Life is good. Really. November in the Northstate Garden sums up everything I love about living and gardening here – rich colors, abundant flowers and edibles, perfect weather – yes, even the rain - and nice people. After this past season of fire, economic chaos and seemingly endless politics – November in the Northstate is nothing short of a miracle.

On a crisp November morning, stand with a warming sun shining down upon you –in the middle of the Sundial Bridge in Redding watch the anglers and school children indulging in the beauty of one of our mighty rivers. Walk through the dappled sunlight beneath the sheltering trees of Chico’s Bidwell Park bikers and morning parents with children going this way and that. Walk the Feather River Fish Ladder in Oroville to see the salmon and steelhead struggling to make their way home. Hike Mount Lassen or the Trinity Alps. Take the drive to Lake Almanor. The greater Northstate Garden is one of the best inspirations by far for our own Northstate Garden.

In my garden – the leaves are beginning to change, some further gone than others. Persimmons hang fat and iridescent on the branches – sweetening up with the cool nights. I am cutting back the dead and the spent, top-dressing my beds with compost mulch. Some of the compost is from my own compost bin and spreading that always feels satisfyingly self-sufficient. Some people are sad at this particular cutting back of the year, but for me it feels freeing, things have gotten a bit overgrown and it’s time. And while we Northstate gardeners get to enjoy all four seasons we also get to enjoy the fact that while some things are now entering winter dormancy, others are just breaking their summer dormancy. Don’t be too quick to cut back plants that are still actively flowering – on these cold-morning/warm afternoons days the pollinating bees, butterflies moths and hummingbirds are still very active and they will reward your patience.
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Friday October 17th In a Northstate Garden hosted a one-hour call-in special edition entitled:Landscaping Against Fire. Guest experts Calli-Jane Burch, Executive Director of the Butte County Fire-Safe Council, and Glenn Nader, Natural Resources Advisor, University of California County Extension and co-author of a UC publication entitled “Home Landscaping for Fire,” joined us for the program.

The whole idea of landscaping against fire is a complex and yet important one. In the face fire – the likes of which Butte County saw in the Humboldt fire, for example - not many plants (or houses) stood a chance if they were in the direct path of the fire storm or the burning embers that preceded it. And short of planting your property knee deep in concrete – very little landscaping is 100% Fire Proof. When we talk about landscaping against fire, we are really talking about strategies for diminishing the chances that your landscape will make a wildfire worse and diminishing the chances that your landscape will help to lead a wildfire to your house.

We all garden and landscape for our own set of reasons: we like to garden, we want to creat a wind break or shade our house, we want privacy from neighbors or a sound break from a busy road, or perhaps we want o create habitat for wildlife. For most of us, living in Northern California is as much about the beauty of the region as anything else and, frankly, Northern California is prone to fire. We have a well established and serious fire season and so in moving here we tacitly agree to a certain amount of risk from fire. For most landscapes of the American west, fire has been an important part of the ecological cycle and as such is critical to the health of the ecological balance of things. Rejuvenating and cleansing, fire is a long-time part of the culture of native peoples. However, fire is also incredibly destructive to the people who live here.

A great deal of research and data has been compiled by a variety of sources to help people who choose to live in fire prone areas make decisions about how to diminish their risk of total loss of house and home from seasonal wildfires. When making designs and decisions about how to plant - including the Defensible Space, the Ignition Zones around your home- what to plant and how to properly maintain your grounds, it is absolutely worthwhile to do your research and make educated choices.

In doing my own research, one of the things that struck me as so heartening from a gardener’s perspective is that the health and “hygiene” of our garden is every bit as important - and perhaps even more - important than how or what you plant - within reason. So simple seasonal clean-up of dead leaves in and around your garden as well as in gutters, and pruning of dead branches - especially lower branches of mature trees, seasonal mowing of dry grasses and regular water on garden areas immediately adjacent to your house are good places to start!

For more information on the history and work of the Butte Fire Safe Council, links to other local Fire Safe Councils, and access to many fire related publications, please visit their site: www.buttefiresafe.org/

To find a Fire Safe Council near you: www.firesafecouncil.org/

For Glenn Nader’s publication on Home Landscaping for Fire, as well as other publications about fire safety, visit the UC Davis publication catalogue: http://anrcatalogue.ucdavis.edu/

For a good website on types of plants and their various levels of flammability, check out Las Pilatas, a native plant nursery: www.laspilatas.com

For Master Gardener Help and Recommendations about Landscaping With Fire in Mind:
www.csrees.usda.gov/newsroom/news/2008news/07101_wildfire.html

Since 1917 a plant nursery has lived on the site where Native Grounds Nursery & Garden Center in Mount Shasta City now thrives. For 91 years people of the Northstate have journeyed to this same pine-tree-sheltered spot on Mount Shasta Boulevard as you enter the small mountain town of Mount Shasta City to buy their plants, their soil, their seeds. Dating back to the original nursery, a hefty, gnarled old Wisteria vine winds its way through one of the tall pines and blooms its heart out every spring. “People stop and ask us what that purple flowering pine is,” say Native Grounds Nursery owners Lori Oliver and Terez Maniatis. A little stone house, once home to the original nursery’s founding family, sits just to the left of the Wisteria festooned pine stand and at the heart of the bustling Native Grounds site. The site is actually home to three businesses owned and run by Oliver and Maniatis: the year-round Mt. Shasta Florist, as well as the Native Grounds Nursery Garden Center and Native Grounds landscaping.

