“In Spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” –Margaret Atwood.

Any gardener can tell you that soil is the soul of the garden. It is the foundation on which all else is built. If you look carefully at the health (or non-health) of your plants, you can tell quite a lot about what is happening in your soil. Or what is not happening in your soil. Got a problem with a plant? Want to grow a new kind of plant? One of the first things most good gardeners might say to you is: Test your soil.

But step back a second. Look up from your tomato plant, your vegetable bed, your shrub or perennial border and cast your eyes to the horizon: look at the formation of the lands all around you as you garden, as you hike, as you drive. Look at lay of the land and this will tell you even more about your soil.

Look at the lay of the land with Andrew Conlin, Soil Scientist with the USDA - Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), by your side and you will learn learn much much more than that. You will begin to see not only what is happening in the world beneath you feet right now, but also what did happen - last season, 10 thousand years ago, millions of years ago.

Andrew Conlin reads soil. Based on years and years of study and the systematic mapping of hundreds of square miles of soils in Northern California, Andrew can read the geomorphology of the lay of the land in front of you with his eyes analyzing colors, textures, gradients, and associated vegetation. He can read much about the composition and history of soils with his hands as he moves from soil type to soil type on a walk. Walking with Andrew brings to life the dramatic history of climactic events that have created the amazing landforms and soils of Northern California. This in turn brings new meaning and the beginning of a deeper understanding about the soil I hold so dear in my garden.

On a yearly basis, Andrew offers guided walks of some of the soils in our area. These lively and intriguing walks are like seeing the story of our part of the planet unfold before your eyes in the 3-D, high-def technicolor that is the great outdoors: Volcanoes churn like “cement mixers” and erupt in the distance; lava and mud flows for miles and miles; ash flies; boulders and rock rumble across the landscape; rain and mammalian movement wear pathways and crevices; winds blow; creeks and rivers rise and flood; soil forms, ages, developing complex microbiology; oaks and pines, alders and sycamores, buckbrush and toyon, grasses and forbs root themselves in their preferred soils; and the storyline continues on.

“Big plants need big soils!” Andrew point outs emphatically. “You can look across this landscape and as you look more closely, you can see how the vegetation strata - the layers of plant life - correspond to the rock/soil strata in which they are growing.”

Andrew is leading two of these guided soils walks for the public in the Chico area this spring, you will enjoy every minute of each one them:

On April 21st, at 9 am, Soils, Landforms and Vegetation of Upper Bidwell Park
In association with Gateway Science Museum, Andrew will be offering a guided tour of the soils of Upper Bidwell Park. MARK YOUR CALENDAR! Andrew will walk you through time, space and the shifting soils of the many elevations of this area - from the top of the sweeping plateau to the river bed below. Meet at Parking Area B (the second parking area on your left as you drive into Upper Park). Come dressed for walking and being outside. Bring water and snacks for a 1 - 4 hour amble. For more information contact Jennifer Jewell, Volunteer Coordinator Gateway Science Museum: jjewell@csuchico.edu or 530-588-6369.

May 19th, Saturday Soils, Landforms and Vegetation of the BCCER (moderate)
Andrew Conlin, Soil Scientist, Natural Resource Conservation Service
The best way to understand why things live and grow where they do is to understand the soils and landforms beneath them. Andrew Conlin has spent the last 20 years conducting soil surveys of areas including Butte County and Lassen Volcanic National Park and has created the soil map covering the Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve. Join us to gain a ‘deeper’ understanding of how what you see relates to what’s beneath your feet. For more information contact Outdoor Education Coordinator Scott Huber at whuber@csuchico.edu or (530) 898-5010.

Andrew Conlin, USDA-NRCS and the Great Soil Surveys of Northern California

The USDA- NRCS Soils division and its associated mapping of the majority of the soils of the United States, including Northern California, traces its beginning to the great Dust Bowl tragedy of the 1930s in the American midwest. After this great environmental disaster, it was clear and imperative that the integrated and comprehensive oversight and management was needed for one of our countries greatest natural resources: our soils.

Over time, the work and efforts to understand and map the nations soils and to disseminate the resulting information to people and organizations (like farmers, ranchers, miners, city planners, gardeners and you and me), have been under one government department or another, but is currently part of the USDA- NRCS. The USDA-NRCS has soil offices across the country, including 8 in California, 3 in Northern California.

The information collected and managed by the USDA-NRCS soils staff is put to practical use in many ways by the department’s soil offices and soil scientists, as well as being compiled online. “Web Soil Survey (WSS) provides soil data and information produced by the National Cooperative Soil Survey, an effort of Federal and State agencies, universities, and professional societies to deliver science-based soil information. It is operated by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and provides access to the largest natural resource information system in the world. NRCS has soil maps and data available online for more than 95 percent of the nation’s counties and anticipates having 100 percent in the near future. The WSS website is updated and maintained online as the single authoritative source of soil survey information.”

