They are colorful and easy to care for.

They are actively gorwing in summer, making them less likely to burn easily.

Roses require regular maintenance while not building up dead material at their centers, thus making them less flammable when flying embers blow into your yard from a wildfire.
I took these photos of the Groundcover Rose, ‘Happy Chappy’ that is making a great show in my new garden in Cottonwood. Blooms are born in clusters and start bright salmon orange and fade to medium pink. The plant spreads to about 4ft across and arching canes seem to grow up to 2ft tall. Very disease resistant with little sign of mildew or black spot in the few years of have had it.
Groundcover roses should be sheared in spring just as new growth starts and again in midsummer after the first flush of bloom. You can cut them back hard every few years to renew the entire plant.
Groundcover roses like ‘Happy Chappy’ do best with regular waterings, but I have found they can be pretty tough as long as get a deep watering every week or so.
‘Happy Chappy’ is available via mail order from Jackson and Perkins Roses, www.jacksonandperkins.com and from local independent garden centers right now in bloom.

'Happy Chappy' showing three-tone blooms

I mean not Jack Benny cheap; he used to say that when he opened his wallet he could hear birds sing (Cheap, cheap, cheap).  But I have a habit of being a bit conservative when I am purchasing new plants.  About a month ago I was immersed in the plant utopia that is the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show Plant Market.  Of course I found some choice new finds for the garden, but after making some well thought out purchases, I instantly regretted it.  Not because the plants aren’t awesome, but that I should have bought AT LEAST 3 of each!.

Dykia 'Burgundy Ice' awaits planting at FireSafe Gardens

Any good gardener knows that groups of the same plant in odd numbers, IE 3, 5 or 7 makes the best impact when you are designing a new bed or border. One of this and one of that is good when you are using a big specimen, but if you want to create garden harmony, you want to build a solid group of each perennial or shrub and then repeat that same group somewhere else in the garden to create a unified and interesting scheme.   So when I choose the ‘Burgundy Ice’ Dyckia (www.provenwinners.com), a truly exotic-looking hardy bromelliad, I should have grabbed three, not just one.  This plant looks like a dark glossy sunburst starfish arching it’s spiny legs out in a spreading rosette.  Ideal in pots, but since it should be somewhat hardy in my USDA 9 and Sunset 9 zone garden here in far NorCal, I need three to make in impact under the rising stems of Chamaerops humilis in my new Exotic Garden. Of course, dykia is another IDEAL fire-safe plant with it’s tough fibrous leaves and tight rosette form which give no purchase to flying brands or builds up burnable leaf litter. Further it is very water wise, another important aspect of any new sustainable, fire safe garden.

So now I am regretting being so cheap, since I will now spend extra cash on having new specimens shipped from Gold Rush Nursery in Aptos (www.goldrushnursery.com).  Lesson: be decisive.  Grab three and make an impression.

Feel free to email me at dave@firesafegarden for comments or questions.

“Savanna!” is described as an exotic subtropical tall grass garden suited to the California climate.  As you approach the garden, you are greeted by a wall of waving stems in shades of tan, green rust and gold with fiery aloes, pastel bulbs and prickly bromeliads bursting out of the dense mass of foliage.  Once you walk down the snaking stone path th0ugh, you are envoloped in another world, completely distant from the bustle of the garden show outside.

Grasses with Melianthus, species Gladiolus and Kalanchoe

“It’s not a jungle, but more like a gauzy experience” says John Greenlee, who became famous for advocating grasses in new and innovative ways.  Greenlee worked with Rock and Rose Landscapes to create the garden which is hands down the most unusual but also most truly impressive and encompassing work at the show.  Along the path small bulbs hang over the flagstones and stems of bamboo arch overhead, but the garden does not seem tangled or disorderly.  ”In fact”, Greenlee states, ” the garden needs just a quick trim in late winter to freshen things up”.  Unusual ceramic leaves and stems shoot up throughout the garden, crafted by Marcia Donahue, and many visitors mistake them for some unusual new plant form.

