More About Limes

I love citrus in the garden. It's evergreen, has lovely flowers that perfume the air (especially orange trees). It doesn't require much pruning...just enough to shape it. It can even be indoors (which is one reason greenhouses became so popular). If I had a big sprawling manor house in England, you can bet I'd have a conservatory with citrus. I might call it my conservatory, or I might call it my orangery...'twould all depend on my fancy at the time.
I currently have a Valencia Orange, a Meyer Lemon and a Clementine Tangerine...and as of yesterday, a Bearss Lime. Say hello...
Some tips regarding successful citrus growing:

• Buy a dwarf citrus...these are regular fruit grown on a special root stalk. They usually range in size from 6 - 12 feet, and in containers even less. Otherwise you may become the owner of one of those 20+ feet citrus that drops grapefruit all over the sidewalk!
• Protect from frost (the easiest, and cutest, method is a string of Christmas lights at the base)
• Prune out shoots from below the graft...this is a knobby area below the main branches where your citrus was attached to the root stock. These shoots won't do you any good and just take away energy from your tree.
• Fertilize with special citrus fertilizer. I've often done the "neglect experiment" with my citrus...not applying fertilizer on the correct schedule, noticing the leaves get "chlorotic" (unable to produce chlorophyll, and thus increasingly less green), baby fruits drop off, etc. Give 'em some fertilizer and Yowza!...new sweet green growth, blossoms...the whole "I'm healthy!" thing.
• Remove your tree carefully from its container. Seems like the growers use a lot of sand in the potting mix and so roots don't hold a lot of their planting medium closely. They do fine, but it bothers me to take a tree out of a 5 gallon pot and have most of the potting soil stay in the container. So, I like to cut the plastic container away, slicing it to it's base and then carefully transfer it to its new home...the ground, your wine barrel or a large pot.

One more picture of my new lime...notice the large lime on the bottom right and all its wee limes!

Tomorrow I'll be posting about Mojitos, the popular Cuban drink that will make a lime lover out of anyone!

Good Morning Talini's!

"Limes" by pfibiger on Flickr

About a week ago I was asked if I would like to be on Good Day, Sacramento, Channel 31's morning show (seen in Sacramento on Channel 12). The reporter, Julissa Ortiz, is a novice gardener and was especially interested in the Mojito Garden I blogged about a few weeks ago. I thought that would be fun...immensely rewarding and easy as a beginning garden project, but also something any gardener (or cook) would like.

We're going to be shooting at Talini's Nursery tomorrow morning. Talini's is located at 5601 Folsom Blvd. in Sacramento. According to a recent article in the Arden-Carmichael News,

"Founded by the late, Italian-born Pietro Talini, who once supervised and cared for the gardens at the Vatican, the garden center opened after Talini left war-torn Italy for the United States with the dream of opening his own nursery. Now, owned by Talini’s son, Louigi – better known to customers and employees as “Lou” – the nursery continues to have a matchless charm, and prides itself on having products buyers can’t find anywhere else."

It really is a great nursery, lots of veggies, shade plants, annuals and perennials, trees and shrubs. By the way, a great resource for growing and using citrus is the grower's website! Check it out...Four Winds Growers.

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

Red Hot Perennials from Annie's Annuals

Annie's Annuals in the San Francisco Bay area (Richmond) is to gardeners what Willy Wonka's chocolate factory was to, well, chocolate lovers! There's always something happening and always an enormous variety of perennials and annuals not found elsewhere. Their Fireworks for Flower Floozies Sale runs thru July 5th, with a 20% discount for online orders until midnight.

Penstamon eatonii "Firecracker Penstamon" - full sun, perennial, zones 3 - 10
Fuschia fulgens pt. sun/shade, zones 9 - 11
Bomarea species, "Climbing Alstroemeria" - Perennial vine, zones 9 - 11.Take a look for yourself...Annie's Annuals

Have a happy 4th of July!

Pruning Tomatoes...what???

Fine Gardening, a fine magazine, sent me a newsletter about pruning tomatoes last week. Made me want to grab my pruning shears and head outside...which is what I plan to do, so I've got to make this short! Check it out: Pruning Tomatoes.

Notes from the garden coach: What's in Your Barrel?

Half wine barrels make great containers for the small garden. They can be tucked into a corner or stand alone on a balcony or deck. They have enough room to hold a variety of things. Here are three of my favorites and some recipes (although my half barrel has blueberries in it!):

• The Pasta Garden: tomatoes, basil, oregano, green beans, peppers, eggplant (plus you'll also need garlic, but that's a cool season crop)
  Pasta with Summer Vegetables and Lemon Basil, and to die for Oven Roasted Tomatoes...killer on Bruschetta.


