Your citrus are starting to bud and grow. Now is the time to fertilize with Citrus food. We recommend Masters Citrus Food. It has Plenty of Nitrogen with Phosphorus and Potash together with trace amounts of Iron. In our area we often find more iron helpful so we use Iron Plus to increase the amount of iron and zinc.

Use 1 lb per 1 inch of trunk so well established plants may use 3-5 lbs or even more per application. Remember you don’t feed a teacup poodle the same amount you do your German Shepard.

Check for scale now. Often the first sign that homeowner’s notice is a black deposit on some of the foliage. This is sooty mold that is growing on the honeydew given off by scale as they feed. Oil sprays during the spring can control scale. A stronw wash with plain water can remov e the sooty mold after you get rid of the scale.

Pruning, to control size, shape the tree or to open them up, can be done now.

We specialize in starters plants and “Potensai” for bonsai. If you have been waiting for our new shipment of plants it has come in. there are lots of interesting things. If you hurry you might beat me there. There are Japanese maples, elm, azaleas, and lots of other interesting bonsai plants.

I always like to go through and pick out things that might be nice to grow on to larger sizes. We brought in a good-sized group of 4” pots together with some smaller plants. We also still have some interesting #1 and #2 sized plants.

BTW we recently received a shipment of pots too.

Every spring we get people with samples of “curly leaf” on plums and apples and pears. Curly leaf or Peach leaf curl happens only on peaches and nectarines. If you have curly leaf on other fruit trees almost always it is a sign of aphid attack. The plum and apple aphid cause the foliage to curl around the insect to protect them from predators. The solution is to control the aphid. Because it is not possible to use systemic aphid controls on edible crops you have to protect the new growth. Masters’ Pest Fighter with Pyrethryns is a good control.

If you have true curly leaf on a peach or nectarine you can pick off the damaged foliage on small trees. Larger trees it obviously is not possible in most cases. In any case you need to fertilize to help the tree replace the damaged foliage. Remember to get three spraying with copper next winter starting at leaf fall.

Free board is a sailing or boating term referring to the amount of room before a boat gets swamped.

In gardening I use the term to describe the amount of room before water overflows on to walks or other areas.

Almost always I see the soil level at or even above the level of mowing strips, patios or sidewalks. Why? Who knows!

I do know it makes watering harder, mulching harder and keeping patios and walkways clean harder. In my experience you need at least 2" and preferably more "free board". This gives you enough room to water and mulch successfully. Often the Garden Crew has to try to put in some free board in to planters. It's hard when there are established plants you have to work around. Often the best we can do is to taper the soil so there is some free board at the edge but the center of the bed is still too high.

In my Garden I am starting over in all my beds so I am starting by removing the excess soil. This is also lowering the soil next to the house. With so many houses built on a slab this is more critical than it used to be.

If you are redoing beds be sure to make enough free board. If you are having problems with dirt washing onto walks and patios tapering the soil can help. This involves removing the soil next to the walk and gradually tapering it back and ut to the existing soil level. Tapering is not as good as having enough room but often it is the best you can do with established plantings.

Every year we go through tomato seed catalogs looking for new, unusual and interesting tomato, pepper and eggplant varieties. Our specialty tomatoes just arrived priced at 1.99 each in full sized 4" pots they look great.

Here is a listing of the tomato varieties and a short description.

MATINA: this is an heirloom from Germany. It is an early ripening tomato with loads of 2-4 oz fruit with good intense flavor.

PERON: Peron is an introduction from South America that we chose because of its pest resistance. It’s claimed that it never needs spraying. It also has 8 oz fruits with good flavor.

Pict of tomato "Black from Tula"

Tomande: this is a new disease resistant hybrid with resistance to nematode, verticillum and both fusarium strains. It has mid-sized fruit with great flavor and is heavy producing of attractive ribbed fruit.

Mule Team: Mule Team is a main crop heirloom tomato. It’s vigorous growing with lots of excellent tomatoes. It also has a long harvest season.