Marcia Donahues ceramic forms mimic exotic plants

But the real draw could be the opportunity to take it all home, from the shortest carex to the nearly 20ft foot Queen palms towering over the garden.  All proceeds benefit the San Francisco Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park.

But you have to hurry! The drawing will be at the Gala Party on Saturday, March 24th from 7-10pm.  For more info, go to www.sfgardenshow.com

Comments/Questions: dave@firesafegarden.com

Many spring flowering plants only have a brief bloom period.  Pansies, violas, primrose, and ranunculas bloom during cool weather when days are shorter.  Once the first hot days set in, they begin to slow down, some like ranunculas go dormant and will return next spring. Others, called “annuals”, die off and you will need to replace them with something else for summer.  So what now?  The best thing to do is to plan ahead to add a mixture of plants with varied blooms times.  In any bed I plant I intentionally plan for something to bloom in spring, others to bloom in summer, and others to add color late in the year after September and beyond.  I also plan to add plants that don’t all go dormant in winter since I don’t want the beds to look like a graveyard after the first frost.

So how do you add plants for different blooms times? Well first, don’t fill up the whole bed at once.  Leave room to add plants as they come into bloom and come available in stores over the season.  In a typical bed, I might leave room to add daylilies, verbena, gaillardia, and asters as they start to show up at the garden center.  Another idea is to consult online sources that offer pre-planned gardens.  Pre-planned beds are drawn out for typical sizes of garden beds and are designed for different types of exposures and climates.  Some great examples of pre-planned gardens are provided monthly in the pages of  Garden Gate Magazine, www.gardengatemagazine.com.  Their guest designers will tackle real-life situations and offer colorful solutions to provide year round interest.

Once you have a plan you like, start shopping your independent garden center or consult online shopping sites to fill in the plant lists from your pre-planned site plan.  If you decide to add some plants to existing beds at home, looks for plants with a long season of interest.  That may not just be blooms, but should include interesting or colored leaves, seasonal change like bright fall foliage, or evergreen foliage.

Some of my favorites to add color beyond Spring include Verbena, Peroviskia, Aster, Gaillardia, Zauschneria; which is sometimes called California Fuchsia for it’s red tubular flowers that are hummingbird magnet in fall.  I always try to add a few background or middle ground shrubs to contrast with the perennials. I love using dwarf Rhaphiolepsis, hardy Gardenia, Japanese Boxwood, and in dry gardens the Vine Hill Manzanita, Arctostaphylos ‘Howard McMinn’.

Here are some sources for great pre-planned gardens.

Subscribe to Garden Gate Magazine to be treated to a whole year of planting ideas and plans at www.GardenGateMagazine.com.

Garden Designer Lauren Springer Ogden and plantsman David Salman offer pre-planned gardens with packages of live plants ready to go that are ideal for creating drought tolerant, heat resistant gardens at www.HighCountyGardens.com.

Questions/Comments Please contact me via dave@firesafegarden.com

Shoppers browse plants at the plant market. Photo courtesy Kay Estey, SF Flower and Garden Show, www.sfgardenshow.com

Living in far Northern California, where selection of new and unusual plants can be thinner than my favorite County singer, Slim Pickins, the plant market part of the show is an opportunity to not only buy new plants but also to talk with the people who actually GREW them face to face.  That way, I can ask specific questions about care, habit, flowering time and tips for getting new plants, many that I may have never seen or heard of before, to thrive in the dry hot summer climate of NorCal.

That face to face discussion, making a connection with a fellow gardener, that is what makes the Garden show well worth the ticket price. I can connect with backyard gardeners admiring the show gardens plus talk to influential designers to get their design insights on cutting edge landscapes.

Check out all the events for the garden show including directions, tickets and hotel packages via www.sfgardenshow.com

A bare-root apricot ready to be taken home. Photo courtesy of Dave Wilson Nursery

Probably not.