• The Salsa Garden: tomato, cilantro, chili (Serrano or Jalapeno), garlic, lime... Ole! Salsa Cruda (cruda = raw or fresh)


• The Mojito Garden : basically, a lime tree and some mint (plus sugar syrup and Rum). Mint's interesting, good in tea, mint juleps, Moroccan food. Check out this reference, all about mint. What kind of mint to use for Mojitos? According to one web site, you need to have Cuban mint, imported. Another says each kind of mint gives it one nuance to the mojito. I say, after you’ve experimented and made a few, you’ll be the expert and people will be quoting you! Limes – Bearss Lime is best.

flickr photo from jspatchwork

Like a lot of things in life, timing can make a difference in your success. In Sacramento I like to plant my summer veggies the first week in May. But, here it is...almost the end of June! How can we compensate?

• Well, first of all, act fast. Those plants need to get into the soil now so they can start getting their roots established...this will give them a larger network to draw moisture in. Plus, know that they don't grow when it gets too hot because their cell division programing cuts out in the 90's. So, again, act now while we still have some "cooler" weather.


• Start with larger sized plants. This is no season for the Pony Pack.


• Give them extra and regular water...my favorite solution to the busy life is a battery operated timer with a drip system attached. Attached to a faucet, this frees you up to go and come as you please.


• Give them a bit of shade while they're getting started, otherwise those leaves can just wither and crinkle up (for instance, I staked and draped an old lace table cloth over some newly planted flowers this morning...maybe I should go see how they look...)

My Garden Coach philosophy: I don't believe in green thumbed and black thumbed people...ask any seasoned gardener, they've each made plenty of mistakes. (How do you think they became such "know it alls"?) My goal is to help you have a successful experience. There is truly something earthy and satisfying about growing your own food. And, it doesn't take acres to create that feeling...you can start with a half barrel. Call if you need some help.

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

Summer Vegetable Garden Special

Today's the 2nd day of summer, and it's not too late to plant a veggie garden. In honor of this grand season, I'm offering a free 1/2 hour consultation (a $25 value) thru the 3rd of July. I will assess your site for the best vegetables, herbs and possibly, citrus trees. I will make recommendations regarding growing method (raised bed, square foot gardening) and irrigation system. If you like I can also help you get your small garden planted and coach you so you can have a successful gardening experience.
You can be eating your own tomatoes this summer but you need to act now!

William Land Park's Rock Garden

The Rock Garden at William Land Park is a botanical gem.

The paths meander thru the rock lined garden...fun for all ages,

with beautiful vistas, and places to sit...and places to get lost in...

...and friendly critters to show you around!

Read more about this great park and its many and varied activities for all members of the family in my write-up at bestkidfriendlytravel.com.

Sunday Gardening

My husband decided we could wait no longer to plant the living tree we purchased at Christmas...an Incense Cedar. I'm out there helping him figure out where to plant it so it doesn't hit our sewer line and get all inspired...hey, a shovel, sod to remove, expand the border. That's a true purpose for me! 8 hours later I return to the house...fingers cramped in a shovel gripping fashion, but satisfied! Transplanted lavender, gaillardia and cape fuschia and got some of my plants awaiting a home into the ground, too...daylilies, coneflowers, lantana. My garden more and more becomes the garden I hoped it would be.
Calocedrus decurrens, Incense Cedar, is a native to Oregon, California and Nevada. Over time it grows tall (75 - 90'), but stays skinny (10 - 15'). Takes blazing summer heat and tolerates poor soil (sound familiar, Sacramento?), but likes water in this region, so should be chummy with the flowers. In the background of this picture is some penstemon, which blooms for me all summer!

"M" is for Mediterranean Gardens, "N" is for Never Mind

The expression, "a day late and a dollar short" comes to mind. I was in Los Angeles visiting the girls last week...missed "M", but didn't know until a second ago that we've moved on to "N". So, for ABC Wednesday, I give you "M"...and as Rosanne Rosanna Danna would say... "Never Mind".

Shown above...tomato, sunflower, Mexican and Pineapple Salvias, succulents (all from my garden), blue pots from High Hand Nursery, Fair Oaks Village where the chickens run free, eggplants from the Loomis Eggplant Festival, and a fountain, cuz you gotta have water!

From Wikipedia, Mediterranean Climates: "A Mediterranean climate is one that resembles the climate of the lands in the Mediterranean Basin, which includes over half of the area with this climate type world-wide. In addition to the areas surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, this climate type prevails in much of California, in parts of Western and South Australia, in southwestern South Africa, and in parts of central Chile."

