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Plants Clean Our Air

10/9/2022

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Boston Fern
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Aloe Vera
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Butterfly Palm
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Chinese evergreen (Aglaonema modestum)
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Dragon Tree ‘Marginata’ (Dracaena marginata)
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English Ivy (Hedera helix)
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Gerbera Daisy (Gerbera jamesonii)
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Golden Pothos (Epipremnum aureum)
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Money Plant (Pilea peperomioides)
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Mother-in-law's Tongue (Sansevieria masoniana)
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Peace Lily (Spathiphyllum 'Mauna Loa')
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Spider Plant (Chlorophytum comosum)
     Cleaning our air is accomplished by every plant in the garden and home.  Plants clean the air we breathe by taking in carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen, they increase humidity by transpiring water vapor through microscopic leaf pores, and they absorb pollutants on leaves and in the plant root-soil system.
 
Plant Foliage
     Through the process of photosynthesis, plant leaves absorb chemicals, bacteria, or harmful elements floating on the breeze, which they then filter into useful waste products like water and oxygen – “waste” products that we humans thrive upon.  That benefits us because we take in oxygen and expel carbon dioxide.  So we’re a perfect match:  When we talk to our plants, we expel the carbon dioxide that they need, and in return, they absorb our carbon dioxide and expel the oxygen that we need. Our respiration provides what they need, and their respiration provides what we need.
     Some of the best plants for cleaner air according to some studies and other sources include:
  • Aloe Vera
  • Areca Palm
  • Anthurium
  • Bamboo Palm (Chamaedorea seifrizii)
  • Banana Tree
  • Birds’ Nest Fern (Asplenium antiquum)
  • Butterfly Palm
  • Boston Fern
  • Sword fern
  • Chinese evergreen (Aglaonema modestum)
  • Pot Mum (Chrysanthemum morifolium)
  • Dieffenbachia
  • Dragon Tree ‘Janet Craig’ (Dracaena fragrans ‘Janet Craig’)
  • Dragon Tree ‘Marginata’ (Dracaena marginata)
  • Corn Plant (Dracaena fragrans ‘Massangeana’)
  • English Ivy (Hedera helix)
  • Gerbera Daisy (Gerbera jamesonii)
  • Golden Pothos (Epipremnum aureum)
  • Lady Palm
  • Money Plant (Pilea peperomioides)
  • Mother-in-law's Tongue (Sansevieria laurentii)
  • Orchid
  • Peace Lily (Spathiphyllum "Mauna Loa")
  • Philodendron
  • Rubber Plant
  • Snake Plant (Sansevieria fischeri, masoniana, trifasciata)
  • Spider Plant (Chlorophytum comosum)
  • Weeping Fig (Ficus)
 
Which is the best single plant?
       Chrysanthemum, especially in bloom.
 
How many plants in a room?
     Two “good sized” plants in a room of 100 square feet.  But a whole nursery-full would be even more enjoyable!
 
Plant Roots
     Plant roots also help to take in any errant chemicals or heavy metals that might be lurking in your soil.  This process is called phytoremediation.  The roots then “lock up” those toxins, and the plants can then be burned. The resulting ash is light, small, and easy to store.  Some effective plants include alfalfa, corn, Date palms, mustard greens, sunflowers, poplar and willow trees, and water ferns and water hyacinths.
 

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Pleasant Temperatures for Fall Gardening

9/16/2022

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Hoya carnosa.
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Hoya carnosa Hindu Rope bloom.
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Foliage houseplants in bright filtered light.
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Perky begonia foliage in filtered light.
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Sunburned leaves from that 100+-degree week on plumeria.
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Sunburned fruit and dropped dead leaves from that 100+-degree week on Satsuma mandarin.
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Rooting succulent cuttings.
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Bright clear yellow succulent bloom.
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Firespike Odontonema strictum.
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Variegated foliage Spathiphyllum
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Succulent long-stemmed bloom.
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Haemanthus bulbs have the paired leaves (as opposed to Scadoxus having tufts of leaves on several stems).
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Bright pink Naked Lady bulbs, Amaryllis belladona.
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Fuyu persimmon fruits gaining size.
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Meiwa kumquat's last fruit and lots of new blooms.
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Artichoke sending up new shoots for next Spring's harvest.
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Pale pink rain lily - Zephyranthes
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Angel's Trumpet - Brugmansia - 'Purple People Eater'
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Tithonia rotundifolia 'Torch'
​     I’ve just begun to feel back to normal following our week of over-100-degree temperatures, and my garden is showing its relief as well.  Foliage is perky enough, a tribute to my earlier “training” plants to grow deeply for their water since they haven’t been watered in 3 weeks.  I’m sure they’ll continue to do well until we’re allowed to water again (however minimally) when the Metropolitan Water District repairs are completed.
  Now, with mild daytime and nighttime temperatures, it's time to get started with Fall gardening opportunities!  
 
Propagating Overgrown Succulents
  I’m doing lots of trimming overgrowth of my succulents that have thrived through the summer, and potting up the cuttings. 
     I’ve watered the cuttings using the water evacuated from my room air conditioner.  Boy, what a surprise benefit!  I’ve found that when the AC was on for a full day – from about 11am through 8pm – the water pulled from the air filled a 5-gallon bin.  It was too heavy to move when it was full, and initially I used a smaller bucket to transfer the water to my container plants ten feet away.  Then I figured out to put the empty large bucket onto a roller cart that I could roll to my long row of container plants to water them.  Talk about recycling!  I’ll almost be sorry when I won’t need to use the air conditioner and not have that “free” water any longer.
 