Oliver and Maniatis began their business life in the gardening world in 1993 with a small landscape design and build company also called Native Grounds. When the old Mt. Shasta Nursery & Florist came up for sale in the late 90s, the women jumped at the chance. “It has always been a dream of ours to own a nursery,” Terez told me. “We wanted to be able to grow a lot of our own plants to our own high, organic and sustainable standards - to be able to provide our clients with a wider selection of interesting plants - to model and keep educating our clients and customers about the benefits of organic and sustainable gardening products and practices. To be even more involved in the gardening cycle.”

The modeling of more sustainable practices started right when Oliver and Maniatis took over the nursery in 2000. They had to safely dispose of “truckloads” of older, toxic chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. At the same time, they brought a full-line of organic soil supplements and plant foods into the garden center. They moved their design/build and maintenance landscaping business onto the nursery grounds and renamed the nursery Native Grounds. While they also own and run the florist business on the same piece of property, they left its name as the Mt. Shasta Florist. Mt. Shasta Florist, which now carries many organic or sustainably grown cut flowers, and Native Grounds Landscaping remain open year-round, while Native Grounds Nursery & Garden Center closes from the end of October to the first of April.

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October in the Northstate garden is a sigh of relief. A deep cleansing breath. It’s a wonderful in between time of year - the heat has subsided, the rains are returning, but the garden is not yet done. It’s colors are deepening and mellow, the softening sun warms the days long enough still that I don’t yet feel clipped by waking to pitch dark or early nightfall. Turning the clocks back is still one month away. I am happy to be out in the garden but no longer so pressured by it. Plenty of garden chores want doing - but they lack the do or die urgency of Spring and Summer. Watering, weeding and planting are once again relaxed, and contemplative. You can see the forest for the trees again and think ahead about your bigger plan.

It is easy to see from the Gardening related Events happening in October that other gardeners also feel this reduced urgency in their own gardens. Their excess energy and enthusiasm is clearly going into the many upcoming gatherings, festivals, tours, and lectures. As a gardener, you could be attending events from one end of the Northstate to the other almost every day in October and not get to them all.

Some of these events include the following: The Paradise Garden Club is organizing an effort to plant 10,000 daffodil bulbs in areas of the ridge burned in the summer Fires. The club will have a table at the Johnny Appleseed Days celebration in Paradise this weekend October 4th and 5th. A donation of $25 will help them purchase 100 bulbs. October 4th in Redding the McConnell Arboretum and Gardens at Turtle Bay is hosting a Walk This Way! free day in the park as well as their Fall Plant sale. On October 11th, the Red Bluff Garden Club is hosting their annual luncheon - open to the public - this year entitled Fall Fantasy and featuring floral designer Nancy Colvin. The Sierra –Oro Farm Trail Weekend will also be October 11th and 12th featuring a slow food lunch at two sites. On October 18th, in Redding the McConnell Arboretum and Gardens at Turtle Bay will have an Ornamental Grasses in the Garden workshop as part of their on-going Core Gardening series. For a detailed listing of garden related events in the Northstate in October, click here. Photo Above: Daffodil illustration by Paradise Garden Club member Sally Lee. The original drawing will be raffled off at Johnny Appleseed Days.

Also in October - I am proud to announce the release of the In a Northstate Garden 2009 Wall Calendar. The calendar has a lovely art-press feel to it and is full of the advice, anecdotes and images from a range of the stunning Northstate Gardens we visited and the Northstate Gardeners we met over the past year. All proceeds from the sale of the calendar go to help support the production of In a Northstate Garden’s weekly program. The calendar can be yours as a thank you for donating to Northstate Public Radio at kfpr.org or kcho.org. The calendar will also be for sale in many fine nurseries and shops throughout the region by October 20th. For a full listing of the Wonderful Northstate establishments carrying the 2009 Calendar,click here.

The Farmers Almanac tells us that the full moon this month falls on October 14th and is called the Full Hunters Moon or the Full Dying Grass Moon – although I am hoping some of my grass will be greening up again soon. Photo above: Moon over an Orland Farm.

Until next week, enjoy October in your Northstate Garden.