Think Green Garden w/ The Mewaldt's

Bill and Korena Mewaldt, owners of Mewaldt Organic's, led another extremely informative class on April 3rd. You might remember last month when they came to talk about starting your vegetable seeds to prepare for planting on the first weekend of April. Well today was the day to put those pretty little plants in the ground. Utilizing Walls-O-Water, they demonstrated setting them up and tucking them in for the cold nights ahead. These plants will have a 45 day jump start on normal planting times for our valley. Stop by and watch their growth, they are located back in the display garden along the river. Thank you again to Korena and Bill, always a wonderfully educational opportunity whenever they come by. Their passion for gardening shines on all of us. Check out their website for more info and seeds available this year at our store. www.mewaldorganics.com





Rose Care 101

The "black roses" of Fallon are much more prevalent than I ever imagined. Over 60 gardeners arrived for last Saturdays class on rose care and pruning. One even came armed with a semi-dead rose in a bucket that was great to have for demonstration purposes. This has been such a tough winter on many of our plants. We live in Zone 5, which means an average winter low temperature of 10-20 below zero. While we did get that cold this year, I don't think that is what took out so many of our plants. It was the prolonged snow pack and pogonip freezing fog that we had in the month of February that caused us the problems.


Believe it or not, the USDA has just "upgraded" us to Zone 6/7 which would mean average winter temperatures of 10 below-0. Here at the nursery we will continue to advise you to go with zone 5, because as we saw this winter, even that can cause havoc on the garden.

Sunday the weather was 25 degrees cooler and windy, but we still had a good turnout for the class. This coming Thursday, the 15th at 1pm, is our last rose class for this season. The sun looks like it is going to be shining so come on out and prune with me. See you in the dirt soon, Susan

Florida....and back.


It was back to Florida last week for a quick five days with the kids. We traveled over the Easter weekend to help them put up a fence at their new home, and managed to turn it into a mini Henderson Family Reunion when all of Bobs siblings were able to join us in surprising his parents in Brunswick, Ga for the day. Of course there were a couple trips to local nurseries involved. While the menfolk worked on the new fence, Sara, Cash and I tore out some of her front shrubbery beds and started the transition to the perennial cottage look that she was wanting. Flowers - flowers - flowers filled the beds by the time we were done with the first stage of the plantings. Robert's sister had brought hostas, crepe myrtle and crocosmia from her beds in South Carolina so we found some nice new homes for those as well. The only thing we didn't get planted was the new banana plant that we had found at one nursery. A dwarf variety that won't bear fruit for a few years, the perfect spot was in the way of the fence builders. Sara will take care of that one on her own. It was a wonderful visit, alas - way to short, but we did manage a trip to the Jacksonville Zoo so Cash could show his PaPa how to feed the giraffe.

Getting Ready with Mewaldt's Organics

Thought you might enjoy seeing what Korena and Bill Mewaldt have been up to lately. We are so lucky to have them in our "backyard" so to speak. They will be teaching a class this Saturday at the nursery on how to get your veggie garden up and going, even in this cold weather. If you get a chance, check out their website. It contains a wealth of seed knowledge for our area. http://www.mewaldtorganics.com/

And these little pretties, they will be available at The Flower Tree soon.............or pick one up FREE by attending the class this Saturday.















Pollinating with Pat & John

What a great time we had with Pat and John at our Mason Bees & Pollinating class. They are such a fun and informative couple. I just wanted to publicly say THANK YOU BOTH! once again. It was great seeing you. If you missed the class, they will be at the Fallon Home & Garden Show on April 17th and 18th. Just look for the University Co-op Extension booth. Also, if you don't want to make your own mason bee home, we have some kits ordered. They should be here the week before the Home & Garden show. I am off to play in the dirt, Susan

Easy Fill

"Be careful what you wish for", my Mom would sometimes tell me. Well, in this case my wishing has brought on an abundance of birds in my side yard, and I love it! Finally, after years and years of making a mess filling these yellow finch socks, I have figured out an easy and efficient way to do it. When I shared my new method with a friend and realized that she had been having the same problems, I decided to pass along my find. Have another easy method? Let me know and I will post it up also. Have a great sunny Spring day! Susan
Start with an old watering plastic watering can, or pick one up at the dollar store. Cut the end off of it so that the pouring spout is larger.
Using a 20lb. bag of nyjer seed, open and carefully pour the bag into the can until it is 3/4 full. (one 20lb. bag will refill the size of yellow socks that we sell 20 times)Gather all your socks together....one watering can full will fill 6 socks all the way full.Place the end of the sock over the spout and pour!! No mess! No funnel ! No spill!Sit back and enjoy.

