I just finished planting my FRUIT BUSH hedge. In our previous house we had an eight tree hedge started on the side of the house that was only good for collecting dirt and dead leaves, by the time it was producing much fruit we moved.

So.

Yesterday I planted (here read the Garden Crew planted) 8 fruit trees in a 12x12 space leaving room for Donna’s vegetable garden. That is going to be a raised bed holding a couple of tomatoes and peppers and a few herbs.

Getting back to our orchard I planted two pluots, one super sweet called Flavor Grenade and one with some acid tang called Dapple Dandy, I planted a Santa Rosa Plum, Blenheim Apricot, Craig’s Crimson self fertile cherry and a Fuyu persimmon. Plus a couple of white fleshed nectarines and a peach.

As we choose the trees obviously we picked varieties of fruit that we liked but in addition we looked for trees that ripened at different times during the summer. The goal is to have fresh fruit from early June to September.

I intend to hedge the trees to about 8’ tall and about 3’ wide This will give me enough fruit at one time and keep my maintenance down to a couple of hours a year. What a bargain. Buckets of tree ripened fruit and only a couple of hours of effort to keep them up.

If you haven’t had the pleasure of eating tree ripe fruit you need to find out what you are missing. If you are interested in a fruit bush hedge come in and ask for our fruit bush hedge hand out.

And while you are here you might want to start your hedge. Now is a great time!!

Have you noticed it seems colder now, the cold fog and the winter rain? And yet, if you look around you can see spring starting it transformation. At my house I am seeing our Bradford Pears starting to stir. Driving out in the country I see the almonds starting to push. Just a few days ago I saw a beekeeper getting ready for the almond bloom.

Spring is just around the corner.

With this in mind I would like to talk about some of the plants you should be looking at to make the early spring part of your garden.

First is a new forsythia called gold tide. This has the spectacular golden flowers in early early spring that makes forsythia such a stand out. The difference is it only grows to about 5’ tall and wide. This allows it to be used in lots of gardens that can’t hold regular forsythia.

An old favorite of mine is the traditional shoe button bridal wreath. I am not sure why its called Bridal wreath when the traditional bridal month is June but… shoe button bridal wreath is another harbinger of spring with its sprays of white shoe button flowers in February. This does take a lot of room and doesn’t fit in many of our smaller gardens. If you have room for 1 6 or 8’ shrub it says spring early.

A vine I enjoy in the spring is Carolina Jessamine (note the spelling Jessamine not Jasmine) this often starts showing color in mid December as the buds start to break and is spectacular in February. After blooming prune to the framework to avoid letting it get too thick.

Come in and see what you need to bring the season into your garden!