Sometimes I stand at that magic circle near the center of my garden and admire the complex perennial borders overflowing with colorful, the glistening fruit and vegetables resplendent on their vines, and cooling sight of a lush well-managed lawn: I think to myself with pride - now this is a fine garden.

Of course - this grandiose moment of smug self-satisfaction lasts just a little longer than 30 seconds. It does not, I repeat: does not, take place anytime from 11 am to 5 pm any day in July or August. If it happens at all - which is a stretch of the imagination - it occurs fleetingly in the forgiving light of early May or possibly during an afternoon in mid-November. It certainly was not my sensation on returning to my garden after two weeks away in mid-July. Rather there I stood - feeling fairly defeated, surveying the damage wondering does a gardener live here??? I tried to remember the advice of a friend’s father: In the hot months you just have to hold on for dear life - the heat will subside and reasonable hope for easier gardening will return. Until then, water and wait. Photo: Vitex agnus-castus, or chaste tree, loves the heat.

Some bright spots exist: Black-eyed susans and crepe myrtles love this time of year, my cucumbers, tomatoes and basil all taste good, even if the plants themselves are not going to win any beauty contests, and the mid- to late-summer blooming bulbs – lilies and tuberoses – are coming on.

Few dedicated gardeners looking at their gardens in the harsh light of mid-day in August, feel confident they are doing everything right. The searing heat bleaches all color and vigor from us and our many of our plants. In this yearly crisis of confidence I think to myself: I should know so much more. Photo: Fragrant herbs such as these scented geraniums, like regular water but love the heat.

Maybe if I became a real Master Gardener I would know more? The good news is that despite a fear that the Shasta College Master Gardener Program was in danger of being cut due to the budget crisis, the program will run as usual this fall. Furthermore, the Butte County Master Gardener program is now accepting applications for their next training session. Call 530-538-7201 for an application package. Applications are due by mid-September, candidates will be chosen by mid-October and classes will begin Thursdays in January of 2010. Photo: Tuberose buds about to open into very fragrant blooms.

If you can’t commit to an entire Master Gardener Training program - we are a region blessed by botanic gardens, garden clubs, plant societies and good nurseries who do all they can to help us the home gardener continue to learn more about gardening. While many of these groups take a hiatus from regular meetings in mid-summer, they are all gearing back up and have great fall programs planned.

On August 15th the UC Davis Arboretum has a guided tour of California Native Plants for the garden, on August 22 The McConnell Arboretum and Gardens at Turtle Bay has a talk on drought resistant plantings with Horticulture Manager Lisa Endicott; The Red Bluff Garden Club resumes regular meetings on August 25th as does the Butte Rose Society. PLEASE NOTE: due to ongoing budget cuts, take careful note of where your gardening or plant groups are meeting in the coming months. I know for instance that both the Chico Horticulture Society and the Butte Rose Society have made changes to their meeting locations or times. Photo: Most succulents love the heat.

More details and many more gardening related events around the region can be found at the Monthly Calendar of Regional Gardening Events. If you have an event you’d like to see posted: send me an email Jennifer @jewellgarden.com.

In a North State Garden is a radio- and web-based outreach program of the Gateway Science Museum - Exploring the Natural History of the North State, based in Chico, CA. In a North State Garden celebrates the art, craft and science of home gardening in California’s North State region, and is conceived, written, photographed and hosted by Jennifer Jewell - all rights reserved jewellgarden.com. In A North State Garden airs on Northstate Public Radio KCHO/KFPR radio, Saturday mornings at 7:34 AM Pacific time and Sunday morning at 8:34 AM Pacific time. Podcasts of past shows are available here. Weekly essays are also posted on anewscafe.com a regional news source that is positively North State.

Fresh cut flowers from the garden are arguably one of the garden’s greatest joys. The are lovely, they feel luxurious and all in all they are economical. I am a cut-whatever’s-blooming-put-it-in-a-vase kind of person, and when they are available, I like to put little vases anywhere I can - on my bedside table, my childrens’ dressers, the dining room table, the counter by the kitchen sink - anywhere I can see them and smile for their being there. I am not particularly fussy: I try to remember to trim the leaves from the bottom of the stems, I sort of adjust the blossoms based on their color and height so that they come together in a generally pleasing way - and I am very happy. However, when I see the work of a good floral designer, I instinctively know the difference between my casual grouping of flowers and their artistic crafting of an arrangement. I am always amazed at how many GOOD florists are in our region, but I distinctly remember the sensation when I walked into the Enloe Foundation Gala earlier this year in Chico. I saw the soaring and floating floral displays and thought: Now that is the work of an artist. Photo: Cut flowers fresh from the garden - waiting to be arranged.

