Yes it is! Even though the weather is still in the high 90’s the days are getting shorter and the nights are cooler.

This means its time for the traditional fall vegetable season. Just in time to replace those tired tomatoes, squash and cucumbers. Time to replace the corn.

I have to say that with one exception nothing in the fall season has the same romance as tomatoes, peppers and corn on the dining room table.

Can you really compare a crop of Brussels Sprouts to a huge plant of Beefsteak type tomatoes? No I didn’t think so.

Still… There are things to grow that most of us enjoy. Broccoli, noted as the vegetable of choice of past American presidents, is the best cabbage family crop for this time of year. Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts all should be planted now.

Spinach, lettuce and Swiss chard are good fall crops. If you have been here in the past few years we have has Bright Lights Swiss Chard planted by the front gate. With the red, yellow, white and green coloring it is attractive enough to be planted in a flower garden and is a wonderful steamed vegetable.
From seed, garden peas, onions, turnips and radish and beets can all be planted now. My favorite is the Sugar Snap Peas. These are available as either pole peas for people with limited room or bush peas with room to allow them to spread.

Last but not least are the onions. Onions are the main fall crop for most people. Stockton red onions are the best known and they are available only as plants. We have some from flats, but in November we will have bunches of 100 plants. We will also have garlic and shallots for fall planting.

Remember, if you have space, fall can be for Vegetable planting.

One of my gardening hobbies is bonsai. I work on it only periodically, but when I do I think about the most common mistakes I see beginners make.

We have a hand out sheet available at Bonsai for Beginners

To get to the main issues I think people get in too much of a hurry. I understand the need to have a few that actually look like bonsai. Those that are not finished however, need to be allowed to grow. That means you have to leave enough foliage to supply the food that allows the plant to grow. You also have to have enough soil to allow the plant to grow. That is why most of my pre-bonsai to those that are ALMOST ready to pot in much larger pots than I will want them in when they are finished.

Even those I pot up because I like them now I leave in fairly large pots if I want them to continue to grow and develop.

Only after I am convinced they are finished do I move them into their REAL home. Having said all that I do tend to keep plants in somewhat larger pots than someone else might because I realize I don’t give them the daily attention I should.

If you stay away from the real small bonsai it is a hobby anyone that can grow plants in containers can enjoy.

Fall is the optimal time to plant seeds. Let whimsy be your guide and enjoy the vast possibilities that await you. We have a wide variety of English and heirloom Sweet Peas available.

Consider the romance of planting an heirloom Sweet Pea that arrived in 1600's England via the Italian monk Cupani. The fragrance and beauty of these spring bloomers will take you back in time as you enjoy both the climbing and knee high varieties.

Exotic seeds that spice up an Asian garden are also due to arrive in fall and include Bok Choi, Pak Choi and Chinese Mustard seeds. For your potager garden, consider starting spinach, lettuces and root vegetable seeds that include turnips, beets, carrots and radishes.

There are lots of wonderful; additions to your garden available only in our seed racks. Growing flowers and vegetables from seed is easy and fun!

Written by: Bernadette

This has been a strange year for weather. Rain all spring and then 100 F weather all July and most of August. Of course as I have noted before it's been almost 20 years since we have had a normal spring and summer.
The hot weather should make clear to most people why I like mulching. In my garden the new plantings that are mulched survived with no problems. A couple of plantings that I neglected to mulch are showing the heat.

Those of you that have a summer garden often start having open areas where beans or cucumbers or corn is through. You can still plant and keep the garden producing by planting Broccoli, cabbage, Spinach, Swiss Chard, and Lettuce.

If you visit our web site you will read a couple of posts about Nut Grass control. The most important part of the articles is the warning that you have to keep after it until the LAST shoot is gone. Visit us at www.scenicnursery.com.
We are expecting our last shipment of Chinese pottery in August. As I write this it is supposed to be in Oakland and should be out by the time you receive this. We are also continuing to order from other pottery vendors to keep the best selection of pottery anywhere around.

I am considering, considering not for sure, killing my little patch of lawn and reseeding with Nugget blend seed. If if do this I will be starting in early September by using a Glyphosphate weed killer like Kleenup a couple of times to kill the existing lawn and then in early October re-seed right over the dead grass using nugget blend seed, Master start and top dress with humus or Gold Rush.

What am I trying to do by this? Well I don't expect to eradicate the Bermuda grass. I know some will start back. I want to get rid of the creeping red fescue which is terrifically fungus susceptible. I just can't keep it looking good. Nugget blend is a double dwarf turf type fescue that is fairly disease resistant and slow growing which makes mowing easier. It holds its' good color better than most regular turf type fescues do in the winter. It just makes a nice lawn.

Nugget Blend is also availale as sod and is the sod we recommend in most cases. It comes from Delta Sod farm and has a peat base not a clay base so the soil disappears in about a year which gives a smoother lawn eventually.

Do you have a certain summer vegetable that steals the spotlight with its unusual shape or capacity for a mammoth harvest? We would love to see it! Bring a photo of your budding star to our Bedding Department’s Service Desk. You will be admired, your contemporaries will be inspired and we will post on our internet site

Over the last few weeks I have talked to garden Crew clients about Bermuda lawns. The question is usually about killing the Bermuda and resodding the lawn.

I have some good news and some bad news.

Which shall it be?

Ok you want the good news first?

