Teresa Wolk Hayes, is the Executive Director and founder of the Little Red Hen Nursery and Gift shop in Chico. The Little Red Hen is a 501c3 non-profit corporation whose mission is to serve children and adults with developmental disabilities (DD), which it does through a variety of hands-on learning and employment opportunities for the developmentally disabled in a retail nursery (for absolutely ANYONE who loves to garden), greenhouse and potting facility, and a home and garden oriented gift shop. Photo Above: Teresa Wolk Hayes, The Little Red Hen, standing in the front row with employees Alan Jackson, Kevin Dzerigian and Brandon Shoop, who are working the coldhouse crew under the supervision of Jim Belles, at back.

To meet Teresa Hayes in person is to encounter a remarkable combination of the legendary Little Red Hen of childhood storybook fame and a garden Angel: If she has to, Teresa gets things done ALL BY HERSELF, but mostly she likes to work together with others and she loves sharing the results of her hard work with everyone and anyone. And many of her results are made possible through the beauty and wonderfully therapeutic aspects of gardening.

Teresa started adult life as a trained Registered Nurse having graduated from Chico State. She had always loved to garden. But when her eldest son was 3 1/2 and diagnosed with broad DD, her life as she knew it tilted somewhat on its axis. During the next phase of her life, in response to her son’s diagnoses she truly called on the therapeutic aspects of gardening for herself. “Gardening at that time helped me to heal.” It also helped her to move her life to its next amazing phase.

One of the things that Teresa quickly discovered all those years ago was that not a lot of programs existed – interventional, educational or therapeutic or employment – within a reasonable distance, to help her or to help her son. But one thing she knew was that he loved to swim and be in the water. As time went on, Teresa developed a playgroup of other parents with children that had similar diagnoses and who also seemed to benefit from the experience of swimming. Swim therapy, more precisely. “It was a self education for me,” laughs Teresa, shaking her head, remembering. “It was parenting, networking, sanity, support and friendship - for the parents and the kids!”

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A small old ceramic bowl filled with little offerings sits on my desk. It reminds me of a monk’s alms bowl, but instead of being filled with food or money, my bowl is full of gifts from many of the people whose gardens I visited or who shared their gardening stories on In a North State Garden this year. The offerings include things like a lacy tomatilla skeleton, a sculptural spice bush seed pod, an owl faced walnut shell, the aerodynamic shape of a winged maple seed, a fragrant California bay leaf (Umbellularia californica), a white birch bark curl, silvery dried grandfather sage leaves, a plastic baggie of Humboldt lily seeds, a pinch of paprika, a small vial of lavender oil, a heart shaped pebble….and more. These offerings add layers of meaning, the ritual of giving and the creation of memory to my garden. And meaning, ritual and memory add depth and dimension to anyone’s garden and gardening.

My gardening this month will consist of finally finishing with the bulbs. I still have snowdrops and crocus to go. I’m also working on cuttings and starts of several plants to donate to various garden club’s Spring plant sales. I am working on Nepeta, 6 different scented geraniums (Pelargonium), one variety of true Geranium, as well as some hens and chicks and several varieties of sedums. I am raking the leaves from the lawn and pathways, making piles of them in out of the way corners so that I have leaves to add to my compost bin throughout as much of the year as possible. This kind of end of year work in the garden – along with the garden’s own seasonal decorations of remaining colorful leaves, bright red Toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia) berries, snow frosting the mountains and foothills, yellow Meyer lemons and squat Mandarins – puts me in the seasonal mood.
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Dahlias are a wonderful story of fortitude and transformation – a sort of visual rags to riches, and proof that beauty comes from within – deep within. A dahlia begins life as a wrinkled, misshapen tuber - a bit like an old sweet potato you forgot in the back of the bottom drawer of the fridge – but which, given the right conditions and care, grows up to be a stunning, long legged and confident Beauty Queen. Some dahlias could even be classified as Drama Queens. They are one of the stars of the late summer garden – coming into their own in August and blooming happily through first frost. Photo above: a dahlia tuber with one season’s growth.

Long-time members of the Chico community, Joan Eisenberg and Brian Rea grow a great many things in their garden, a great many Dahlia’s among them. And when I say “a great many”, in the case of the dahlias, I mean 91 individual Dahlia plants. Many gardens have secret nooks to discover or chance upon, Joan and Brian’s garden is in a league of its own in this way, taking the unsuspecting by total surprise. The further you move toward the back of their sweet, historic bungalow dating to 1910 in old-town Chico, the more you see the garden open before you – stretching the width and depth of not one but three historic bungalows, which Joan and Brian have purchased and renovated over the past 35 years. Photo above: a shining example of a Peony Form dahlia.

