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
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Late summer in the garden is lovely. It’s cool (er), it’s gentle, it’s more measured and yet every bit as colorful, every bit as rewarding as the garden in summer or spring. The evocative slanting light and knowledge that winter is approaching makes this moment in the garden fleeting – tender somehow. For the spiritual (and I find most gardeners are in some way), the awareness of the ebb and flow of the garden’s cycle is as intense as late summer’s colors – and reminds us that our part in the cycle is simultaneously powerful and yet… powerless. It’s good to be reminded.

Most of my fall and winter vegetables are planted, the rest are soon to follow, and late summer flowers and plants are coming into their own. Many gardens can be classified as spring gardens, summer gardens or fall gardens. Only the truly genius among us can claim garden beauty year-round – and to have different portions of your ornamental garden take center stage in terms of color or bloom or structure at different times of year is as wonderful a gardening achievement as having different fresh produce from your edible garden each season.
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Say you invite Alice Wilkinson to a fancy dinner party in Beverly Hills and say she admires the flavorful heirloom tomatoes that you serve on the salad. Be forewarned, Alice is the kind of gardener who will walk herself to the kitchen and ask if the tomatoes happen to be organic (which will increase the likelihood that they will come true – or produce much the same fruit – from seed). If you answer in the affirmative, she will squash the seeds of that salad tomato into her paper napkin, wrap it up neatly and tuck it in her handbag. Next summer – Voila – the tomatoes – now known as ‘Tracy’s Heirloom’ - will be thriving in her Happy Valley Garden. Photo: A gorgeous pink cutting-grown rose clothes the side of Alice Wilkinson and Tom O’Mara’s Sonnenhaus.

Similarly, when Tom O’Mara and Alice Wilkinson realized the bats that lived in the eaves and attic of their house were the source of the ever more unpleasant odor in the house, they did not (as some of us might have) exterminate or otherwise evict the colony. No, they knew that the creatures were incredibly beneficial allies in the garden, despite their odor. So after some thought, Tom built an apartment building sized bat house – “You see how it’s two sided?” Alice points out. “That’s because the nursing mothers need their own space,” she explains. While the pest control people suggested they put their bat house on a tree in the garden, Tom and Alice ultimately decided to put it on the house right next to where the bats currently entered the eaves. Tom then sealed the eaves and the bats relocated with relative ease. Photo: Alice Wilkinson and Tom O’Mara.
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Lynette Gooch loves lavender. All kinds of lavender for all kinds of reasons. In the United Kingdom the gardening world has things known as National Collections, wherein when a specific garden has more species or varieties of any one kind of plant than any other garden, they can become designated a National Collection. Private gardens and gardeners are as likely to hold National Collections as larger public botanic gardens. In the United States, we do not have such a scheme, but if we did, Lynette Gooch and her husband Richard might well hold the National Collection of lavender with their 207 different named varieties of lavender at the display gardens in Whitmore: Tuscan Heights Lavender Gardens.

Grown as a culinary and medicinal herb throughout the world, throughout time, lavender (Lavandula) is a genus comprising multiple species and hybrids. Species of the genus originate from the Mediterranean, Africa and Asia, and the genus thrives in the Mediterranean climate of the North State.

The Tuscan Heights’ story started in 1999 when Lynette and Richard, farmer/gardeners at heart, were looking around the North State with possible re-location in mind. Living in Roseville at the time, Lynette is from Calaveras County originally and of strong Italian descent, with fond memories of the large family production garden she grew up helping to tend with her father. “Of five kids, I seem to have been the most gardening inclined, which I think has helped me out here!” she tells me the warm summer day I toured around the gardens. “We were about to leave and head home when Richard by chance picked a local discount classified paper and happened to read about land in Whitmore. ‘Where’s Whitmore?’, he asked me. So we drove up, I got out of the car, looked around, breathed deeply, kicked at the dirt with my foot and said - This is it. Let’s write the check.” Although the sloping land was covered in poison oak, manzanita and blackberry, Lynette knew she was home. The Fern Fire had devastated the area 12 years earlier, and Lynette could see that the soil had begun to recover and was ready for any garden she might want to grow. Neither she, the land nor Richard knew just what that garden would become.
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Even though many of us in the North State can and do work in our vegetable gardens year-round, March, April and May are such traditional vegetable seed and seedling start times that I have been focusing a lot of my energy on my raised vegetable beds these past few weeks. Finishing up the winter-grown veggies like bok choy, winter lettuce and the last of the bulbing fennel (which was delicious braised in a light chicken stock), gave me room for carrot, beets, spring lettuce, snap pea seeds as well as potatoes. I have just enough room left to put out my tomato plants and basil seeds when the night temperatures stay reliably above 50 degrees. Photo: Bulbing fennel.

