If I were to make a garden.......

If I were to make a garden, another garden, a new garden.........these are my thoughts for the start of spring. Every year as I do my annual pruning and clean-up in my yard my thoughts travel to where I would place something new this spring. Last year saw the building of a large structure in our back yard that will be a quiet and lovely space to wile away the evening time. Made of rough wood, it resembles a large open pergola. Very tall, and strong it already has two very nice large wisterias that we planted at it's base last fall. This spring we will add a trellis structure and I will plant another flowering vine that will eventually enclose the area and make a "flower tunnel" entrance.

But back to the new garden. The last few years have kept us so busy at the nursery that we have not had any vegetable garden per 'say here at home. We have had an herb garden every year, if only to have the fresh basil needed for Robert's fabulous pesto sauce. This year I am going to plan out a space for the other "must haves" around our summer kitchen.....tomatoes! and all the other plants needed to make one of Robert's other specialties, salsa. Reality though has finally set in ...and I realize that the nursery will be no less busy this season, but if I make my new area easy to maintain and water I can have the success I am looking for. I am going to use 1/2 wine barrels, drip systems and shredded bark on the ground for weed control. My tomatoes are going in the barrels next weekend, surrounded by wall's of water to protect them from the frost. This lets me plant them a whole 45 days ahead of if I were putting them straight in the ground. I am using Harvest Supreme organic soil & Dr. Earth Starter to fill the barrels so I won't really have to even worry about fertilizing them much in this season, and the drips are already close by, as I am going to tap into my existing system in the herb bed. The area is right next to my compost bin so I can't miss it when I go out there every morning to empty the previous nights offerings. It has full sun and is protected by a fence against the hot winds that could dehydrate my plants. Using this system, I should see tomatoes by June!

Only an extremely experienced gardener can plant a whole garden in the mind's eye. For the rest of us, the garden seems to have a mind of its own. That's why planning it out on paper can be such a wonderful idea. By playing around with your thoughts and ideas, you will start to see what is missing. While I was drawing up a sketch of my new vegi area I realized that the barrels were going to be the perfect opportunity to also plant strawberries. They are going to go around the exterior of one of the barrels and hopefully cascade down the sides. Marigolds will go all around the bottom of each one ringing the barrels in color and hopefully keeping the bugs at bay. Plan out your next garden plot now while the air is still cool and the spring chores aren't yet coming in abundance. Happy Spring, Susan

Sunshine on my shoulder.......

What does a garden center owner do when she has a day off at home? Garden of course! I spent today in my own garden ~ taking advantage of the sunshine and warm temperatures. Like most of you, I had an abundance of spring chores that still needed finishing. With a cup of coffee in my hand I headed outside about 7:30, with the sun just starting to fill the day with warmth. I knew if I didn't get outside and get going, the chores from "inside" would start to take over. I filled up the bird feeders, an every other day event around here, and then with rake in hand I started to warm up the body. I moved on to the pruning and fertilizing and mulching and before I knew it, lunchtime was upon me.

There is something about this first major spring clean-up that always fills my heart with joy. The renewal of the season, the first signs of the daffodils blooming, the birds chirping, the perennials peaking up from under the warm winter blanket and yes, even the raking. Birds chirping, the wind chimes providing harmony and the fountain singing backup ~ ahhhh ~ music to my ears.
While raking around one of my perennial beds my eye was drawn to a flash of bright green. I have lined the bed with old glass insulators that Robert had in the garage for about 25 years. This is my "Moon Garden" and I thought that they would pick up the light on a full moon. Most of the plantings in this bed are in shades of white and silver and it really is quite pretty on a full moon evening. Back to the bright green ~ it seems that a few of them have become little mini-terrariums. Seeds have sprouted, not sure what yet, and they are living quite nicely in the warmth of the glass. It's these kind of little surprises that make gardening so enjoyable.

No day of gardening would be complete without a relaxing end. I found mine under the gazebo, a book in my lap and joy in my heart. Hope your early spring finds the same for you. Tomorrow it's back to the big garden, see ya there, Susan.

Pot vs. Ground ~ Perennials

If ever I needed a reminder to get my perennials in the ground by late summer, this is it. I planted both of these 1 gallon plants "Erysium Cheiranthusat" Common Wallflower, at the exact same time last year. One in a pot, the other in the ground. They are located about 12" away from each other. They get the same sunlight, the same watering, it is all done by hand in this area, and the same nutrients during the growing season ~ liquid sea kelp. As you can see by these pictures the one in the ground has done tremendous. It stayed pretty green all winter and it has already set it's wonderful purple buds for this season. The one in the pot stayed semi-green all winter with minimal hand watering (no hand watering for the one in the ground) has no flower buds yet and is definitely struggling.

