Maureen Gilmer is celebrating her 40th year in California horticulture and photojournalism as the most widely published professional in the state. She is the author of 21 books on gardening, design and the environment, is a widely published photographer, and syndicated with Tribune Content Agency. She is the weekly horticultural columnist for the Desert Sun newspaper in Palm Springs and contributes to Desert Magazine, specializing on arid zone plants and practices for a changing climate. She works and lives in the remote high desert for firsthand observations of native species. Her latest book is The Colorful Dry Garden published by Sasquatch Books. When not writing or photographing she is out exploring the desert on her Arabian horse. She lives in Morongo Valley with her husband Jim and two rescue pit bulls. When not writing or photographing she is usually out riding her quarter horse.
We rarely blend bulbs with food plants, but they make a great pick-me-up for off season gardens. I found this lovely garden in Germany, where they’d laid out a traditional four square design, but when not planted, this geometry doesn’t show. These smart gardeners elected to plant small bulbs in line to emphasize the design with foliage and flowers before it warms enough to plant the early spring crops. Don’t forget to plant them with Black Gold Bone Meal for a phosphorus-enriched root zone. (Please note that Black Gold Bone Meal has been discontinued.)
Ferns are useful houseplants for cleaning the air, particularly when it comes to formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is a problem in some newer homes. The emerging science of phytoremediation uses plants to filter toxins from air and soil. Studies revealed that ferns are a natural for absorbing formaldehyde from the air inside your home. As they transpire, the formaldehyde is taken into the plant with carbon dioxide, then only oxygen is released to filter air naturally. So if you haven’t repotted that old fern, or if you’re on a budget, buy lots of smaller ones and repot to make the air inside cleaner than ever.
You can plant succulents in any container that holds soil and drains well. Those little shoes the kids grew out of make charming low cost holiday gifts for friends and family. Simply punch a few holes in the sole with a hammer and large nail. Then fill with Black Gold Cactus Mix and plant with lots of very small, inexpensive succulent seedlings. This idea is great for ladies’ high heels too. Shoe planters make for a fun, green family project that recycles shoes, utilizes water-conservative plants that will offer color all winter long.
Old fashioned annuals like bachelor’s button perform far better in rich, organic soils.
“Annual, biennial, perennial,” sounds like an incantation from a Harry Potter movie. But it’s gardener lingo that divides up the whole bedding plant world. If you’re new to gardening, these three terms may seem confusing, particularly when they are misused so often. Simply put, all relate to the life span of the plant. While their definitions are straight forward, it is the annuals that we plant and grow more than any other kind of plant.
What is an Annual?
Annual is derived from the Latin word for year, annus. It refers to a group of plants that grow from seed, mature, flower, set seed and die in the span of a single year. Their year is actually shorter, from spring through fall. Therefore you can expect all plants listed as annuals to grow fast in order to accomplish so much a short time.
Whether grown for edible seed or cut flowers, sunflowers are among the hungriest of all annual plants.
Marigolds, tomatoes and sunflowers are all annual plants. The exception here is in mild climates with little or no frost to kill annual plants at the end of the season. There annuals such as pansies and snapdragons bloom through winter in southern California and Florida, and elsewhere they may even survive a nip of frost.
Annuals are the heaviest feeders of all. They do a lot of work between seed and frost. If they fail for a new gardener, it always leads to one thing: soil. The many phases of growth requires more nutrition for plants to remain healthy. Modern varieties are developed in an environment of perfect nutrition levels, so they will be even more finicky about poor fertility than heirlooms.
Feeding Annuals
To ensure you have success with your winter annuals or all of next year’s garden it’s vital to understand the dietary habits of annuals in order to provide all the plant nutrition you can. When flowers are grown in containers, use Black Gold All Purpose Potting Soil. It contains a slow release fertilizer that feeds at low doses over many months. This low dose is perfect for winter annuals. Use it for summer annuals too, but plan to add regular doses of fertilizer in that season because plants grow faster and demand more then.
Early crops of peas are far more productive when soils are enriched with microbes.
Annuals sown in beds and borders are equally demanding, particularly if you live in a new home were there has been little added to the natural soil. When planting here, work the ground with a good dose of Black Gold Garden Soil so the organic matter filters in to open clay soil and add more water holding potential in porous ground.
