Imagine if you will a world without trees. Virtually no trees. What would it look like? Feel like?

Vast. Spare. Hot. Cold. Windswept.

Desert landscapes, grassland prairies and plains come to my mind. In their own way these almost tree-less landscapes are majestic - hauntingly lovely, evocative and home to some fascinating plants - but still: tree-less.
(more…)

How’s the pruning going for you?

I’ve just finished pruning my ‘Pink Lady’ apple and ‘Santa Rosa’ plum trees. I am still working on the roses and grapes, but the fruit trees are done. It went pretty well this year – but then, I was really inspired this year. Photo above: The historic Camden House at Whiskeytown Recreation area seen through a shroud of 100 - 150 year old ‘Lady’ apple tree branches.

I don’t know about you, but pruning can be a tricky task for me. As an enthusiastic and long-time gardener, I know that I should prune my fruit trees and vines every year – for form, for production and in many cases for the long-term health and life of my plants. But some years, the task seems more troubling than others: I diligently study the sketches and graphs in the books and articles, I even take the diagrams out to my trees. I look at the book, I look at the tree. I look back at the book. Hmm. Sometimes the tree looks so differently than the book’s sketch that I am just not sure. Other times the tree looks great – so why prune? I have been known in gardens and seasons past to look one final time at the book, shake my head and take my book, my clippers and my intimidation back into the house for another time/season/year. Photo: Rico Montenegro discussing the growth of one of the old apple trees at the Camden House site. (more…)

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.
(more…)

Fall is the time to plant trees in the North State and a special edition of In a North State Garden aired this past Thursday, October 22nd, specifically discussing choosing, planting, and caring for trees in your North State garden. Two guest experts joined me to answer your tree questions and to discuss trees in the garden in general. It was a fascinating conversation, and I hope to have the podcast of the show up at Jewellgarden.com in a week or so. Photo: The gnarled evocative branches of an old oak tree.
(more…)

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.
(more…)

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.

(more…)

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.
(more…)

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:

(more…)

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!”

(more…)

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