September is a transitional sort of month – has a difficult time making up its mind – am I Summer? Am I fall? Am I hot? Or am I cooling? No matter what the weather and the inevitability of the quite beautiful waning light of September making our way towards the Autumnal Equinox on the 22nd -– it is one my favorite times in the garden. Plants have mostly set their seeds – and we gardeners are ready to plant them once more - giving us a happy feeling of anticipation for the rains and fall and winter gardening seasons to come.

There’s lots of work to do out there still, keep watering but be careful not to overwater at this time of year. Cut back spent flowers and keep weeding and mulching. As you work, look around your ornamentals and make your lists of plants to add, transplant or edit out all together – and don’t forget your fall bulbs. In just a month or so you’ll be ready for this kind of planting in earnest.

In the edible garden, Market gardener and author of “Sacramento Valley Feast,” (available at Lyon Books in Chico) Wolfgang Rougle advises that ‘as soon as it cools down here, which it seems about to do, direct seed beets, carrots, radishes, turnips, choy, lettuce, etc. and to start in cells (or buy as transplants) kale, cabbage and broccoli. You can wait to sow cover crop, garlic and shallots until just before the first rain. Other than continual summer harvesting (still plenty of time to save seeds, even make crosses) it’s really just plant, plant, plant until early November! (garlic and cover crops can be last to go in.)”

Pam Geisel, Statewide Coordinator of the Master Gardener Program reminds us to: 1. Harvest and cure green ripe olives later in the month. You can salt cure, brine cure, lye cure and water cure olives. For complete instructions on safe pickling of olives and the details on all these methods, download our free 26 page publication at: http://ucanr.org/freepubs/docs/8267.pdf.

2. Fertilize your fall garden two times this month lightly (every other week) to promote good growth of the vegetable plants prior to flower formation. Most people plant their gardens and then don’t fertilize until it is almost too late in the season to gain much effect. You can use any material that contains nitrogen such as manures, composts, fish emulsion, blood meal, or synthetic fertilizers etc. The key is that the plants must have adequate nitrogen to increase the vigor and size of the plant prior to colder weather setting in and before the spring flower development.

3. Plant garlic and onions. Some of the best varieties for our climate zone include: California Late White and California Early white http://vric.ucdavis.edu/pdf/garlic.pdf
California Late is particularly good because it stores well. However, personally, I really like the flavor and color of “Music”, which has large reddish tinged cloves.

In the Monthly Calendar of Regional Gardening Events – August is not quite done with us and September has a lot in store:

August 27 - 28 - Corning: Corning Olive Festival! Friday night kicks it off with a parade down Corning’s main drag, Solano Street, at 6pm and don’t forget the bed races! Saturday continue the festivities all day at Wodson City Park with vendors, food, talent show, cook-off, music, arts & crafts, and much more. 530-824-5550 corningchamber@sbcglobal.net.

August 28 - Chico: Mt Lassen Chapter Cal Native Plant Society - Field Trip: Cedar Basin Shasta Trinity National Forest 8:00 am meet at Chico Park and Ride (Hwy 99/32). ADrive I-5 north to the Lake Siskiyou exit near Mt Shasta and up into the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. Cedar Basin contains the highest stands (up to 6400 ft) of Port Orford-Cedar. Lakes, bogs and open forest give a nice variety of species including the insect eating pitcher plant, (Darlingtonia californica) and the sundew, Drosera. Also see Sierra laurel, Leucothoe davisiae, and American twinflower, (Linnaea borealis). Walking distance is 3 to 4 miles. Bring lunch, water, sun/insect protection and money for ride sharing. Call for an alternate meeting place. Leader: Marjorie McNairn 530-343-2397.

August 28 - Redding: Shasta Community Teaching Garden: Edible Native Plants 10:30am to 12:30pm, Room 822, Shasta College Main Campus. Ted Dawson will present information on how to identify and find native edible plants, as well as go over some herbal preparation information. Based on Wintu tradition. Fee $20. For registration information call: 530-225-4835. Register by going on-line to: www.shastacollege.edu/EWD and then click on Pathways. For workshop information: 530-242-2248 or email: teachinggarden@shastacollege.edu.