German Red Strawberry: these are shaped like a strawberry but they don’t taste like strawberries. They are meaty heirloom tomatoes with an excellent taste

Dinner Plate: this is a Beefsteak type that “grows so large one tomato cam cover a dinner plant.” It has a delicious beefsteak flavor. Heirloom variety.

Mexico: Mexico is a family heirloom from Mexico. Where else? It has huge dark pink fruits with excellent flavor. It’s also noted for the consistent production of fruit.

Opailka: This an heirloom paste tomato. It has large fruit shaped like a banana pepper great flavor and Meaty. Great for tomato paste or used in salads.

Sugary: This is a new 2005 All American Vegetable winner. Very sweet oval but cherry sized fruit. Clusters of fruit on a compact plant with a long bearing season

Valencia: An heirloom variety from Maine. It has beautiful large orange fruit with true tomato flavor. Early ripening.

Black from Tula: I guess Tula is a Russian city because this is a Russian heirloom tomato. Sets well and produces well in hot weather. It has a rich sweet flavor.

Burgess Stuffing: this is an unusual variety with the appearance of a hollow bell pepper but the taste of a delicious tomato.. It can be stuffed with cold salads or baked like a stuffed bell.

These are not intended to be your main crop of tomatoes. They are intended to mak an interesting addition to your summer vegetable garden.

As spring moves forward it becomes time to fertilize both camellias and azaleas. Generally it's recommended that we wait until they get through blooming. I don't feel that means they have to be completely through. The problem is you don't want to stimulate new growth on azaleas or camellias before they bloom. You can have the new growth obscure the flowers.

Keeping in mind the reason you don't want to fertilize too early, you don't have to wait until ALL the flowers are over. Just wait until the fertilizer won't start new growth before the flowers come out. An acid type of fertilizer with extra sulpher and Iron is indicated in our area. Masters Camellia Azalea and Gardenia food is a high phosphorus moderate nitrogen fertilizer with 2.5% iron. This should be used 3 to 4 times starting about now on a monthly schedule. Remember that the amount of fertilizer you use depends on the size of the plant. You don’t feed a Great Dane the same as a Fox Terrier. A five foot camellia needs about 3 cups each fertilizing. So if you have established plants you easily can use 20 pounds in a season.

In the late summer and fall use Master Bloom. This gives the plant even more phosphoric acid for bud development. This can be done starting in September and done September, October and November.

In our climate they both often need extra iron. We are recommending Masters Iron Plus. It contains forty % iron with zinc magnesium and manganese and sulphur together with Humic Acid. In addition to the extremely high amount of iron it does not stain concrete. We are getting extremely good results in our trials here at the nursery.

In addition to fertilizing be sure to get reid of the old flower petals. This applies for both Camellias and azaleas. You can have diseases go from one year to the next inb the old petals.

One of the common problems we see with camellias is over watering. Check the soil for moisture if your camellias don’t do as well as they should. Camellias prefer to be allowed to get just barely moist before watering. The most common problem we have at the nursery is over watering. Generally in containers we water no more than twice a week even in the heat of the summer.

Wisteria is one of the most popular vines in our area. They perform great in our climate. One of the problems we see with wisteria is plants that refuse to bloom. Most often these are seedling plants. Seedling plants take up to 12 years to bloom. Most all the small #1 size wisteria are grown from seed and because they are inexpensive to grow the cheap #5 plants also. If you want a wisteria that blooms you want a grafted plant or cutting grown plant.

Our most popular variety is Cooke's Special. This is a lavender variety with a consistent habit of reblooming in mid summer. Because of the foliage it is not as showy as the spring bloom. We like it because of the consistent heavy bloom in the spring and the fact it reblooms.

