Sacramento master gardeners host Open Garden Day
The vegetable garden at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center will a showcase of cool-season vegetables at Open Garden Day, as in this photo from an earlier February. Kathy Morrison
Get ready for spring with expert advice from Sacramento County master gardeners.
On Saturday, Feb. 11, the master gardeners will host Open Garden Day at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center in Fair Oaks Park – rain or shine. Admission and parking are free.
From 9 a.m. to noon, watch master gardeners as they tend to mid-winter tasks and prepare for spring planting and rapid growth. They’ll also host several hands-on demonstrations including:
* Berries: Learn how blueberries and cane berries are pruned for the upcoming harvest season.
* Compost: Building, turning and harvesting compost. Visit the Worm Bin, too.
* Herbs: See Herbs flourishing in the cooler weather.
* Orchard: Bare branches in the orchard show proper pruning cuts.
* Vineyard: See canes getting ready to bud. Learn pruning basics.
* Vegetables: Cool-season vegetables are on display in raised beds.
* WEL: The water-efficient landscape will be full of overwintering beneficial insects ready for pests.
Got a garden mystery, problem pest or puzzling plant? Bring photos and/or samples (in a sealed plastic zipper bag) to the Ask a Master Gardener table.
Fair Oaks Horticulture Center is located at 11549 Fair Oaks Blvd., Fair Oaks.
Details and directions: https://sacmg.ucanr.edu.
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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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