Why show this? This was an experiment last year. I wanted to see how the exact same plant would do under two different conditions. I think I will go back to putting mostly annuals in my pots or if I do choose perennials, I will make sure and take them out of the pots and get them in the ground by early August so they have a chance to get their roots established some before winter slumber. Till next time, Susan

Pruning with Jay

Saturday, February 23rd

I want to thank Jay Davison for once again giving us an awesome pruning workshop. This is the seventh year that Jay has assisted us with this class and every year I learn so much more about pruning. Plus it is such a great refresher for what I "thought I knew". This picture was taken out in our new shade tree lines where we have a gorgeous pink flowering crab apple already planted. The tree had been planted as a memorial to Norma Cooper in the spring of 2005, and while I wanted the new tree lines, I was pretty hopeful that we would not have to try and move this tree to achieve them. With Jay's help we were able to prune up some of the lower branches, and hopefully re-direct some of the new ones that will come on. Our thanks to one of our wonderful gardener friends, Jim Kapner, who attended and took some pictures for us.
I am including some websites from the handout that Jay gave us. There is some great info, just copy and paste into your browser if they won't click from here. I will also add them to our website. If you weren't able to make it the class and would like a handout, just stop by the store. We still have some left at the counter in the green room. Happy Pruning, Susan

Useful Web Sites for Pruning

Fruit Trees

Evergreens

Shade Trees

Shrubs

Roses

Unloading Trees 101

As you can see, it can be a dirty job, but somebody got to do it. We're pretty happy it's us! This is a few pics from the first truck that we got in last week. With Marlea and I on the ground and Michelle on the forklift it went pretty fast. Add in the fact that the weather was absolutely gorgeous that day and it made for a relatively painless unload.

All the trees and shrubs are now neatly tucked into their new beds and are ready to burst forth with spring color. This one already started, an absolutely stunning Blireana Flowing Plum. Heavy fragrance and blooms to match.

And of course Harriet had to help with the unload also.
Have a great weekend. After these winds die down it looks to be a pretty outstanding weather week coming up.

844!!!! But Who's Counting

As the sun is rising on another absolutely gorgeous late winter day in Fallon, my thoughts turn to the task at hand for this morning. We are scheduled to get over 800 of our hand picked trees and shrubs today and my heart is racing with anticipation. Last week two trucks arrived with smaller shipments, but this is the big one that will fill the new shade tree lines. Thank goodness there is yoga in the RiverHouse this morning to help my back and my mind settle into this task for today. Hope to see you soon, Susan (pics to follow later today)

New Tree Lines Completed....

I've made a few references to our new Stonehenge project to friends and family, so thought it was time to mention what I was talking about. When Robert and I went to the tree growers a couple weeks ago he noticed that their trees were not blowing over in the wind as ours sometimes do. Upon closer inspection he noticed that they were using a strong black "clip" to hold them on to what appeared to be a type of heavy duty wire. As I was spending my time looking for great trees, he was trying to figure out if we could incorporate this same method at the nursery. We asked for a clip to take home with us, and they did one better, they gave us the name of the company that they buy them from. Turns out is was a orchard clip, used to hold up the wine vines on heavy 12 gauge wire while growing. Robert hasn’t been with me on the last 4 years of tree searching, usually the girls and I go, so it was great to have him this time. We have been needing to replace some of the tree lines that we installed the first spring we had the nursery, 2001, as they have not held up well to the height of most of the larger trees we picked out.

We arrive back home and Robert immediately starts to try and figure out how he can make this new found system work for us. He contacted the company they had given us, only to find out that they only dealt in extremely large commercial quantities, but he found one eventually that would sell us what we needed. He started to tear out the flowering tree lines and this is where the "Stonehenge" project started. When he first started installing the posts he came back into the store and asked me to take a look and make sure that it was what I wanted before ripping out and replacing the others. I walked out and said "well.......actually.......no.........what I really want is for the two large shrub beds to be gone, the area leveled, and the tree lines moved here. That way the shrub beds can go over where they get a little more shade in the afternoon and it frees up more area for large shade trees." The look I received was pretty classic Robert, but the next thing I know I hear the bobcat running and I look out the window of the green room to see him ripping out the shrub beds! Over the next two days he and Cody removed all the old RR ties, leveled the ground, and started placing the poles for the new shade tree lines. After Michelle and I laid it all out, on an angle to make better use of the wind block protection, and the posts were planted, it just reminded me of Stonehenge.

So now the lines are up, the first of the shade trees have been placed, and last weekend Jay Davison used the crab apple that we had planted in the area in the spring of 2005 as his demonstration tree for pruning. Over the next few days the lines will start to fill up, and the path that was placed down the middle will give us our own little forest to walk through on a hot sunny day. Hope to see you along the path sometime soon. Oh, and thank you Robert! It’s going to be a wonderful new addition to the nursery.