Sow and Transplant Veggies and Posies
   With daytime temperatures in the low 80s and nighttime temperatures in the low 60s, seeds will germinate well and transplants will establish themselves nicely. 
     There’s no way of knowing whether these pleasant conditions will continue, or shift back to heat or proceed further toward cold.  So, I suggest that you provide for both.  That’s my usual September suggestion, when even in a “normal” gardening year, the weather could go either way.  Instead of deciding to go one way or the other, I cover all my bets with doing both:  sow and transplant the last of the summer crops, and also sow and transplant the first of the fall-through-spring overwintering crops.  That way, I’m sure to have something thrive no matter which way the weather goes.  It’s a win-win!
     However, when you choose the summer crops to sow and plant for the last time this year, do choose varieties with the shortest to-maturity time, just to make sure that you’ll get something to mature before the weather truly turns too chilly and the plants stop growing vigorously.
     When you choose the fall-into-spring crops to sow and plant, choose varieties with short maturity times but also other varieties with long maturity times so you can sow or plant a few of each every month or so for a very long growing and harvesting period.  All of it will slow down as the weather gets chillier, so now’s the time to get things started while the weather and the soil is warmer.
     Besides, it’s always fun to grow more than one variety of each kind of vegetable or flower.  You may find that you prefer some of the varieties more than others, either for their growing peculiarities or their flavor or color.  Definitely playtime in the garden!
 
Plant Flower Bulbs
     Now’s the time to check out your local nurseries for their selection of flower bulbs to plant now for spring color.  You’ll want to choose the largest bulbs to assure that they’re the healthiest and to plant them immediately so they have as long a growing season as possible prior to they’re finally blooming.  This is definitely NOT the time to wait for the bargain bin!
     For more details on choosing and planting flower bulbs and my favorite online vendors, see my 8/21/21 blog, Fall Bulb Planting for Spring Color.
 
For more garden task possibilities, see September.
 
For more Major-Topic Blog Articles for this time of year, see Homepage.
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Planning for September Watering Ban

8/27/2022

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Amarcrinum
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Plumeria
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Plumeria
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Self-sown sunflower
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Ruellia brittoniana 'Purple Showers' Mexican Petunia
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Mulberry fruits following pruning
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Fuji apple
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Firespike - red sparkle flower - Odontonema strictum. I always wish it would bloom for 4th of July!
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Begonia cuttings rooting. For detailed instructions, see Propagating Begonias From Cuttings - 10/29/16 blog -- https://www.gardeninginla.net/blog/archives/10-2016
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Succulent cuttings are easy to root and don't want much water - perfect for our current situation!
     We thought it was bad enough that we were limited to a few minutes of water once or twice a week.  Now comes the notice that the Metropolitan Water District will be doing repair work on a pipeline leak from September 6-20 and requests residents in the affected areas to eliminate all outdoor watering during that time.  [For more information on who’s affected and the specific new restrictions, go to https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-08-15/pipeline-leak-prompts-watering-ban-in-parts-of-l-a-county] 
​     With the heat promising to continue at least another two months of blistering sun, this feels pretty desperate for our gardens.  But with my tomatoes finishing up their harvests (since I didn’t plant successive plants in May in expectation of the extreme heat now), and beans and squash and cucumbers already done some time ago, I was looking forward to preparing my soil for cool-season crops and getting seeds started.  Now with this added water ban, I will hold off on the seeds and plants but can proceed with the soil prep.
 
Holding Off On Seeds and Plants
     Between the heat probably continuing through at least October and into November (as in past years), and the complete lack of irrigation water through the end of September (and who knows what we’ll be allowed following that) – it feels unwise to start seeds or plant seedlings before mid-November (if we’re lucky) since we won’t be able to provide them with the water they’ll need to get fully established, especially during hot weather. Best to wait for cooler weather so seeds and plants will more successfully thrive.
 
Preparing Soil for Cool-Season Crops
     Because neither pulling up dead summer-bearing plants nor incorporating amendments require water, those two tasks seem to be what we can manage at this point.  This is a good thing to accomplish, especially if your summer crops seemed less than vigorous, demonstrating the need for more nutrition to break down in the soil for the new cool-season crops.
 
Plan the Layout of Your Cool-Season Garden
  • Consider which new crops should follow spring and summer ones.  Follow heavy feeders with light feeders, and vice versa.
  • Heavy feeders include beets, broccoli, cabbage, celery, collards, corn, cucumbers, eggplant, endive, escarole, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce, okra, parsley, pumpkins, radishes, rhubarb, spinach, squash, and tomatoes.
  • Light feeders include carrots, chard, garlic, leeks, mustard, onions, parsnips, peppers, potatoes, rutabaga, shallots, sweet potatoes, and turnips.
  • Some vegetables are more tolerant of salty areas in the garden. If an area has received repeated applications of manure or other concentrated fertilizers, the salt content may be high. Asparagus, beets, kale, and spinach do well under these conditions, but celery, green beans, radishes, strawberries and most fruits cannot tolerate it. Other vegetables and cantaloupes, figs, and grapes are generally of medium tolerance.
 
On the Positive Side
     This warm weather is an excellent time to make cuttings of succulents.
  • Cut 3-6” sections
  • Let them dry for a couple of days to form dry callouses over the cut edges
  • Pot them up in potting soil or garden soil
  • Water once to “melt” the soil closely around the calloused edges to foster new roots
  • Place pots into filtered light (just a bit of direct sun during the day)
  • Water once more before September 6
  • After September 20, water them once every two or three weeks, just to barely moisten the soil.
  • By late November, they should have rooted nicely and can be transplanted.
 
