By Carrie Strohl, UC Master Gardener of Napa County
Gardening has always been a great way to grow food, connect with nature and stay physically active, and these benefits are no different for children. Nonetheless, kids don't have the same abilities and attention span as adults, so keep the following tips in mind if you're gardening with young people or designing a garden for them.
Remember that kids are not adults! This is the most important takeaway from the book Gardening with Emma, Grow and Have Fun: A Kid-to-Kid Guide (Storey, 2019). The author, Emma Biggs, is just 13 years old. In this book, she confidently compares the features that adults value in a garden with the ways kids prefer to interact.
Whereas adults mostly want their gardens to look nice for other adults, kids want to “paint themselves with mud” and “pick unripe fruit.” Children will feel invited to engage and explore if the garden offers features that align with their perspectives. Three simple tips from Emma are: plant the right plants, do fun projects, and make spaces to play.
Kids of all ages love flowers. I could make an A-to-Z list of flowering plants, but let's just start with the ABCs: alyssum (Lobularia maritima), borage (Borago officinalis) and calendula (Calendula officinalis).
These three cool-season annual crops are all self-sowing; they drop seeds that produce plants the following year. Alyssum is a low-growing spreader with small white and purple flowers. Borage makes a blue-purple star-shaped flower, and its fuzzy leaves smell like cucumber. Calendula, a relative of sunflowers, makes orange and yellow daisy-like flowers with C-shaped seeds. Edible crops to plant in a children's garden alongside these three flowering plants include beans, peas, carrots, potatoes, popcorn and pumpkins, as well as annual herbs like basil and chives.
Kids love many perennial plants, too. Plants with common names related to animals come to mind, such as lamb's ear (Stachys byzantina), kangaroo paw (Anigozanthos manglesii) and lion's tail (Leonotis leonurus). All these plants have interesting form and foliage.
Sages of all types are easy to grow, but pineapple sage (Salvia elegans) or Jerusalem sage (Phlomis fruticosa) is a must-have for its scented leaves or nectar-filled flowers.
No matter which plants you choose for your children's garden, make sure they are safe, neither poisonous nor too prickly.
Perennial herbs such as lavender and rosemary can be used for projects like making lavender wands or rosemary cuttings. Re-use or re-purpose boxes, bottles and scraps of wood to create bird feeders, bug hotels and bee houses. These structures and other play areas are inviting to children.
A team of Master Gardeners has been keeping these ideas and design tips in mind lately because we hope to transform a 2,500-square-foot lawn into an interactive learning space for our community's youngest gardeners. As part of a larger collaboration between UC Master Gardeners of Napa County and the City of Napa Parks and Recreation, we are hopeful that theLas Flores Learning Garden (http://napamg.ucanr.edu/DemoGarden/) will include drought-tolerant plantings, food gardening and a dedicated children's area.
Drawing on our kid-tested or teacher-approved experience to refine our vision, the team keeps the end user in mind. Not only are we considering how children's needs differ from our adult ideas, but we are also trying to identify which children might use the space and how.
We've made a list of the most common features of children's gardens, inspired by botanical gardens and living museums we've visited, as well as from online photo galleries. We also ask the kids directly. Among the features they tell us they like: messy paths, interesting edible plants, a living wall, vines, places to sit, a fairy garden and succulents.
Although children are not the primary audience for the community work that UC Master Gardeners do (most horticultural research is a bit too advanced for youngsters), we do have access to substantial research on engaging children in outdoor spaces. We regularly consult these well-respected resources, including KidsGardening (https://bit.ly/3jjPlAI) which has a step-by-step design guide and numerous other resources.
You, too, can design a garden for children, whether it be in a backyard, at a daycare center or preschool, or in a public or private school setting. You can also keep up with our progress for the Las Flores Learning Garden on Napa. Visit usat: http://napamg.ucanr.edu/DemoGarden/.
Food Growing Forum: Napa CountyMaster Gardeners will present a discussion of “Pests in the Summer Garden” on Sunday, July 11, from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., via Zoom. Register here to receive the Zoom link: http://ucanr.edu/2021FoodForumJuly
Free Guided Tree Walk: Join Master Gardeners of Napa County for a tree walk in Fuller Park in Napa on Tuesday, July 13, from 10 a.m. to noon. Limited to 12 people per walk. COVID safety protocols will be followed. You will be asked health questions and asked to sign in. Face masks and social distancing are required. Register here.
Workshop: Napa County Master Gardeners will conduct a workshop on “The Art of Growing Succulents” on Saturday, July 17, from 10 a.m to noon, via Zoom. Learn how to care for these unique, colorful and unthirsty members of the plant community. Reserve here: http://ucanr.edu/2021SucculentsJuly
Got Garden Questions? Contact our Help Desk. The team is working remotely so please submit your questions through our diagnosis form, sending any photos to mastergardeners@countyofnapa.org or leave a detailed message at 707- 253-4143. A Master Gardener will get back to you by phone or email.
