A Grower Perspective

Now is a good time to prune and deadhead Rhododendrons. After the plants have finished blooming, deadhead the spent blossoms and prune the plant, if necessary. It’s also a good time to fertilize them too.

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We're getting lots of calls and drop-in visitors with questions about damaged/sickly plants in their landscape. Just a few moments ago, we had a gal drop by this morning with branches from a dead plant. Let us put your minds at ease: You did not kill your plant. It is not your fault. Remember, we had a very tough winter with three days of subfreezing temps. It was very hard on all but the hardiest of plants.

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Today is the day to add some structure to your garden. It is January and a good time to get in the larger plants that you may have forgotten about or neglected to plant in the fall. By structure in your garden I mean the larger plants that have a year round presence. If you are lacking a bit of piazza in your garden and notice it this month it may mean you need a few more plants that look great year round. It’s a sunny, balmy day here in Pleasant Hill, Oregon and a good day to pick out a few evergreens or maples or sweet osmanthus. A rhododendron or two will add this element, the evergreen leaves and the buds that are appearing now and a lighter green dimension to the plant, almost like an ornament, or how about some brilliant nandina, with the red foliage lighting up the green backdrop. If you are inclined to add more edible plants how about a blueberry or three, some blueberries you will find are evergreen and some of the deciduous varieties have brilliant stem colors in shades of red and bright green. A visit to a nursery will give you some ideas if you don’t already have one and you are welcome here to poke around in the ‘off season’ to fill up a place in your garden that needs a little January kick. We look forward to seeing you.

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  I realize that I'm pretty easy to please and little things make me happy most of the time.  We were having a little get together at our home this weekend.  As I was sprucing things up, I realized our deck planters were looking pretty sad.  Towards the end of summer I had horribly neglected them and the endless heat of August and September had taken their toll.  I mentioned it to Dave and he kindly cleaned them up and replanted them.  When I came home, I was so happy to see what he had done.  

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I stopped in the Creswell Café yesterday afternoon for a treat of fruit salad.  Paul the owner popped in and we talked about how well his trees, from Pleasant Hill Nursery, were doing.  We talked quite a bit before he choose his six trees, discussing how to plant them, where they were to go and what varieties would be best for the site.  He came here, I went there, Dave delivered the trees and showed him how to remove them from the big pots. 

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