For more task possibilities - hedged by the heat and lack of water - see September
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Too Hot To Plant

8/14/2022

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Brilliant red Rhodophiala phycelloides brightening up some shade.
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Orchid's long-lasting bloom stalk brightens up shade for summer into fall months.
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Long draping branches of Begonia boliviensis 'San Francisco' (pink) and Begonia boliviensis 'Santa Cruz' (red) should be elevated for best viewing.
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Begonia 'Mistral Pink' makes an attractive clump of foliage.
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Blue-highlighted white blooms of African violet.
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Fragrant white heliotrope is perfect right by my door.
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Yellow epidendrum.
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Snowbush - Breynia disticha - resprouts color after trimming long upright branches.
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I moved my epiphyllums from all-day sun and too little water where they were struggling to next to my happier bromeliads where they'll get morning's bright light and afternoon's bright shade, and where they're easier to water and fertilize.
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Repotted begonia resprouting from the center, so now I'll clip off the lanky branches, clip them into separate pieces, and root them all for more baby plants to share.
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Brugsmania prunings now rooting: 3 nodes below the soil, and 3 nodes above the soil, with 2 or three smaller leaves at tips to continue photosynthesis until roots develop and I can transplant each into its own pot.
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Brugsmania trimmed down after bloom finishes from 10 feet tall to 4 feet tall. Pruning could be all the way down to the bottom-most new growth emerging.
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Jimson weed - Datura stramonium - ripened seed pod opening to spew its seeds.
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My potting-up table facing northwest that gets only a bit of direct sun in the late afternoon.
     It’s just too hot to plant, for both me as a person and also for the plants.  Anything over 85 degrees is too much.  For me, it’s my comfort-level cut-off point, but for the plants it bodes a struggle-to-survive issue.  Even if you enjoy working outdoors in the warmth, the plants have more important concerns like reconnecting and extending their roots into the new soil so they can absorb water and nutrients – before they keel over due to the heat even if their rootballs are kept sufficiently moistened.  For a week or two, they’re still depending on their original root systems and subject to whatever new bright sun and heat may characterize their new homes, differing from their coddling shade and everyday watering at the nursery.  This more-than-85-degree weather makes that process difficult.  So, if you can, put off the planting tasks until temperatures lower.  If you can’t put it off, then be very solicitous to prepare soil,  water well, and shelter from late-afternoon direct sun.
 
     So, what to do in the garden, instead of planting? 
 
Keep Harvesting
Continue to keep vine vegetables (especially beans, cucumbers, squash, and tomatoes) picked, whether or not you will use the harvest that day. If many fruits are allowed to overmature on the plant, production will slow and then cease because the plant “thinks” it’s accomplished its reproductive job.
 
Reinvigorate Veggies
Prune vegetable plants of their leaves that have become ragged from age, disease, or insect attacks. Then water plants well. Healthy new leaves will appear, and blossoms once the temperatures go below 85 degrees so fruit set will begin again. This is especially the case with beans, cucumbers, and squash.
 
Encourage New Strawberry Plants
Allow strawberries to root their runners after they've set their last crop. Strong new plants will be ready to transplant by October or November, which is the best time to establish new plants so plants bear well next Spring.
 
Last Fertilizing of Summer Crops
Fertilize tasseling corn and other vegetables that are setting fruit – including beans, cucumbers, eggplants, tomatoes, squash -- for increased yields. Plants appreciate this extra boost in food to use immediately in maturing their fruits. But during our extra-hot weather, be sure to water the plants well before incorporating fertilizer so it won't "burn" the roots.
 
Propagate Cuttings
  • Trim and propagate some of the maturing stem cuttings of plants like brugsmania and begonia and woody herbs that are actively growing through the summer.  Prime cuttings are those that are sturdy and partly but not fully mature.  Not too tender, and not too hard.  For most plants, the best place to make the cutting is where the stem color is transitioning between the new green foliage and the tannish-brown firmer wood.
  • See my 10/29/16 Propagating Begonias From Cuttings blog for specific steps to take.
 
Wait to Start Cool-Season Seeds
One thing to NOT do while it’s still so hot – consistently over 85 degrees – is to start seeds.  Hold off on starting both your first cool-season seeds and also your last crops of warm-season seeds, unless you can accomplish the task indoors in temperatures that are much lower than that.  If you tried to start them outdoors in the heat, the natural hormones in many types of seeds will result in unsuccessful germination because they’re programmed to not germinate until temperatures are more desirable.  Starting them indoors in cooler temperatures is a possibility you may want to pursue.
 