Texas White is also a good consistent blooming variety. Obviously it is white and it only occasionally will we see some summer blooms. We get conflicting information about whether they are Japanese wisteria or Chinese wisteria. The best info I can get is that they are Chinese wisteria, which make medium long chains. We do occasionally carry a couple of true Japanese wisteria with the very long chains. The problem is they are not as dependable about blooming young. We also carry a few of Silky wisteria which make a short fat chain and a more woody branching structure.

White Venusta wisteria

If you are growing it on a fence or arbor the key training issue is to control the number and growth of trunks and main branches. DO NOT let them wrap at all closely around anything you want to keep. I have seen them destroy 6x6 timbers. Wrap them loosely. Often this means looser thane you think necessary. Wisteria trunks will get 6” or even larger in time. You need to allow room or drape them around the post and any other supports.

If you have a blooming wisteria you can keep them under aggressive control. Don’t be afraid to prune and control during the summer. This is important during the initial training to keep them from wrapping around things you don’t want destroyed as well as later when you are trying to keep them within the bounds you set. Does any of this sound like raising kids??? Keep them from destroying everything they can reach and setting bounds!!!

If you do the summer pruning then winter pruning is just a final touch up to keep the wisteria from growing into a jungle. A little fertilizer when they are young to get them off to a good start and sometimes

Drip systems are great ways to change your irrigation system. To get more water in some areas, add water to areas missed or get less water in some areas. They are easy to install and inexpensive too.

The down side is they need to be refreshed each spring. After the fall clean up it is easy for a drip system to have missing or clogged heads. As your garden grows your drip system may need some additions or deletions.

Turn your system on and go over it emitter by emitter. Be sure each one still works. If anything needs changing the ease of installation makes it easy to do.

As plants get established any emitters placed close by the crown of the plant needs to be moved away from there and you often need to add additional emitters.

Drip systme work great, but only if you check them.

I am working on a small area in my patio trying to decide what to do with it. While sitting on the patio with Donna I started thinking about what I see in peoples gardens when I visit them doing consultations for the Garden Crew.

I consistently see plants that are thin, barely alive, or not at all alive. What causes this I think is a misunderstanding of what shade is to plants. A lit of plants that like "shade" need bright shade. If plants don't get enough light energy they start using their food reserves, they use less water, and they thin out because they can't make enough leaves. This ends in a downward spiral.

A lot of perennials like the shade but if they don't get enough light they last a couple of years and then they need to be replace4d. In fact in many shaded areas the plantings need to be reworked regularly. Regularly means every two years or so.

You also have to be careful that the plants get enough fertilizer and not too much water. Shade gardens are always a challenge. In some cases more difficult then hot sun areas.

If you have a shade garden that you are having problems w3ith here are a few suggestions that might help.

Look and see if there is anything you can do to increase the light levels. This might be thinning trees, raising the lowest branches of trees, removing extra large shrubs to open up the area to more light.

Check your irrigation system to see if the3 shade areas are getting the same water as the sunny areas. Check to see if the soil in the shaded areas is staying too wet. If this is the case you need to make some changes to the irrigation system.

Check for the correct amount of fertilizer. There are two issue3s here. One is that in the shade you have to be careful to not over fertilize. The second is in many cases tr5ee root competition means you need frequent fertilizing to be sure your plants gat q chance to get some.

Lastly review your plant selection to be sure the3 plants you are using like deep shade. Most plants like light or bright shade. The deep shade choices are really limited. Often they are more limited then we as gardeners are willing to accept.

If your area is under a roof check out the possibility of using houseplants. Generally shade outside is brighter than the light in a house.

In my case my planting area is under a glass roof so my problem is getting too much light. Sorry about that.

We have in stock a new pesticide that might or not be described as truly organic. We are investigating if we can put in our organic pest control section. It is coming from the fermentation of a bacterium that has been under testing for several years for pest control properties. Called Spinosad it comes from Green Light.

Whether or not it can be truly called an organic pest control product it has the main benefits of one: low toxicity to mammals, birds, and most beneficial insects. It is noted for having good control of most caterpillars and thrips together with control of a few beetles.