Vegetable gardening, growing fruit and nut trees, berry vines, etc. - any gardening you do that results in an edible item, is often termed Edible Landscaping. I think the use of this “fancy” term was introduced in order to 1. Make it clear that you’re talking about gardening for food production, and 2. Suggest that vegetable and fruit gardening is every bit as attractive in the landscape as “ornamental” flower and tree-type gardening.
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Ok – and be honest now – how many plants have you killed? As a gardener, the most reassuring (and funny, because true) advice, I have ever heard was from Panayoti Kelaidis, Senior Curator and Director of Outreach at the Denver Botanic Gardens, when he said something along the lines of “If you have killed 100 plants, you are a beginner gardener, if you have killed 1000 plants, you are an amateur, and if you can no longer keep track of how many plants over 1000 you have killed, you are an advanced gardener.” Hallelujah, I’m advanced. Photo:Vine Hill Manzanita (Arctostaphylos densiflora ‘Howard McMinn’) is one of the UC Davis Arboretum All-Stars shrub selections.

But in all truth, I would rather not kill plants, even in the name of experimentation and learning through trying. When I first began gardening in the northern Central Valley – I had a high mortality rate in my garden: some things died because I planted them too late in Spring and the heat got them, some things died because I planted them too late and the frost got them, some things that said “full-sun” did not really want full CENTRAL VALLEY sun, others things got too much water in winter and rotted, others too little water in summer and died of thirst. HOLY COW! Why even garden here, you might ask. Well, as you know, we garden here because it is in our genes to garden no matter where we are and because if we are pointed in the right direction we do actually learn quickly how to manage with our specific region and climate. Photo:Island Alumroot (Heuchera maxima), is one of the UC Davis Arboretum All-Stars native California perennial selections.
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Until I moved to the North State, I had never belonged to a garden club. My mother was never in a garden club, nor was my father, for that matter. I am not sure why, but in my own mind garden clubs were – well – ‘clubby’, sort of stuffy and a bit exclusive and not my cup of tea. But I had aunties – and not stuffy ones – who were very involved in their local garden clubs. My aunt in Virginia was one of these. When my cousins, her daughters, were married (at different times), the garden club ladies who had been long-time friends with my aunt came out in force - dressed in dirty jeans and muddy shoes, with their clippers and their beat-up cars full of garden stuff. They picked masses of flowers from their own gardens and spent the better part of the day before each of the weddings arranging. Finally, they arrived at each of the weddings cleaned up and flower-proud. This was not stuffy or clubby – this was a sisterhood of good gardeners doing good things. Photo: The new Cone & Kimball Plaza Clock Tower on the same corner in downtown Red Bluff where the historic clock tower stood.

Lorna Bonham, a retired educator, and Cathy Wilson, a retired nurse, are just such garden club ladies. Both are members of the Red Bluff Garden Club, a very active garden club dating back to the 1950s. Lorna’s mother was a charter member and her father was a well-known regional horticulturist. Cathy on the other hand has lived and gardened throughout the west and was a Master Gardener in the Yuba City area before moving to Red Bluff fairly recently. She has been a member of the Red Bluff Garden Club for a little over a year. But lifelong member or new member notwithstanding, Lorna and Cathy are both excellent examples of what garden club members for the most part actually are: good gardeners doing good things. Photo: Cathy Wilson (left) and Lorna Bonham (right), are members of the Red Bluff Garden Club and instrumental in the club’s part in the Cone & Kimball Plaza restoration project.

My copyright 1936 Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Gardening has this to say about garden clubs: “Second only to the experiment stations, the garden clubs are the greatest single agency of the advancement of gardening in America. Their lectures, test gardens and influence for better standards of the art of horticulture are of incalculable value.” According to the National Garden Clubs (once known as the Federated Garden Clubs), Inc website: “The first garden club in America was founded in January 1891 by The Ladies Garden Club of Athens (Georgia).” Originally garden clubs were often Ladies clubs or Men’s clubs, but in this day and age, they are men and women, young and old. Here and now, the North State is a region of active and dedicated garden clubs, the Red Bluff Garden Club being just one. See below for contact information on other garden clubs in our region.
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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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New Year’s in the garden is the same as in the house, same as in the heart. It is full of renewed purpose, determined resolutions and good intentions. For me – and for many – this resolve is all about setting things in order. Not from any grandiose hope for perfection, but simply as a way to at least start things off on the right foot. Before the winter pruning of roses, grape vines and fruit trees, before top-dressing vegetable beds or herbaceous borders with fresh compost, before the spraying of dormant oils, “starting off on the right foot” for me means sorting out my tools.

Late December and January will include cleaning, sharpening and - as needed or if possible - mending my favorite tools. We gardeners are particular about our tools and every gardener I know has their own set of favorites. Mine include the following:
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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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