For more tasks to consider, see August Tips

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Propagating Plumeria

7/24/2022

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My first plumeria, which I call Rainbow for its many stripes of color and powerful fragrance.
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Bright pink plumeria
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Mainly white with delicate nuances of pink and yellow.
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Brilliant yellow.
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Time to prune, when I can see the bloom color only from below.
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Possible cuts: each of the single branches, 1 foot below the "Y" joint, just above the previously-cut branch scar (barely visible on the right side of the trunk about 1 foot up from the soil level).
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Laying the cuttings flat after the sap no longer runs. Also, avoid confusing cutting colors by rubber banding a photo onto the trunk.
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Original plant cutting calloused over and new shoots emerging.
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Lots of new shoots for future cuttings once they get to at least 1 foot in length.
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Nicely branched plumeria that fell over, braking some branches, so I "evened out" the remaining ones, added supports, and calloused-then-potted-up the trimmed pieces.
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Bamboo stakes tightened with plastic ties stabilize the potted cutting.
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Shorter cuttings don't need additional staking.
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Collection of potted-up-and-hopefully-rooting cuttings.
​     I purchased my first plumeria “stick” many years ago at one of those big fairs.  I was seduced by the many colors on the posters adorning the booth’s walls, and the promise that this mere leafless stick could become a real live plant with exquisite blooms and fragrance.  At only $5 each, I decided to splurge and give one a try.  I asked the vendor which might be the easiest to grow and have the most fragrance. I went home with the one that ultimately produced multi-colored blossoms and intoxicating fragrance that I call Rainbow. 
     Over the years, it’s branched many times and I’ve enjoyed its many yearly blooms and fragrance.  I also was pleased that it thrived in my garden’s all-day direct sun and needed very little water. 
     But when it grew so tall that I could see only the bottoms of the bloom clusters, I knew I’d have to trim it back.
     Although I’d propagated many kinds of plants over the years, I didn’t know whether I had to cut the plumeria branches at the base of their branching, or whether I could also cut in the middle of their 2-foot-long branches – whether they’d resprout or die back completely.  So I did both.  Luckily, both techniques worked.  So, I “evened out” my trimmings on the original plant so the branching would produce blooms on each of its remaining branches at about the 4-foot height, guaranteeing many more years of enjoyment and more cutting possibilities for future “sticks” to pass along to gardener friends and at plant sales.
     Cutting the branch straight across is necessary for a clean cut.  This will enable the main plant to resprout new leaves from the top surfaces.   Even with some dieback, the new leaves covered the unattractive spots.
     The base of the cut branch must be allowed to callous over completely before potting it up to root. Keep it in the shade, laid flat so the cut edge is completely open to the air so it can callous completely, and leaves are allowed to have their upper surfaces upright so they can continue their limited photosynthesis.  The sap will continue dripping for an hour or so, so you may want to put some newspaper or soil to catch the drips where they fall.
     It may take up to three weeks for the callous to completely dry and form a seal that’ll be impervious to water.  So don’t try to rush the process or pot it up too soon.
       I did initially pot up some branch cuttings as soon as I’d cut them, and while the leaves stayed perky for a couple of weeks, ultimately the branches did shrivel and rot without forming any roots.
      Once the branches are fully calloused, pot up the branches so the base – from which the roots will emerge – is about 2 inches above the bottom of the container.  I use gallon-size pots for short branches perhaps a foot or so long.  If the branches are multi-branched like in the shape of a “Y”, then I use a 5-gallon container and fill the potting mix to within an inch of the top.  While the roots will develop only from the bottom calloused area, having the rest of the multi-branched trunk buried in potting soil stabilizes it.
     I’ve found that staking and tying the branch will help keep it stable through waterings and moving the container until sufficient roots develop to anchor the plant.  Before I provided this support, even minor movement dislodged larger unbalanced Y-shaped branches, and I had to repot them up.  So, now I provide this support at the very beginning when I pot them up initially.
     Once potted up, place the container in a location in bright light but out of direct sun.  Water it several times to thoroughly moisten the potting mix and make sturdy contact holding the cutting in place.  Water again perhaps once a week just to keep the potting mix barely moist so roots can get well established.  
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Summer Gardening

7/6/2022

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Artichokes that you missed harvesting turn into beautiful blue-purple blossoms that bees love.
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This bounty of tomatoes are too small to truly be the Stupice that their label proclaims.
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Boysenberry tips can easily be rooted while still attached to their mother plant. Anchor the vine (see the peg at the right next to the buried watering bin), and submerge an inch or two of the tip under the soil, and water in. The leaves on the vine will continue their photosynthesis since they're attached to the mother plant, and the moisture at the buried tip will initiate rooting at the buried nodes. It may take through the summer, but you'll be able to transplant the newly-rooted plants in the fall to get the roots established in their new home before going dormant over the winter.
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Bits of succulents are easy to root.
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Place melons on containers to keep them away from moist soil or crawling critters. Direct sun will help them sweeten up, as well.
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Oro Blanco grapefruits ripening - the yellow one from last year will fall of its own accord when it's ripe, and the green one from this year's set will take just as long.
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First Conadria fig ripening. Green skin when ripe provides "camouflage" to critters who are attracted to colorful fruit.
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Jimson weed - Datura stramonium - pure white blossoms are attractive.
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Jimson weed seed pod is equally attractive.
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Plumeria blossom, first of the season.
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Plumeria blossom that's more colorful.
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Sweet Pea Shrub - Polygala myrtifolia - blooms much longer than the annual sweet peas, but only in this nice pinky-purple.
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Brilliant bougainvillea continues blooming.
     We’ve been lucky so far this summer, with only a couple of uncomfortably hot days.  Most days have been thoroughly pleasant to work in the garden, especially after the direct sun leaves.  I’ve appreciated even the really hot over-90-degree days since I know the tomatoes are ripening and the summer bloomers are coloring up. 
     But I must admit that I’m waiting – as the saying goes – “for the other shoe to drop,” with more of those over-100-degree temperatures, to say nothing of the unwelcome possibility of a repeat of that 116-degree July several years ago that scorched everything and cancelled harvests for the rest of the summer. 
    And with the addition of water restrictions, planting anything new in the garden doesn’t feel like a good choice, at least for me in my “inland” Pasadena garden.
     So, what to do in the garden?  Here’re several possibilities:
 