August 28 – Redding: McConnell Arboretum & Botanical Gardens at Turtle Bay 9:30 am. A Walk with the Horticulture Manager, Lisa Endicott. Bring your notebooks and cameras for this participant-driven program. We’ll make our way through the Gardens with frequent stops for discussions about (what else?) plants! There’s something new to see every month! Free with Park or Garden admission. Meet at West Garden Entrance. Take N. Market Street, turn on Arboretum Drive. Take the right fork. Parking lot and entrance are on the left. More info: 530-242-3178 or www.turtlebay.org/nursery

August 31 - Chico: Butte Rose Society Regular Member Meeting: 7:00 pm Regular Member Meeting, Little Rose Show and Program by Joan Goff on Shady Ladies - good roses for partly shady locations. Goff is past president of the Marin Rose Society, a rose and gardening consultant and coach. Public welcome! Chico Veterans’ Memorial Hall on Rio Lindo Avenue. More Info: www.butte-rose-society.org

SEPTEMBER 2010

September 1 - Chico: Mt Lassen Chapter Cal Native Plant Society, Regular Member Meeting 7:30 pm Butte County Library. Begin our new season with a program of member photos as well as an overview of desertland plants of the South Western US. Public welcome! More information contact President Janna Lathrop: jlathrop4mlc@comcast.net

September 4 – Redding: McConnell Arboretum & Botanical Gardens at Turtle Bay: Charlie Rabbit and Friends 9:30 AM. An interactive program in the Gardens (or Greenhouse in rain) for children, their siblings, parents and grandparents. Free with Park or Garden admission. Meet at West Garden Entrance. Take N. Market Street, turn on Arboretum Drive. Take the right fork. Parking lot and entrance are on the left. More info: 530-242-3178 or www.turtlebay.org/nursery

September 4 – Durham: The Worm Farm - Build Your Own Worm Bin Workshop 10 am - 1 pm; $50. Information provided at The Worm Farm workshops include, construction of your worm bin, instruction on proper drainage and ventilation techniques, covering the bin, identifying the best location, prevention of pests and parasites, and selecting the best bedding for your worm bin. Other knowledge you will obtain is the anatomy, regeneration, longevity, and feeding of your worms. The Worm Farm, 9033 Esquon Road, Durham, CA 9593. Price includes materials & 1 pound of special composting worms by The Worm Farm. More Info: www.thewormfarm.net/workshops-build_bin.html or call: 530-894-1276

September 5 - Chico: Mt Lassen Chapter Cal Native Plant Society - Field Trip: Green Lake Island 8:30 am meet at Chico Park and Ride (Hwy 99/32). OR meet at 10:30 at the Sunflower Flat trainhead (Jonesville, Humbug Summit Road, LNF Roads 26No2 and 26N31.) We will see many asters as we hike down to Soda Creek and then to a beautiful little lake with a unique floating sedge island. Lake is rimmed with huckleberries, potentilla, and buckbean. On the way back we stop at tiny frog lake - we have seen Pileated Woodpeckers on this hike in the past. Bring lunch, water, sun/insect protection and money for ride sharing. Call for an alternate meeting place. Leader: Leader: Wes Demspey: 530-342-2293

Monday Evening September 6, I will be hosting Northstate public Radio’s I-5 LIVE! Featuring Pam Gesiel – Statewide Coordinator of the Master Gardener Program talking all about bugs – We can’t live without them! But sometimes it helps to get thoughts on how to live with them more peacefully.

September 8 - Magalia: Magalia Beautification Society Regular Member Meeting 1:00 pm POA Racine Center at Wycliff Way and Racine Circle in Magalia; 12:30 for lunch, 1:00-3:00 for business. For more information: http://magaliagardeners.webs.com/

September 10 – The Gateway Science Museum is opening two new ehhibits – Natures Numbers and A forest Journey in which visitors will will eplore the amazing math built into nature.

September 11 - Sacramento: Fair Oaks Horticulture Center/Sacramento County Master Gardeners OPEN GARDEN 8:30 am - 11:30 am. Drop in to see the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center gardens on your own. Ask Master Gardeners questions about the FOHC and see how we make every drop count. Fair Oaks Park, Fair Oaks, Ca. More info call: 916-875-6913. Or: http://groups.ucanr.org/sactomg/Fair_Oaks_Horticulture_Center/Workshop_Schedule.htm

September 13 - Paradise: Paradise Garden Club monthly meeting 1:00 pm at Terry Ashe Recreation Center, 6626 Skyway, Paradise. The speaker will be Monty Malden from Mendon’s Nursery who will share his love for Japanese Maples. Additionally, he will give advice on choosing the right location, pruning techniques and the care of Japanese Maples. He will also have information about Mendon’s Fall Sale.