Gerry Gregg, AIFD, co-owner with his wife Carol of the The Flower Market in Chico was the designer responsible for those floral arrangements. Gerry is long-time and award-winning floral designer who regularly participates in international shows and publications with his floral designs, including the annual Las Floristas Headdress Ball at the Hotel Beverly Hills in Beverly Hills, California. Gerry is originally from the Chico area and after several years of living in more urban environments, returned to the area in the last year with his wife Carol to open their own business. Photo: Gerry Gregg, AIFD - at The Flower Market in Chico.
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I grew up spending several weeks each summer with my parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles in a small town on the rocky Rhode Island coast. In that breezy seaside climate, with sun and salt-air, the July and August roadsides and farmsteads were extravagantly adorned with the big, brash, bold and brazen blooms of hydrangeas. So-called mophead hydrangeas, lacecap hydrangeas and climbing hydrangeas were everywhere nodding their cheerful blue, pink and white heads. Now, mostly through association, hydrangeas are firmly in my top ten favorite garden flowers - they speak to me of summer vacation: of laughter and seashells, ice-cream cones and lighthouses, lightening bugs and late mornings with sandy sheets. Hyrdangeas are - simply put - happy. Photo: Blue lacecap hydrangeas (Hydrangea macrophylla) along a stone wall in Little Compton, Rhode Island.

Hydrangeas are ancient plants and fossils of hydrangea foliage in the southeastern United States date back to the early tertiary period of our planet’s history. In contemporary times, they happily grow in almost any township with water from Maine to Florida, New York to California, Washington State to Southern California. They are cheerfully ubiquitous. And all this speaks volumes about their hardiness. They can take sun, wind and bitter winter cold. They don’t mind the burning salt air, and they can even take some drought once established - but one thing they don’t like to live without is what the coasts have year-round: humidity. Which might make you wonder how well they will do in the relatively dry and reliably hot North State? Photo: Climbing hydrangeas (Hydrangea petiolaris) along an old outbuilding in Little Compton, Rhode Island.

Chico home gardener, Daran Goodsell and the 20 various hydrangeas that flourish in her Chico garden are here to tell you that hydrangeas like the North State Garden just fine. Photo: Cheerful pink mophead hydrangeas (Hydrangea Macrophylla) and the white panicle of an oakleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) in Daran and Dan Goodsell’s Chico garden.

Daran and her husband Dan have been working on their current garden for about 5 years. When they moved in, Daran knew the backyard was ideal for hydrangeas because of its eastern exposure, which would allow for 4 -5 hours of morning light, and its many high trees, which would provide dappled mid-day light. She brought just one hydrangea with her from her old garden, but she was determined to get more. With this hydrangea expansion in mind, she and Dan prepared their backyard beds accordingly. “The soil is so important to hydrangeas,” Daran tells me, “they need nutrient rich soil and regular water, but they do not like to have wet feet.” To provide the right drainage, the Goodsells double dug their garden beds to loosen the soil more than two feet down, and then added 1 foot of new compost to the mix. This high concentration of organic matter mimics that of the woodland floor to which hydrangeas are native in East Asia and North and South America. Photo: Daran Goodsell among her hydrangeas.

In addition to the careful soil preparation, Daran feeds her hydrangeas two times a year, right before their bloom cycle and then as needed throughout the season. “You’ll know when they need a boost,” she tells me. “Their leaves will look yellow or heavily veined.” Daran uses an organic hydrangea/camellia (which is slightly acidic) food sold at nurseries. Finally, once a year, she top dresses her plants with a new 1-inch layer of compost to keep the soil loose and rich. Photo: The luminous creamy panicle of a mature oakleaf hydrangea (H. quercifolia) complementing the deep burgundy of a japanese maple in Daran Goodsell’s garden.

After the soil prep, regular water was the next consideration. Daran and Dan allowed for two kinds of water to the hydrangea beds: drip for the regular deep watering, and small mister heads to get humidity-like moisture to the foliage “especially on our hot, hot summer days,” says Daran. She waters her plants from May - October and does water them once a day in our hottest summer stretch. She then turns the misters on mid-day or early afternoon briefly for that shot of cooling moisture to the leaves. Hydrangeas are pretty thirsty plants, Daran stresses. “If watering or drainage is an issue - the way to go is containers,” Daran tells me. Photo: One of the hydrangea borders at the Goodsell garden.