Harvesting
  • Harvest beans, cucumbers, squash, and tomatoes at least every other day to encourage further production. If too many fruits are allowed to remain on the plant, the hormones will change so there will be fewer new blossoms to set new fruit.
  • Pinch back herbs to encourage branching, and use the clippings either fresh or dry.
  • My tomatoes have been bearing very nicely, with a total to date of 395 individual tomatoes, 325 cherry-size and 70 larger ones.  Yesterday’s haul was 148, 128 cherry-type and 20 larger ones.  Interestingly, a couple of the Celebrity and Cherokee Purple and Black Krim are producing nicely while the other plants aren’t.  Just as well that those will perhaps wait until after the currently-producing ones are close to done, to spread out the yield.  Of the cherry types, Sungold is the winner so far with 42, but Chocolate Sprinkles has 29 and two red cherry volunteers have 30 and 22.  All yummy!
 
Propagating
  • Tip-root boysenberries by anchoring vine tips under an inch of soil and water in.  The tip will root, and you can transplant them in the late fall or early winter.
  • Pot up succulent cuttings by removing “leaves” off an inch or so of stem, stick into potting mix or soil, and water in.  Roots will form, and you can transplant them later.
  • Root cuttings of azaleas, fibrous begonias, camellias, carnations, marguerite daisies, fuchsias, gardenias, geraniums, hollies, hydrangeas, lilacs, marguerites, mock oranges, mums, and verbena.  Bare about 3 inches of stem, leave about 4 leaves on top, put stem into potting mix or soil, water in, and place in indirect light.  Transplant later.
 
Maintenance
  • Encourage repeat blooming by pinching or cutting back alyssum, coreopsis, crape myrtles, dahlias, delphiniums, dianthus, fuchsias, gaillardias, lobelia, marigolds, penstemons, petunias, rose of Sharon, salvias, and verbenas.
  • Dig and divide bearded iris clumps if they're crowding each other or didn't bloom much last spring.
  • Strongly rip off - don't just trim - rose suckers off at their base with a harsh downward and outward pull. Also bash the base to further dissuade resprouting.  For more detail, go to Trimming and Rooting Blooming Plants - 7/13/16
  • Rinse the undersides of leaves with water to discourage spider mites.
  • Enclose whole grape clusters in paper bags or old pantyhose for protection from birds and wasps.
  • Hold off irrigating melons about a week before you'll harvest them so their sugars will concentrate.
  • Place ripening melons onto upside-down aluminum pie pans or cans to keep them off the damp soil and reflect the sun’s heat back onto the melon to help it develop more sweetness.
  • If onion and garlic foliage has not yet slumped and dried, stop irrigating, and bend the stalks to the ground. You want the outer layers to thoroughly dry so they protect the flesh underneath.
 
Planning for your cool-weather garden
  • Can you believe that the heat of summer is the time to start thinking about the cool of winter?  In fact, I prefer gardening through the fall, winter, and early spring because there are so many goodies to be eating, and they continue developing through the cool weather to provide many months of freshly-picked delectable produce without being hassled by summer heat.
  • At the end of the month, sow carrots, celery and cole crops - broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage (especially red and savoy types, which resist frost better), cauliflower, and kohlrabi. Keep the soil moist and shaded until they're up, and then gradually allow them more direct sun over a week's time.
 
What NOT to do
  • Don’t prune tomato foliage.  In our bright-sun area, plants need all that foliage to accomplish their photosynthesis and to shade fruits from the burning sun.  In addition, our breezes keep foliage free of disease.  For more details, go to Why NOT to Prune Tomato Plants - 7/13/15.
 
For more monthly tasks, go to July.
 
For past blogs on many major seasonal topics, go to Home.

For many problems, go to Warm-Season Plant Problems and Solutions - 3/28/21

For specifically tomato problems, go to Tomato Growing Problems & Solutions - 6/17/20

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Planting in June?

