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Leaf season dilemma: Piles vs. parking


Fill up your green-waste bin first, Sacramento city residents, so the leaf piles don't take up all the parking space. (Photo:
Kathy Morrison)

Help your neighbors and use green-waste bins first



The biggest complaint during leaf season in Sacramento? Those street piles take up parking places.

This problem is particularly huge in neighborhoods with heavy leaf canopies, such as Midtown, Land Park, McKinley Park, College Green, River Park and Pocket/Greenhaven.

By using the weekly green-waste bins, residents can help alleviate the parking issues. Fewer piles also allow The Claw crews to complete their city rotation faster, too.

“Even in the heaviest years, if you use the container every week, it makes a huge difference,” said Erin Treadwell, spokesperson for Sacramento’s Recycling and Solid Waste Division.

In particular, “blow and go” landscapers tend to put everything in the street during leaf season,  Nov. 1 through Jan. 26. Talk to your landscapers and ask them to put the green waste in the container first, Treadwell advised.

“We did a can survey during heaviest days,” Treadwell said. “Out of 1,000 yard waste cans on a typical route, only 200 cans were set out, but the streets were crowded with leaf piles. If only half the route had used cans, it would have made a huge difference and there would be a lot more parking.”

For more on leaf season and street pile rules, got to
www.cityofsacramento.org .

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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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