It is ‘Fall’! Prime planting time in California. Yes, we are still going to have some hot days, but September into October are the best times to plant most trees, shrubs, and hardy perennials. We have the full assortment of summer and fall bloomers in stock now. A lot of these are not ready or available in spring when you might be looking for them. Case in point is that we often can not find lavender early in the spring. Echinacea: still dormant in the ground. Agastache: nope. Lantanas, if you can get them to winter over: not ready yet. Blackeyed Susans: maybe. Salvias: a few. Russian Sage: probably not. You get the idea. For trees, shrubs, roses, and the like planted now, they will be more drought resistant come next summer and by fall be twice as big as anything planted next spring. Truly, we should be just as busy in the Fall as in Spring.
We have lots of varieties of cool-season vegetable starts and seeds in stock now. Planting before the soil cools down gives you lots of good root growth to make sizeable plants that can produce all winter long. If you wait too long, they will just sit there til February and then start growing. Are you done with zucchini? Plant some peas. Some of your tomato and cucumber plants look tired? Pull them and plant some broccoli, or maybe some carrots and beets. You can even start planting some starts in between what is growing now, but don’t forget to amend the soil where you plant. A handful of steer or earthworm castings and some EBS Sure Start to start them off. If you are ripping out entire beds, then you will need to amend the whole area. Soil Booster is good for that. Onion sets are due to arrive in a week or two, and garlic will ship out mid-month. As usual, organic potatoes won’t come til November.
This year, the late frosts didn’t kill my nectarines, and for the first time, I actually had enough to dry and freeze some. I just harvested my sad peach tree and found a one-crust peach pie recipe in my Joy of Cooking book. It turned out great. I am not a pie crust maker, so double-crusted just doesn’t work for me. Also, I cheated and used a store-bought pie crust. I picked my pears and my figs from my little potted dwarf fig, which are starting to ripen. This looks like the best crop ever on it. My growbags with some assorted vegetables in them did horrible. Poor things are at the back of my yard, and I just do not pay them enough attention. Besides, amending the soil just wasn’t enough. All new soil is needed. I will probably come up with another system for next year. Our potted tomatoes, thank you, Chelsea, for our own use scattered around the nursery, have been supplying us with yummy tomatoes.
We do not order many varieties of bulbs as the demand just isn’t there for us, besides our limited space. German Iris bulbs have arrived, and we ordered red, orange, black, and a blue/yellow bi-color. When I started the nursery 21 years ago, they were $3.99. Now they are $11.99. (I get to the register and can’t remember what this year’s pricing is, as so much has changed over the years.) Coming with the onions are saffron crocus bulbs. More bulbs, daffodils, and tulips, etc., will trickle in all month. Somehow, we make room for them in our small but mighty indoor sales room.
For those of you who did not see my Meta posts, we received some cool things from the Little Prince of Oregon last week. Giant and small airplants are back in stock. They had a hardy banana and a Zone 8 ginger lily available, and we got them. And no, the banana does not produce, and you do not get ginger either. We also picked up another variety of the hardy ground orchid and a ‘giant’ Papyrus (for the water garden). They also have the biggest selection of Hens and Chicks, and we picked a few that we did not think we had before. We got this shade grass-like plant that sounded cool, but left me disappointed. It is completely different, but would be perfect for a fall, somewhat spooky container. Check it out in the shade and let us know what you think.
Feed citrus, blueberries, and your acid-loving plants one more time this month. It is recommended that you do not feed Camellias, Azaleas, and Rhodies as next year’s buds are forming, and that is why you should feed now. Feeding your fruit trees in Sept with a complete (NPK) food is also recommended, and then in October, you want to apply the 0-10-10 Ultra Bloom for flowers and fruit set in the spring. Keep up on your summer fruit tree pruning to keep your fruit reachable. Aphids and other insects can be doing a rehatch as the weather cools, and we have noticed a few cool-season weeds starting to germinate where the ground is getting watered. Final pruning on early spring-blooming shrubs should be done this month before buds start forming deep inside the plant.
We have ordered some cover crop seeds: favas, red and crimson clovers for nitrogen fixing, and an erosion control mix for people looking. We should have them in a week or so. We have Kodiak Mustard, CA. Poppies and White Clover are also in stock. After the Valley Fire at one of their meetings, CA Poppy was highly recommended for erosion control. Perennial white clover makes a good lawn substitute and is economical compared to other options.
We do not like to have many crepe myrtles, hydrangeas, or roses left to winter over, so we are putting them on sale at 20% off all of September. We also need to make room for bulbs, so all 4-inch houseplants (those are the small ones) will be 20% off, too.
Labor Day Weekend Sale
Our entire inventory is 20% off.
Open Sat and Sun 9-5, Monday 10-2
September Specials
20% off
- Hydrangeas, Roses, and Crepe Myrtles
- 4-inch pots of Houseplants
- Wire Plant Supports