So...we have Provence, Algeria, Greece and Italy, parts of Australia, Santiago, San Francisco and the Napa Valley, and, you guessed it, SACRAMENTO! We may have uber-long growing seasons and the summers can get really hot, but we're in good company. Learning how to garden in this climate can make the experience a great one...and one of the secrets is the right plant in the right place. The Napa County Master Gardeners have a nice write up on Mediterranean climate gardening on their website. Another resource is the international Mediterranean Garden Society.

For the ABC Wednesday project, my pick is "M" for Mediterranean. Mmmmm...now, if I could just get a little Aegean Sea or some coastal Pacific Ocean breezes in the mix, it would be really "N" for nifty! Oh, never mind.

My Top Three Lavenders

Welcome to another round of ABC Wednesday! For this week's letter, "L", I've choosen one of my favorite plants, Lavender. This native Mediterranean shrub has a wide variety of colorful and fragrant flowers, is easy to grow, and is useful for cooking, crafts and perfumes. It's been grown for centuries, and as such, has woven itself nicely into our humanity.

Three of the best known lavenders are:

• Lavandula angustifolia, English Lavender - a rather skinny flower stalk, probably the most widely planted and hardiest of them all. I like this lavender because it makes me feel English. Might I have a cup of tea?


• Lavandula dentata, French Lavender - toothed leaves (thus the dentata. I like this lavender because it makes me feel French. (Also, I like knowing that the latin root has to to with teeth.) Ooh la la ...



• Lavandula stoechas , Spanish Lavender - twin rabbit-like petals, many colorful hybrids. This lavender makes me feel Spanish! There are many new hybrids of lavender with outstanding colors coming into the nurseries these days! Ole!

Growing Lavender: Evergreen in the Sacramento Valley (which is one of the 5 Mediterranean climate areas in the world!), lavender is easy to grow. It prefers well-drained soil and little or no fertilizer. Mulching is best done with non-organics, like decomposed granite or pea gravel.

Pruning is necessary to keep lavender within bounds (unpruned lavenders can become sloppy with a lot of central wood...ask my sister, Julie, her lavender has a mind of its own) and should be started when the lavender is young. Prune with caution, however because if cut back too much (into the wood) they may not come back.

Good References: UC Davis' recently published Arboretum All-Stars lists lavender amongst the "100 tough, reliable plants that have been tested in the Arboretum, are easy to grow, don’t need a lot of water, have few problems with pests or diseases, and have outstanding qualities in the garden".
For more information about lavender, get a copy of The Sunset Western Garden Book (see link at right). It's the must-have reference for gardeners in the west U.S.

ABC Wednesday: "J" is for Junk!

Welcome to the weekly online collaboration known as ABC Wednesday! My choice for the letter "J" is Junk. These birdhouses were on display at last weekend's Perennial Plant Club Sale in Sacramento. Aren't they charming? The green roof was made from an old Doughboy pool liner!

My friend, Lynn, at Inside Red Studio is a garden designer and an artist who especially loves working with recycled materials.

Back last Fall, I posted a couple of items about these great these outhouse/tool huts made by a father and son in Davis out of wood scraps and junk found at the dump.

I really admire these artists' ability to take some ordinary and discarded thing and with imagination and creativity, turn it into art. It's really something.

UCD Seminar: Backyard Edible Gardening

Here's something interesting...Saturday, April 25th from 9 - 2, Backyard Edible Gardening: Growing a Successful Vegetable Garden, a "one-day seminar designed as an overview on how to establish, maintain, and utilize the many benefits of a productive backyard edible garden."
The event is sponsored by UCD's Good Life Garden, an edible landscape project designed to teach and inspire, located on campus at the Robert Mondavi Institute of Food and Wine. I'm intrigued by this concept which recognizes the importance of vegetables to a "good life"; eggplants and radishes finally get their due! The website has details of all the crops grown on the campus site, even recipes.
But, back to the seminar. I want to go, how about you?