September 14 - Sacramento: North Valley Orchid Society General Member Meeting 7:30PM CARD Center “Arts & Crafts Room” 545 Vallombrosa Ave., Chico Marni Turkel - Miniature Orchids. More Info: North Valley Orchid Society NVOS2010@gmail.com

September 15 - Chico: Chico Horticulture Society Regular Member Meeting 9:45 – Noon. Regular Member Meeting and Program. Chico Library 1108 Sherman Avenue in Chico. More info: email President Jon Bennet at: ChicoGardenClub@yahoo.com.

September 15 - Redding: Shasta Rose Society - Regular Member Meeting and Mini-Rose Show, Public Welcome! 7:00 p.m. City of Redding Corporation Yard On Viking Way. More Info: http://www.shastarosesociety.org

September 16 - Redding: Shasta Chapter Cal Native Plant Society: General Member Meeting Chapter Meeting: Welcome back to the first meeting after the long summer! Meet Greg Suba, Conservation Director for CNPS. Greg will come up from Sacramento to inform us of some of the statewide conservation programs and conservation goals of CNPS, including the progress of the proposed massive renewable energy projects on thousands of acres in the Mohave Desert and other areas of California. Greg may also address a proposed wind generation facility on Walker Ridge, where north state Chapters of CNPS conduct fieldtrips. Greg has strongly and effectively represented CNPS at all levels of government, with politics and the media, and we appreciate his willingness to travel to the north state to share his knowledge and experiences. Meet at our new time and location: 7 PM at the Shasta College Health Science & University Programs building in downtown Redding, 1400 Market Street, Community Room 8220 (clock tower building at the north end of the Market Street Promenade; enter on south side of building). A Board meeting will be held before the regular meeting, at 5:30 PM at Angelo’s Pizza Parlour in the Foundry Square, 1774 California Street, Redding.

September 18 – Redding: McConnell Arboretum & Botanical Gardens at Turtle Bay Fearless Pruning 9 am - 11 noon. Core Gardening Series: Are your plants growing amuck? Knowing how to prune plants for structure, strength, and overall health is an essential gardening skill! Join us as we practice specific pruning techniques for both young and older plants. Members and Turtle Bay volunteers FREE, nonmembers $3 Meet at Arboretum & Botanical Gardens Office - 1135 Arboretum Drive (Next to Greenhouse in Nursery) Take N. Market Street, turn on Arboretum Drive. Take the right fork. Nursery on immediate left. More info: 530-242-3178 or www.turtlebay.org/nursery

September 18th, 2010 FREE and open to the public 1 pm Tour of our 100 year old Mission Olive Orchards at Chaffin Orchards hosted by Kurt Albrecht (farm owner) and Don Landis (606 Coal Canyon Rd, Oroville, Ca 95965) 6 pm Natural Olive Curing Class – We’ll go over to the Grange building in Chico (2775 Old Nord Ave, Chico, California 95973) where Don Landis will be demonstrating old world olive curing techniques including dry salt cure, water cured, and the Greek style brine cure. All cured without using lye. Samples of the cured olives and tapenade will be available at the end of the demonstration. Raw organically farmed olives for home curing will be available for purchase or to be sure we’ll have enough email to pre-order. Email chris_kerston@chaffinfamilyorchards.com to RSVP – its not required that people RSVP to attend but it would help us tremendously to be able to prepare enough samples if we knew how many people were coming especially since it’s a free event. Chris Kerston Chaffin Family Orchards 606 Coal Canyon Rd Oroville, Ca 95965 530-533-1676 Ranch Office 530-370-6432 Cell http://www.ChaffinFamilyOrchards.com/http://www.twitter.com/ChaffinOrchards

September 19 - Chico: Mt Lassen Chapter Cal Native Plant Society - Field Trip: Forest Lake Lassen Volcanic National Park 8:30 am meet at Chico Park and Ride (Hwy 99/32). We will follow a small creek bordered by mountain alder into a magnificent old growth red fir and western white pine forest to a small lake at the base of Mt. Brokeoff. Salt lupine, aster and arnica should still be in bloom. Only 1 and 1/2 miles but at that elevation (7300 ft) we will take it slow. Bring lunch, water, sun/insect protection and money for ride sharing. Call for an alternate meeting place. Leader: Wes Demspey: 530-342-2293; Gerry Ingco: 530-894-5123.

