Redwoods: These nursery grown redwood trees are thriving in a backyard where the ground beneath is filled with azaleas and other forest floor acid loving plants, but as the trees mature there will be too much shade to grow much except ferns.
I have lived among coast redwoods all my life, from college days on the northern California coast to years in design offices – specifying them for use in our projects. From spending much time within expansive old and second growth groves I’ve learned exactly what these tallest of trees desire and what not to do when growing coast redwood. They indeed prove far more adaptable than most realize, and this is a fine evergreen for any landscape. In a year when other states are experiencing droughts on the scale of California’s annual dry season, this tree presents a beautiful, evergreen solution for water-challenged gardens – even those well beyond this state’s borders. Continue reading “Growing Coast Redwood In Wet Years and Drought”
Education is when you read the fine print, experience is what you get when you don’t.
And when it comes to Black Gold amendments, our fine print is a whole education on the best way to achieve optimal results in your garden. Optimum is the balance between using enough to obtain all the benefits you can, but not so much that it costs you more than it should. Turn any package around and you’ll discover the fine print that’s key to a fantastic garden.
Coleus: Use annual coleus for incredible color and variegation in fall compositions.
Shield: My favorite, the Persian shield is the best purple foliage pant for fall and winter color.
Now that the humidity has passed and it’s okay to go outside, why not spice up your patio or entry with some cutting edge color. This time forget the flowers and try colorful foliage plants that bear beautiful leaves with vivid designs. These are bright and brilliant without waiting for blooms, and when the cold of winter sets in they are easy to bring indoors to brighten rooms during the dark days to come.
So dump out those worn out summer pots and lay in some bags of Black Gold Natural and Organic Potting Soil Plus Fertilizer and start turning your patio or front entry into an elegant autumn design statement. The controlled-release fertilizer in this soil will keep your fall-planted compositions carefree and well-fed for the next few months.
Persian Shield
I’ve fallen in love with Persian shield (Strobilanthes dyerianus), my favorite new plant with its rich purple leaves and dramatic venation. These are truly fabulous in low light or bright sun and can develop into large plants in a short time. While not particularly frost tolerant, they make a superior interior accent too, so I’m inclined to spend more for a strong houseplant later one. You can plant this one alone or combine it with succulent sanseveria, the old mother-in-law’s tongue. The two together are decidedly modern in sleek containers or look exotic and tropical in a bamboo basket cachepot.
Coleus
Persian shield can also be grouped into a large color bowl with coleus. This is one annual that has exploded from a few colors to a whole rainbow in just a few years. When you choose an exotic pink to match that purple shield leaf, you’ve got an outstanding focal point for the patio. Later on it comes in to winter over in that sunny corner by the window.
Heuchera: Buy brightly colored heucheras today, then plant them into the spring garden later.
Heuchera
Whenever you can buy a perennial that performs as well as an annual, you get top value for your dollar. Heucheras are another plant that’s exploded as a foliage accent. These small mounts of brightly colored leaves in a rainbow of hues are equally fabulous in pots as they are in the border. They are renowned for retaining their leaves throughout mild winters, so in pots they give you a long span of performance. Plant vivid heuchera varieties into your fall foliage compositions and you’ll have much larger specimens by spring to transplant into the garden.
Dwarf Fountain Grass
A final option that adds fine texture and animation to larger autumn pots is dwarf purple fountain grass varieties. These smaller hybrids with their maroon foliage will be in bloom by early fall, and their arching stems that bear fuzzy lavender-tone blooms sway and nod in the autumn breezes. Use one as the center piece of a rusty, iron pedestal urn with the dark beauty of heuchera, coleus and Persian shield for an upscale, eye popping display to welcome visitors over holidays and special occasions. Plant a pair of them to flank your front door, sheltered under the porch or at your entry steps to create dynamic symmetry.
No matter how you mix and match, these colorful bedding plants provide fabulous foliage and are always a winner. They’re all pest and disease resistant so they don’t need coddling. There are no flowers to snip off so just enjoy the foliage until nights become too cold. Then bring these mature creations into your home to keep those vivid leaves happy and healthy all winter long.
Grass Low: Dwarf purple fountain grass makes an outstanding center point for pedestal urns.
The foliage of this squash plant shows varying degrees of chlorosis compared to a few normal, all green leaves. Note the green veins within the yellow leaves that distinguishes nutrient deficiency from pests and diseases.
