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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Here’s what I have on my Christmas list: Books. Gardening books to be precise, and a whole long list of them: the big heavy ones, with full-color glossy photographs and detailed captions involving plant zone information and the correct Latin names of the plants photographed (some people refer to this as Gardener’s Pornography). I am a garden-book- aholic. I have been for a long time. It is a hereditary disorder and I have books that were my maternal grandmother and grandfather’s, my paternal grandfather’s, my mother’s and an assortment of books from second-hand bookstores with the names of total strangers scrawled inside the front cover. I like most kinds of garden books: old, new, encyclopedic, photographic, single plant profiles, garden novels, garden history, garden philosophy, garden miscellany, garden coffee table books depicting the world’s most beautiful places – and so on. And every year for my birthday and then Christmas, I ask for garden books. Lucky for me, other garden writers and horticultural and garden publishers continue to work hard - every year - to keep me happy.

The history of gardening writing and garden publishing (in various forms) stretches back to antiquity in many cultures – from the Greeks and Romans, to the Chinese and the Aztecs. As North State gardeners we are lucky to live in a region well-served by several good gardening publishers – one of them being Timber Press out of Portland, Oregon. Timber Press is one of the leading publishers of gardening and horticulture related books in the world. Founded in 1978 by Richard Abel, Timber Press’s mission is to provide “quality books for sophisticated gardeners” and pretty much all other plant lovers. Timber Press joined Workman Press in 2006, gaining even greater international stature along with the merger. I recently had occasion to speak to Tom Fischer, Editor in Chief of Timber Press.
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Warm, smoky, mouth-watering and full-bodied. That was the dominant sensory experience on a walk around Nancy Heinzel and Brian Marshall’s market garden, Sawmill Creek Farm, in late summer. The entire garden was scented with the heady aroma of Hungarian peppers smoking over hickory chips at one end of the garden.

Nancy Heinzel and Brian Marshall are truly avid gardeners. That love and passion became much of their livelihood, “like all good things, by accident!” says Brian, “about 10 years ago,” when they decided to allow their 1-acre garden to continue on its ever-expanding way and become not just their garden but an outstanding market garden. Today, Nancy tends to the farm as her full-time job and Brian pitches in half time, his other half-time is spent as landscape designer and installer. Much of the goods from the farm are grown to sell at various markets around the area – including the Chico Thursday night Market and the Saturday Market in Oroville, April to November.
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Life is good. Really. November in the Northstate Garden sums up everything I love about living and gardening here – rich colors, abundant flowers and edibles, perfect weather – yes, even the rain - and nice people. After this past season of fire, economic chaos and seemingly endless politics – November in the Northstate is nothing short of a miracle.

On a crisp November morning, stand with a warming sun shining down upon you –in the middle of the Sundial Bridge in Redding watch the anglers and school children indulging in the beauty of one of our mighty rivers. Walk through the dappled sunlight beneath the sheltering trees of Chico’s Bidwell Park bikers and morning parents with children going this way and that. Walk the Feather River Fish Ladder in Oroville to see the salmon and steelhead struggling to make their way home. Hike Mount Lassen or the Trinity Alps. Take the drive to Lake Almanor. The greater Northstate Garden is one of the best inspirations by far for our own Northstate Garden.

In my garden – the leaves are beginning to change, some further gone than others. Persimmons hang fat and iridescent on the branches – sweetening up with the cool nights. I am cutting back the dead and the spent, top-dressing my beds with compost mulch. Some of the compost is from my own compost bin and spreading that always feels satisfyingly self-sufficient. Some people are sad at this particular cutting back of the year, but for me it feels freeing, things have gotten a bit overgrown and it’s time. And while we Northstate gardeners get to enjoy all four seasons we also get to enjoy the fact that while some things are now entering winter dormancy, others are just breaking their summer dormancy. Don’t be too quick to cut back plants that are still actively flowering – on these cold-morning/warm afternoons days the pollinating bees, butterflies moths and hummingbirds are still very active and they will reward your patience.
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Gardening, and the planted environment, is part of our cultural literacy – I am convinced of this. And local independent nurseries are the equivalent of the local library for this particular (and in my mind critical) aspect of our literacy. Local nurseries are gathering, learning and socializing places that help us live productively and happily in our communities.

Recently, I was visiting the Prickly Pear Nursery in Orland, chatting with Diane Stout, the owner, when three local Garden Club Ladies came by. Their hands were full. One had a large fresh green stem from what looked like a shrub, another had a pot with a small dead-or-dying specimen and the other had black plastic plant pots to recycle. Diane knew the ladies by name and they were hoping she could help them identify the first item, diagnose the second item and make use of the third. She was able to do all three, and the ladies stayed a while, chatting with us and comparing notes on what their gardens were up to just now. Two of the ladies bought something and they said good-bye. The interaction left me with this powerful feeling – the feeling you get when an experience transcends itself and comes to represent something larger. Photo Above: Diane Stout and her dog Bullet.