September 23 - 26 – Red Bluff: Slow Food Shasta Cascade’s Olive Festival at the Tehama County Fair’s 90th Anniversary Come celebrate the 90th Anniversary of the fair with, among other great displays, Slow Food Shasta Cascade’s 1st Annual Olive Oil Festival and Tasting of regional oils and olives. Yum. Tehama District Fairgrounds Antelope Blvd. Red Bluff. More info: http://www.slowfoodshastacascade.org/5.html or http://www.tehamadistrictfair.com/

September 24 -October 3 – Redding: Wyntour Gardens ANNUAL FALL Sale! All nursery stock in one-gallon size and larger is 40% off! Shop early for the best selection! 8026 Airport Road (1 mi. S. of the Redding Airport, next to Kents Mkt) Redding, CA Phone 365-2256 visit us on the web @ wyntourgardens.com or email inform@wyntourgardens.com.

September 25 – Redding: McConnell Arboretum & Botanical Gardens at Turtle Bay 9:30 am. A Walk with the Horticulture Manager, Lisa Endicott. Bring your notebooks and cameras for this participant-driven program. We’ll make our way through the Gardens with frequent stops for discussions about (what else?) plants! There’s something new to see every month! Free with Park or Garden admission. Meet at West Garden Entrance. Take N. Market Street, turn on Arboretum Drive. Take the right fork. Parking lot and entrance are on the left. More info: 530-242-3178 or www.turtlebay.org/nursery

September 29 - Chico: Chico Horticulture Society Evening Gardeners 6:30 pm. Evening Gardeners Program. Chico Library 1108 Sherman Avenue in Chico. More info: email President Jon Bennet at: ChicoGardenClub@yahoo.com.

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.

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To submit plant/gardening related events/classes to the Jewellgarden.com on-line Calendar of Regional Gardening Events, send the pertinent information to me at: Jennifer@jewellgarden.com

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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 and 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 are also posted on anewscafe.com a regional news source that is simultaneously universal and positively North State.

What is January without resolutions? Getting to the far side of the holidays in and out of the garden often leaves me feeling overwhelmed, over done and over the top. Perhaps this is why so many of my resolutions are variations of cutting back, cutting down, and clearing out. January in its essence is simplicity. Photo: The full moon falls on the cusp of the New Year 2010.
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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…)

Sometimes as a garden lover you just want the sight of a beautiful garden – that sweeping view of plants and space and color and form all working together to create that ephemeral thing we call a beautiful garden. Could be a cottage garden, could be a Japanese garden, could even be a kitchen garden – doesn’t matter – it just has to be lovely to look at in your eyes. Yes, we want healthy soil, yes, we want healthy plants, yes, we want sustainable and regionally appropriate gardens, but let’s face it – what most of us gardeners are after is pure beauty. Which in gardens as in people, is much more than skin deep. Photo: A view down a long Mixed Border at Skylake Gardens in Durham. The border works together as a whole unit with colors and shapes repeated through the trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials that Christy has chosen. The most noticeable repetitions change throughout the year as different combinations of plants come to the fore, and then fade back. The rounded Carolina Cherry shrubs form the protective and aesthetic backdrop for the border.

One sure way to get that killer Cover-of-a Glossy-Garden-Magazine effecy is with a well-designed Mixed Border. A Mixed Border can be a gardener’s best friend in terms of garden design elements. Done well – it will give you pause for admiration over and over again throughout the gardening year.

Mixed Borders are perhaps a bit more difficult to implement than glossy magazine photos of good ones might suggest, but they are also not so difficult that you should not consider one in your next garden, or your next garden make-over. Where an Herbaceous Border relies almost completely on herbaceous perennials (flowering plants that die back to the ground in winter, but return again each spring) and is far and away strongest in the peak summer months, and an Annual Bedding relies on fresh annual plantings each summer, or even two or three times a summer, a Mixed Border is just that: a section of the garden which consists of a mix of all kinds of garden plants, including trees, shrubs, sub-shrubs, vines, perennials annuals and bulbs, that are designed to work together as a whole. Photo: A small planting combination in the formal White Garden and patio area just off the back of Gail Brown’s house. This garden was planned not only to be predominantly white: featuring white flowers or white foliage, but to also be especially fragrant. The structural backbone trees and shrubs include a white treed-up Wisteria, and white-edged holly leafed Osmanthus, and many, many white roses. Here white Watsonia is center and pops beside the red foliage of a Berberis.