As described by the USDA-NRCS: “If you look in a soil pit or on a roadside cut, you will see various layers in the soil. These layers are called soil horizons. The arrangement of these horizons in a soil is known as a soil profile. Soil scientists, who are also called pedologists, observe and describe soil profiles and soil horizons to classify and interpret the soil for various uses.”

“Soil horizons differ in a number of easily seen soil properties such as color, texture, structure, and thickness. Other properties are less visible. Properties, such as chemical and mineral content, consistence, and reaction require special laboratory tests. All these properties are used to define types of soil horizons.”

Some key things to keep in mind about the big picture of soil and how and why it’s important to us all, as summarized by the USDA-NRCS include:

“Soils perform vital functions: sustaining plant and animal life above and below the surface; regulating the flow of water and soluble materials; Filtering, buffering, degrading, immobilizing, and detoxifying; Storing and cycling nutrients; Providing support to structures. Andrew pointed out one example of such function as we walked recently: “This soil here is very shallow and fragile above bedrock. This thin layer of soil is incredibly important in conveying water laterally - like a paper towel.” This steady controlled conveyance in turn affects erosion and in turn water quality in the creek below.”

“Soil is the Basis of the Ecosystem: The living systems occurring above and below the ground surface are determined by the properties of the soil. We often ignore the soil because it is hard to observe.”

“Soils Support Life: Organism Types Roles & Benefits
bacteria decomposition
fungi release nutrients
protozoa create pores
nematodes stabilize soil
arthropods
earthworms

“Soil Management Affects Soil Quality”

“Soils Have Unique Physical, Chemical, and Biological Properties Important to Their Use: Soil is a natural body of solids, liquid, and gases, with either horizons, or layers or the ability to support rooted plants.”

“Soil-Forming Factors Determine the Location and Kind of Soil: There are 23,000 soil series in various combinations with different slopes and surface textures in the U.S. Soil Forming Factors include:
Parent Material Climate Living Organisms Topography Time”

“Soils Have Limitations Which Must Be Understood: Concerns for life and properties include: allergies, corrosivity, dust, flooding, gypsum dissolution piping, contaminants crop loss erosion, frost action, liquefaction, radon, rapid runoff, sand blowing, septic failure, sinkholes, soil borne disease, sulfidic materials, water tables, salt build up, sedimentation, shrink-swell, slope failures, subsidence, urban hydrology.”

“Scientific Names for Soils
• Like plants and animals, soils are classified
• The system is called Soil Taxonomy
• The highest level is the soil order (12)
• The lowest level is the soil series, often a
place name”

“Soil Science is interwoven into much of we do and study: Science: ecology, biology, chemistry. Social Studies: world trade, land use. Mathematics/Engineering: soil loss, soil formation. History:
settlement of the U.S., development and evolution of agriculture, dust bowl.”

“Soil Survey is a Scientifically-Based Inventory: A soil survey includes maps, descriptions, properties, climate, and interpretations. These are excellent sources of information.
About 3000 counties (including the counties in the North State) in the United States have a soil survey.”

Have you seen yours? Andrew Conlin or a soil scientist in your area can walk you through it! Join Andrew April 21st and May 19th. You will never see the lay of our land, the soil in your garden, in quite the same way.

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In a North State Garden is a weekly Northstate Public Radio and web-based program celebrating the art, craft and science of home gardening in Northern California. It is made possible in part by the Gateway Science Museum - Exploring the Natural History of the North State and on the campus of CSU, Chico. In a North State Garden is conceived, written, photographed and hosted by Jennifer Jewell - all rights reserved jewellgarden.com. In a North State Garden airs on Northstate Public 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 can also be found at ANewsCafe.com.

“I think I might like the yellow tuberous ones the best - they are common but so consistent and cheerful,” Sally Greenwood, Head Grower at Chico Propagators tells me as we scan the multitude of begonias growing in her care at the Chico Propagators greenhouses in Chico. Sally, a respected regional plantswoman (who even has plant hybrids named in her honor, such as the Salvia ‘Sally Greenwood’ bred by another regional plantsman, Mike Thiede), has been growing specialty plants for the past 30 years (which is a little hard to believe given her youthful appearance). For close to a decade of that time, the CSU, Chico and Butte College Horticulture graduate has been smitten with the many interesting, exotic and often heirloom varieties of begonias. Photo: While you may think of small candy-colored flowers on begonias, many types have delicate but dramatic flowers, such as this Begonia ‘Mrs. Ludwig’.

The Begonia genus comprises some 1300 plus cultivars, most originating from the tropics or subtropics, and most are tender, succulent perennials. Begonias are commonly divided into several overarching groups based on foliage and growth type - the best known groups are perhaps the Rex begonias (technically: Rex-cultorum begonias), marked by their multi-colored foliage, the Tuberous begonias, which include the stocky little succulent bedding plants loved for their brightly colored single or double flowers, and the Cane begonias, which given some protection from wind and frost can grow to be very tall shrubs with nobby stems. Photo: Left: a cane type begonia almost 3 feet tall, Right: A diminutive but cheerful yellow long-blooming, roseform tuberous begonia.