6/19/2022

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Nematanthus wettsteinii "Goldfish" swim amongst glossy dark greenish-blue foliage. Cuttings are easily rooted.
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Volunteer Jimsonweed - Datura stramonium - blooms start as greenish-yellow roll-ups that unravel into bright white blooms.
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Begonia bonariensis in two colors - San Francisco is pink, and Santa Cruz is coral. Both cuttings root easily.
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Tall impatiens resprouting following pruning from 4 feet tall.
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Plumeria bloom stalk arises.
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First blossom on my plumerias.
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Three new branch shoots arise below cut surface of branch that rooted separately.
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Fuchsia procumbens 'Creeping Fuchsia' bloom is barely 1/2 inch long, but definitely cute, arising from the delicate foliage in a hanging pot. I purchased mine from https://www.anniesannuals.com/
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Lemon Verbena flower clusters form beige-colored clouds among fragrant foliage. Woody plants can be pruned severely as far down as the bottom-most shoots appear, to develop into bushier plants.
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Small euphorbia is very hairy and only 4 inches tall.
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Daylily blossoms last literally only one day, but are followed by many more.
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Corn "smut" or "huitlacoche" are hated or prized depending on cultural and culinary appreciation or not.
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Ancient corn mounted on an exhibit board. The tiniest are barely 1 inch in length. At the Antelope Valley Indian Museum east of Lancaster, https://avim.parks.ca.gov/ . Quite a drive, but definitely worth a couple of hours' visit!
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Chocolate Sprinkles are my new favorite cherry-size tomato, with "full" flavor and texture. I picked my first on June 1, and have had 16 since then, keeping pace with my Sungold (15) and a volunteer red cherry (25).
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Sungold cherry tomatoes continue their plentiful harvest. I make a point of immediately eating the ones that have split after I wash them -- what a treat!
​     Years ago, before our continuing drought forced itself into our every-day consciousness, I used to look forward to June as the time to transplant a last group of tomatoes to provide fruit through the fall cool-down and sometimes into the new year.  But, some five to seven years ago, I started noticing that those last group of plants weren’t establishing themselves well, I was having to water them more just to assure their survival, and I wasn’t getting my reward of many tomatoes setting and ripening up before they gave up due to the extreme stress of the summer heat.  So I stopped planting that late.  It turned out that even May plantings were at risk.  Instead, mid- to the end of April planting was the latest that’d result in vigorous plants and a good yield – even when we had our “usual” week of over-100-degree temperatures.  So I concentrated in choosing varieties that ranged broadly in maturity dates to assure that I benefitted from a long bearing period; and usually cherry tomatoes kept producing through the heat and into the fall. 
     Ditto for planting beans, cucumbers and squash that late. 
     And corn planted this late perhaps will develop “smut” or “huitlacoche”, a fungus that’s despised or prized according to cultural culinary appreciation or not.
     Of course, your garden may still do well planting any of these veggies now, especially if you’re in more coastal climes.  And experimenting is always fun and results in at least some goodies. 
     I’m just bringing this issue up so you’ll not be too disappointed if and when your upcoming summer pattern follows mine, especially with the water restrictions that are being mandated throughout Southern California.  And to hope that you’ll also change your soil-preparation and seeding and plant-planting practices to concentrate on our cooler-season fall, winter, and spring to get everything happily developing and bearing!
 
Maintaining Growth and Harvests
     For your tomatoes that are already nicely set with ripening fruit, keep them well-watered especially during over-90-degree temperatures to encourage them to continue setting new blossoms. As air temperatures rise and stay high consistently, fewer blossoms will set due to the shift in hormones.  So you want to have as much fruit already set while temperatures are below 90 so they’ll ripen until blossoming starts again once the temperatures settle down below 90 for a couple of weeks.
     After watering tomatoes, scatter a bit of general-purpose fertilizer (with all 3 NPK numbers about the same) and then water again to melt it into the moist soil.  This will provide plants with some additional nutrition for their continuing exertions in blossoming, setting fruit, and ripening the fruit.
     Hormones stop producing blossoms similarly if too many fruits are left ripening on beans, cucumbers, eggplants, and squashes.  Vegetables that are left to continue maturing too long will produce a chemical that inhibits further blossoming.  So, keep the fruits harvested every other day or so as they achieve the size you want, so the plants keep putting out more blossoms for more fruits to mature later.
     Keep harvesting herb foliage.  Nip off the tips to encourage more bushy delicately-flavored greenery.  Remove blossoms whenever they appear so the plant won’t get “side-tracked” into producing seeds instead of more tender foliage.  For tips on drying herb foliage, see my 4/26/16 blog, Harvesting Herbs for Fresh and Dry Use.
     Lift vine vegetable fruits like squash and pumpkins and melons up onto cans or berry baskets to put them out of reach of snails, slugs, other critters and soil-borne diseases, and up into the air so they’ll absorb more of the sun’s heat and therefore ripen more. 
     Planting flower bulbs can be done any time of year since they contain their own “fertilizer pack”.  However, choose to purchase and plant bulbs according to their growing and blooming seasons, and whether or not they need to have the soil where they’re planted completely dry out during their dormant season, whether this is summer or winter.  Late-summer-color bulbs to plant now include tuberous begonias, cannas, gladiolus, montbretias, and tigridias.
     Mulch, Mulch, Mulch!  Organic matter such as compost, leaves or grass clippings will temper the drying and heating effect of the sun, and irrigation will be more effective with less frequency and quantity.
 
For more garden tasks, see June and July.
 