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May is upon us – gardeners and school children are pulled into that final vortex of activity that leads to summer. Many flowers are blooming and the natural world in almost all zones is awake and lively. No wonder that so many traditions exist surrounding the arrival of May: Maypoles, May trees, May baskets. Bringing in the May, Crowning of the May. It all sounds as good as the month generally looks and smells and tastes – delicious, fresh, hopeful. The lilacs, azaleas, peonies and iris are out where I garden - as are the clematis and the roses – ahhh, the roses. Are you rose people happy now after months of roselessness? I know I am. Photo: A deeply fragrant Bourbon Rosa ‘Madame Isaac Pereire’ blooming beside a tall-form Euphorbia.

Now is the time for planting heat-loving summer annuals, vegetables and herbs, for those of us in the higher elevations the average last frost dates are almost here, and hardy perennials and shrubs can still be planted. But for all regions of the North State, remember the later that you plant perennials, shrubs and trees, the less established they will be by the heat of summer, the harder that heat will be on the plants, and the more you will have to water and care for them. But in gardening and in life, sometimes you have to do things even when the timing is not quite right. Most of us are probably beginning to water more regularly. Spring’s unsettled weather is a good time to run through your irrigation, checking for leaks, and making sure all your plants are getting the water they need. Deadheading and weeding are once again regular garden tasks. Photo: A spring fiddle-head unfurling from a woodland fern.

You know how you have crushes on certain plants at different times throughout the seasons? The Year – the month? Your Life. My current plant “true-love” is a fern. Any fern, really. So while my roses and clematis, my lilacs and peonies are singing me their Spring siren song – it is the form and foliage of the many ferns we can grow in the North State that I am finding fascinating right now. I recently had the privilege of a guided tour around the a fern collection of plantswoman Emilie White – a long-standing and revered member of the Chico area horticulture world. Photo: The red-tips of a young fern frond.

Emilie and her husband Ken have been gardening on their Chico city lot since 1984. City lot sized though the garden is, many distinct garden areas have been created over the years. Large trees have come and gone and lawn area has come and gone creating different planting opportunities. Emilie is an active member of the Mt. Lassen Chapter of the California Native Plant Society, the Butte Rose Society and in 2009 is a co-President of the Chico Horticulture Society. Her collection of ferns are just one of her many interesting garden plant collections. “I love the shapes of the ferns, their subtle colors and the way their often evergreen structures hold parts of the garden up when so many other plants are dormant.” Photo: The distinctive coloring of Variegated Shield Fern (Arachniodes simplicior ‘Variegata’).

Not all of Emilie’s ferns are evergreen, and of her 21 distinct varieties, many are California natives and so apt to be dormant in summer and active in winter. Almost all of Emilie’s ferns are in dappled light beneath larger trees or shrubs. She feeds her entire garden with alfalfa pellets in late winter/early spring, top-dresses with home-made or organic compost up to twice a year, and will sometimes giver her ferns a dose of fish emulsion. “Don’t be too tidy. Let the natural duff of leaves and pine needles self-mulch around your ferns. Dead head fronds as needed - like a haircut,” she says. But even a veteran gardener like Emilie will sometimes lose a fern and not know why. “And then sometimes you think you’ve lost one - and a tiny fiddle-head will appear out of what looked like dead root ball.” Emilie does not water in winter unless absolutely necessary and waters approximately two times a week in summer. Photos: The fiddle-head of a Holly Fern (Cyrtomium falcatum) and the silvery foliage of a Japanese Painted Fern (Athyrium nipponicum ‘Pictum’)

According the American Fern Society: “Ferns have been with us for more than 300 million years and in that time the diversification of their form has been phenomenal. Ferns grow in many different habitats around the world. The ferns were at their height during the Carboniferous Period (the age of ferns) as they were the dominant part of the vegetation at that time. Most of the ferns of the Carboniferous became extinct but some later evolved into our modern ferns. There are about 12,000 species in the world today.” Photo: Emilie White near one of the many ferns in her garden.