The history of the houses are stories in and of themselves, but “there had never been a fence between these three back-yards,” Joan tells me, and so it seemed natural to continue that way as she began to garden there. As she and Brian bought the houses on either side of theirs to fix up and eventually rent out, it soon became apparent that various long-term renters were happy to have Joan and Brian garden their back yards as well. And who wouldn’t be? Fruit and flowers, walking paths and peaceful seating areas, are open to all three houses. Photo above: The very uplifting site of the Gardenparty Flower cart open for business.
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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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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.

Gardening, and the planted environment, is part of our cultural literacy – I am convinced of this. And local independent nurseries are the equivalent of the local library for this particular (and in my mind critical) aspect of our literacy. Local nurseries are gathering, learning and socializing places that help us live productively and happily in our communities.

Recently, I was visiting the Prickly Pear Nursery in Orland, chatting with Diane Stout, the owner, when three local Garden Club Ladies came by. Their hands were full. One had a large fresh green stem from what looked like a shrub, another had a pot with a small dead-or-dying specimen and the other had black plastic plant pots to recycle. Diane knew the ladies by name and they were hoping she could help them identify the first item, diagnose the second item and make use of the third. She was able to do all three, and the ladies stayed a while, chatting with us and comparing notes on what their gardens were up to just now. Two of the ladies bought something and they said good-bye. The interaction left me with this powerful feeling – the feeling you get when an experience transcends itself and comes to represent something larger. Photo Above: Diane Stout and her dog Bullet.

Diane Stout and her husband, Dave, moved to Orland from Carpinteria, near Santa Barbara, in 2003. Diane had for many years owned Hollyhocks Gardens, a small independent nursery in Carpinteria. When she moved north, she knew she wanted to continue in the nursery world, but was not sure she wanted to dive right in to owning. She spent her first few years in the Northstate working at the Red Bluff Garden Center, followed by Mendons Nursery in Paradise. “Suzy Brooks and Jerry and John Mendon were all great people to work with and learn from,” says Diane. But eventually, she was ready to start again at a place of her own – and in her home-town of Orland. September marked the one-year anniversary of the nursery.
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Most of us gardeners are aware of the concept of invasive plants. We see periwinkle (Vinca major, Vinca minor) blanketing whole swatches of our parks and shaded open spaces, we see yellow starthistle (Centaurea solstitialis) running rampant in the dry, sunny open spaces of the Northstate, and we instinctively know that these plants must be damaging the existing environment. While I don’t know of any gardener or nursery that would suggest planting starthistle, plenty will still recommend planting perwinkle. Therein lies just one tip of the confusing iceberg that is the “Invasive Plant” issue for gardeners: What is invasive for my region? What is invasive for other regions? And what of those latter should I be concerned about anyway? What’s the difference between a good, solid garden thug that holds its own and an environmentally damaging invasive plant? Photo above: Ornamental Deer Grass (Muhlenbergia rigens) makes a very nice, showy alternative to invasive grasses such as Pampas Grass (Cortaderia jubata).

That’s where we California gardeners are lucky (one of the many ways we’re lucky): we have the California Invasive Plant Council (http://www.cal-ipc.org/) also known as Cal-IPC (pronounced cal ipsee) to help us navigate the invasive plant issue. I recently spoke at length with Heather Brady, Project Coordinator for Cal-IPC about the Council and their upcoming annual Symposium being held in Chico October 2-4th. Photo above: Invasive periwinkle has taken over this roadside verge.

Founded in 1992, the council started as an informal group of “weed-workers” from throughout the state who had the foresight to understand that they could work more efficiently and successfully at managing/eradicating noxious weeds by pooling their individual knowledge and experience. Since then, the council has grown to become a leader in invasive plant issues in the state. One of their early volunteers, Dough Johnson, became their first paid staff member and is now the Executive Director. A registered 501(c)3, Cal-IPC has a small paid staff, legions of volunteers and over 1000 members across the state, who receive the council’s quarterly newsletter and regular email updates. (For individual membership visit the website: http://www.cal-ipc/about/membership/index.php). Photo above: Invasive yellow starthistle is rampant in dry, sunny open areas of Northern California.
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Flower shows have a long and illustrious history for American gardeners - The Philadelphia Flower Show was the first official American Flower show in 1829. I have my grandfather’s 1936 edition of The Garden Encyclopedia published by Wise & Co. My grandfather was a keen gardener and especially loved collecting and caring for camellias and roses in his South Carolina garden. The entry in the encyclopedia about Exhibiting begins with: “Why Exhibit? It is perfectly natural if one has grown a beautiful rose or dahlia, a fine egg-plant or a good bunch of grapes to enjoy showing in competition with similar products grown by others. It is a game of skill, and has all the amusement and interest (of such).” Angie Handy, Vice President of the Butte Rose Society and this year’s Rose Show Coordinator, assures us this “game of skill” is competition of the healthy and fun-loving kind.