My squash are screaming at me from the back of my garden in the silent language of plants. The big green leaves of my most productive summer squash are turning yellow. This isn’t a water problem because there is no wilt. Closer inspection of the leaves reveals no pests either. Only the veins of the leaves are still green. This condition is called chlorosis, and it can strike virtually any plant that’s experiencing a nutrient deficiency. But don’t let it get you down. Let’s learn more about the condition and how to cure chlorosis with earthworm castings tea.
Plants need two types of nutrients to grow. First are the macro-nutrients we all know from fertilizer packages, which are nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. These also include to a lesser extent, calcium, magnesium and sulfur. The list of micro-nutrients is much longer, but these are all needed too, often in small quantities and sometimes just a trace. Among the most vital are boron, iron, manganese, zinc, copper, molybdenum and chlorine. The absence of any of these can cause chlorosis.
The actual nutrient deficiency I’m experiencing may be impossible to nail down exactly, and that’s not really necessary to solve the problem. Often folks assume it’s a nitrogen deficiency, but in my case all the other plants around that squash are nice and green, so that isn’t it. Plus, adding nitrogen rich fertilizer to green-up certain summer vegetables is not the best idea. Those that produce their crop via flowers and fruit such as cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers, may stop flowering, which means no more fruit. Sure they’ll grow big and leafy as a result, but that will interfere with future yield.
The best way to rescue a chlorotic fruiting vegetable plant is to provide a multi-vitamin approach that brings a wide range of macro and micro nutrients into the root zone at the same time. However, for rapid uptake, it must be in a form that’s immediately available to the plant.
Black Gold Earthworm Castings are an all organic fertilizer-like material that is renowned for containing a wide range of macro- and micro-nutrients. That’s why it’s present in many other Black Gold products too. What makes earthworm castings so great is that these nutrients are held in a water soluble form. When applied in a water solution, they enter the root zone and are taken in by that hungry squash immediately.
How To Make Earthworm Castings Tea
If you’re experiencing chlorosis, or a plant that’s simply a poor-doer, create a tea out of earthworm castings and pour it directly onto the root zone of your plant. Though nutrient-rich, there’s no risk of burning the roots. Simply mix one cup or more of earthworm castings into one gallon of water. Be sure to mix again just before you pour it onto your plants to make sure any settled nutrients are again in suspension for even distribution.
Chlorosis in your leafy vegetables such as lettuce or cabbage is treated slightly differently. With these, lots of leafy growth is desirable since this is the part you eat. For these, work in a quality tomato and vegetable fertilizer, then water it in with earthworm castings tea to make sure you’ve covered all he bases. Since all these are OMRI listed, you can confidently apply your nitrogen to leaf crops at any time during the summer or fall season.
Gardening is about recognizing the silent language of plants and interpreting what it means. When leaves turn yellow, be sure to note whether the veins remain green to determine if it’s chlorosis or something else. Then consider if it’s a crop that depends on flowers, or one that’s foliage-based. That tells you exactly how to treat them with confidence using Black Gold all organic fertilizers and potting soils.
If you dream of the Dutch fields full of perfect tulips but find your fall-planted bulbs disappointing come spring, then maybe your bulbs are just hungry. While bulbs are rather self-contained little packages, the one thing they can use during the long winter is phosphorus and lots of it. This macro-nutrient drives root growth which helps your bulbs become better established come bloom time. The age-old organic way to get it is with bone meal. Dig your hole, then loosen the soil at the bottom, add one tablespoon of bone meal and mix well. Then set your big, juicy tulip bulb onto this soft enriched earth and cover it up. For smaller bulbs use a half tablespoon. Remember, this nutrient doesn’t move much so if you don’t put it down there, roots won’t find it.
Spring 2012: The garden in February 2012 – just prior to final fertilizer application with protective bird netting and straw bale barriers against voracious rabbits.
Last year my desert dry wash was nothing but porous sand and decomposed granite. They said I’d never grow organic food there. I had one year to build this ground spring planting season. Here’s how I solved the problems and grew this fabulous 10′ by 20′ organic vegetable garden using Black Gold products…
This summer is already a perfect storm, and we aren’t even in hurricane season yet! If you’ve already been hit with Mother Nature’s powerful presence, your plants need help to recover. Whether it’s heat and drought or saturated soils and gale force winds – plants are suffering. They need your attention in different ways depending on where in America you live. For those horribly damaged in the East, it’s important to take a close look at your woody trees and shrubs. Storm winds can injure them in unique ways that may only be revealed upon close inspection. Pests and diseases often enter storm damaged trees through these sometimes subtle breaks in the bark. Attending to wounds now can not only help them recover faster, you may be able to prevent bigger problems down the road. Continue reading “Healing Storm Damaged Trees”
Try growing fifteen feet tall inside of 90 days and you’ll understand what it’s like to be a sunflower. If you’ve got Mammoth hybrid sunflowers in your garden, remember this if yours aren’t showing much vigor. Maybe they need an organic Power Bar to get energy levels back on track. It takes a lot of nitrogen to make a huge stalk. Phosphorous and potassium helps grow roots to hold it upright and form huge flowers packed with edible seed. Any quality OMRI Listed fertilizer formulated for flowers will work. Apply generously, mix into the soil and water well and often. Then stand back and watch your plants bolt skyward as they should.
