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With no in-person plant sales, UC Davis Arboretum nursery is very full


This is the scene at a typical UC Davis Arboretum spring plant sale, though not this year. However, the plants are still there and waiting for new homes. (Photo: Kathy Morrison)

Online sales with curbside pick-up expected soon




With no spring sales, the UC Davis Arboretum teaching nursery is practically overflowing with unsold plants.

“I’m babysitting an awful lot of plants,” said Taylor Lewis, the nursery’s manager. “It’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000.”

Taylor Lewis, the arboretum's nursery manager
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the arboretum canceled all four of its spring sales. Its fall sales are on hold until further notice. The arboretum usually attracts more than 8,000 patrons annually to its sales.

But a solution is on its way.

“We’re getting close to rolling out our curbside-pickup, online platform,” Lewis said. (Watch for details at
arboretum.ucdavis.edu .)

While arboretum tours and other events are on hold, Lewis has been hosting Facebook Live events at 10 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. “Ask the Garden Gnomes” tackles garden questions and tours volunteers gardens.

“I call those (shows), ‘Gnome Away from Home,’ ” he said.

Meanwhile, Lewis has been pretty much by himself, tending thousands of California native plants, Mediterranean perennials and drought-tolerant Arboretum All-Stars. Usually, he has about 160 arboretum volunteers plus several student interns to help out.

“We have only one volunteer in the whole arboretum right now,” Lewis said. (That volunteer is monitoring hummingbird habitat.)

While the rest of the UC Davis campus has been quiet, Lewis has kept very busy.

“I’ve been at the nursery every day (since the shutdown started in March),” he said. “It’s really just about only me coming out (to care for the nursery) — and pruning like crazy. These plants are getting big!”

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Garden Checklist for week of April 20

Before possible showers at the end of the week, take advantage of all this nice sunshine – and get to work!

* Set out tomato, pepper and eggplant transplants.

* From seed, plant beans, beets, cantaloupes, carrots, corn, cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, radishes and squash.

* Plant onion sets.

* In the flower garden, plant seeds for asters, cosmos, celosia, marigolds, salvia, sunflowers and zinnias.

* Transplant petunias, zinnias, geraniums and other summer bloomers.

* Plant perennials and dahlia tubers for summer bloom.

* Plant summer bulbs, such as gladiolus and tuberous begonias.

* Transplant lettuce and cabbage seedlings.

* Smell orange blossoms? Feed citrus trees with a low dose of balanced fertilizer (such as 10-10-10) during bloom to help set fruit. Keep an eye out for ants.

* Apply slow-release fertilizer to the lawn.

* Thoroughly clean debris from the bottom of outdoor ponds or fountains.

* Trim dead flowers but not leaves from spring-flowering bulbs such as daffodils and tulips. Those leaves gather energy to create next year's flowers. Also, give the bulbs a fertilizer boost after bloom.

* Spring brings a flush of rapid growth, and that means your garden is really hungry. Give shrubs and trees a dose of a slow-release fertilizer. Or mulch with a 1-inch layer of compost.

* Start thinning fruit that's formed on apple and stone fruit trees -- you'll get larger fruit at harvest (and avoid limb breakage) if some is thinned now. The UC recommendation is to thin fruit when it is about 3/4 of an inch in diameter. Peaches and nectarines should be thinned to about 6 inches apart; smaller fruit such as plums and pluots can be about 4 inches apart. Apricots can be left at 3 inches apart. Apples and pears should be thinned to one fruit per cluster of flowers, 6 to 8 inches apart.

* Azaleas and camellias looking a little yellow? If leaves are turning yellow between the veins, give them a boost with chelated iron.

* Pinch chrysanthemums back to 12 inches for fall flowers. Cut old stems to the ground.

* Weed, weed, weed! Don’t let unwanted plants go to seed.

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