“Bare root” refers to what you see in the store, a little spindly fruit tree wrapped up in a colorful plastic bag, seemingly ready to plant.  At independent nurseries and garden centers, who know what they are doing, bare root trees are kept outdoors in cool, moist conditions and watered constantly to keep the roots moist.  The idea is, that while the tree is dormant, there is no need to pot it up.  Just grab the tree out of the bin, take it home right away and plant it immediately.  As the weather warms the roots will wake up, a Viola! You have a happy, healthy new fruit tree growing like gangbusters.

Not so at the big box.  The poor tree may or may not have been handled or cared for properly.  That means that instead of a happy new fruit tree, you end up with a dead stick.  The tree is probably being stored improperly, kept indoors in the dry warm environment of the retailer where it quickly dehydrates.  That bag around the roots? Well the saw dust shavings inside quickly dry out and dry roots mean dead roots.  A Saturday afternoon a few months from now will show several customers clutching their bare root trees asking for their money back.

Before you just grab a tree out of the bin, look it over carefully.  Do the stems seem brown and dry instead of plump and green?  Are any of the roots sticking out of the bag and dried up?  Can you feel the sawdust inside and does it seem damp to the touch?  Damp sawdust is the biggest clue.  If it is, then give it a try, if not, pass it by and go find a strong healthy bareroot tree at your local independent garden center instead.  There you will KNOW you are getting the promise of fresh fruit for years to come.

For more fruit planting info please visit Dave Wilson Nursery

http://www.davewilson.com/homegrown/advice/plant_trees.html

After waiting all of December and half of January, the rain finally fell on the North State.  But while it is still a long time before the last frost date, one of the most important acts of an effective garden needs to happen now.   That is the act of preparing the soil to create the great garden you envision.   The soil is the home that your plants will live in.  Just like your home, your plants use the soil to eat, to sleep, and to grow. Good soil makes plants grow strong and healthy, makes them withstand pests and diseases and helps them use less water.

The soils of the north state have two distinctive characteristics. In lowland areas like Chico, Sacramento, and the farms that line Hwy 5 from Woodland to Red Bluff, the soils are deep alluvial clay loams laid down from centuries of flooding from valley rivers.  But above the level of the Sacramento River flood plain, the soil is a rough conglomerate of iron rich clay and rough gravel above a heavy layer of thick red clay and hardpan[1].

Cobbles, gravel and red clay bake hard in summer.

My garden falls into the latter with cobbles as large as softballs mixed with smaller rocks to form a shovel busting hard pack.  So deep digging, which is usually the method for preparing a new garden bed, does not work as well with our heavy soils.  Instead, I suggest a different technique that has become popular and based on new soil science.  New research[2] suggests that the soil layers and microorganisms that inhabit each layer dislike disturbance and work best to feed and nurture your garden when allowed to stay in situ.  That means that too much disturbance can actually set back your gardening goals and that back-breaking deep digging is not longer necessary!

Layers ofOrganic Matter are laid down like "lasagna" to build soil the easy way

Instead an effective plan to build the soil involves breaking the hard packed dry surface of the soil to allow water to penetrate, then adding layers of organic material to the surface.  This creates a rich, water-retentive layer that, as you add more and more compost and manure each season, which builds and builds to create the sort of garden that is a success. So why is this method effective?  When digging is not an option, the layering of organic matter, often called “lasagna gardening” works with the natural processes to build the soil[3].  As more and more organic matter is added through the season, the microorganisms and earthworms process the material and help draw it down to the layers below where plant roots can access the nutrients.

What this means in practical terms is adding a thick layer of new organic material each spring just as growth begins and another layer in early fall as you shift from your summer flowers and veggies into winter.  All summer, an additional layer of mulch is added that functions in two ways.  First, the mulch is used decoratively, as in the case of shredded bark to give the garden a “finished” appearance, and functionally to conserve soil moisture and keep the soil cooler in the hot summer weather.

A decorative mulch also retains moisture and keeps soil cool in summer, warm in winter

It is amazing how much a simple layer of organic material can do for your garden, building and enriching your soil, encouraging beneficial microorganisms, while saving you hours of work!  That is what I like: simply ideas that give big results!  Because I work with nature to build the soil and encourage beneficial microorganisms, my garden is better than yours.