Tomato hornworms arrive at night as gossamer-winged moths that lay their eggs on your carefully cultivated tomatoes. Hatchlings quickly grow to enormous green caterpillars that can decimate a plant overnight.
Inspect new growth daily for these voracious caterpillars. Hand pick them promptly and discard before they feed on the fruit itself.
Another option is to spray the plants with BT (Bacillus thuringiensis). This safe, non toxic, control is approved for organic gardening. Once BT is on the leaves, worms eat it and get a fatal belly ache. This natural spray is one of the greatest success stories in organic horticulture. You’ll find it in garden centers and home improvement stores wherever Black Gold products are sold.
The unique corrugated foliage of Rosa rugosa makes it resistant to black spot and other common diseases.
During World War II the Nazis blockaded English ports so they could not import citrus. As a result many children began to show signs of Vitamin C deficiency, the predecessor to scurvy. Another source of the vitamin had to be found so all local plants were tested. Fruits known as hips from a rural rose bush proved to be packed with vitamins. Ounce for ounce this rose and all other rose fruit contain more Vitamin C than citrus. From the quantities of fruit gathered far and wide, a potent vitamin rich syrup was made that saved the children’s health.
If you’re gardening for self sufficiency, you must have at least one good organically grown rose that bears large hips. The best species for fruit production is Rosa rugosa, known as the Japanese rose. These produce an annual crop of beautiful pink flowers each year followed by fat, luscious fruit.
Rugosas are tough as nails, with foliage that resists the usual fungal diseases that plague other roses. It’s far more cold hardy too, for easy care in northern climates. Rugosas can be found all along the eastern seaboard because the uniquely thick leaves retain moisture despite persistent winds. The whole plant is remarkably tolerant of salt air and alkaline soils too.
Rosa rugosa produces the largest, fleshiest hips with few thorns for painless gathering and preparation.
Rosa rugosa is a long time favorite for rural hedging because the root systems spread out and send up new sprouts. This helps a single individual to spread into a large patch or dense hedge that yields plentiful flowers and fruit. It’s also easy to propagate free copies by simply digging up a piece of root with its sprout attached and transplant to a pot of Black Gold All Purpose Potting Soil.
Hips form in summer and ripen to red-orange in the fall. They are astringent until fully ripe, then become sweet enough to eat off the bush. Once the hips have been exposed to a frost, it’s easier to prepare them.
Use minced rose hips to add raisin-like flavor to baked goods with a bonus of high vitamin content. They also make a famously healthy rose hip jelly for ideal holiday gifts. Fresh brewed rose hip tea with honey is perfect for treating colds or flu.
Rose Hips Cross Section: This cross section shows the seeds and attached hairs that must be removed from the center of each rose hip in order to harvest the fleshy outer layer.
Whether you grow your rose hips, gather them from the wild or out of other peoples’ gardens, you’ll want to preserve them for future use. First pick the hips, wash well, then peel the flesh away from the seeds clustered at the center. These seeds and attached hairs must be discarded so you’re left with clean flesh. You can also sow them into Black Gold Seedling Mix to create an entire hedge of new plants.
To freeze fresh rose hips, cover a cookie sheet with tin foil and scatter the chunks of fresh rose hips so none are touching. Freeze, then remove from the foil and place in conveniently sized Ziploc bags to store in the freezer until needed.
To make rose hip tea, add a few tablespoons of clean fresh or frozen flesh to a sauce pan of boiling water, then turn down the heat to simmer gently for 10 minutes. The resulting tea will be acidic tasting and rich in antibacterial properties. It will also be chock-full of natural vitamins that strengthen the immune system.
If you’re striving for greater self sufficiency, add a rugosa to your home landscape and let it grow large and flower much. Then when winter cold and flu season rolls around after medicinal herbs have died back, you’ll have a storehouse of organically grown hips from your own Japanese rose.
Education is when you read the fine print, experience is what you get when you don’t.