ABC Wednesday: "I" is for IPM

ooh, ooh, ooh...10 more minutes to go...I have to choose. I think I'm going with something dull and academic, but which I think sounds worthy...it's

Integrated Pest Management (or)

IPM

This year my green goal is to become more organic gardening friendly...IPM could help me with that, I'm sure, if I only understood it...I think I'll pass this off to a blogger I admire, a recent Master's Degree recipient from the UC Davis campus...I'm sure she had to digest it all.
Till then, however, here's the link to the program, http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/

Whoops, 2 more minutes! PUBLISH!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

When I was a young girl, my mother had a dance studio. She had recitals and this is one of the songs I remember singing. The shamrock of the song has many forms, but all of them, according to my Sunset Western Garden Book, are likely to become weeds. And if weeds they are, so be it...and perhaps it speaks well of us Irish transplants...that we're so willing to grow and so crafty in our charm that we thrive like weeds, and have songs written about us.

I'm looking over a four-leaf clover, that I overlooked before.
One leaf is sunshine, the other is rain,
third is the roses that bloom in the lane.
No use explaining, the one remaining, is somebody I adore.
I'm looking over a four-leaf clover, that I overlooked before.

- Words by Mort Dixon, music by Harry Woods
(Written in 1927 - popularized in 1948 by Art Mooney)

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - March, 2009

My forsythia is gloriously blooming in my front yard. So pretty, so yellow. They're not very exciting when they're out of bloom, but, at this time of year, they're a gardener's prize, a "wow...look at me!." I used to feel envious of gardens with these early blooming shrubs, but now I have my own. This one came from a neighbor who was propagating in his back yard. Maybe this year I'll try some cuttings, myself...they're suppose to be easy.
Go to Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day and see what's blooming all over the world.

"E" is for Euryops

This is my first contribution to the online collaborative project, ABC Wednesday, a weekly posting of items relating to a particular letter. This week it's the letter "E."

There is something to be said for the "faithful retainer." The person, plant, friend who is constant and dependable, but somehow, for this, less valued. Every gardener has the plants in their area that grow without fail...I'm sure this is true...and this can make them seem common, whereas to another, they would be prized. Such is the case in Sacramento with Euryops. What would you say to a shrub that bloomed thru winter with yellow daisy-like flowers when its neighbors had dropped everything but their thorns? My experience with Euryops is that I can abuse this plant, with neglect and artless pruning, and it says, "I'm there for you."
According to the Sunset Western Garden Book, the easy care and extremely long flowering season of Euryops pectinatus' make it a good filler, background plant or low screen. So there!

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - February, 2009

This flowering quince is the first bloomer of the year in my garden...but the saucer magnolia is just ready to pop and so are the daffs...then my forsythia...and then my sparaxis bulbs. I got some of my dad's quince years ago, just after my mom sold the house and was ready to move. He had a big stand with plenty of room, so no need to prune and control...shrub heaven. I had a devil of a time digging it up. Had to go way down to get some viable roots, which the shrub didn't miss at all, at all. I planted some in the front yard and some in the back. The one in the front yard gets more daytime sun and comes into bloom first.

Oh What a Beautiful Seed Catalog

I went to heaven this morning when my mail arrived with a 125 page seed catalog from Heirloom Seeds. Dreams of glory, let me at that order form! Such a work of art I felt like I should send a donation. Luckily, ordering seeds is a bit like making a donation...don't you think?

Goodby to Snowball

Our little old lady cat, Snowball, died last Tuesday. We had her for almost 18 years. She really wanted to be an "only cat" but she learned to share her home with our other little guys, Ozzie and Pippi...they were there, what can you do? Most of all, however, she really loved us. A lap was the best thing, and tucking her head into the crook of your arm while on the lap was heaven.

 

We buried her by the new orange tree and left pink and orange candles burning thru the night. If we had roses in bloom we would have had petals strewn on the ground.
Our little concrete pets now keep her company. Someday that orange tree will be bearing great juice oranges. That will be cool. And Snowball will always be tucked in our heart. Liesel, Mom and Dad

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Our cat, Oz, died early Sunday morning. We were expecting it and it's a relief to not have the worry and extra work. He wasn't so happy about his condition, either.
He was a sweet boy, most of the time...always purring if you just got close, playing keep-away with the dog...standing up on his back legs looking to be let in and looking like a ermine or a prairie dog. He was trouble, too. Sometimes he just wanted to mix it up with our little old lady cat, Snowball. When he got yelled at, he would go to the backdoor to be let out with a bit of attitude..."allright, then...I'm out of here!"
Sunday morning I prepared the area where he was to be buried...a shady area where he liked to hide out on a summer day for a nap. I removed a rose that got way too much shade, pruned some other shrubs back, raked the leaves. We buried Ozzie and I planted a shrub I have wanted to find a good spot for, Brunfelsia pauciflora 'Floribunda', affectionately referred to as "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" for it's quickly changing blossom colors.
I look out my window and see his little grave. I'm looking forward to seeing his shrub grow.