Smart & Sustainable, Green Garden Design, Coaching & Seasonal Maintenance


Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Sacramento's Favorite Tree - The Coast Redwood

Avenue of the Giants, Humboldt Redwood State Park in Northern California
Flickr photo credit: Jason Sturner 72

Sequoia sempervirens - Coast Redwood
Origin: native to Coast Ranges from southern Oregon to the central California coast
Character: One of the West's most famous native trees, and, the tallest tree in the world. Grows rapidly, up to 5 - 10'//year. Can reach up to 350', but in the landscape, more likely to top out at 70 - 90' x 15 - 30' wide. It is very upright and columnar, growing more open with age. Most have branches that grow horizontally, extending upwards at tips.
Foliage: needles are alternate along the branchlets, stiff and pointed, extending like feathers to either side. Generally deep green, grayish beneath.
Fruit, Seed and Flower Description: 1" fruits, both male and female flowers.
Environmental Preferences: full or partial sun, moderate to regular water, complete fertilizer in the spring
Pests and Diseases: almost entirely pest free; can be sensitive to iron tie-up or deficiency which causes yellowing Handled with iron phosphates or chelates.
Sunset Zones: 4-9, 14-24
Uses: accent, specimen tree, lawn, screen or windbreak (can be planted singly or in groves, 7'+ apart), utilitarian (lumber).
Comments:  Fire resistant. Some of its cultivars include, 'Aptos Blue' (dense blue-green foliage); 'Soquel' (finely textured needles); 'Los Altos' (very deep green, with a drooping, arching branches); 'Adpressa' (a dwarf redwood that grows up to 3' tall and 6' wide, nice for a rock garden)


Whether you need garden design, coaching, seasonal maintenance or planting, Geno's Garden can help!
Call me at (916) 764-5243, or email hansonja@aol.com.

Getting to Know Your Evergreen Trees

clockwise from upper left, CA State Capitol Xmas tree, Corado Blue Spruce, Old Town Sacramento Holiday tree, Sequoia sempervirens
Merry Christmas, Sacramento Style

Winter is a great time to get to know your evergreens. The deciduous trees have lost their leaves and no longer distract the eye with all those messy details, like, spring flowers and summer fruits and colorful leaves in the fall. Perhaps this can be the year when you stop calling all the trees remaining, "Pine Trees". The differences may not be as apparent as with their deciduous brethren, but they are there. And, while you may not be a "Hort Nut" (someone who is crazy about plants), it's wise to know some evergreen basics ... such as how tall and wide they'll get, and whether they like lots of sun. Knowledge is Power! Thus I'm starting a series of posts on the most popular/successful trees for the Sacramento Valley. Stay tuned!
Tonight: Sequoia sempervirens, aka, Coast Redwood.

Whether you need garden design, coaching, seasonal maintenance or planting, Geno's Garden can help!
Call me at (916) 764-5243, or email hansonja@aol.com.

Colorado Blue Spruce, a Sacramento Xmas Favorite

Picea pungens 'Glauca'
The Blue Spruce establishes the trim color for this Curtis Park home.

Picea pungens 'Glauca' - Colorado Blue Spruce
Origin: Rocky Mountains; Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico
Character: this evergreen tree is naturally shapely, requiring little pruning. It is dense, solid and upright with a  pyrimidal to conical shape.
Growth Habit/Size:grows rather slowly, but extremely long-lived. In a garden setting, it's more likely to be 20' -30' at maturity, and 1/3 as wide. In the wild it can 3 times as tall.
Foliage: stiff needles ("pungens" = sharp) grow alternately or spiraled around the entire branch ... the blue of the needles comes from a film or cast that can be rubbed off to reveal it's base green color ("glauca" = film).
Fruit, Seed and Flower Description: spruce cones are typically 4" long and "pendant" or hanging.
Environmental Preferences: moist to somewhat dry soil preferred, with full to partial sun and neutral to slightly acidic soil.
Pests/Diseases: can have problems with aphids (look for small, dull green aphids in the winter, and treat to prevent defoliation in the spring).
Uses: specimen, accent, common as living Christmas tree, some useage for cut foliage. 
Sunset Zones: 1/10, 14-171 - 10, and 14 - 17.
Propagation: semi-hardwood and hardwood cuttings.
Comments: the Colorado Spruce is probably the best of the spruces for the Sacramento Valley. It has many interesting cultivars in the 'Glauca' category, including, 'Fat Albert', which grows to 10' - 15' x 10' x 12', making it a nice size for the suburban landscape, and 'Pendula', the Weeping Blue Spruce, which can grow as a ground cover or trained into a small weeping tree. These evergreens can be grown in a container, which will keep their roots from going deep, and thus will need a cooler environment so they don't dry out.
 
