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A summary of information from expert UC advisors on how to best prepare your home garden landscape for wildfire safety. Defensible space explained and recommendations for how to design and maintain our homes and adjacent property in ways that reduce their vulnerability to wildfire but also provide critically…
Most gardeners plant blueberries to reap the rewards of the delicious fruits, but they are often planted as an ornamental for the benefit of their attractive foliage and shrubby form.
By Joe Michalek, Sonoma County Master Gardener Every spring the nurseries stock their benches with an assortment of frost tender vegetable plants just waiting for the customers who want to get an early start in their garden.
Mild tasting with a slightly nutty flavor, mche makes a pleasant addition to salads. Considered a gourmet green today, this humble plant was harvested centuries ago as a weed growing between rows of grain crops in Europe where it became known as corn salad.
When Sonoma County gardens seem drab with late-season blahs, the sweet odor of winter Daphne odora punctures the gloom and makes the garden feel welcoming once again. Daphne odora (winter daphne) has perhaps the most strongly scented flowers of all daphnes.
For years, heucheras that grew natively in woodland and mountain areas of the Americas served gardens mainly as dependable ground covers and neat perennial borders. Hummingbirds as well as gardeners have long loved the blossoms.
Kohlrabi, a member of the Brassicaceae (cabbage) family, is little-known to home gardeners despite its easy culture and versatile use when cooked or enjoyed raw. Its flavor and texture have been compared both to turnips and water chestnuts for its crunch stir fried, as a relish, or in salads.
Coriandrum sativum is a tender annual herb whose fresh leaves are known as cilantro and dried seeds are known as coriander. Every part of the plant is edible and especially useful in East Indian, Asian, Mediterranean, and Latin cuisines.
Sonoma County gardeners may feel that reaping fresh, cool-weather crops is a bonus after the summer-autumn harvest, but many crops thrive best in our mild, wet, Mediterranean winters. With careful timing and plant selection, the harvest may continue into early spring.
Physocarpus is commonly called ninebark for the exfoliating layers of bark that slowly peel away on older branches. Over time, reddish to light brown inner layers are exposed, becoming most noticeable in winter after leaf drop. In spring, burgundy new stems at branch tips erupt with dense foliage.