Hydrangeas are a genus of more than 80 species and many, many cultivars and hyrbids of evergreen and deciduous shrubs and climbers. Native North American hydrangeas include: Hydrangea arborescens also known as smooth hydrangea, which is native to the eastern United States as far west as Iowa, and Hydrangea quercifolia, or oakleaf hydrangea, which is native to the southern US. While hydrangeas rarely grow as trees, the Hydrangea paniculata ‘Grandiflora’ - also known as the ‘Pee Gee’ Hydrangea, is often grown limbed up (with all lower branches removed to expose a main trunk) as a small tree. Hydrangea macrophylla is perhaps the most common species, and includes the common “mophead” and “lacecap” forms - often with their cotton-candy colors of blue or pink. Hydrangeas can run reddish, purple, blue or pink based on amount of available aluminum in their soil and aluminum is made available to the plants based on the acidity of the soil. To a certain extent, you can affect their color using soil supplements to alter the acidity. In general, white forms of hydrangeas will remain white in any soil, although some ‘white’ forms move from creamy to pinkish through the season. Photo: The red stem of H. macrophylla ‘Lady in Red’. The red stem holds winter interest much like red twig dogwood (Cornus sericea).

Hydrangea flower heads are actually large collections of small flowers - the most showy ones are sterile and the little fuzzy-looking ones in the center or underneath are the fertile flowers. These collections of flower heads, known as corymbs, come in various shapes and sizes from the flat form of the lacecaps and climbers (Hydrangea petiolaris) to the domed and rounded heads of the mopheads to the elongated panicles of the oakleaves and paniculatas. Daran likes the oakleaf hydrangeas best for beginning growers because they do not go fully deciduous and they have great burnished red fall color. “You just can’t kill them,” she assures me. Photo: A close up showing the sterile flat white flowers on a hydrangea corymb with the fertile flower heads below.

To keep your hydrangea plants in good form, prune the stems that flowered last year down to the first set of double leaves on the branch. You can prune right after blooms are done or you can leave the flower heads through the winter for winter interest. As cut flowers, it is hard to beat a hydrangea for drama, but they can be finicky and one will wilt right away while another will hold its bloom for weeks or even dry in the vase and be lovely as a dried flower. Some people recommend burning the end of the flower stem to seal the moisture into the stem, others advocate cutting the stem at a steep angle or even mashing the end of the stem to allow it to absorb as much water as possible. Photo: A purple form lacecap.

Currently, three sides of the Goodsell’s back garden are lined with hydrangeas. The common blue mophead blooms happily alongside the specialty varieties. Daran likes hydrangeas as much for their interesting foliage as for their stunning blooms - and her garden has three gray, white and green variegated plants as well as a coveted tri-color, which has white, yellow and green leaf markings. The star of the show (pardon the pun) when I visited in early summer was perhaps the ‘Starburst’ hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescens ‘Haye’s Starburst’), whose delicate double-sterile flower heads are borne on varying length stems giving the impression of a shooting star. Gorgeous. Photo: Hydrangea arborescens ‘Haye’s Starburst’ in Daran’s garden.

Daran has orders in for at least four more hydrangeas she has read about about now “must have.” Dan, a former potter whose artistic work can be seen throughout their house and garden and whose old kiln bricks make up their garden patio, is in charge of garden hardscape - and something tells me he is going to be busy building and digging this fall. Photos: (Right) The variegation on Daran’s Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Variegata’, and (Left) her Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Tri-Color’.

In a North State Garden is a radio- and web-based outreach program of the Gateway Science Museum - Exploring the Natural History of the North State, based in Chico, CA. In a North State Garden celebrates the art, craft and science of home gardening in California’s North State region, and is conceived, written, photographed and hosted by Jennifer Jewell - all rights reserved jewellgarden.com. In A North State Garden airs on Northstate Public Radio KCHO/KFPR radio, Saturday mornings at 7:34 AM Pacific time and Sunday morning at 8:34 AM Pacific time. Podcasts of past shows are available here. Weekly essays are also posted on anewscafe.com a regional news source that is positively North State.

This segment of In a North State Garden was originally recorded and written in July of 2008. Now more than two years old, edible Shasta- Butte gets better and covers more territory with each issue. The most recent issue - Summer 2009 - hit stands in late June, so with the fullness of summer’s fruit and vegetable bounty upon us, it seemed timely to re-run this segment. Congratulations on two great years, edible Shasta-Butte. Many Happy Returns!