Annual Veggies
The heaviest feeders of all are vegetables because not only do most flower, they must also produce fruit. Here your soil prep will really pay off in yields. The best amendment for all types of soil is Black Gold Garden Compost Blend because it’s packed with fine organic matter and fertilizers such as bat guano, the richest source of organic nitrogen on Earth.
Violas in the organic winter garden can easily share space with chard so both may be used in the kitchen.
There are also natural nutrients in Black Gold Earthworm Castings that feed the roots of vegetable plants. Then at planting time, cultivate in a generous dose of castings, which are organic and add to your soil’s fertility. By the time your annuals have reached a good size, the fertilizer is ready to be taken up for improved flowers and fruit.
Anyone who can find success with annuals will find perennials and biennials a breeze to grow. So during the off season where conditions are mild enough, use the cool days to fortify your soil for a dynamite result next year. Just remember to keep it organic so you can clip violas for your holiday salad and eat tomatoes right off the vine without a care in the world.
Lily of the Nile produces huge plants that are among the easiest to divide in fall for many new plants for free.
Planting a perennial in spring is a lot like moving from Maine to Florida in May. You’d have to adjust to the heat and humidity at the worst time of year. Bring a Maine resident to Florida in November, and that snowbird will relish every day of welcome sunshine. When you plant spring blooming perennials in early fall, they root actively into the still-warm soil. Roots will form quickly and help it become established before the short days of winter force dormancy.
Top dressing plantings with a little Black Gold Garden Compost Blend also helps with establishment and winter protection. After that perennial’s dormancy breaks in spring, it will be well rooted to flourish compared to one newly planted from greenhouse into cold spring soil.
Leather leaf bergenia with its thick succulent leaves are quite frost hardy with an intense spring show.
Early Blooming Perennials
Perennials are the workhorses of a fabulous landscape. The early bloomers include bergenia, columbine, heuchera, geum, anemone, primrose and thrift. They flower along with many of our spring bulbs for a beautiful display at winter’s end.
Potted Perennials
In fall, container-grown plants will be at their largest for this growing season, so shop to your heart’s content, but don’t leave the garden center without doing your best to make the soil richer too. Increased fertility enhances the spring show immeasurably. Even the best plant forced into poor soil will fail to thrive at any time of year.
Geraniums require lots of rich organic matter when planted to simulate a forest environment.
Perennial Beds
To flesh out your beds and borders with perennials for a big spring show, enrich the ground with Black Gold Garden Compost Blend. Both add fine organic matter to worn out soil when distributed evenly, then turned deeply with a spading fork. Go over the area in one direction, then do the same the opposite way to ensure full integration of your amendments into native soil.
When you dig the planting holes, there’s another opportunity to give your perennials an extra push in the spring with slow release organic fertilizer. Dig the planting hole a few inches deeper than you would normally. Sprinkle a few tablespoons of fertilizer into the bottom of the hole and work it in. Then cover this with a few inches of your excavated soil and gently press it down. The new perennial goes on top of all this, then backfill and water in deeply. This deep down source of macro and micronutrients from slow-release organic sources offers your plant a boost later on. The roots are rewarded for going deep enough to access the nutrients, which also makes them able to reach moisture deeper underground during the growing season. Deep rooting is the best way to make any plant more drought resistant.
Bleeding heart blooms while many trees are still bear, so planting in fall offers many months of establishment before flowering.
While late fall planting can be problematic in the far north, throughout the south and west it is the best time for most perennials. The dry climate of the West is a big stressor for spring-planted perennials.
Do your homework in the fall, apply the fall perennial strategies mentioned above and your plants won’t have to struggle through late spring frosts. They won’t face rooting into hard, dense soils either. Best of all, they’ll be fully established by spring and well-fed to double in size before the end of season arrives.
After the leaves fall, hollies stand out all over your neighborhood with their bright red fruit. The holly is a locally proven species making it the best choice for planting in your garden too. Hollies prefer well drained acidic soil, so amend your planting soil with Black Gold Peat Moss Plus. If you already have hollies growing in your landscape, use fertilizer formulated for acid-loving plants.
Indian corn now in the supermarket isn’t just a Thanksgiving decoration. It’s viable seed ready to plant in your garden next year. Select colors and sizes of small popcorn, strawberry flint corn and the big boldly colored ears for decorations. When the holidays are over, simply pry the kernels off the cob and store in a cool dry place. Come planting time, fortify the soil with nitrogen rich blood meal. This all-organic fertilizer contains a whopping 13 percent nitrogen! Use it with confidence – knowing corn is a grass and grasses love nitrogen!
