering in warm fall weather, but do water them for two to three weeks after they have bloomed if the weather is dry.
Over time, daffodils that have naturalized will become crowded and will bloom less. Apply a low-nitrogen, high-potassium fertilizer after flowering if bulbs are not performing as well as expected (or as well as in previous years). Lift and divide the clumps when they become over-crowded and/or flowering becomes sparse. Plants can actually be divided and transplanted when they are flowering, which can help you place them for best effect over the years.
After bloom, allow the plants to grow until the leaves die back (in May or June) so the bulbs can store energy for next year. Let dead leaves decompose in place or remove them by twisting and pulling lightly, to avoid pulling up the bulbs.
Daffodils are both deer-resistant and rodent-proof but are poisonous to pets. Common pest problems include large narcissus bulb fly, bulb scale mite, narcissus nematode, slugs, narcissus basal rot, and a number of viruses.
Here is a suggested list of four varieties for continuous daffodil flowering from late January to April. Each is a naturalizing variety, so they will increase and continue to bloom in succeeding years if left in the ground.
- “King Alfred,” a large, trumpet type that blooms early to mid-spring, with one flower per stem, 13 to 18 inches tall. Others of this type are “Dutch Master,” “Golden Harvest,” and “Marieke.”
- “Jetfire,” a cyclamineus type with a bright orange cup that blooms early to mid-spring, with one flower per stem, 13 to 18 inches tall. Performs wonderfully in pots; terrific for forcing; more tolerant of partial shade and moisture than other groups.
- “Quail,” a jonquilla type, blooms mid- to late spring, has two to three highly fragrant flowers per stem, grows 12 to 18 inches tall. Good choice for containers, rock gardens and dainty spring bouquets.
- “Geranium,” a tazetta type, blooms mid- to late spring, has up to six flowers per stem, grows 13 to 18 inches tall.
The sight of daffodils blooming on a spring day can pay dividends long after their bloom has past – William Wordsworth certainly found this to be true, as demonstrated by one of his best-loved poems:
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
By William Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
The Master Gardeners' Fall Workshop Series begins on Monday, August 28th with the first of a two-parter on home canning and preserving. All workshops are free, but they do require advance registration. For descriptions of all sixteen workshops and to register, visit our website.
UC Master Gardeners of Butte County are part of the University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) system. To learn more about us and our upcoming events, and for help with gardening in our area visit our website. If you have a gardening question or problem, email the Hotline at mgbutte@ucanr.edu or leave a phone message on our Hotline at 530-552-5812. To speak to a Master Gardener about a gardening issue, or to drop by the MG office during Hotline hours, see the most current information on our Ask Us section of our website.
Cool season plants like a warm start, so it's not too early to begin adding some of them to the vegetable garden now. In this way you can extend the harvest of both warm season crops and cool season veggies.
In mid to late August, many warm season vegetable seeds will still have sufficient growing days to reach maturity. To figure out which vegetables can be planted now, look at the “days to maturity” on the back of the seed packet and count back from your region's first frost date. Chico has a 10 percent risk of frost by October 29, and a 50 percent risk of frost by November 14. This gives the gardener at least 60 to 75 days before frost, which is enough time to grow a new batch of cucumbers, a second round of summer squash, and some varieties of lettuce and Asian greens.
Many fall crops survive a bit of chill. The date to plant out frost-tolerant transplants like kale, chard, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower is somewhat flexible. Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower are best started indoors or purchased as transplants.
But what to do about all the plants already growing in the beds? This is where the magic begins. Previously it was believed by many that plants compete with one another for nutrients and water. The planting bed had to be denuded of the early crop and maybe even left fallow for a time before replanting in that space. Newer research shows that plants grow better when a variety of other plants grow nearby. Dr. Christina Jones, a soil ecologist from Australia who speaks at regenerative agriculture forums throughout the world says, “Every plant exudes its own unique blend of sugars, enzymes, phenols, amino acids, nucleic acids, auxins, gibberellins and other biological compounds….The greater the diversity of plants, the greater the diversity of microbes and the more robust the soil ecosystem.” These various soil microbes bring nutrients to the plant in exchange for sugars discharged by the roots. The wider array of available nutrients from a diverse group of plants increases an individual plant's ability to fight off diseases and pests, and increases the nutrient density of the plant. Basically, the plant grows better and is ultimately more nutritious when consumed. This diversity can be achieved by employing a combination of succession planting and “No Till” gardening techniques.
There are several approaches to succession planting.
- A crop can be seeded in the place where another plant was harvested.
- The next crop can be planted among the existing crop (intercropping). This has advantages in August since the foliage from older plants can offer sun protection to tender seedlings.
