Placer County master gardeners offer free pollinator workshop
A painted lady butterfly revels in the nectar from a lacy phacelia plant, which is a California native. Kathy Morrison
How do you get more fruit and vegetables from your garden? Start by inviting more pollinators into your landscape.
Get ready for a spring full of bees and butterflies with the help of this free workshop, “Attracting Pollinators to Your Garden.”
Set for 10:30 a.m. Saturday, March 11, this one-hour workshop will be offered live in person as well as via Zoom. Presented by the master gardeners of Placer County, the class will not only share how to attract bees, butterflies and birds, but how to keep them around.
“(The class is about) attracting and protecting our winged visitors,” say the master gardeners. “Come and learn what hummingbirds, butterflies, native bees and other garden visitors need in our gardens. See the plants!”
The in-person session will be held at Loomis Library, 6050 Library Drive, Loomis. To see it on Zoom, register in advance with this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwvduCqrTIoEtf1gBFONrxiLZacECgfLQUK
Upcoming workshops presented by Placer County master gardeners include straw bale gardening (March 18) and “Firescaping” (April 8). Learn more at: https://pcmg.ucanr.org/.
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Garden Checklist for week of Jan. 19
Dress warmly in layers – and get to work:
* 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 oil 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.
* 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. Clean up leaves and debris around the trees to prevent the spread of disease. (The exceptions are apricot and cherry trees, which are susceptible to a fungus that causes dieback if pruned now. Save those until summer.)
* 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.
* 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.