January 12, 2019
Things to do in the Native Garden week 1/14
We’re going to start a new weekly series of what we are doing at the nursery. We’ll also include things like what’s just going into bloom – important when our pacific coast irises begin to flower and the matilija poppies. Plus each time of year different things can be planted in the garden. I hope you will find this fun and interesting.
We’ll we’re finally getting some rain, full week of rain. We won’t be doing a lot of potting up of plants in the wet field as we try to stay dry but what we will be doing a lot of winter seeding and beginning to take “cuttings”. Some things germinate and grow better when started in the cooler wet months these include grasses, chocolate daisies, Mexican tulip poppies, and pacific coast irises.
We also begin our propagation from cuttings. These are small stem cuttings from already growing plants that are treated with rooting hormone and “stuck” in a cutting mix until they root out. This week we’ll be taking cutting for some of our Ceanothus(Calif. lilac), Calif. fuchsia, and different sages. The sage we generally take a couple of months later when the temps warm and there’s a little more growth but you got to stay busy even when it raining.
We’ll also be moving some of our pacific coast iris seedlings to 2″ rose pots(small containers.) These are the seedlings from last year’s crosses. They’ll sit in their rose pots until we plant them to 3-gallon pots in either early spring or next fall.
As far as what should you be doing? We’ll when it stop raining you can always cut stuff back and clean stuff up. Also, plant, plant and plant…. In California, especially our region, we can plant all year long but we can’t plant everything all year long except for now. Now you plant whatever you want…come visit up and bring an empty car or big truck!