- Several compatible plants can be planted together (companion planting).
- The same crop can be seeded at different time intervals for continuous, smaller harvests (successive plantings).
Rather than pull out existing veggies when they are dying off, cut them down at ground level. Immediately add some compost. Poke a hole the depth recommended for the seed you are planting. Drop seed into the hole. Pull the soil back over the seed and keep watered. Cover lightly with straw, grass clippings, or other mulch. Wait until the new plants are developing before adding a thicker coating of mulch.
Succession planting and starting cool season vegetables early will extend the harvest, but remember that it is hot and new plants dry out quickly. Water more frequently until your fall garden is established.
Approximate Frost Dates in California
Vegetable Planting Guides for our area:
Chico Valley Area Planting Guide
You can find some of Dr. Christine Jones's talks on soil health here.
Well worth reading is Gabe Brown, Dirt to Soil: One Family's Journey into Regenerative Agriculture, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2018.
The Master Gardeners' Fall Workshop Series begins on August 28th with the first of a two-parter on home canning and preserving. All workshops are free, but they do require advance registration. For descriptions of all sixteen workshops and to register, visit our website.
UC Master Gardeners of Butte County are part of the University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) system. To learn more about us and our upcoming events, and for help with gardening in our area visit our website. If you have a gardening question or problem, email the Hotline at mgbutte@ucanr.edu or leave a phone message on our Hotline at 530-552-5812. To speak to a Master Gardener about a gardening issue, or to drop by the MG office during Hotline hours, see the most current information on our Ask Us section of our website.
A new season of Master Gardener Workshops is about to start! The series begins with a two-parter designed to help us make the most of our summer produce: “Canning Fruits & Pickles: The Basics of Boiling Water Bath Canning” on August 28, followed by “Pressure Canning Vegetables and Dehydrating Fruits & Vegetables” on September 11. The series concludes on November 20 with “Wildcrafting” – an introduction to collecting plants in the wild and using them in medicinal remedies and health products. In all, this Fall Series totals 16 workshops, including nine all-new topics. There is something here for every type of gardener and every size of home garden, whether you maintain a balcony of plants in containers or produce fruit and vegetables on a large plot for your family, friends and neighbors.
Selecting, planting, caring for, and harvesting fruits and berries are covered in a trifecta of workshops: “Growing Citrus Trees,” “Blueberries, Raspberries, Blackberries, and Strawberries,” and “Espalier,” which focuses on training fruit trees along a horizontal surface.
If you are thinking you'd like to start beekeeping, or are just interested in learning how to attract and support honeybees and other pollinators, our workshop on Honey Bees is for you.
Of course, supporting pollinators and other native wildlife is important to us all. Our new workshop on native oaks (“Plant an Acorn; Harvest a Community”) describes the multiple ways creatures and humans benefit from creating an oak ecosystem in our own yards and gardens. Oaks can contribute greatly to a wildlife corridor – why not make your own yard count in the effort to conserve water resources and rebuild local wildlife corridors? Learn how in “Neighborhood Habitat Certification,” our workshop led by the coordinator of Altacal Audubon's Certified Neighborhood Habitat Program.
Most of the workshops will be held in the outdoor classroom located in the Master Gardener Demonstration Garden or inside Pat's Barn; both are located at the Patrick Ranch (10381 Midway, between Chico and Durham). The first three workshops will take place indoors, in the Chico Branch Library Meeting Room on Sherman Avenue in Chico; two will be held in Paradise, at the Terry Ash Center on Skyway; and the workshop on berries will be held at the private residence of our berry expert. While most of the workshops are held during morning or early afternoon hours, the workshop on container gardening is offered in the early evening (6 to 7:30 pm).
The following is a list of workshop topics and dates. All workshops are free, but they do require advance registration. For full descriptions of all the workshops and to register, visit our website.
Canning Fruits & Pickles: The Basics of Boiling Water Bath Canning (Monday 8/28). Start canning and preserving your garden bounty, using the Boiling Water Bath and Atmospheric Steam Canning methods.
SEPTEMBER
Pressure Canning Vegetables and Dehydrating Fruits & Vegetables (Monday 9/11). Learn to successfully and safely process food with a pressure canner, and how to dry fruits and vegetables in a dehydrator or simply outside in the sun.
Container Gardening (Tuesday 9/12). Grow edibles, ornamentals, shrubs, and small trees outdoors in containers. Container types, plant choices, and best practices for soil, watering, and fertilizing will all be covered.
Honey Bees (Saturday 9/23). If you are considering beekeeping as a hobby, or just interested in learning more about attracting honeybees and other pollinators to your garden, this workshop is for you.
