My snowdrops are in full bloom. And I usually love them. But to be honest, I feel guilty about enjoying them this year because - well - I don’t feel as though I actually deserve their sweet faces and honey-scent – we haven’t really had much of a winter yet, have we? Last year we had more than 6 inches of rain in the valley portions of the North State in January, which was two inches more than our norm. This year, I have measured only 2 inches of rain in January in my garden – 2 inches less than our norm. Our nights are still cold, but our days have been unseasonably warm and dry. So while my rain barrels are full from this last rainfall – they are just barely full. And while my snowdrops are blooming, they are accompanied by all of my hellebores, some left over roses and blue scabiosa, the camellias, and a good portion of the early narcissus. Some of these are normal, some are way too early or late?. The sap is up and the buds are fat on a lot of trees. The high country is desperate for snow, the valley is desperate for rain, and I guess we’re all a bit confused and worried. However, as one gardening friend said to me – We might as well enjoy the weather. We can’t change it. So I will try to enjoy my snowdrops.

No matter what the weather is, most of our gardening tasks and joys remain the same. Keep cleaning up dead leaves, cutting back perennials, pruning roses and fruit trees. Spray dormant oil on your fruit trees or roses if you plan to. You can still plant hardy perennials, shrubs or trees. If you feel your soil drying out to the extent that plants seem stressed – go ahead and water – especially if you have new plants you are trying to get established. I ran my system once through its whole course in mid-January.

One winter gardening task that is going well for me is my garden reading. The seed and plant catalogues are always a treat. But in addition to these I am just finishing a really good read titled: Hardy Californians: A Woman’s life with Native Plants, which my husband gave me for Christmas. Originally written in 1936 by Lester Rowntree and recently reissued in a new and expanded edition by the University of California Press, this book chronicles the adventures of plantswoman, gardener and naturalist, who beginning in her 50s and running right through her 90s - traveled all over the great state of California studying native plants in their own environments. She is smitten by their intrinsic beauty as well as their value as good garden plants. Her passion for her subject is contagious.

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For a gardener, one of life’s peaceful pleasures is a mid-winter walk in the park (or garden as the case may be). We as North Staters are lucky to have so many outstanding parks to choose from for just such a walk. While the University of California at Davis Arboretum might seem a bit south of us, and we actually haven’t had much of a winter yet, the Davis Arboretum makes for a great walk. Photo Above: A view down the waterway that runs through the center of the UC Davis Arboretum and its gardens and collections.

Recently, Ellen Zagory, Director of Horticulture at The UC Davis Arboretum, enthusiastically walked and drove me around a good portion of the 2 mile-long, 100-acre, 73 year-old Arboretum – where we paid the most specific attention to the individual ‘Demonstration Gardens’ within the larger park.

Under the leadership of staff horticulturists Warren Roberts, Emily Griswold , Ryan Deering and Ellen, this “public garden, living museum and out-door classroom and recreation area” has undergone significant renovations and additions that are of special interest to home gardeners. Restored areas include several of the 10 distinct demonstration gardens. The largest of these renovations was completed in 2008 on The Ruth Risdon Storer Garden, famous for its “Valley-Wise” plant and plant-care principles. Photo Above: Beautiful and helpful new signs were pat of the Aboretum’s renovations completed in 2008.
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The California Native Plant Society is hosting a Conservation Conference; Strategies and Solutions, January 17 – 19th at the Sacramento Convention Center and the Sheraton Grand Hotel. On January 20 and 21, immediately following the official meeting, 13 native-plant related workshops are also being held. Regular registration ends Monday January 12th. Photo above: Coffeeberry (Rhamnus californica, Sunset zones 4-9) is a native, evergreen shrub that grows from 3 - 15 feet tall, has attractive berries and takes pruning well for smaller garden situations. Its evergreen foliage with frost adds nice winter interest to a mixed border.

I recently talked with Catie and Jim Bishop of Oroville about the upcoming conference. Catie and Jim are on the Chapter Board of the Mount Lassen Chapter of the CNPS and are on the CNPS state Chapter Council. They are both longtime gardeners and plant enthusiasts themselves. Their interest in native plants and conservation grew exponentially after moving, in 1990, to their one-acre foothills property outside of Oroville, where they are working to garden with and regenerate the native Blue Oak Woodland habitat. Based on a good deal of work in National Forests over the past decade, they will be making a presentation on the fens (montane peatlands) of Northern California at the upcoming conference. Photo Above: Catalogue of Offerings at the Conservation Conference, focusing on Strategies and Solutions for conserving our California native plants and their habitats.
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In 2003, Shasta College in Redding became a host college for the California Extension Master Gardener Program. Leimone Waite, who has been a Horticulture Instructor at the college since 1998, is the administrator of the very successful Master Gardener Program there. At Shasta College, a member of the California Community College System of schools, the program is a collaborative venture between the college and the University of California system’s Agricultural Extension offices, which officially oversees and is responsible for the Master Gardener program throughout the state of California. Butte County began hosting a Master Gardener program in 2008 and will run the training every other year.

The Master Gardener program was originally conceived and started in Washington State in 1972 by David Gibby, Ph.D, a horticultural Extension agent for the University of Washington.
But wait. To truly understand the Master Gardener program, you need to understand a little bit about the history of the agricultural or horticultural Extension Agent system, and to understand that, you need to understand a little bit about American history.

If that sounds almost Epic - it is. The rigorously trained, enthusiastic volunteer corps we now know as Master Gardeners are at the end of one thread of the history of Westward Expansion, the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions, and the subsequent suburbanization and even more recent Technological Revolution of the United States. In my humble opinion, the Master Gardener program is one shining example of a good and effective marriage between government resources, educational institutions and those of us at home on the farm – or in the garden as it were.
According to what is now known as the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service:

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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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The Northern California Natural History Museum (http://www.ncnhm.org/index.asp) celebrated its groundbreaking in downtown Chico this past spring. “The mission of the Northern California Natural History Museum is to create a life-long learning environment that enables people to explore, interpret, and celebrate the magnificent natural heritage of our region through science, research, and education. We strive to combine the resources of California State University, Chico and the entire region to provide an educational and culturally enriching site where families, school classes, clubs, and friends can gather for a variety of activities: 1.) To learn about the natural history of Northern California, past and present; 2.) To compare Northern California’s habitats with others in North America and the world; 3.) To explore interactions between our region’s environment and the people who live here, including the original Native Americans; 4.) To participate in the exhilaration of “doing science”; 5.) To learn about our region’s critical habitats and then visit the habitats on field trips.” Photo above: the board of directors of the NCNHM at the ground breaking for the new building.

Hurray for that. All of that.

In the early 1990s, Dr. Raymond Barnett, a Professor of Vertebrate Biology at California State University Chico since the late 1970s, began mulling over the fact that Northern California needed an institution dedicated to celebrating and protecting the region’s rich natural history. Simultaneously, as a professor and a father, he was dismayed with failing science education curriculums in many of Northern California’s school systems. He decided to work toward the idea of starting a natural history museum in order to address both issues. He began by using his own personal collection of rocks and bones (found on hikes, biking, and camping trips around the region) in what he calls very “simple” hallway displays in CSU Chico’s Science building. Photo above: Dr. Ray Barnett is third from the left.

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