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Spring Is Still Springing

5/28/2022

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The variety in summer harvesting begins among the last artichokes, with Tomcot apricots, Arctic Star nectarines, several varieties of beans (Contender, Emerite, Roc d' Or, Royalty Purple Pod, and Early Spanish Musica), and tomatoes (Stupice and Chocolate Sprinkles). Over the years' trying different bean varieties, I've made sure to choose only stringless varieties since I gather a few of every variety as it develops and don't want to have to keep "string" and "not string" varieties apart when preparing for cooking. My husband prefers some of the bean varieties raw to cooked. Purple-pod varieties are handy for the beginning cook, since the purple turns green at the moment that they're ready to stop cooking!
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This volunteer tomato came up after watering the Kishu tangerine, so as I'll continue watering the Kishu, we'll see how delicious or not the volunteer tomato is!
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Swiss chard is definitely a year-round grower. Snapping off the elongated stem encouraged lots of new side shoots of tender foliage that'll keep producing as long as I keep watering (easy since I'm "really" watering the tomatoes I planted on either side of it) and harvesting.
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Violette de Bordeaux fig bears its first fruit in clusters.
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Conadria fig is a heavy producer.
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This is an "on" year for my Fuyu persimmon, following last year's sparse fruiting.
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Some of the last carrots. Unless you keep them well watered, the coming heat will concentrate the "turpentine" essence of carrots, making them unenjoyable for eating.
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New shoots emerging from nodes below where I'd trimmed an over-extended plant.
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Clear red alstromeria got a bit sunburned (those white swaths at its petal edges).
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Bean blossoms and young beans.
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Limonium - Statice, Sea Lavender makes a long-lasting dry-flower bouquet.
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Grapes enlargening from my previous blog.
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Stock - the original single-petal and very fragrant - self-sows freely which I love in my garden along with the also-free-seeding feverfew.
     When I was a kid, I hated “May Gray” and “June Gloom” because it was so dreary, and I wanted “Summer Sun” to brighten and heat up my days so I’d have the excuse to go to the beach or at least lay out on my dichondra lawn listening to my favorite pop tunes on the radio. 
    Now that I’m an “experienced” gardener who prefers to not endure the heat and brilliance while playing in my garden, I appreciate the still-cool temperatures and overcast skies that mean I can do some additional sowing and transplanting and watering and harvesting and trimming and weeding – all the while knowing that the plants are also thriving because the weather is mildly warm enough to spur growth but not blazing hot enough to stress them.  Of course, that scenario is yet to come. 
​     So, enjoying being in the garden now is all the more precious.  Especially when I come into the kitchen with a bucketful of edible treasures.  Yum!
     With this year’s additional mandates of lessened water supplying our gardens, the resulting stresses for both plants and people aren’t welcome in addition to the uncomfortability of the too-hot blazing sun during our summer. But we can shift our timing and techniques to better serve ourselves and our plants:
  • Provide soil and amendments with lots of nutrition and organic matter to enable plants to develop extensive root systems and bear plentiful flowers and fruit.
  • Sow seeds and transplant growing plants only when air temperatures promise to stay below 90 degrees for at least a week and preferably longer.  As we move into summer, this window of opportunity lessens, so do this as soon as possible.  Coming weeks may put too much of a strain on plants trying to get established during those stressful times – and even if they do start thriving in the next couple of weeks, they may not ultimately mature and produce much fruit and flowers if the weather turns so extreme.  Because of this, planting in June is really a hit-or-miss prospect based on hope that the weather will stay satisfactory.  In gardening, there’s always hope – and also the realization that the magic may or may not work!  But then, at least, you've learned something new about trying to push the seasons!
  • Group plants according to their needs for water.  For example, tomatoes need lots of water, but lavender and rosemary need very little water.  If you plant them together, everyone will be unhappy.
  • Water in the evening through early morning to lessen evaporation due to breezes.
  • Provide water through soaker hoses or drip irrigation systems that release water at soil level, or buried containers with holes that release it underground directly into the rootzones.
  • Water long enough for the water to reach down to the bottoms of the individual plant rootzones.  For example, beets and Swiss chard roots can go down 1 foot, but tomato and cucumber and squash roots can extend to 2 feet deep.
  • Water again when soil is only slightly moist 4 inches down.  When air temperatures get above 95 for several days running, you may have to water more frequently.
 
For more to do in the garden, see June’s Monthly Tips
 
For more June gardening in years past, see my previous archived June blogs since 2015
 
For specific major topics on summer gardening, see my homepage links
 
For tomato problems and solutions, see Tomato Growing Problems & Solutions - 6/17/20

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Watering “Only” Once A Week Is Doable!

5/12/2022

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Leonitus leonurus and Salvia canariensis thrive on rain only!
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What a great harvest all at once! A real taste test of seven different varieties. I purposely don't grow any that have thorns!
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Asparagus transplants settling in.
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Bush and pole beans beginning to blossom.
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Boysenberries ripening a bit late for Mother's Day.
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Chard bolting, but small leaves are still tender.
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Cilantro bolting. I tuck the stalks inside the bed borders so the scattered seeds will germinate later this fall for a continuation of cool-season eating.
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Grapes setting unevenly so I won't have to do much thinning as they enlargen.
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Arctic Star nectarine fruit set is protected with bird netting tied securely around the trunk. As ripe fruit falls into the netting, I punch as small a hole as I can manage to remove the fruit.
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Beautiful purple breadseed poppy and seed pods developing.
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Wait to harvest poppy seedheads until they're completely dry and crispy. Hold a pan underneath each pod as you snap it off, to catch the seed coming out of the "salt shaker" tops.
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Volunteer tomato that I dug a hole on the uphill side so I could insert a plastic bucket with bottom holes to serve as a watering bin. We'll see what harvest results and what they taste like!
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Celebrity tomato fruitset.
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Crookneck squash set. When this batch of plants begin setting their fruits, I plant another batch of seeds that will begin bearing when this bunch finally quits. I'll repeat that two more times through the summer for a perpetual harvest through fall.
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Beautiful pinky peachy rose.
     With all the hubbub and gnashing of teeth about pending water restrictions to once a week, I’m blasé about the issue because my productive edible garden has always done well with far less.  I’ve always conducted my watering timing as an only-when-imperative operation.  Yes, I’ve lost some plants because I did indeed wait too long, but by far my successes have taught me that generally recommended frequency and amounts of water have been way beyond what the plants needed to thrive.
      But it does take training the plants and trees from the moment they’re seeded or transplanted to grow deeply to retrieve the water that you’ll make available less frequently.  And that means now.  Even if you’ve already planted your summer garden, in the several weeks before the June 1 reduction start, you can get those plants to stretch further downward in search of the water you provide, so the once-a-week restriction will be nary a change.
 