It's a Wrap! Autumn Garden Clean Up, Winter Prep and Preservation (Saturday 9/30). This workshop/discussion delves into some essential steps to ensure that next year's garden is even more successful.
Tool Care (Tuesday 10/3). Rob Fanno from Fanno Saw Works will tell us how to select and care for garden tools.
Biochar: Is It Worth It? (Wednesday 10/4). Learn what biochar is, what it can do for your soil, why it works, and when it doesn't.
Propagation (Monday 10/9). Learn when and how to propagate woody perennials and divide plants.
Growing Citrus Trees (Thursday 10/12). All about citrus: the best varieties for our region; planting, training, and caring for citrus; protecting citrus trees from frost; common pests and diseases to watch out for and control.
Blueberries, Raspberries, Blackberries, and Strawberries (Friday 10/20). Best methods for planting, growing and harvesting delicious berries.
Composting (Friday 10/27). This workshop covers a variety of approaches to creating compost, from simple to complex.
Neighborhood Habitat Certification (Saturday 11/4). Learn how your yard can contribute to the development of needed wildlife corridors in our community.
Plant an Acorn; Harvest a Community (Tuesday 11/7). Planting native oaks to support local creatures that depend on them for food and/or shelter not only helps out wildlife, but enriches our own lives as we contribute to an important ecosystem.
Espalier (Wednesday 11/8). Dive into the ancient horticultural practice of growing trees and bushes along a horizontal surface using supports. Focusing on fruit trees, this workshop provides all the information you need to get started.
Gardening for a Lifetime (Thursday 11/13). Practical advice about plants, labor-saving techniques, tools, and exercises to help us continue to garden successfully as we (inevitably) age.
Wildcrafting (Monday 11/20). Learn from experienced herbalist Jules Pecson of Fiona's Forest in Paradise as she discusses the practice of harvesting plants in their natural habitats and their uses in medicinal remedies, tinctures, and salves.
UC Master Gardeners of Butte County are part of the University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) system. To learn more about us and our upcoming events, and for help with gardening in our area visit our website. If you have a gardening question or problem, email the Hotline at mgbutte@ucanr.edu or leave a phone message on our Hotline at 530-552-5812. To speak to a Master Gardener about a gardening issue, or to drop by the MG office during Hotline hours, see the most current information on our Ask Us section of our website.
We Californians understand the concept of summer dormancy: “Those hills aren't brown, they're beautifully golden!” We know that the cycle of seasons plays out a bit more dramatically across our hot, dry countryside than in locales where the landscape might stay predictably green throughout the summer.
A visit to the Butte County Master Gardeners Demonstration Garden at the Patrick Ranch shows how various species hold up through a valley heat wave. Both the California Native garden and the Wildlife Habitat garden are zones planted solely with natives, and natives are incorporated into several of the other garden zones, including the Mediterranean garden and the Butte All-Stars. How do they look now at the height of summer? The California Native garden's collage of green, silver, and tawny shades; the varying heights and textures; and the abundant sprawl of stems, branches, and seedheads make a pleasing whole. Some specimens in the two native gardens look positively snappy—the manzanita ‘Louis Edmunds' (Arctostaphylos bakeri ‘Louis Edmunds'), the redbud (Cercis occidentalis), the canyon sagebrush (Artemisia californica ‘Canyon Gray'), and the coffeeberry ‘Eve Case' (Frangula californica ‘Eve Case') all look like their answer to heat is “no sweat.”
Most other species in the two native gardens look exactly as they should right now, exhibiting varying degrees of browning leaf edges, a mix of fresh and dried blooms, seedheads (some left unclipped for the birds), and fresh-to-fading greenery. The showy milkweed (Asclepias speciosa) and narrow-leafed milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis) display fat and burst pods, respectively. The wilting California rose (Rosa californica) is left un-deadheaded so it can develop its tiny hips. There are several different species of penstemon in the two gardens, with bloom times ranging from early spring to midsummer; they have finished flowering for the season, but are holding on valiantly to await another summer. The snapdragon bush (Keckiella antirrhinoides), coyote mint (Monardella villosa) and gum plant (Grindelia camporum) are well on their way to complete dormancy, right on schedule.
The watering regimen applied at these zones of native plants in the Demonstration Garden is a useful general guideline for drought-tolerant native species. We use a drip system with one two-gallon emitter on each specimen. We turn on irrigation in mid- to late June as the summer heats up, and water once every two weeks for 30 minutes, delivering around a gallon to each plant. Plants are watered throughout their first two summer seasons; for their first summer, newcomers planted in the fall or spring get additional hand-watering so they are watered weekly, and for the second summer, they receive the twice-monthly automated drip. After two summer cycles, emitters are removed from the most xeric specimens and they get no further scheduled irrigation. With this regular but spare watering, plants retain garden-worthy flowers and foliage longer than they would in the harsh outback.