Diane Stout and her husband, Dave, moved to Orland from Carpinteria, near Santa Barbara, in 2003. Diane had for many years owned Hollyhocks Gardens, a small independent nursery in Carpinteria. When she moved north, she knew she wanted to continue in the nursery world, but was not sure she wanted to dive right in to owning. She spent her first few years in the Northstate working at the Red Bluff Garden Center, followed by Mendons Nursery in Paradise. “Suzy Brooks and Jerry and John Mendon were all great people to work with and learn from,” says Diane. But eventually, she was ready to start again at a place of her own – and in her home-town of Orland. September marked the one-year anniversary of the nursery.
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Most of us gardeners are aware of the concept of invasive plants. We see periwinkle (Vinca major, Vinca minor) blanketing whole swatches of our parks and shaded open spaces, we see yellow starthistle (Centaurea solstitialis) running rampant in the dry, sunny open spaces of the Northstate, and we instinctively know that these plants must be damaging the existing environment. While I don’t know of any gardener or nursery that would suggest planting starthistle, plenty will still recommend planting perwinkle. Therein lies just one tip of the confusing iceberg that is the “Invasive Plant” issue for gardeners: What is invasive for my region? What is invasive for other regions? And what of those latter should I be concerned about anyway? What’s the difference between a good, solid garden thug that holds its own and an environmentally damaging invasive plant? Photo above: Ornamental Deer Grass (Muhlenbergia rigens) makes a very nice, showy alternative to invasive grasses such as Pampas Grass (Cortaderia jubata).

That’s where we California gardeners are lucky (one of the many ways we’re lucky): we have the California Invasive Plant Council (http://www.cal-ipc.org/) also known as Cal-IPC (pronounced cal ipsee) to help us navigate the invasive plant issue. I recently spoke at length with Heather Brady, Project Coordinator for Cal-IPC about the Council and their upcoming annual Symposium being held in Chico October 2-4th. Photo above: Invasive periwinkle has taken over this roadside verge.

Founded in 1992, the council started as an informal group of “weed-workers” from throughout the state who had the foresight to understand that they could work more efficiently and successfully at managing/eradicating noxious weeds by pooling their individual knowledge and experience. Since then, the council has grown to become a leader in invasive plant issues in the state. One of their early volunteers, Dough Johnson, became their first paid staff member and is now the Executive Director. A registered 501(c)3, Cal-IPC has a small paid staff, legions of volunteers and over 1000 members across the state, who receive the council’s quarterly newsletter and regular email updates. (For individual membership visit the website: http://www.cal-ipc/about/membership/index.php). Photo above: Invasive yellow starthistle is rampant in dry, sunny open areas of Northern California.
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Don’t get me wrong – I know it’s still hot – sometimes very hot in the September garden. Summer may be close to officially over, but summer temperatures will persist in the Northstate for another couple of months. But still – September in the garden is somehow different than August. It could be the cultural signs – school busses back on the roads, backpacked children standing by crossing guards, holiday homes and resort towns slowing down.

But beyond the cultural shifts, we – and our plants – know that while it still looks like summer, it feels different. One that’s different is the light. Both the quantity and the quality of the light. Of course the light is always shifting as the planet turns, giving us our seasons. But the shift of light is more noticeable at some times of year than others, Autumn is one of them

The Autumnal Equinox on September 23rd means that by early October we will have lost more than an hour and a quarter of daylight from early September. Our hours of daylight will almost equal to our hours of darkness. And the sunlight we get will come to us at more of a slant – which is softer and cooler. While this may not seem like much, it is enough to trigger that get-ready-for-the-coming-winter response in the deepest recesses of our brains. And the deepest recesses of our plants.

This primal response is all about storing food for winter and producing seed for future generations. With somewhat cooler temperatures coming and softer light, my energy has rebounded and I feel like making stews all of a sudden, the hummingbirds and quail, squirrels and wild turkey seem more voracious than ever, and my plants are putting on their end of season blooms and seeds. Plants with really noticeable seedheads – like the ornamental grasses -are outstanding right now gathering and reflecting light. Acorns and rose hips are beginning to take on their burnished fall colors. Roses, dahlias and lavender are blooming or re-blooming and will keep going until first frost. So remember to keep watering and weeding as needed. Almost like a bonus Spring, now is also a good time for most of us to plant: vegetables and herbs for Fall and winter harvest, perennials, shrubs and trees which will appreciate the extra time to get established before next summer’s peak heat, and, of course, plant bulbs now for the spring show.