“Ferns and fern-allies are more complicated in structure than most people would suspect. Their structures, though similar in some ways to those of flowering plants are different enough to warrant a distinctive terminology.”

“The frond is the part of the fern that we see as we wander through the woods it is the “leaf” of a fern. It is divided into two main parts, the stipe (leaf stalk or petiole) and the blade (the leafy expanded portion of the frond). The blade may be undivided to finely cut, each degree of division having a specific term. Fronds vary greatly in size, from tree ferns with 12 foot fronds to the mosquito ferns with fronds only 1/16 of an inch long. Rhizomes would be comparable to “stems” in the flowering plants. Fronds arise from the rhizome. The sporangia are the reproductive structures of the ferns and fern allies. They are miniature sacks or capsules that produce the dustlike spores that are the “seeds” by which ferns are propagated. The arrangement of sporangia varies greatly in ferns. Most ferns that we would see as we walk through the forest would have their sporangia on the underside of the frond, arranged in an organized pattern usually associated with veins in the pinnule (leaf). The “seeds” of the ferns and fern allies are called Spores. Ferns drop millions, often times billions of spores during their lifetime but very few ever land in a spot suitable for growth.” Photo: Sporangia patterns on the tips of a Maidenhair Fern (Adiantum raddianum ‘Pacific Maid’). Maidenhair Ferns hold their spore packets on the front of their fronds rather than the back like most ferns.

Ferns can be propagated by growing the spores along or by rooting bulbils. Northern California has many native ferns including Western or Giant Chain fern (Woodwardia fimbriata), Western Sword Fern (Polystichum munitum), California Maidenhair Fern (Adiantum jordanii), Five-Fingered Fern (Adiantum aleuticum), Gold-back Fern (Pentagramma triangularis) and Indian’s Dream or Serpentine Fern (Aspidotis densa). Many good books are available about ferns including Native Ferns, Moss & Grasses, by William Cullina (Houghton Mifflin, 2008), and The Encyclopedia of Garden Ferns by Sue Olsen (Timber Press, 2007). The North State has many good fern viewing locations including the Serpentine outcropping in Magalia and along what’s known as Fern Bank before the golf course in Chico’s Upper Bidwell Park. Photo: Sporangia pattern on a Holly Fern (Cyrtomium falcatum).

Emilie’s garden contains many of these ferns and was featured on the Mt. Lassen Chapter of the California Native Plant Society Garden Tour in 2008. Her garden will be featured on the upcoming Chico Horticulture Society’s Members-Only garden tour on Saturday May 16th. Many garden tours and events are on the calendar in May. On Saturday May 2nd, St. John’s Episcopal Church holds their 26th Annual Garden Tour, lunch and garden boutique. For tickets on Saturday go to the St. John’s Parish Hall at 2341 Floral Avenue. On Sunday May 3rd, the Cohasset Annual Plant Sale will be held at the Cohasset Community Association Building, the McConnell Arboretum and Gardens is hosting several interesting plant talks in May including a presentation on Water-Wise Plants for Mediterranean Climates on May 23rd. Photo: The rosy fronds of a Rosy Five-Fingered Maidenhair Fern (Adiantum hispidulum).

Although this next event is not until June, I am so excited to let other plant enthusiasts know that world-renowned plantsman Dan Hinkley, founder of famed (and now the former) Heronswood Nursery in Kingston Washington, will be speaking at the High-Hand Nursery in Loomis on June 13th and 14th. He will give a lecture on both Saturday and Sunday - tickets are $5.00. Tickets are also available ($65) to join Hinkley and others for dinner on Saturday the 13th in High-Hand’s conservatory restaurant. Tickets include dinner and Hinkley’s newest book The Explorer’s Garden: Shrubs and Vines from the Four Corners of the World(Timber Press, 2009). If you have never read anything by Hinkley or heard him speak, this is truly a rare opportunity to hear one of the brightest (and wittiest) people in the plant world speak about his adventures. Additionally, I personally feel the need to support a plant person of this calibre venturing into the “interior” of Northern California and beyond the predictable venues in San Francisco and along the coast. Perhaps it is the start of a trend? Next stop Yuba City? Chico? Red Bluff? Redding? The sky’s the limit. As a prelude to the event, Hinkley will be a guest on In a North State Garden later in May.