Geraniums: Pot your outdoor geraniums like they do in the Alps where plants are brought outdoors to line a sunny window sill.
Autumn brings an end to the summer garden, but you need not say good-bye to everything you planted this year. It’s an age-old practice to pot garden plants of certain varieties to bring indoors where they live on for months, and some may even survive the winter to grow for another year.
Zonal geraniums are favorite garden variety Pelargoniums that grandmother traditionally dug from the soil, potted up into red clay, and set upon the window sill. These will remain evergreen, which is all you need to enjoy the exotic brightly colored foliage of fancy-leaved types. The ability to winter-over geraniums this way makes them a better buy than one season annuals that die with the frost. This is also a great time to take cuttings to make more of your favorite colored leaves and flowers for next year’s garden.
The trendiest group of plants today are succulents. There are some such as sedum that are cold hardy, but the popular ones are frost tender species from southern Africa. The big showy varieties are expensive and too often thrown away after they bolt to flower at the end of the season. Bolting spoils their beautiful shape, but it doesn’t mean the plant will die afterwards. They are in fact long lived if protected from frost.
Flapjacks: Kalanchoe thyrsifolia, aka flapacks bolt to flower, then they can be dug and potted with Black Gold Cactus Soil.
The most outstanding of the tender Kalanchoes are flapjacks with their pancake-sized leaves that make them prized plants. Ditto the larger Echeverias. Now is time to cut off the spent flower spike and repot the base in super-porous Black Gold Cactus Mix. Over the winter months it will produce many offsets that you can pluck and plant come spring to expand your succulent garden next year. Recently, spider plants have become very popular outdoors due to their vivid leaf color and long, dangling stems. Gardeners often cut the danglers and plant them into shaded garden soil after the last frost where they root over the summer. In fall, dig these up and plant into pots so they flourish on a warm windowsill until spring returns.
For all ornamentals, use Black Gold All Purpose Potting Soil which contains slow release fertilizer that ensures there is sufficient fertility for winter growth. This is ideal for zonal geraniums and spider plants as well as tropicals and tender perennials.
Mrs. Pollock: The fancy leaved Pelargoniums are geranium varieties that produce vivid foliage for brightening winter days.
Food plants and herbs from your organic garden may be potted in Black Gold Natural & Organic Potting Soil. Because we use only the leaves of herbs, keep them alive over winter to retain their foliage for fresh seasoning. For example, dig a chunk of oregano before the plant is burned back by frost, then pot it up and bring indoors to season your Italian dishes all winter long. The same applies to mints and thyme. Just be sure the plants you bring inside are free of any pests or diseases that may otherwise spread to your healthy plants.
Even though frost may spell the end of your outdoor garden, it is the beginning of your indoor one. Load up on fresh potting soil before garden centers store their supplies. Set a small table against a south facing window where the plants receive the most sunlight. Transplant, repot and start your offsets in this controlled environment. They’ll become a living link to the beauty and fragrance of your summer garden on those dark days when the ground is frozen and the snow flies.
Reusing old potting soil is a bad idea. Would you risk your crop to save $25? Of course not, so why would you reuse growing media that may prove less than ideal for your valuable plants? This is the question every grower weighs after harvest: Whether to replace the growing media or reuse it another time.
If you’re still not sure, consider the triple threat: Three very important reasons why fresh Sunshine Advanced soilless media will always perform.
Once your soil is fed with natural & organic fertilizers and amendments and tilled, will you grow your veggies from seed or seedlings? The answer depends on the kinds of plants you choose to grow.
Fast growing plants that have large seeds planted deeper down are usually sown directly into garden soil. These include corn, squash, cucumbers, melons, sunflowers, beans or peas. When you buy your seed, know that every packet is marked with its year just like a food expiration date. Make sure yours is labeled for the current year so the seed is sure to sprout quickly.
Slower to germinate plants with smaller seeds such as peppers, tomatoes, broccoli and greens are more easily started indoors ahead of time. These can also be purchased as seedlings at the garden center. Bonnie Plants offers a wide range of organically grown varieties in sizes from seedling four-pack to gallon pot plants already on the way toward flower and fruit. The price dictates which you choose. They are grown in peat pots that can be planted directly into the soil for minimal root disturbance. If you can’t find organically grown seedlings, buy a standard nursery-grown seedling and raise it organically for the same result.