a blue spruce bonsai 

Whether you need garden design, coaching, seasonal maintenance or planting, Geno's Garden can help!
Call me at (916) 764-5243, or email hansonja@aol.com.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Last Call: Fall-Planted Bulbs

I love the expression, "last call", makes me want to work in a bar and holler it out! Other than that (ahem) it's time to plant the spring-blooming bulbs. They're ready to go to work! Here are some choices:

daffodil bulbs
These big bags of daffs are such a bargain. Plant them about 6" deep. Now.
(Read more about daffs here)

Scilla
Commonly known as squill or bluebells, scilla are a bit iffy for our zone, preferring a colder winter. I suspect this one is S. siberica.

Crocus vernus
Plant these crocus for a quick reward of color ... per Sunset's Western Garden Book, the flowers will appear in days to weeks after planting!

a little bulb ready to go to work!
This muscari bulb needs some moisture from the soil to really fire up that little shoot.

Hyacinthoides hispanica
Spanish Bluebells blooming last April at the WPA Rock Garden in William Land Park. Gorgeous, and they like us!

Other bulbs that you can plant now, include aliums (ornamental onions), lily-of-the-valley, freesia, fritallaria, iris and the cute snowflakes with the green dot on each petal(leucojum). It's late in the game to be ordering from bulb companies, so see what the nurseries have on their racks.

What else can be planted, now that you're in the mood? Snapdragons, violas, pansies, primrose, cyclamen... take a look around the nurseries and see what's available, most anything you find will work. Nurseries stock up for the season at hand. While you're at it, throw some California Poppy seeds out there ...
Eschscholzia californica
Our own state flower was a great choice for California ... sunny, boldly colored, hardy, prolific, just like us!

If you'd like some help getting those bulbs planted, let me know, I'm available to help you or some lucky person who picks you for the gift exchange! Whether you need garden design, coaching, seasonal maintenance or planting, Geno's Garden can help!
Call me at (916) 764-5243, or email hansonja@aol.com.

Thursday, December 09, 2010

Plant Now for Spring Daffodils

Flickr photo credit: PresleyJesus

Narcissus species, Daffodil. Narcissus, Jonquil
Origin: Europe and North Africa
Character: somewhat open clump.
Growth Habit/Size: typically up to 18", with flower up to 24". Are permanent and increase from year to year. If clumps get too large, they should be divided so that they will continue to be productive (otherwise too much competition for space and food and start dying out.)
Leaf and Flower Description: leaves are strap-like and fleshy to the touch. You can usually feel the mid-rib. Can have a variety of color combinations with the 2 main parts of the flower. Bulbs are 2 - 3" in diameter, tapering at the shoot end ("this end up"). Plant 5 - 6" deep and best planted after weather cools off in the fall.
Environmental Preferences: preferably full sun while blooming, not fussy about soil, Do not need summer watering.
Sunset Zones: all 
Propagation: division
Comments: Daffodils produce vegetative growth in the winter and flower in late winter or early spring. Spent flowers can be cut back, but leaves should be allowed to die back before removal so they can do their job of replenishing the bulb's food supply for the next year. Feed after flowering, not before (or may just get green leaves and no flowers). Deer (supposedly) do not like daffodils.

Whether you need garden design, coaching, seasonal maintenance or planting, Geno's Garden can help!
Call me at (916) 764-5243, or email hansonja@aol.com.