Here come the trees......here come the trees

Yesterday we started unloading the first of the fruit trees for this year. Peaches, plumcots, nectarines and fruiting mulberries now fill the back area by the rose garden. Over the next couple of weeks we will see the addition of all your other favorites. These trees are actually grown "For Us" by Kitchen’s Gardens. Located on the other side of the hill by Auburn, their growing grounds are very similar to our altitude and climate, well maybe not quite as cold, but the perfect temperature for the trees acclimation to our valley. In the late summer of last year we gave a list to Stacey & Rollen of what trees we would like to see this year. They buy in the bareroot and plant them up for us and water and talk to them until it is time to deliver them over the hill to our nursery. They are planted in peat pots, and if we lived in a wet location you could just plant the whole pot into the ground. Here we have to take the extra step of removing as much of the pot as possible once it gets into the ground. We will go over all of the planting how-to’s when you come in.

The other thing I was really excited to see when he arrived ~~ we had asked them to grow another crop for us. We have not been able to fill the requests the past couple of years for Flowering Almond Shrubs. These beauties, in both pink and white flowers, can fill an area with abundant flowers in early spring. While some growers now consider them "out of style", we still have many people searching for them. They are a perfect plant for our dry alkaline soils similar to a forsythia as far as blooming time and hardiness. They just bloom a whole lot more. Small tiny flowers envelope the entire stem from top to bottom. This picture shows Rollen standing next to the huge specimens that he has planted up for us. I know that at least 4 will be gracing my property this year. I have wanted some for quite awhile myself since admiring them around town in some of the older more established landscapes. They were only able to get their hands on 40 for us, so if you want me to hold one, just give us a call or email us.

The arrival of the fruit trees also signals much ~ much more to come....and today it starts. I am heading down to the nursery in a few to help Marlea with the unloading of the first major truckload of flowering trees that we picked out at the nursery in California last week. More on those and our new "Stonehenge" project later. See you soon, Susan

Tree Shopping, Spring 2008

So..........many trees, so little time. Robert and I have just returned from our semi-annual tree buying trip to California. By visiting the growers directly it allows us to find some incredible new varieties that we may not have known about, as well as pick out our own trees. Straight trunks, large calipers, no cracks or splitting bark, and gorgeous canopies are just a few of the things we are searching for. Traveling up and down the hundreds of acres of trees with our sales reps it also allows us to pick their brains on what varieties we might be missing that do well in our area. They are also very familiar of what alkaline soils can do to certain trees, and steer us away from them. We found some amazing trees this time. I think I like going in the winter better than our summer trip because you can see the branching pattern on the trees so much better. While the area is absolutely beautiful when everything in leafed out and flowering as it is in the summer (think Southern California trees when you are visualizing the flowers as they also grow all of those varieties) the winter trip allows me to really get to see everything so much better.

In this picture I am standing in the bucket of a 25 gallon Mountain Ash (Sorbus aucuparia L) that had the most amazing branching pattern. I am 5'10", and as you can see it is easily double my height. I picked up 10 of these, one of which I am told by Robert is going into our own backyard.
We also got a great deal on a large lot of 5 gallon Ash trees (Fraxinus americana), a perfect shade tree for this area.

Today we started a huge undertaking to make way for all these beauties, and when I get the pictures downloaded tomorrow.......well.....you know how it goes............the story continues. See you soon, Susan

Dr. Earth ~ ready ~ set ~ go!

Many of you have might have met Mike McLain at our nursery sometime during the past 7 years. When I first bought the nursery he stopped by to introduce himself as our sales rep for all of the Kelloggs products, (Amend, Gromulch etc) but more importantly of Dr. Earth Organics. He assisted me in finding the right mix of products for our area while "gently" persuading me to try what Dr. Earth had to offer. I have thought many times where my own garden would be if not for these great organics. Not very far! I am a convert, and if you have ever asked my opinion of what you should be using in your garden, hopefully you are now a convert also. I could go on and on about what Dr. Earth has to offer in the way of mycrohizza, and the perfect mix of micro organisms so desperately needed in our valley. Our Dr. Earth section is now freshly stocked and overflowing with all of their products and you won't go wrong with a one of them.

But this is only partly about Dr. Earth. What I really want to say is a huge public thank you to Mike! Through his quiet demeanor and steadfast commitment to organics and the environment he has taught me, and all of us at the nursery so much. He has a commitment to his products and takes the time to teach us about the value and importance of each one. If you are lucky enough to see his smiling face when you visit the nursery, take a moment to ask him a few questions. You will be glad you did. I am off to the store in a few, the wind is kicking up and it looks like we may get a little bit of moisture today. Hope to see you there soon. Susan
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