Some guidelines:
  • Water deeply – just below the genetically-determined length of the specific plant’s roots – such as 6” lawn, 1’ lettuce and ornamentals, 18-24” beans and peppers and squash, and 30-36” asparagus and tomato.  The point is to always provide those bottommost roots with the water they need so they’ll withstand the frying heat in the top 1-2 inches of soil.
  • Water infrequently – only when the soil 3” down is dry.  Again, you want the water to keep the soil moist further down, where you’ve taught the plant roots to establish the bulk of their rootsystems.
  • Keep soil surfaces covered with 1-3 inches of mulch to shade the soil from the beating heat of the sun and therefore lessen evaporation of moisture from the soil.
  • Incorporating organic matter like compost into the growing beds will help all soil types stay both moist and well-drained.  It’s the magic for both sandy soils (holding the moisture from draining too quickly) and for clay soils (providing miniscule air pores for better drainage) that will enable plant roots to remain well-moistened like a wrung-out sponge.
  • What’s the best method to water my garden?  Choosing which of the many modes of delivering water to your garden depends upon your time and effort and can be a combination.  Several options include hand-help hoses, overhead sprinklers, mini-tube drip emitters on timers, soaker “leaky” hoses under mulch, and buried 5-gallon plastic containers with bottom holes.
  
See my previous blog articles where I’ve described these specifics in more detail –

Start Watering The Garden - 2/7/22

Watering -- When, How Much, and Methods - 3/19/22

​How Deep Is “Watering Deeply”? - 7/21/18
 
For more monthly garden tasks, go to May

For other major-topic blog articles, go to Homepage

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The Bloomers Are Loving Our Weather

4/25/2022

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Stupendous sweet peas!
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Beautiful breadseed poppies
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Albuca
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Single-petal rose
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Leonitus Leonurus - Lion's Tail, Lion's Mane
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Hollyhock
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The rainstorm knocked down the white nicotiana, so all the stems just turned to face upward.
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Purple variations of Brunfelsia - Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow - and pink alstroemeria and orange nasturtium and yellow/orange bulbine
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Pink crinum
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Blue-purple Iochroma, beloved of hummingbirds
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Euphorbia
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Spuria iris
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Tatsoi bolting - going to seed - but the foliage is still nicely mild tasting and perhaps a bit sweeter
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Amazingly, harvesting when the outer petals are standing a bit far out still results in a minimal - if any - choke, and a good deal of flesh!
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The purple variation is just beginning to enlargen enough to harvest.
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First tomatoes set on Celebrity plant
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Crookneck squash is starting! When these first appear on my first planting, I sow another batch so that when these quit I'll have the next batch beginning to harvest! I'll repeat this through the summer for a continuous harvest through fall, unless the heat makes them quit sooner.
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Bush and pole beans are starting to come up. Bush beans on the east side of the trellis, and pole beans on the back side.
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Peter's Honey fig setting fruit.
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Mulberry fruit set. To harvest only the ripest ones, I "tickle" the fruit, and whichever automatically falls into my hand is ripe.
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First harvest. Yum!
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Arctic Star nectarine fruit set. Time to tie up the fruit with netting to deter the birds and squirrels!
     The flowers are blooming their hearts out in my garden.  Everyone is providing its own version of color and pattern and height and spread.  It’s truly glorious to walk around and relish everyone doing their part in beautifying our gardening world.  That brief but intense downpour of rain a couple of nights ago really enthused the plants to perk up and unleash their colors.  And the again-mild air temperatures during both days and nights certainly helps them expand their delights.
 
Keep Sowing and Transplanting
     The mild weather continues to bode success for both sowing seeds and transplanting seedlings. 
  • Make sure seedbeds are moist before and after sowing. 
  • Fill planting holes with water and let it sink in before inserting the plant.
  • Massage rootballs to gently loosen the root system, and combine the loosened soil and container’s potting medium to provide a soil mix that combines them both – so the roots will have some of each as they extend into native soil.
  • Water transplanted plant three times right then to make sure that the surrounding soil a foot beyond the plant is equally moist.  This also encourages roots to reach out into the native soil to establish extensive root systems.
 
Establish Watering Patterns For Summer
      Keep plants thriving into our coming hot weather by matching your watering practices to plant needs and the weather.  All plants will need more than an evening sprinkling when you come home from work – it’ll satisfy you but potentially be a problem for plants that they won’t be able to overcome when our summer heat blasts our gardens.  So start “teaching” your plants now to be able to withstand the heat onslaught that will surely come.
  • Water each plant to just below its natural root zone, depending on variety and your soil. 
    • Some plant roots are naturally shallow, going only to 1 foot in depth – like lettuce, radish, celery.  Others go to 2 feet deep – like beans, cucumbers, peppers, squash.  The deep growers, to perhaps 3 feet – include asparagus, artichoke, tomato. 
    • You’ll water this deeply every time you water, regardless of what time of year it is or how hot or cold the weather is – the point is to get the water to satisfy the needs of the plants’ entire root systems.
  • Weather will determine how frequently you water. 
    • Mild weather like during our spring and fall means watering perhaps every other week.  Warmer weather, like that week of above 85 or 90 degrees, requires watering just before the heat hits and again after. 
    • Consistently hot weather like during our summers where the temperatures are consistently above 90 or 95, requires watering perhaps once a week – and more for large plants like tomatoes that do a lot of transpiring. 
    • Of course, you’ll water individual plants more that appear to be struggling.  But be aware that – like people – plants may be droopy at the end of a long hot day.  Best to check the soil moisture before automatically watering, since they may recuperate overnight.  If the soil is dry 3 inches down, or the plants are still droopy in the morning, then water immediately.

For more monthly tasks, go to May.
 
For major-topic articles by season, go to Homepage.
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