For more information visit http://napamg.ucanr.edu or find us on Facebook or Instagram, UC Master Gardeners of Napa County.
Dahlias!
In my opinion, there is no more striking addition to a garden than dahlias. With their vibrantly colored, large blooms and curled petals, they demand attention.
I have had dahlias before, but this is my first year growing them from tubers. They come in almost any color you could want and in sizes ranging from a few inches across to the diameter of a dinner plate (and actually called “dinner-plate dahlias”). I finally decided on a flashy cultivar with yellow and red stripes called ‘Sunrise Mango.'
What explains such diversity? Dahlias, as it turns out, have a more complex and variable genetic structure than most other flowers, leading to impressive variety. There are 42 different species and at least 57,000 different cultivars. The International Registry of Dahlia Names keeps track of them.
Before horticulturalists began breeding dahlias for ornamental purposes, the plants were grown for food by the Aztecs, who ate the tuberous roots. Today, the roots are still used in Oaxacan cooking, and an extract obtained from them is a common addition to Central American beverages. Don't go chopping up your dahlia tubers just yet, though. The ones you get from your local nursery have been cultivated for appearance, not flavor, and will likely not be to your taste.
The flowering portion of the dahlia is also unusual. Known as a "composite" bloom, it holds not one but many flowers. The multiple small flowers, called florets, are often mistakenly identified as petals. Lacking much fragrance, the plants use these showy blooms to attract pollinators.
When planting dahlias, choose a site with plenty of sun and good soil. Gentle morning sun is best. Warm, well-drained soil is another must. Make sure the planting area is not overly wet (light dampness is okay), and the soil temperature is at least 60°F. Cold, wet soil can cause tubers to rot.
Dig a planting hole four to six inches deep and slightly wider than the tuber. Do not add compost, fertilizer or potting soil containing fertilizer. Instead, sprinkle about a tablespoon of bone meal in the bottom of each planting hole. Thenplace the tuber sideways in the hole with the "eyes" facing up. Stems will grow from these eyes.
Do not water after planting. The natural moisture in the soil will suffice. When the sprouts are four to six inches tall, begin watering deeply once or twice a week.
Young dahlias are frost sensitive, so protect them if frost is predicted. Begin fertilizing when you begin watering, using a fertilizer with more phosphorus and potassium than nitrogen, such as one labeled 5-10-10. Too much nitrogen (the first number listed on the fertilizer package) can cause weak plants with few blooms, or even kill the tuber. Phosphorus and potassium, on the other hand, will help produce strong plants with plentiful flowers. Dahlias generally bloom about eight weeks after planting, or around mid-summer.
Bark is generally a good groundcover for gardens but not around dahlias. Mulching with bark might keep the ground too cool and damp and raise soil acidity, conditions dahlias don't like.
Avoid fungal diseases, common to dahlias, by planting in a location with well-drained soil and plenty of sun. Slugs and snails love dahlias. Handpick them at night when they are most active. If you're not up for a flashlight-enabled search and destroy mission, try placing a small piece of wood or an overturned flower pot in your garden. Snails and slugs will use it as a daytime hiding spot, and you can remove them then.
Aphids, thrips and spider mites can also badger dahlias. When encountering an infestation, I use my garden hose to gently spray off as many as possible. I follow this with an application of Neem oil, a natural treatment for many garden maladies. The oil suffocates pests and fungi but does not harm plants or people. Ladybugs, lacewings and predatory wasps also provide some control and are available at local nurseries. Children love releasing and watching ladybugs.
In Napa Valley, you can leave dahlias in the ground over winter. To give them some extra protection from cold, place a two-inch-thick mound of mulch over each tuber. Remove the mulch in the spring to allow the soil to warm again and encourage sprouting.
Over time dahlia tubers will divide and can become crowded. If you sense that this is happening, gently lift the tubers in fall, about two weeks after a frost. Then store them in paper bags in a cool, dry place until the following spring. Before replanting, divide the tubers, leaving at least one “eye” on each piece.
If you are ready to try your hand at dahlia growing, or just want to know more, please plant to attend the upcoming Master Gardener seminar "All About Dahlias." Details are below.
Master Gardeners are volunteers who help the University of California reach the gardening public with home gardening information. U. C. Master Gardeners of Napa County ( http://ucanr.edu/ucmgnapa/) are available to answer gardening questions in person or by phone, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 9 a.m. to Noon, at the U. C. Cooperative Extension office, 1710 Soscol Avenue, Suite 4, Napa, 707-253-4143, or from outside City of Napa toll-free at 877-279-3065. Or e-mail your garden questions by following the guidelines on our web site. Click on Napa, then on Have Garden Questions? Find us on Facebook under UC Master Gardeners of Napa County.