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Wordless Wednesday: Olive Dreams

17 June, 2010
Congratulations on winning your own olive tree adoption in our Nudo/Ready Made competition. Enjoy the fruits of your tree! Love, Nudo

my adoption certificate comes in the mail, my grove is Rosalio, my olive, a leccino, my tree is 39 years old


my 3 flavored olive oils arrived in mid-November


I think I've getting an idea...


parking lot olive tree ... who wants those olives?


not all the olives ripen at same time


I already have a link to how to make these beauties, and it's Christmastime, when I make stuff...


will she, or won't she?


To read more about olive trees and the harvesting of olives: Olive Trees for the Sacramento Valley



Besides the eating of good olives - yum! - my biggest delight is including olive trees in landscapes with other mediterranean or native plants. So much better than a boring lawn, don't you think?
Whether you need garden design, coaching, seasonal maintenance or planting, Geno's Garden can help! Call me at (916) 764-5243, or email hansonja@aol.com.

Sunday, December 05, 2010

Olive Trees for the Sacramento Valley


Olea europaea, Olive Tree
Origin: Mediterranean
Character: mounding rounded head, usually multi-trunked. Natural form has branches to the ground. Billowy look, not real open.
Growth Habit/Size: moderate,  grows to 30' x 30'. Olives can live 1000+ years and will have buttressed trunks with age.
Uses: accent, specimen tree, utility (olives). Give a sense of place to the California landscape.
Leaf & Flower Description: foliage is opposite along branches, elliptical to linear in form. The dark glossy green or grayish and tomentose leaves are approx. 2 - 3" x 1/2". Leaf margins cup downwards. Small, whitish flowers in the spring become the olive fruit in the fall.
Environmental Preferences: hardy, take heat, aridity, and drought to regular water. Tolerates rather than prefers a residential environment.
Cold Hardiness: hardy, Sunset zones 8-9, 11-24  
Pests/Diseases: scale, thrips
Propagation: tip cuttings
Comments: Fair Oaks, Placerville, Orangevale and Carmichael at one time were heavy olive producers, so they are often found in local landscapes. Can be a definite mess with seed drop which can also stain. Can be treated to reduce flowering, but this is not 100% effective. Treat when you see bees pollinating the flowers.There are also varieties that are (nearly) fruitless, such as, Swan Hill, Majestic Beauty, Wilsoni and Little Ollie. Field-dug mature trees are available for landscapes that require an established look immediately.
A Word About Olives: olives are bitter and inedible straight from the tree and need to be either water-cured or lye-cured (instructions courtesy of the Boorinakis-Harper Ranch in Auburn). To learn more about the science and industry of olives, visit the UC Davis Olive Center.





Whether you need garden design, coaching, seasonal maintenance or planting, Geno's Garden can help!
Call me at (916) 764-5243, or email hansonja@aol.com.

Friday, December 03, 2010

Eat Your Vegetables! (A Yummy Kabocha Squash Soup)


My daughter, Liesel, had this soup at the new Ten 22 Restaurant in Old Sacramento last weekend. It was lovely and they gave me the recipe. I think the seasoning amounts were wrong ... so I adjusted them as shown in my video, but the originals are listed in this link: Ten 22's Kabocha Squash Soup.
I also found a website that took that old Kabocha and ran with it. All the recipes looked great, so here's another link, this time to Healthy Chow.

Also, since I do love dem seeds, here's a link about how to save those seeds for next year's garden.



Whether you need garden design, coaching, seasonal maintenance or planting, Geno's Garden can help!
Call me at (916) 764-5243, or email hansonja@aol.com.

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

A Wordless Wednesday

What did I do today? A bit of shopping, a bit of planting and a bit of looking at the sky ...

daffs, crocus, alium, primrose, etc.

Sacramento clouds

Sacramento sunset



Whether you need garden design, coaching, seasonal maintenance or planting, Geno's Garden can help!
Call me at (916) 764-5243, or email hansonja@aol.com.