Garden clubs – like gardeners and gardens – are all unique. They have their own stories, their own missions - indeed, their own personalities. Shasta Lake Garden Project is no exception. While many clubs focus on gardening and horticultural education and outreach – the Shasta Lake Garden Project is all about civic pride and beautification.

Shasta Lake Garden Project as an idea germinated in the late 1990s – just a few years after the area’s 1993 incorporation. Project founder Lynni Miller could no longer stand to look out her window from work and see an old “weed patch” running down (literally and figuratively) the center of Shasta Dam Boulevard in the City of Shasta Lake. In her mind it should and could be a flourishing garden. She gathered a group of like-minded women and began brainstorming on how to raise funds to improve the site and from that day to this the group has become a member of California Garden Clubs, Inc., fluctuated between 10 and 20 members, developed and raised funds for multiple gardens around town, and every year hold traditional High-Tea and Garden Tour fundraisers to support their projects. Photo: Shasta Lake Garden Project Member’s (from left to right) Betty Head, Lynni Miller and RoseMary Walter in their Clock Tower Garden on Shasta Dam Boulevard. (more…)

Fall is the time to plant trees in the North State and a special edition of In a North State Garden aired this past Thursday, October 22nd, specifically discussing choosing, planting, and caring for trees in your North State garden. Two guest experts joined me to answer your tree questions and to discuss trees in the garden in general. It was a fascinating conversation, and I hope to have the podcast of the show up at Jewellgarden.com in a week or so. Photo: The gnarled evocative branches of an old oak tree.
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Northstate Public Radio - KFPR 88.9 FM Redding, CA and KCHO 91.7 FM Chico, CA is in the midst of their Fall 2009 Membership Drive and the theme of the drive is: Branching Out! During the drive, regular programming is replaced with special programming and I will be hosting a special, one-hour, live call-in edition of In a North State Garden this coming Thursday the 22nd of October from 10 - 11 am, featuring two special North State guests talking with us about trees in the North State garden. While you can only touch on a tiny amount of information pertaining to such a vast topic in the course of an hour, our conversation will try to cover some basic ideas on how to choose your trees, how to place and plant your trees and how to care for them over time, including how and when to water, feed and prune. So if you have questions - please feel free to tune in and call in at the time, or send me questions by email prior to the show and I will ask our guests during the show! Send questions to: Jennifer@jewellgarden.com. (Photos for this essay are all attempts at a Branching Out and/or Up visual metaphor.) (more…)

This article was first published early this past spring when the garden was just waking up from its winter sleep. The plants are grown in so nicely and look remarkably different in just this one growing season that I felt I had to republish the piece. Different flowers are currently in full bloom, and the whole display area was extravagant with color when I visited recently. A great place to get ideas and see what plants can really do! Photo: A border along the public walkway before you reach the new Companion Planting Display beds shows how accomplished the McConnell Arboretum gardeners are with plant combinations. Here California Fuchsia blooms in front of a tall-form Sedum, which is backed by an silvery Artemisia - the overall impression is like a tapestry. It is also regionally appropriate, heat and drought tolerant.

Some things are just meant to go together: peanut butter and jelly; Acorus gramineus minimus ‘Aureus’ and Alchemilla mollis…..what??? Well, Grassy-leaved Sweet-Flag (Acorus gramineus minimus ‘Aureus’) a short, mounding, strappy leaved plant with a gorgeous lime-green color planted next to the ruffled-edged, saucer-shaped dark green leaves and the spikes of foamy-white flowers of Lady’s Mantle (Alchemilla mollis) – might just be a perfect plant combination. And finding new and great plant combinations is the goal of the new companion planting trial beds at the McConnell Arboretum and Gardens at Turtle Bay, says Lisa Endicott, Horticultural Manager at the gardens. Photo: One of the companion pairs intended by the McConnell Arboretum and Gardens is this between Carex barbarae (dun colored grassy plant at back) and Lysimachia c. ‘Atropurpurea’ (pale purple flower at bottom), however, plants (like people) have a way of forming their own companions no matter what the gardener intended. Here, the dark purple head of a Verbena adds a third and striking element to the combination.

Companion Planting as a concept is as old as mother nature – who routinely puts plants together that work well together and for the most part, they look good together, too. Companion Planting as handled by mortal gardeners is a technique used to see which plants that you might not expect to see together actually make great companions anyway. The success of their companionship is based on a variety of criteria: (Photo: Rosemary planted against a backdrop of
the dramatic Muhlenbergia lindheimeri. (more…)

It’s officially Fall in the North State Garden and although in a lot of our region it’s been hard to tell based on the fairly high temperatures over the past few weeks, our gardens know anyway. Nights and mornings are finally cooling - and frost warnings are being issued in the high country. The seasonal temperature notwithstanding, it is the length of daylight that trigger most plant’s seasonal reactions - fall color and seed set are included in those responses. And yet even while many plants look as though they are preparing for decline or dormancy, fall in the garden – and for the gardener - is about multiplication and division. And addition!

Fall is the perfect time for planting new spring and summer blooming bulbs. It’s also perfect for planting trees, shrubs and perennials, which will all benefit from the remainder of fall and all of winter in which to put down roots, while not being asked to put on a lot of foliage, flower or fruit growth until spring. Fall is also the time for making more plants from those you and your fellow gardeners already have. Collect seed to sow now or to sow in the spring. As you look around your garden for seed, look to see if your herbaceaous perennials – those that die back in the fall but regrow from the same plant again next spring – look crowded or even dying out in the center of their clump. These are good signs that these plants might benefit from being divided. In most cases this involves using a good sharp and clean spade to literally cut the plant’s root ball into smaller pieces. You can dig the whole plant up and then divide it, or you can just cut a portion of it right out of the ground. If you dig your original plant up, carefully replant it and water it back in with some root stimulator or compost to give it a boost. You can either plant your new division directly into the ground, or if you want to give it a really good chance of survival (and not forget about it), you can pot the division up into container just a little bigger than it’s root system and water and feed it until you see roots popping out the bottom of the pot letting you know you can safely plant it our into the garden with confidence. (more…)