Plant of the Month
Cane Berries
Black, Boysen, Logan, Marion, Olallie, and Raspberries
For a change and because we have a lot of berries left this fall I have chosen them for the featured plant this month. Berries produce biennial canes, meaning they grow from the roots one year and produce the fruit on that cane the next year. After the second year they are finished and are cut to the ground. Training them is a good way to keep track of your canes and for trailing varieties is mandatory. At planting time you will get the best results by adding generous amounts of organic matter, keeping them well watered and mulched and by protecting from hot afternoon sun.
Boysenberry Class:
- Thornless Boysenberry: Popular trailing variety with high yields and large fruit.
- Loganberry: Good choice for pies, canning and juice or wine. Thornless with high acidity.
Blackberry Class:
- Black Satin: Thornless black, heavy yielding, semi-erect, excellent for home gardens, medium honey
- sweet fruit.
- Chester: Semi-erect thornless black with good heat resistance and flavorful large fruit.
- Marion: Good for freezing and canning, firm and flavorful.
- Olallie: Productive, sweet and firm and grown commercially in CA.
- Triple Crown: Thornless vigorous canes with large flavorful fruit.
Raspberries:
- Canby: Good for freezing, firm and sweet
- Heritage: Popular ‘everbearing’ variety with firm fruit and canes that do not need staking.
November Specials
50% OFF All above mentioned berries
30% OFF Glazed Pottery
30% OFF Iron benches, arches, and trellis’
New Winter Hours
Star Gardens Winter Hours begin on Sunday Nov. 3rd
Open 6 days week 10-4 and by appointment. Closed Wed.
Closed Wed, Thurs and Friday for Thanksgiving-Nov. 27-29
November Newsletter
The deadline is here for your special order fruit trees. I will be sending the order off before the deadline at the growers but there is still time if you get it in before the second weekend of the month. After that you will be stuck with my selections. Bare-root arrives at the end of January. We will call you when the trees arrive.
We will have potted living Christmas trees again. They usually arrive by Thanksgiving. We will not have cut trees until the first week-end of December- Noble Fir and Doug Fir, wreaths and garland.
With the onset of the first frost many will be tearing out your tomatoes. We still have a great selection of cool season vegies and if you hurry you can still seed out beets, radish, peas and chard. We have onion and garlic bulbs along with onion sets.
We have plenty of daffodils and tulips left to plant now for gorgeous spring flower displays. We have a limited selection of cover crop-annual rye, vetch, strawberry clover and fava beans. We have stocked up on our wildflower seeds and have lots of pansies and violas along with ornamental kale and cabbage to brighten your home for the darker months ahead. There has been some discussion going around that the critters are leaving the ornamental kale alone so if anyone wants to experiment and report back to us that would be great. It would make all our day to find another winter annual for the deer ‘resistant’ list.
We are preparing for the cold nights ahead and to be on the safe side have started covering the citrus at night. We have moved the cold sensitive plants we want to try and winter over inside or under cover. The killing frost will be here any day so get busy bringing those plants inside if you have not already done so. We should have plenty of N-Sulate frost cloth on hand if you need it. We also carry the natural pine resin anti-transpirant spray for additional frost protection.
November is the first month for dormant spraying. I like to use the copper for fungicide and combine it with the horticultural oil for overwintering insects. If you have had problems this year with disease or infestations then this is one of the best defenses against another bad outbreak next year. The nursery still has nice fall color happening. The crape myrtles, forsythia, boston ivy and barberries are going through their show right now. My pistache trees are almost done. The spirea, hydrangeas and dogwood have not begun yet.
Happy Fall Gardening,
Tanya