Her is a quote from the university of Wisconsin:

“Spinosyns are natural metabolites produced under fermentation conditions by the actinomycete Saccharopolyspora spinosa. One such product, with the proposed common name of spinosad, is being developed by Dow-Elanco as a new, safer, biologically-based type of insecticide. The product has a high level of contact and oral activity and rapid speed of action. It is especially efficacious against caterpillars and flies, but is practically non-toxic to beneficials under field conditions. It has low mammalian toxicity and low nontarget toxicity that, combined with relatively low use rates, should result in minimal safety concerns. Environmental concerns are minimal also, as the product is subject to rapid degradation under normal field conditions.”

The important part of this is the part about safety and environmental concerns. ? caterpillars.

We are constantly looking for environmentally responsible ways of pest control. We are looking forward to having one more weapon against depredations of caterpillars.

Daphne is noted for being tempermental every where it is grown. I was talking to one of my suppliers about daphne. He commented that when they quit giving them acid and in fact went the other way and limed them they started having much better success. Daphne is noted for the wonderfull spring fragrance. If lime does make a difference

This tip comes with no guarantee but if you have been trying to get a daphne you might try it.

In addition to the lime we also talked about the fact that daphne does best with a little benign neglect. The number one mistake people make is too much water, too much fertilizer, too much attention!

Back East the early spring blooming shrubs are popular. Here much less so. I suppose it is because they tend to be deciduous. Because people are continuing to want gardens that change during the seasons we are finding that they are more willing to consider them.

The big three are flowering quince, spireas, and forsythia. Most of the spireas that bloom real early get in the 8 ft range, but boy are they spectacular. My favorite spirea is Shoe Button Bridal Wreath. It is blooming now with small double white flowers up and down the stems. It makes a wonderful cut flower.

Yellow forsythia is also in bloom right now and makes a blaze of golden yellow color up and down the stems. Earlier blooming are the Flowering quince. Here there are dwarf varieties that grow in the 3-4 foot range and large ones that grow 8'. Flowering quince comes in bright red, shades of pink, white and even one variety, Toyo Nishiki, that will have white, red and multicolor blooms on the same plant.

Other less well-known but still showy spring blooming shrubs include flowering almond. We have a nice selection of the pink form with small double blooms on a 4 ft shrub. In addition we have the Bride pearl bush with small white blooms again on a 4' shrub.

All these enjoy the full sun and are tough and easy to grow. Enjoy them in the garden and as cut flowers first thing in the spring.

Come in this weekend and see what's bloomin'.

There is a disease that is common in Camellia growing areas like Modesto called Camellia Petal Blight. This is a disease that causes the flowers to turn brown usually hold together.

It is often hard to distinguish Petal Blight damage from normal weather damage. Petal Blight damage will often engulf the entire bloom with a white mycelium at the base of the flower or petals.

In any case the best you can do is sanitation. Be sure to completly clean up and DISPOSE of the old flowers and petals. Unfortunately because the spores can move several miles a neighbor can infect your camellias.

If you see small mushrooms near the base of camellias that is one of the identifying characteristics.

Chemical control for the homeowner is not very effective so sanitation is the primary recommendation.

The Garden Crew is our maintenance and refurbishing service we provide at scenic Nursery. It is jnot a Mowing Service. In fact we don’t own a mower. What we do is specialize in periodic visits to keep your garden looking the way you want it to.

Part of this includes natural pruning. Natural pruning is hand pruning designed to keep the natural look of the plant. Most lawn maintenance services prune with power hedge shears. Pruned over the top and down the sides of everything, with everything pruned into geometrical shapes. If you are looking for something different The Garden Crew can be the answer.

The service can include pruning, weed control, mulching and replanting as needed.

In addition we offer a garden refurbishing service that includes a visit with one of our in-house designers. This can be as simple as a small area that no longer looks the way you want (or one that never did) to a major re-do that includes re designing the patio and garden.

We are scheduling work for April now, so you need to get on our list for this spring.