When incorporating California natives into your own garden, follow these rules of thumb:
- Don't overwater. No amount of irrigation can coax a summer-dormant plant into bursting forth anew with fresh blooms and foliage. In fact, the best way to kill a heat-struck plant is to withhold water for weeks and then suddenly shock it with a midsummer flood. Take care to research the specific water needs for the particular plants in your own garden; not all natives are drought-tolerant.
- No stress, please. Peak summer is not the time for overzealous pruning or fertilizing, both of which can force the plant to put out new growth when it's least likely to survive. Deadhead spent blooms (or let seed heads develop for birds), but resist the urge to completely whack back leggy growth and browning foliage. You can tidy up in the fall.
- Mix it up. Many non-native garden favorites from compatible dry-summer climates have been cultivated over time to bear up under heat stress. By all means, mix natives with non-natives, perennials with annuals—just be sure to group plants with similar water needs together.
- Plan for succession. Early-season perennial bloomers, such as redbud, ceanothus, and bush lupines, give way to summer penstemons, salvias, yarrows, buckwheats, and a host of other beauties which provide color and interest well into late fall. Good places to start your research include the California Native Plant Society gardening website, and our UC Master Gardeners of Butte County website on Drought and Water-Wise Gardening.
A great choice for the home orchard is the Pluot, a plum-apricot hybrid. Pluots (pronounced plew-otts) are like plums in flavor and texture, but are sweeter and less acidic. Many pluot varieties are actually sweeter than either parent.
Pluots are easy to grow and contain Vitamin A, Vitamin C, potassium, and fiber, in addition to naturally-occurring phytonutrients and antioxidants. They contain no fat and are sodium free.
The plant breeder, Floyd Zaiger (of Zaiger's Genetics ) created the pluot in the late 1980s by backcrossing Luther Burbank's less-than-successful 19th-century plumcot with a plum . Some people assume that pluots must be genetically engineered but that is not the case. Those who avoid genetically modified foods need not fear: pluots were developed using traditional hand-pollinated horticultural methods.
There are two keys to success with pluots. First, it is important to consider the number of chill hours required by a pluot variety. Chill hours, indicated on the fruit tree tag, refer to the number of hours below 45 degrees Fahrenheit that a tree requires each dormant season in order to bloom and set fruit properly. Pluot chill hours vary from under 400 to about 800 but most varieties require between 400 and 600 chill hours, as do many peach varieties. Not surprisingly, most pluots do well in our area and there are even some varieties best suited for local microclimates.
The second crucial requirement for pluot success is a nearby pollinator. Pluots are not “self-fruitful,” which means they require an external pollinator to set fruit. Depending on the variety, a plum or another pluot planted within 100 feet will do the job. Check the fruit tag or talk to the nursery about which pollinator is required for the pluot variety you are considering.
Pluots require the same basic care as plum trees. For the first few years, provide adequate water, especially during the growing season, but after trees are established provide less frequent but deep irrigation. Mulch as often as necessary to block weeds around the base of the tree, and feed lightly twice a year (in early spring and late summer) with compost or a nitrogen fertilizer such as ammonium sulfate. Pluots are susceptible to aphid attacks and various fungal problems. For mild aphid infestation, simply use a hose to spray them off or a nontoxic neem oil or insecticidal soap spray; extreme cases may require a dormant oil spray to smother overwintering aphid eggs. Avoid fungal problems with a preventive approach: twice a year (in fall after leaf drop and early spring before buds swell), spray trees with lime-sulphur or copper. Fruit trees require pruning to stay healthy and produce plentiful and high quality fruit; don't be afraid to use pruning to keep your pluot tree extremely low so it's easy to reach the fruit.
Now is not the time to plant a pluot but it is the perfect time to do some research on the many types of pluots that might do well in your yard. From now until September, tasting the various types of pluots as they come into season will help you decide which varieties you might want in your own home orchard.
UC Master Gardeners of Butte County are part of the University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) system. To learn more about us and our upcoming events, and for help with gardening in our area visit our website. If you have a gardening question or problem, email the Hotline at mgbutte@ucanr.edu or leave a phone message on our Hotline at 530-552-5812. To speak to a Master Gardener about a gardening issue, or to drop by the MG office during Hotline hours, see the most current information on our Ask Us section of our website.