Save your money. There, that is easy.

Of course you want to know why I say that. I have never been enthusiastic about getting rid of Bermuda lawn but my concerns were about the Bermuda that had grown under the walks where you can’t get at it. Eventually it will get out and I knew it.

Several years I had a Bermuda lawn that I wanted to improve so I used roundup on it twice and reseeded over the dead Bermuda. By next spring I had Bermuda coming back. Next I decided to really get rid of it so I sprayed extra carefully and instead of putting back a lawn I built a couple of mounds, put down about 3” of humus. Then I landscaped with Roses, sasanqua camellias, azaleas in the shade together with a couple of dwarf Japanese maples. I used Australian violet, ajuga and cerastium as ground covers

I did this with the expectation that when the Bermuda quit I would go back to a lawn.

Right on schedule the Bermuda started back. This time because it wasn’t as well established it didn’t come back as strong. It kept coming back for about 12 months, the real bad news is that I still got a few shoots as long as 36 months later. That’s is three years!

If I had a lawn there I wouldn’t have been able to see the Bermuda and within a few years it would have reverted back.

Getting rid of Bermuda in areas you intend to plant shrubs and trees will work but unless you are willing to do what I did and eliminate the lawn for over three years it isn’t going to stop it.

Now if two to five years of essentially Bermuda free lawn isn’t worth a thousand dollars or more I have to say “Don’t bother.”

I just received a trade magazine in the mail yesterday. The cover article was about foliage color and this made me start to think about what we are selling and what I am using in my Garden Crew work.

For me it started weith the development of some hybrid coral bells with attractive foliage several years ago. Purple Palace was the first one with, suprise, purple foliage. Since then there have been dozens of introductions of attractive foliaged coral bells for the partial shaded area. Purple, silver and chartruse are some of the colors.

Then grasses started becoming more popular. Popular for the foliage color and the striking texture and plumes. Specially popular is purple fountain grass that grows to about 4' tall. This is almost hardy here, depending on the weather it might or might not come back. One of the advantages of Purple Fountain Grass is the speed with which a #1 size grows. so even if it has to be replaced it comes back quick.

Blue Oat grass, which is hardy here, and a coupe of variegated leaf grasses are also popular. Next sedges started becoming popular including Golden Morowii carex, brown fox sedge and numerous others for the foliage color and texture.

Other new and old foliage plants include coleus, liriope, Emerald Gaity euonumus, Tinkerbell dwarf agapanthus.

Our pot artist Amy uses lots of foliage plants for color. She does blend them with flowering plants so you can get color all the time. Come in and check our our selection of outdoor foliage color.

This is just an update on my nutgrass control problem.

I remvoed some junipers which exposed soil to the sun and allowed the nutgrass to start growing. I am working on it using hand weeding techniques.

I am getting less and less nutgrass comming up. this is about where many people quit. the nutgrqass is comming up about the size of threads. If I quit now keeping it out now in a month it wi9ll be back full strength.

Every time I see any nutgrass I pull it. I suspect I will still have some next spring but shortly thereafter it will quit. I do have nutgraqss comming up in a few other areas and i haven't been as good at keeping it out so the next step is work on getting the other areas under control.

This is something I haven’t talked about in some time. After this long hot summer I think it might be a good idea to discuss ways to get better water penetration in your lawn

One way that most of us with automatic sprinklers can use is multiple start times.

What do I mean by this?

Well, if the water starts running off your lawn after about 10 minutes you stop at 10 minutes watering, let the water be absorbed and then water for another 10 minutes. Often what people do is water in the morning and then again in the evening but, the idea is to get the water to penetrate down to the root zone. You need to follow the first watering about an hour later to keep forcing the water into the soil. It sometimes takes 3 waterings at 10 minutes each with about an hour between each start time to get enough water into the soil.

What you do also depends on the type of heads. If you have rotary heads the total watering time can be as much as an hour and half.

Another technique to increase water penetration is aeration. What this is is making holes in the soil that allows the water to soak in. Spikes don’t do it. All they do is push the soil aside for a short time and then the soil goes back and you are no better off than before. We recommend either a mechanical aerator that pulls out plugs or a water aerator that washes holes in the soil.

You can rent a mechanical aerator or come in and we can give you names of people that do it. The water aerator is a device that the home owner can do easily. All it is is a dual spike that is attached to a hose and you push it easily into the soil at about 1 ft apart. This usually goes deeper and having the aerator at home you can go over areas that need it multiple times. I have seen this make a dramatic difference in as little as a week. We have them for sale at ????

In any case about ¾ of the lawn problems I see are water related. Either a sprinkler design problem, clogged heads, or compaction. One of the tests is to put pie pans out over areas you are having problems and compare the amount you get in good areas. A rule of thumb is no more than 1/3 differe

As I visit customers during the summer. I check out how everything is doing. One common problem I see is lawn being mowed too short.

The rule of thumb in most cases is about 2" tall. If you have Medallion Turf type fescue you want to mow even higher if possible. You can set the mower on a driveway or walkway and check the height with ruler.

The higher mow height keeps the soil cooler and puts the grass plant under less stress after each mowing. In the cool weather you can lower the height about 1/2 inch if you wish. In shaded areas it is even more important. You need as much leaf blade surface to utilize the limited amount of light. Don’t cut it short like a guy going bald. Do a comb over instead.