We will be hosting a Fruit Tasting and a Tomato Tasting this summer. Dates & details are listed under the Events heading if you're interested!

If you have young gardeners in your family, be sure to check out the new Sunflower Garden for Children Calender of Events under the Children's Garden heading. Amy has put together some fun events for the summer months!

I have been posting on my effort to get rid of nutgrass in my yard.

In year 3 I am almost through in the original area. Note I said "almost though." I am still getting a few shoots and this is where most people quit. Until the last shoot stops it isn't gone!

Unfortunately, I am doing more re-landscaping and talk about "leaving sleeping dogs lie."

As you can tell I am disturbing the ground and already nut grass is popping up in areas I never thought it was.

I will have a real job getting and keeping itt under control.

Dianna indicates she has had some success with Sedge Hammer and I will be trying it to see what it does for me.

Heres hoping!!

This Saturday, Jen from Annies annuals will be here to talk about a wonderful array of unusual annuals and perennials. If you are interested in unusual plants this is a don't miss meeting.

Saturday May 26 @ 11:00 am

BTW: we will have a good selection of plants from Annie's Annuals available.

April

In todays small gardens we need to utilize every inch of space and vines are a good way to increase interest and color.

A couple of vines I like are the Cape Plumbago and Clematis

Royal Cape Plumbago is a wonderful sky blue blossoming vine that blooms all spring, summer and fall. In our climate it is deciduous and may freeze to the ground. In spite of the chance of freezing back, the wonderful color and all season blooming character makes it worth its spot in the garden.

Clematis are useful because of their many colors and the fact they combine with other vines so well. I often recommend clematis mixed with climbing roses, lavender trumpet vine, pandorea or anyother seasonal blooming vine.

We have a number of varieties that include Wisley Blue, Kilian Donahue, Nelly Moser and Etoile Violette.

Come in and see what we have to make your fence more attractive!

Colette

As we move into the warm weather I see lots of dry lawn. With automatic watering systems, usually not the whole lawn is dry just parts of it. You can tell by looking for the bluish gray color of the blades of grass.

This can be caused by compaction. Compaction that may be left over from the installation of the lawn or by compaction that is caused by traffic on the lawn. The solution for compaction is aerating the lawn to open it up. This can be done by a professional service or by using a hose end aerator yourself.

The other main reason is irrigation problems. Next door to me I am seeing a problem caused by a rotor sprinkler that doesn't sweep across the entire lawn leaving part watered by only one sprinkler. I have personally had problems with sticking sprinklers that don't pop up and by clogged sprinklers. If you don't run your irrigation system occasionally when you can see it, you don't know.

The other reason can be reduced water pressure or poor sprinkler design. This you have to check by using the pie pan method. This means running the system with pans around in the bad areas and good areas and comparing how much each is getting. A rule of thumb is the difference should not be more than one third.

If it is, you may need someone look over your system and see what needs to be done. Adding an additional sprinkler seems an easy solution, but because it can result in reduced pressure to your existing sprinklers it can just make the problem worse.

In any case the short term solution is using a hose end sprinkler to fill the need until you can get the right solution. Do Not just increase the time until even the dry areas get enough. We can not afford to waste water that way,

After a much different spring than last year, gardeners in this area are looking forward to a different summer too. We can hope for a milder summer .

This year I added a number of landscape roses to our inventory. The idea behind landscape roses is replacing the traditional short bushy plants like Wheelers Dwarf Pittosporum and Indian Hawthorn with bushy plants that bloom all spring, summer and fall.

I have been using Starry Night, a white single, for the last few years. I added Home Run, a single red: Rainbow Knockout, a single coral; Imposter a single pink with dusting of red and Cherry Parfait, a double white with red edge. These are all varieties, with regular feeding, bloom all season long. And you don't have to prune the old flowers off.

Roses can give you the most bloom for your buck. Year after year!