Category Archives: Horticulture Reports

Get Ready – Grow!

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Seedlings in your Greenhousetwo true leaves

Start by:

  • Sanitizing your greenhouse shelves using 1 part bleach mixed with 9 parts water.
  • Clean trays and pots with this same bleach mixture.
  • Sweep floor and clean walls
  • Buy Seedling Mix – it’s not potting soil, it’s a soilless mixture for seed starting.
  • Assemble plant labels & permanent markers in your greenhouse.
  • Have your water source ready.

After you’ve sanitized  EVERYTHING!

Pre-moisten your seedling mix by pouring it into a bucket and adding water until it’s damp. Fill trays with pre-moistened seedling mix and water thoroughly.
Let trays sit a day in the greenhouse to warm up.

Start your seeds 8-12 weeks before the last frost date in your area.
In the Rouge Valley, Oregon the last frost is estimated to be May 15th.
Count backwards 8 or 12 weeks and plant seeds in your greenhouse.

Example: To plant by May 15th, then…

For 8 weeks: Plant seeds in the greenhouse by March 15th
For 12 weeks: Plant seeds in the greenhouse by February 15th

Be sure to read the seed packet instructions before planting.
These instructions tell you how deep to plant and long it takes for the seeds to germinate. And. it shows you what this seedling will look like when the seed sprouts.

By: Carlotta Lucas

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Horticulture Report: Yellow-wax Bells

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Plant Name: Kirengeshoma palmatayellow-wax-bells
Common Name:  Yellow-wax Bells
Plant type:  Herbaceous perennial
Height:   3 -4.5 ft
Bloom Time: Late Summer
Flower Color: Yellow -Bell shaped
Exposure:  Full to Part Shade
Soil Requirements: Humus rich acidic, well-drained soils
Water Needs:  Regular: keep moist
Attributes:  Large Maple-shaped leaves, Clusters of yellow flowers, Pearl-sized buds, Dainty nodding bells, Showy fruit, Year-round interest
Note: Highly prized
Uses:   Mass plantings, Woodland Gardens, Shade Gardens,  Specimen plant, Winter Interest
Native to: Mountainous regions of Japan to Korea
USDA Hardiness Zone: 5-8

Seed Heads for Winter Interest

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After an exuberant display of flowers during spring and summer, the fall and winter    mofrosted-seedhead1nths leave gardeners longing for sunnier days.  A way to help overcome the winter blues is to plant winter interest in your garden.  Most gardeners know about adding texture, berries, branch color and bark, to a garden, but often flower seed heads are overlooked as a winter interest.

Leaving seed heads standing in your garden provides shelter and food for birds and insects in your yard, but seed heads also provide visual interest.  There is a quiet beauty when frost lies upon a seed head displaying its delicate wispy patterns.  Even those spider webs covering the seed heads put on a display like tiny garlands, then add frost… and those threads sparkle like crystals in a breeze. So while you’re combing through the garden catalogs during  February, look for perennials and annuals which produce interesting longstanding seed heads and distinctive structures.

A few to consider….
Anethum graveolens– Dill – Zone 2-11
Aster cordifolius– Blue wood aster (many other species) – Zone 3-820151111_072856
Coreopsis grandiflora – Tickseed -Zone 4-9
Celosia cristata – Cockscomb – Zone 3-11
Echinacea purpurea– Coneflowers – Zone 3-9
Eupatorium maculatum – Joe Pye Weed – Zone 4-9
Foeniculum vulgare – Fennel- Zone 4-9
Phlomis russeliana-  Jerusalem sage-  Zone 5-9
Pot Marigolds – tall – Zone 3-10
Monarda – Bee balms  – Zone 4-9
Muhlenbergia capillaries- Pink Muhly Grass – Zone 6-9
Ornamental grasses (all varieties & zones)
Rudbeckia hirta– Black-Eyed Susans – Zone 3-7
Sanguisorba- Burnets  – Zone 3-8
Solidago – Goldenrod   – Zone  5-9
Zinnia elegans – Zone 3-10

Madrona Trees

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‘Tis tmadrone-drawinghe Season for Madrona

