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Learn about local mighty oaks

El Dorado County master gardeners offer free virtual workshop

Oak tree canopy from below
Learn more about our region's oak trees in a free Zoom workshop Saturday.
(Photo: Kathy Morrison)

Mighty oaks seem to be all around us. They’re the dominant native hardwood of the Sacramento Valley and Sierra foothills.

But which oak is which? How do you tell a live oak from a valley oak? What are the plusses of having an oak tree in your landscape? How do you keep an oak tree healthy and happy?

Learn a lot about native oaks during a special virtual workshop, “Oaks in El Dorado County.” Set for 9 a.m. Saturday, May 15, this free 90-minute class will be hosted by the UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners of El Dorado County.

Long lived, native oaks form the backbone of the region’s ecosystem, as both habitat and food source. Naturally drought tolerant, oaks also offer advantages for low-water landscapes.

Master gardener Deborah Nicolls will lead the workshop, focusing on the oaks that are native not just to El Dorado County but much of the Sacramento region.

“Learn about the different oak species in the county, their function in our native environment, the problems they are prone to, and how to care for them,” according to the master gardeners’ website.

Registration is free, but required. You can sign up right until class time. Go to:
http://mgeldorado.ucanr.edu/Public_Education_Classes/ .

For more information and more virtual workshops: http://mgeldorado.ucanr.edu/

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Garden Checklist for week of May 18

Get outside early in the morning while temperatures are still cool – and get to work!

* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. Time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.

* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.

* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions.

* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters. Transplant seedlings for many of the same flowers.

* Plant dahlia tubers.

* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.

* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.

* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.

* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.

* Are birds picking your fruit off trees before it’s ripe? Try hanging strips of aluminum foil on tree branches. The shiny, dangling strips help deter birds from making themselves at home.

* As spring-flowering shrubs finish blooming, give them a little pruning to shape them, removing old and dead wood. Lightly trim azaleas, fuchsias and marguerites for bushier plants.

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