A Minifarm Box is one way to build a veggie bed quick using compost mulches.

Ever notice there are things you do around the garden that come so naturally to you that it is hard to remember that others might not have the same effective habits that make you such a good gardener?  Or conversely, do you wonder why some gardeners seem to have such Green Thumbs while yours seems brown?

Here are some of my effective garden habits:

New plants: I always water a new plant as soon as I get it home.  You would be surprised how dry a plant from the nursery or store can be.

Planting in summer: Before planting a new specimen out, I soak the rootball in a bucket of water.  I submerge the pot completely into a bucket, until it drops to the bottom and the air bubbles stop.  This makes sure that the rootball is thoroughly wet and forces out any pockets of air in the soil.  I also will fill the hole with water and allow it to soak in.

Set up a drip irrigation system before you plant.

Water first, then plant:  I never set out new plantings until I have a way to irrigate them.  The road to dead gardens is paved with good intentions to drag a hose out to the new plants.  But I can assure you it never happens. You end up too tired at the end of the day or forget before you rush off to work.  Take the time to install the drippers or sprinklers with a timer FIRST and then the new plants will take off instead of languish, thirsty in the heat.

Calendar gardening: Remembering to water or feed is as easy as reading the calendar.  Most liquid or organic plants foods should be applied on a regular basis such as weekly or monthly, so why not just choose a day and stick to it?  In my own garden, I use a liquid fertilizer on the pots and bedding once a week, ever Wednesday.  Since it happens on the same day each week, it is easy to remember and I end up with beautiful strong plants bursting with color. For trees and shrubs, set a timer to run every other day in summer.  And mark your calendar to remind you to turn on the system in spring and off for winter.

Pest Watch:  pests can sneak up on the most diligent gardener.  But you can start looking for them in the most relaxing way.  I always start my day with a stroll through the garden in the morning before work.  if you take the same route through the beds, you will often spot problems developing, such as aphids on roses or gophers in the lawn, before they get out of hand.

Don’t impulse buy:  A trip to the garden center can be overwhelming.  But if you go in with a plan fro what you are looking for you will make better choices.  If you are looking for a shrub for under the front window, you will want to look for shrubs that grow less than 3ft tall and wide, instead of getting distracted by some flashy flowers on the sale table.

Further, I try to avoid short lived bloomers that will not last in the garden. These are specimens that are in full bloom w Plants put up in front in the garden center to attract you eye and wallet are often not the best choices.  I tend to go for young specimens not yet in bud, that will develop in the garden, not just bloom and fade in a week or two.

Buy Small:  as I mentioned above, I choose smaller plants that have not been forced into bloom.  Smaller plants will have more time to adapt to your garden because they have smaller foliage to root ratios. A full grown specimen is probably used to being coddled at the garden center and will need extra attention to keep it growing at home.  Plus smaller plants will have strong actively growing roots that have not been damaged by spending months in nursery containers. They tend to take off in the garden quicker and cost less.  You can get 6 seedling perennials for the same price as one specimen in bloom.  Stretch your dollar and grow strong plants at the same time.

Young seedlings ready to be set out in the garden.

Grow your soil: if you want a good garden, build your soil.  The soil is a living organism that processes and returns nutrients to your plants using microorganisms and beneficial insects like earthworms.  You can key into the soil food web if you use organic mulches.  I apply a thick layer of organic mulch around all of my plants.  The mulch, which can be manure, compost, chopped leaves, or any other organic material, should be laid on thickly to about 3 to 6 inches deep.  The mulch will help regulate soil temperature and conserve moisture all while slowly feeding the soil web.  Renew mulches with new material in spring and fall at least.

Tomatoes:  When planting tomatoes,  set them deeper in the soil than in the nursery pot.  The covered stem will sprout new roots, increasing the strength of the root system.  I also make sure to remove any blooms on the new plants for the first few weeks to encourage the plants to devote their energy to growing strong roots and stems instead of coming into fruit too early.

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Epigram is the new series with quotes by Milton Glaser with proceeds benefitting the International Rescue Commitee