Stand in a clump of Pacific madrone or madrona trees during a winter storm, the trunks wet and luscious, creamy green and burnished red, and feast on the beauty. Children pull off the beckoning curly bark strips and stroke the underlying pale green bark, smooth and soothing. Mature trees can support many bark colors and textures: the older rough brown-gray squares, dark weathered curlicues, strips of fresh reds, and the young green underbark. The Klamath Indians tell a beautiful story about Madrone Girl, who lured her lover the North Wind back from the embraces of another native tree girl, Chinquapin, by scrubbing her skin pure and new in the Klamath River. She sang a love song while standing proud and gorgeous from a mountaintop; North Wind immediately returned. It has since become a tradition, this sloughing off of flecks and puzzle pieces of bark during the summer, decorating the forest floor.

The first Euro-American explorer and naturalist to describe madrone was Dr. Archibald Menzies who explored the Puget Sound with Captain Vancouver in 1792. The scientific name, Arbutus menziesii, commemorates Dr. Menzies.  In his journal he aptly described the species:

“a peculiar ornament to the Forest by its large clusters of whitish flowers & ever green leaves but its peculiar smooth bark of a reddish brown colour will at times attract the Notice of the most superficial observer”.

While a common understory tree in lower-elevation forests in Southwest Oregon, each mardone-berriesmadrone tree sports a different wondrous shape from multi-stem octopus trees that have re-sprouted after a fire to grand “girthy” older beauties.  The leaves are sclerophyllous – thick and sturdy broadleaf leaves that conserve water during hot summers. Second year leaves drop off during the summer, adding yellows to the bark chip forest floor, while younger leaves provide a canopy of green light all year-round. The leaves also provide a holiday-style contrast to the red pitted berries that droop from branches in the fall.

Local indigenous people, like the Takelma, harvest the berries. Band-tailed Pigeons, American Robins, and many other critters eat them, dispersing the seeds to feed future generations. Little kids and crafters make necklaces of dried madrone berries. Like other plants in the heath family, such as manazanita, the sweet urn-shaped flowers bloom in the spring and are visited by bumble bees.

Madrona feeds all of us – poets, dreamers, explorers, birds, and bees.

Author: Kristi Mergenthaller, Stewardship Directory Southern Oregon Land Conservancy
Article from Southern Oregon Land Conservancy Newsletter- Winter 2016

 

Posted by: Carlotta Lucas – Ashland Garden Club

Dormant Sprays

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Source:
Ross Penhallegon,Horticulturistdsc03426
OSU Extension Service

Recommendations for the least toxic sprays and treatments for fruit trees. These products are usually available at garden centers. Always follow label directions.

Dormant Oil: Apply when trees are dormant, November through March, after all the leaves have fallen. Mix with water as directed and spray to all surfaces of the trunk, branches and twigs. Apply when the temperature is expected to rise during the day; temperatures below 35 degrees can damage the bark. Dormant oil controls aphids, scale, spider mites, and many other insects by desiccating or smothering eggs and larvae.

Fixed Copper: Spray on apples, pears, cherries, peaches, and plums to control canker. Allow two weeks between applications of copper and any sprays containing sulfur. Add a spreader-sticker product to help copper adhere to the tree surface.

Latex paint: Coat the trunks of young trees with white latex paint mixed half-and-half with water. The paint reflects strong sunlight that, once the leaves fall, can cause cracking, a favorite place for pests to overwinter and can cause substantial winter damage.

Here are some tips for specific fruit trees:

Apples: Spray copper before fall rains; dormant oil once or twice from January through March; wettable sulfur just after petal fall.

Apricots: Spray copper before the fall rains and dormant oil in February.

Cherries: Use wettable sulfur applied weekly during blooming for brown rot. Information on synthetic sprays to control cherry fruit fly is available at your local county office of the OSU Extension Service.

Pears: Spray copper before the fall rains; spray dormant oil in early spring before buds open and wettable sulfur just after petal fall.

Peaches: Spray copper or a good dormant fungicide three to four times between December and bud break. Spray copper before fall rains and in spring just before bud break; apply sulfur weekly during blooming and again after all petals have fallen.

Author:Kym Pokorny

Read full article on the Oregon State University Extension Service Website:http://extension.oregonstate.edu/gardening/use-prevention-methods-fight-fruit-tree-diseases-2

Photo by: Carlotta Lucas AGC Member

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