Sally’s collection of now more than 30 different Begonia species and varieties ranges from the very large, showy, tropical and sometimes rare, to the very small, sedate and familiar. The collection has grown one variety at a time in a very old-fashioned way in the form of “passalong plants,” brought to Sally at the greenhouse by gardeners young and old who wanted help propagating their old or hard to find plants for their homes, gardens or to give to other family members or gardeners. Photo: Sally Greenwood standing at the end of one section of her begonia collection at Chico Propagators.

“I have a lot of interesting begonias from Donna and Dick Murrill of Durham, as well as from a handful of other regional gardeners. Each time I am given a plant to grow on from an older plant, I keep one plant as a ‘mother’ or ’stock plant’ in order to keep the variety available. This helps to regenerate the stock and provide gardeners with plants that are not so woody or overgrown.” Photo: Rhizomatous Begonia ‘Black Coffee’.

Sally’s “mother-plants” are mostly fairly big stately specimens in large pots clearly marked NOT FOR SALE. The rest of the collection - in hanging baskets, in 4 inch pots, in gallons, and some even rooted into the gravel floor of the greenhouse, overflows many shelves within the greenhouse and calls out for attention to their bright and delicate flowers or their textural and interestingly colored foliage. Photo: A curvaceous so-called angel wing begonia.

“The tuberous begonias can of course be planted outside and in many cases they will last over from year to year in valley gardens,” Sally says. “Most of the other begonias that you would grow in pots indoors are very happy to go outside in our summer heat as long as they are in dappled shade with regular water. They don’t want to be sitting in water,” she warns, “but they don’t like to dry out either, and you will need to bring them back inside before the first frost.” She adds that with their often dramatic foliage, “they make nice accents in container plantings all summer or even in your flower border with similar conditions. Photo: The low growing and rounded, translucent-leaved Begonia ‘Cathedral’.

Sally grows her plants in a rich but well draining planting mix and for best results recommends a balanced liquid fertilizer once a month. “Some begonias can get leggy over time, but you can easily prune them back to a node and then try to root that cutting - in water or with rooting hormone in a planting mix,” she explains. Most begonias are fairly easy to propagate by stem cuttings, leaf cuttings or from seed. Photo: A distinctive dragon wing begonia.

According to several sources, the Begonia genus was so named in the early 1700s by French botanist Charles Plumier in honor of botany enthusiast Michel Bégon (1638 - 1710), born in San Domingo, later governor of Canada. After being introduced to horticulturists in europe and England, begonias were crossed and hybridized and feverishly collected. The history of begonias and their interesting looks has long meant that as a genus they appeal to serious collectors. Photo: An ‘eyelash’ begonia, so-called for the rim of lashes around the edge of each leaf.

The more academic and unusual of the begonias notwithstanding, an equal number of begonias are “universally appealing and easy to grow,” Sally tells me with enthusiasm. “I try to propagate plenty of the more interesting tuberous and rex begonias, which are good looking and easy. I want people to be successful and not get discouraged.” Photo, Left: B. ‘Bulls-Eye; Right: B. ‘Green Swirl’.

If you are interested in adding some cheer and color to your late summer pots and gardens, begonias make a great choice, and can then be brought indoors in pots to brighten your winter as well. If you have old or unknown variety begonias that you would like help rejuvenating or propagating, Sally Greenwood can help - email her at: sally-chicoprop@sbcglobal.net.

Dick and Donna Murrill have been members of the Sacramento Begonia group for years: Joan Coulat - Sacramento Branch American Begonia Society, which meets on the Third Tuesday night of each month at 7:15 pm except for February and November. They meet at the Shepard Garden and Arts Center, 3330 McKinley Blvd., Sacramento. Sacramento Branch: Shelly Berlant 916 486-9505

American Begonia Society is hosting their 2010 National Convention and Show
August 17 - 21, 2010
Embassy Suites
San Francisco Airport
250 Gateway Boulevard, South San Francisco, California 94080
Telephone: 650.589.3400 Photo: Rex Begonia ‘Escargot’.

The National Begonia Society of the United Kingdom: http://www.national-begonia-society.co.uk/

Begonia ‘Hazel’s Front Porch’

Jewellgarden.com’s new line of lovely little note cards are bite sized and ready to enjoy on-line or at local fine shops near you. As spring turns to summer and summer to fall, look for Edibles in the Garden blank journals, note cards featuring seeds and fruits as well as 2011 calendars and blank journals. A portion of all sales of the Edibles in the Garden note cards goes to Slow Food Shasta Cascade and the many projects it supports. All of Jewellgarden.com’s cards are printed in Chico by Quadco printing using 100% recycled paper and vegetable-based ink. Yum.

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