The full moon closest to the Autumnal Equinox is called the Full Harvest Moon and this year it falls on September 15th. According to the Farmer’s Almanac, the Full Harvest moon is thought to be bright enough to finish harvesting.
Some upcoming events of interest to gardeners in the Northstate in September include The Butte Rose Society’s 14th Annual Roase show on September 20th in Chico, and Turtle Bay Exploration Park is hosting its annual Arts & Crafts Festival the last weekend of the month. More information and more garden related events visit the Events Calendar. As always, if there are events you would like to see listed, or topics you would like to see covered, send me an email: Jennifer@jewellgarden.com. And thanks to all of you who do email, it is always good to hear from you.

Finally, as of this month In a Northstate Garden is proud to announce that it has joined the family of educational outreach programs of The Northern California Natural History Museum. As such: This has been a co-production of Northstate Public Radio and the Northern California Natural History Museum.

Until next week – enjoy life and early September in your Northstate Garden. I’m Jennifer Jewell.

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.

The road to Shambani Organics is as beautiful a northern California road as I have driven. You come across the rock strewn valley floor grassland at the foot of the Mt. Lassen wilderness area. After a twisting rise into the foothills, two enormous old gnarled black walnut trees mark the entrance to the farm. Two Queensland Heelers wag all around. The wooden house sets into the land as it slopes away toward natural woodland and a year-round creek. A view from the top of the farm looks out over a small orchard, the two white greenhouses and a field garden that is green with spring crops, over the tops of oaks and the valley floor to mountains spreading across the horizon.

Shambani Organics (http://www.shambaniorganics.com) is a small, family-owned and operated business growing organic vegetable and herb starts on this 3.5 acre farm in the foothills between Manton and Shingletown. Laurie and Wayne Kessler began the business in 2006. The Kesslers were Peace Corps Volunteers in Eritrea in the 1960s, they purchased their Shingletown farm in the late 1970s. Wayne was a portrait photographer for many years, but in the mid-1990s the Kesslers returned to Eritrea where they worked and lived for seven years.

“When we returned home to California in 2002, people thought we were retired,” Laurie told me laughing, “and we told them, ‘no we’re unemployed.’” This most recent re-entry into American life gave them pause. Not quite ready to retire, and wanting to do work that was both rewarding and in line with their own hopes of self-sufficiency, they found themselves asking: What do we want to do now? They researched several possibilities, including a community access kitchen. Wayne had always been a gardener, and as the very layout of their farm suggests, they already tended quite a lot of fruits and vegetables themselves. Then they met John and Colene Trinterud of Peaceful Glen Organics in Mendocino County’s Round Valley. Laurie and Wayne helped the Trinteruds in their nursery greenhouse in early 2005 and they immediately thought: “This would be nice work. We should do this.” The Kesslers continue their friendship and mentoring relationship with the Trinteruds.
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Take “real food, community and sustainability,” season it with almost pornographically voluptuous photography of local foods, pair it with refreshingly well-crafted and interesting stories about the people who grow, raise, make or sell local food and you will have something close to an issue of edible Shasta-Butte. (http://www.edibleshastabutte.com) “A local business celebrating the abundance of local foods, season by season,” founded by husband and wife team Earl Bloor and Candace Byrne.

If you are familiar with what are known as the edible Communities Publications (www.ediblecommunities.com), you will know that edible Shasta-Butte is not alone in the world. At most recent count 44 edible (not literally, but the photos do make you hungry) magazines, which are all published quarterly, are being produced across North America - from edible Manhattan to edible South Florida to edible Vancouver and many more in between, rural and urban.

Candace and Earl are editor and publisher respectively of edible Shasta-Butte. They are both academics by profession, she an instructor of English at Shasta College Tehama Campus, and he the Dean of Mathematics, Engineering, Science and Health Occupations at Yuba College. While I am sure they are fabulous at their day jobs, I can’t help but feel they have hit on some sort of perfect confluence of academics, food, social-activism and community connection in their creating of edible Shasta-Butte. As academics, Earl and Candace have lived and worked in multiple places. He is Canadian by birth and she is native to New York. While living on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, they became interested in edible Cape Cod, and eventually Candace began to write articles for the publication. When the couple both settled in the Northstate in 2002, Candace began writing for edible Sacramento, “which was great!” she says. “But one day I said to Earl, ‘our region is so different from Sacramento and so rich in resources – we should just start our own publication!’” And they did.

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