For a fuller listing of regional gardening events in May, June and beyond visit the In a North State Garden Events calendar. Have an event you would like to get listed? Send me an email: jennifer@jewellgarden.com. Until next week - enjoy May in your North State garden!

In a North State Garden is a radio- and web-based outreach program of the Gateway Science Museum - Exploring the Natural History of the North State, based in Chico, CA. In a North State Garden celebrates the art, craft and science of home gardening in California’s North State region, and is conceived, written, photographed and hosted by Jennifer Jewell - all rights reserved jewellgarden.com. In A North State Garden airs on Northstate Public Radio KCHO/KFPR 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 are also posted on anewscafe.com a regional news source that is positively North State.

Several weeks ago, when I wrote “Let the show begin!,” I certainly did not intend to invite the aphids. Nevertheless, the show has begun and the aphids are here to enjoy it along with us. So are the weeds. I am not much of a believer in death-by-chemical, and so I am once again enjoying my spring morning ritual of pulling a few weeds and squashing as many aphids as I can. The aphids are mostly clustered along the stems and young flower buds of my clematis vines and rose bushes, so I am able to squash quite a group with one gesture. Soon enough the beneficial bugs (Aphid wasps, assassin bugs, lacewings, ladybugs,praying mantis, etc.) and who feed on the aphids will be along to help me in my work and until then the morning squashing is oddly satisfying. If I lose my zeal for squashing, I can always pull out the hose and give the plants a strong spraying,w which helps to dislodge a large portion of the aphids as well. Photo: Aphids very happily covering a clematis stem and bud.

To escape our spring gardening reality of aphids and weeds, (and other gardeners’ reality of late-winter snow and frost), we have spring Flower & Garden Show season followed closely by Early Summer Garden Tour season. Unlike aphids, garden shows and garden tours at their best are all about fantasy and possibility. They are - dare I say it - sexy and seductive with the garden temptations and promise they hold out to us.

In the past two weeks I have attended two good garden shows: The world-class San Francisco Flower & Garden show this year was in its new location at the San Mateo Events Center. I was duly impressed with the display gardens and duly overwhelmed with the plant and garden vendor booths (every garden thing you can think of from books to orchids to garlic presses) and next year I hope to go for two days so that I can take advantage of some of the speakers and seminars offered. The Soroptimists Home, Garden & Antique show in Chico last weekend had some nice floral competition displays and several very good plant vendors sales and demonstrations - regional plant groups including the Iris Society, the California Native Plant Society, the Orchid Society the Bonsai Society, the Audubon Society and Chico Horticultural Society were there with displays, information and even plants for sale. Several other regional Home & Garden shows and the first of the regional garden tours are coming up in the next few weeks. Photo: while my home garden does not have space for a fountain quite like this one - I so admired the design of it, I had to take a picture for my files.
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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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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.

“One acre well compast, is worth acres three.” Ward Habriel becomes quiet and reverent as he quotes one of his heroes, J. I. Rodale, father of the modern day organic gardening movement. Quiet and reverent are clearly at the depths of their passion, but “gregarious and fun” are more accurate descriptors for Cheryl and Ward Habriel – Master Composters and avid home gardeners who have been visiting Paradise since the 1970s and have lived in upper Paradise full-time since 2004.

I first met Ward and Cheryl on the Paradise Garden Club tour earlier this summer – he was in charge of a home composting demonstration station. Their knowledge – and their senses of humor – became apparent almost immediately. In the handful of times I have gotten together with them, Ward generally has a Rot Hotline t-shirt on, their car has a bumper sticker that reads: Compost Happens. These people love compost. And they want us to love it too. “One of the great things about compost is that it happens whether you are part of it or not. Leave a pile of leaves and twigs and nature will compost it for you – it’s just the natural process of decomposing organic matter. That’s the science of it. The art and fun of it is when you decide to actively participate. I mean for heaven’s sake why buy what you can make for free and do a better job of it? You already have all the materials – no matter how large or small your estate or apartment might be!”

Ward and Cheryl are life-long home gardeners. In the mid-1990s, retired from the insurance industry and while still living in Castro Valley, Ward became interested in the idea of composting as way to save money and put his yard waste to work. He and Cheryl took an introductory class on composting by Alameda County and from there they were both accepted into the Master Composter program.

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