Between now and the first week of October, the Northstate will host two regional rose shows with longstanding traditions: On Sept 20th The Butte Rose Society will hold its (www.butte-rosesociety.org) 14th Annual Butte Rose Show at The Newman Center 346 Cherry Street in Chico. Entries will be accepted from 6:30 – 10:00 am the morning of the show, and the show will be open to the public from 1:00 – 5:00 pm.

From October 3rd through the 5th, the Shasta and Humboldt Rose Societies will co-host our American Rose Society NCNH District conference and show in Redding. The District includes all of Northern California, Nevada and Hawaii. The conference will include speakers, seminars, and the rose show itself. It IS necessary to pre-register: for registration and info visit: http://www.ncnhdistrict.org/conference/2008-conference-regform.pdf, or www.ncnhdistrict.org. You can also call Gail Trimble at 415-472-6228.
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George Winter is a soft-spoken man with a large presence. “When he speaks, people listen,” one of his long-time staff, Sherry Rosen, said to me when the three of us met to walk through Wyntour Gardens in Redding earlier this summer. And for good reason, George Winter has been one of the most knowledgeable, smiling and constant faces of the Northstate gardening world for the past 30-plus years.

George grew up on a dairy farm in Gridley and his father went into the nursery business later in his life. After graduating with an Industrial Education degree from CSU Chico, George thought he would like to be a teacher. It didn’t take him long to realize that the nursery business was his calling: “I thought the kids were going to eat me alive,” he recalls laughing.

When his father was ready to retire in the 1970s, Winter took over the family business, the Red Bluff Garden Center, and when the opportunity arose for a second nursery, he jumped at the chance. On April 4, 1992, he opened Wyntour Gardens in Redding, on Airport Road near the Redding Municipal Airport. Every April Wyntour Gardens holds an Anniversary Event in celebration.

Winter attributes the success of the two nurseries to a couple of things – most importantly, his excellent staff who “love what they do and are knowledgeable about it,” and he has always made it a point to provide the best plants possible for our region.

In time he realized that one of the best ways to provide the best plants was to grow them himself. In the early 2000s, Winter started the wholesale propagators, North Valley Growers, based out of the Red Bluff Garden Center and managed by longtime horticulturist Jeff Brooks. Besides supplying plants to Wyntour Gardens and the Red Bluff Garden Center, plants with the North Valley Growers’ tag can be found at nurseries up and down the valley. And, in part on principle, plants from other local growers can be found at Wyntour Gardens and Red Bluff Garden Center.

“Plants that are grown locally are acclimated to our climate and soils, they travel less, need less packaging and ultimately are better, more successful plants that cost less for the nurseries and the customer,” explains Winter. “Growing plants ourselves allows us to more easily and swiftly follow plant trends, or help to inspire those plants trends – for instance by getting more varieties of drought tolerant or native plants into the industry.”

That impulse to inspire and lead the way in horticultural trends does not stop with the plant propagation, it is what led Winter to make both of his nurseries part of the Master Nursery association, to carry the widest possible selection of organic and sustainable plant and soil fertilizers and amendments, and to re-use or recycle all plastic nursery pots. Wyntour Gardens also boasts one of the largest selections of glazed pottery you will find in the Northstate.

George and his wife Carol are both avid gardeners at their home in the foothills of Redding. “We started with bare ground, nothing but brush!” George tells me. Carol designed the landscape (which includes several different gardens). They terraced the grounds and developed and installed an irrigation system. Last Fall they planted over 1500
narcissus bulbs on their hillsides “which were just spectacular this past spring!”

While having successfully been in business for more than 30 years, Winter still has goals for Wyntour Gardens: “I would like to improve our water gardening and pond plant selections, I want to see our events and classes continue to expand – and to work toward even more focus and clarity,” he says. “Customers are what make our nurseries great and I am honored to have served some local families for several generations now,” Winter continues. In order to better serve those customers, in the past few years, Winter has developed easy to use websites for both nurseries, on-line newsletter subscription services, and free monthly classes at both sites so that gardeners can learn and engage in the life and community of the nurseries.

While soft-spoken, Winter is a born communicator. In the past he has done a Garden Spot for the Channel 7 news, he regularly contributes to InsideOut magazine, and he writes a column for both nurseries’ websites entitled George’s Almanac. For more information about events, classes or newsletters from Wyntour Gardens or the Red Bluff Garden Center, visit their websites: www.wyntourgardens.com and www.redbluffgardencenter.com. Both the real and on-line nurseries are worth a visit.