Early tomatoes

I posted a note on Facebook this morning that the first shipment of 4"heirloom tomatoes had arrived from our grower in Auburn, Eisley's Nursery. Well it didn't take long for one local gardener to get to the nursery for "first pick". Jim Anderson sent over this picture later in the afternoon...his choices, Caspian Pink and Black Krim. Walls-o-water make them comfy warm, and as he noted in his email, he should be harvesting mid-June!

You know where to bring them Jim if you have to many.

Black Roses

Not the kind that you can get from Ecuador……those beautiful dark burgundy roses that look jet black…but the ones that everyone seems to be calling the nursery about this year – the “Black Roses of Fallon”. This winter was an extremely hard one on a lot of our shrubs and rose bushes. While it may appear that they are indeed dead…please do not dig them up... just yet. Take the time to get down at the base of the bush and really look at it. I think what you may find is while the top half of the bush has indeed died off from the sub-zero weather we had this last winter, the bottom is still very much alive, and starting to wake up. Look for small reddish growths coming from the base of the plant. These are new canes that are forming. They will be tremendously productive this coming year, and you need to take care not to accidentally break them off when you are clearing away your mulch and leaves.

Try to contain yourself from doing any heavy pruning just yet. We recommend that you do not begin that until Mid-April in our area. When you do get the pruners out, you will possibly be taking your roses back to 3-5 main canes. If you just need to be doing something to your roses bushes right now, get some good aphid controls going. I made the attempt to spray mine today with Dr. Earth Rose & Flower. It is a 100% organic spray made from cinnamon, clove, garlic and rosemary oil. Not only does it smell wonderful, but it will cover any overwintering eggs and suffocate them so they don’t hatch. Turns out you can't hook it up to a hose that has a bent connection on it though......so it's off to the store for a new hose later today. While you are at it, check under your mulch. Hopefully you will find 100’s of these little guys under there also, as I did.

Today I did what most nursery people do on their days off, spent it in my own garden. The sun shining, the birds singing......all is well in my world. Have a great week, Susan

Upcoming Rose Pruning Classes @ The Flower Tree:
Saturday, April 10th, 11am
Sunday, April 11th, 1pm
Thursday, April 16th, 1pm

Springs Arrival

Today, at 10:31 PST is the OFFICIAL first day of Spring, and all week we have been treated to its impending arrival. The sun has been shining, the winds relatively mild, and the birds have been singing their symphony every morning. I just came in from filling up the bird feeders and the fountain, and while it is extremely chilly outside at the moment, there is promise of high 60's on the horizon. The sky is a beautiful robins egg blue, and the sun is shining bright. Later this morning at the nursery, Michelle and I will be presenting a class on Edible Gardening, and I am excited to plant some new things in the back River Garden. We have quite a few weddings and events booked for out there already, and we want it to look overflowing with color by the time May rolls around.


Take some time today to enjoy this beautiful first day of Spring, I know I will.

Think Green #3 / Compost 101

What started as an extremely chilly morning, turned out ok as the sun rose in the sky and the wind died down. We set up out in the very back of the nursery - this was to be a "hands on" class with Master Composter Paul Pflimlin taking the lead. Paul has an extremely beautiful yard here in Fallon, and has been on our garden tour in the past. The entire back area of his acre is devoted to composting, vermiculture (worms) and perfecting his humic acid. The first hour of the demonstration we discussed the benefits of compost/ compost vs. mulch / how to get started / variety of methods /and a questions and answer session.

Then it was on to building some compost bins. Paul uses a variety of systems in his own yard, and one very effective one for him is the rolled bin. He discussed the benefits, including the low cost, and set about putting a few together. (We purchased a roll of this wiring at our local Ace Hardware -Louie's for 33.00 including tax. It made 6 cages)
Michelle then took over with her bin process - using old pallets, another low cost method considering you can find old ones for free at a lot of locations - including The Flower Tree!!! During the construction came the hands-on part of the class for many volunteers as we put together the bins and then raked and pruned around the nursery to gather material to start filling them. At the bottom of the page I have included some great links about compost and project lists. (Thank you to Paul Pflimlin and Jim Anderson for the compilation of these sites)
Hope to see you at the next class this coming Saturday the 20th, when Michelle and I will be presenting #4 in our Think Green Garden Series "Edible Gardening" otherwise known as Eating up the Landscape.
And of course Harriet was there to oversee the project!
Great Sites on Composting
Vermiculture: This is Darren Murphey's site, Sierra Worm Solutions. He does classes at The Flower Tree on worm composting, as well as furnishes worms for us to sell.