Take “real food, community and sustainability,” season it with almost pornographically voluptuous photography of local foods, pair it with refreshingly well-crafted and interesting stories about the people who grow, raise, make or sell local food, and you will have something close to an issue of edible Shasta-Butte. (http://www.edibleshastabutte.com) “A local business celebrating the abundance of local foods, season by season,” founded by husband and wife team Earl Bloor and Candace Byrne.
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One of the well-documented ironies of being an avid (read: obsessed) gardener is that many of the things we love about gardens – their peacefulness and their beauty, are the very things that elude as gardeners in OUR OWN GARDENS. Jokes are easy to make about the gardener who can’t see their own garden for its weeds, can’t sit down and enjoy their own garden because there is just the one more thing to do – right over there – right now. I’ll sit down and relax right after I get that one thing done. HA! As well all know, one thing leads to you noticing one more and one more and so on. It can be difficult to sit down, relax and enjoy your own garden and the rejuvenating therapy you designed it to provide. Photo: Hyssop or Agastache, a fragrant and reliable summer bloomer that does not want a lot of summer water.

Gardeners are generally a happy lot however – even if we can’t sit still. Chico allergy specialist Anton Dotson, MD of Allergy Associates tipped me off to one possible source of this happiness: according to a study done at the University of Bristol in England, a beneficial bacteria known as mycobacterium vaccae, which is naturally present in the soil, increases a person’s seratonin and norepinephrin levels – much like antidepressant medication. Dr. Chris Lowry, lead author on the paper from Bristol University, said: “These studies leave us wondering if we shouldn’t all be spending more time playing in the dirt.” – and yes, Dr. Lowry. Yes, we should.

But perhaps those of us who already play in the dirt a lot, should try to relax a bit as well. If your summer vacation is a staycation at home – by all means play in the dirt, but consider taking an hour or two to pretend that you’re visiting someone else’s garden. Sit back and let the dragon flies and hummingbirds mesmerize you, drink in the sound of the songbirds, consider the sway of the grasses around you and the rustle of leaves in the tree branches above you. Let the heat slow you down. Read a book, take a nap. Curling up and pulling back is what even the best heat loving plants do in the heat of the day – why not us?

If you need some good summer garden book recommendations - here’s a brief list of ones I like, old and new. The should all be available by calling an independent bookstore near you, for instance Lyon Books in Chico (530-891-3338), or by visiting your local library.

The Steamy, Adventurous and Generally Entertaining: Hothouse Flower and the 9 Plants of Desire, by Margot Berwin; 2009, Pantheon Books.

The Lovely and Sweet: Mrs Whaley and Her Charleston Garden, by Emily Whaley and William Baldwin; 1997, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.

The Well-Written, Observant and Humorous: Second Nature: a gardener’s education, by Michael Pollan; 1991, Delta Books.

The Thoughtful and Sublime: In the Eye of the Garden, by Mirabel Osler; 1993, J M Dent, Ltd.

The Fascinating: Flower Confidential, by Amy Stewart; 2008, Algonquin Books. (Stewart has a new book out entitled Wicked Plants, which I have heard very good things about, but I have not yet read. I will let you know when I do.)

The Bite-Sized and Fascinating: The Curious Gardener’s Almanac, by Niall Edworthy; 2006, Perigree Books.

Summer heat lovers are now lighting up the garden with extravagant and sometimes outrageous blooms. The heat-tender have retreated to the background - some more gracefully than others. Watering, deadheading, weeding are our primary tasks – along with enjoying the fruits and vegetables starting to come in by the basketful. Some of your heavy bloomers or crop producers would benefit from a mid-summer shot of organic fertilizer, a new mulch of compost or worm castings. This is a good time to prune spring-blooming or early summer-blooming shrubs and to cut back the foliage on spent bulbs.

Many garden clubs and groups lay low in the summer but the native plant societies, nurseries and public gardens have a lot on offer this month: on July 11 in Redding The McConnell Arboretum and Gardens hosts a workshop on Garden Photography; on July 18 the UC Davis Arboretum hosts a guided tour of water-smart plants, on July 25th in Chico you could go to a Worm Composting Workshop hosted by the Gateway Science Museum in the morning and then still have time to get to the Plant Barn’s annual Summer Soiree with flower floozy food and fun all day. July 3 – August 11th are considered the Dog Days of Summer and the full moon falls on the 7th. More information on these events and many more can be found in the Monthly Calendar of Gardening Events. Have an event you would like listed? Send me an email with all relevant information: Jennifer@jewellgarden.com.

In a North State Garden is a radio- and web-based outreach program of the Gateway Science Museum - Exploring the Natural History of the North State, based in Chico, CA. In a North State Garden celebrates the art, craft and science of home gardening in California’s North State region, and is conceived, written, photographed and hosted by Jennifer Jewell - all rights reserved jewellgarden.com. In A North State Garden airs on Northstate Public Radio KCHO/KFPR radio, Saturday mornings at 7:34 AM Pacific time and Sunday morning at 8:34 AM Pacific time. Podcasts of past shows are available here. Weekly essays are also posted on anewscafe.com a regional news source that is positively North State.