Get inspired to go native in your garden
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This painted lady butterfly has a thing for lacy phacelia, an annual herb and California native plant. (Photo: Kathy Morrison)
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Such a busy time for gardens and gardeners! But we don't want the week to end before acknowledging California Native Plant Week, which runs through Saturday.
The California Native Plant Society, not surprisingly, leads the charge on this celebration. CNPS has posted seven inspiring videos on Californians who are "enriching lives and landscapes with native plants." One of the videos focuses on Sacramento's own Miridae Landscape Design and founder Billy Krimmel's home garden. Check out all the videos here .
CNPS also is the driving force behind the Bloom! California partnership with local nurseries around the state. In Sacramento, The Plant Foundry at 35th and Broadway is participating in the program; the informative booklet produced by Bloom! California is available there.
The booklet is a great guide to easy-to-grow California natives that do well in all areas of the state, including clarkia, currants, phacelia, sage, toyon and yarrow. These natives and others also provide crucial habitat for birds, bees, butterflies and other pollinators and wildlife.
Celebrate the plants that are at home in our backyards and our wildlands -- and try planting some new ones this month.
-- Kathy Morrison
P.S. In addition to The Plant Foundry, great sources locally for native plants are the various master gardener plant sales and the UC Davis Arboretum Teaching Nursery plant sales. April 30 is the date for both the El Dorado County master gardener sale of ornamentals and the final Arboretum Nursery sale of the spring.
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Garden Checklist for week of Jan. 12
Once the winds die down, it’s good winter gardening weather with plenty to do:
* Prune, prune, prune. Now is the time to cut back most deciduous trees and shrubs. The exceptions are spring-flowering shrubs such as lilacs.
* Now is the time to prune fruit trees. (The exceptions are apricot and cherry trees, which are susceptible to a fungus that causes dieback. Save them until summer.) Clean up leaves and debris around the trees to prevent the spread of disease.
* Prune roses, even if they’re still trying to bloom. Strip off any remaining leaves, so the bush will be able to put out new growth in early spring.
* Clean up leaves and debris around your newly pruned roses and shrubs. Put down fresh mulch or bark to keep roots cozy.
* After the wind stops, apply horticultural oil to fruit trees to control scale, mites and aphids. Oils need 24 hours of dry weather after application to be effective.
* This is also the time to spray a copper-based fungicide to peach and nectarine trees to fight leaf curl. (The safest effective fungicides available for backyard trees are copper soap -- aka copper octanoate -- or copper ammonium, a fixed copper fungicide. Apply either of these copper products with 1% horticultural oil to increase effectiveness.)
* When forced bulbs sprout, move them to a cool, bright window. Give them a quarter turn each day so the stems will grow straight.
* Browse through seed catalogs and start making plans for spring and summer.
* Divide daylilies, Shasta daisies and other perennials.
* Cut back and divide chrysanthemums.
* Plant bare-root roses, trees and shrubs.
* Transplant pansies, violas, calendulas, English daisies, snapdragons and fairy primroses.
* In the vegetable garden, plant fava beans, head lettuce, mustard, onion sets, radicchio and radishes.
* Plant bare-root asparagus and root divisions of rhubarb.
* In the bulb department, plant callas, anemones, ranunculus and gladioli for bloom from late spring into summer.
* Plant blooming azaleas, camellias and rhododendrons. If you’re shopping for these beautiful landscape plants, you can now find them in full flower at local nurseries.
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