The Coyote Bush is in Bloom

The Coyote Bush (Baccharis pilularis) is in bloom amongst the chaparral of the Sierra foothills. It’s quite common on sunny banks growing along with the Toyon and Ceanothus. In the foothills it will grow into a mound about 5 to 6 feet tall and wide. Along the coast it is often a low 1 foot tall spreading plant. The first picture is of the hills along the road to the nursery and the other pictures are of a Coyote bush growing just outside of our fence along the deer trail.

I have sold a ground cover form of coyote brush called“Twin Peaks" in the past. It makes a good bank or erosion cover in hot sunny areas. Once established it takes a bare minimum of water during the dry season and in addition is quite deer resistant. The problem is that it is not very ornamental in the nursery can. It’s one of those plants that gets better once it grows a bit. Most people just pass right over it, which is the difficulty in getting people interested in native plants. Many natives don’t really take on an ornamental look until they have matured a bit. People also tend to over water native plants the first year. Instead of planting in fall and letting Mother Nature water them, most people plant in spring and water the natives just like any other plant, which often rot’s the roots in our hard clay like soil. Still the number one reason native plants don’t sell well is aesthetics. Most people don’t appreciate the subtle beauty of our native plants, or that the beauty is sometimes greatest in winter when people just don’t get out in the yard or nature as much.

I am looking forward to carrying more natives this upcoming year. We will just have to promote them more so people will take notice of them. We like to inter-mix natives amongst other Mediterranean climate plants for what we consider a more ornamental look. Pure native gardens have their beauty, but it is an acquired taste and most folks just want more to choose from. Using other plants from other like climate regions of the world with the natives we can create a garden that is beautiful as well as water conserving and lower in maintenance.

Rainy day at the nursery.

It’s a rainy day and I don’t think a lot is going to happen at the nursery. We might get a few folks looking at Living Christmas Trees or checking out gifts and gift cards. Today is Christmas at Coloma, an annual celebration that involves people in period dress, lot’s of vendors, and usually thousands of people. Today with the rain it will be more subdued, yet it sure beats sitting at home. I took this picture of the old Emanuel Church from my truck. It’s from 1850 something and is still used. It is very popular with the wedding crowd. This is the town Christmas tree and a group of vendors trying to stay dry.

This time of the year the rain is expected and welcome. Ideally it would be nice to have the weekends dry so people could shop but I am running about 50% when it comes to my wishes being granted. It’s the rain in spring that’s a killer. We have been getting way more rain than we need in April and May. During drought years that rain is a blessing, but when we have been running above average for rain the last two years that spring rain is depressing. We received over 70 inches of rain, twice normal for the year.

This is a time when it’s important to stay positive in mind. It’s so easy to get in a funk when it rains and there is virtually no income. The last two years with slow springs means there is less money stored up to carry you through the winter. It would be easy to just write the year off and sit till spring. Can’t do that though as now is the time to prepare and see if the route you have plotted for the business is the right course.

One area we are going to pursue is sales over the internet. We just started with our Metal Art that we have been selling at our garden centers for years. Made locally in the foothills they rust with age and have been a steady seller for us over the years. We thought we would start with a few unique items to us and see what happens.

If you Google “Metal Garden Art”, a million different web sites come up and it can be quit a feat to sort through all them. We are going to work on the assumption that people are visiting our website for a whole different reason. Maybe it’s to get info, or e-mail a question, or find out directions to the store. While you’re at the web site you notice that we have interesting things available that you might not even have thought of. Kind of like visiting the nursery and spotting something you want.

We are under no illusions about what the potential of internet sales will be for us. We hope its a little extra income but I don’t expect to check my e-mail and see a hundred orders for the day. Maybe someday, but we will be patient. When we got our first order it was exciting!

Over the next few days we will be deciding on what the topic will be and dates we will hold our workshops. We already know that we will do two on pruning fruit trees and shrubs, one on starting vegetable and flower seed indoors, how to vegetable garden in containers or raised beds, water gardening in containers, cactus and succulents in containers, drip irrigation, make a living wreath for the holidays, kids class on making stepping stones, make a hyper-tufa pot, and make a hanging moss basket. We want to do more with kids so we are thinking about what we can do with them. We also want more hands on and less lecture.

Feel free to send any ideas you have my way. We come up with the ideas for some of our classes from customers. We are even invisioning a workshop on using herbs in cooking and having the B.B.Q. fired up to try out the suggestions. Combining food and gardening is always fun.

Not so live oak.

We lost a huge Live Oak at our house during a storm last winter. Since we have just moved back after a year away it’s time to cut it up. This was a tree most likely around 60 years old, or older. Quercus agrifolia keeps its leaves all year, thus the reason it’s called Live oak. During a storm where received 6 inches of rain in one night it looks like the water undercut the tree and it split in half. Now it’s time to cut it up. You can see my chain saw sitting on one of the branches.

We also have Blue Oak and Black Oak on the property. They are deciduous and account for much of the fall color we have in the foothills. Since we we’re gone a water system failed and we lost some fruit trees. I don’t think I am going to replace them. We have a small vineyard and one remaining, and quite healthy ‘Arkansas Black’ Apple. I want to try planting a native grass and wild flower meadow in the old orchard.

The meadow will start growing in the fall, stay green in winter, and flower in early spring. Just after the meadow goes to seed I will cut the meadow down for fire safety during the summer. Laying dormant during the summer it will come to life again in the fall.

I have never planted a meadow myself, so it’s a new experience for me. We’ll see how it goes.

No pears at Graham’s Pear Shed.

On the way to work I passed Graham’s Pear Shed. This old building has been standing for over 100 years. Bill Graham moved here from southern California about 20 years ago. He had grown oranges down there, so when he moved here he planted Oranges and Mandarins. At his elevation, 1400’ it has to be one of the higher and most northern orange groves around. He used to have all cherries but they don’t have a long lifespan in our heavy soil. So as they died he planted citrus. There are no pears at Grahams Pear Shed. The pear industry died out in the 1950's as a result of disease.

You can stop by his shed and pick a bag of mandarins up for $3.00. He also had some apples. In spring you can stop and get the Bing Cherries from his surviving trees! He operates on the honor system with arrows pointing where to leave your money.

So much happens here in fall when it comes to plants. Fall is like spring for our native plants with the Coyote Bush in bloom and the berries hanging in the Toyon. Unfortunately most folk’s don’t realize the benefits of fall planting and miss out. It’s hard to blame them with the holidays coming and the shortening days.

Tis’ the season for toyon.

This time of the year is when our native plants come back to life with the recent rains. One that stands out this time of year among the chaparral is Toyon. Heteromeles arbutifolia, also know as California Christmas Berry. Located on the sunny side of hills it is usually growing along with manzanita and ceanothus. It’s quite showy right now. This is the only time people seem to notice it.

As far as landscaping uses it is one of the more asked for native plants, after manzanita and blue flowering ceanothus. You have to locate it where it will receive little or no summer water, though. It’s quite fussy about being over watered! This is why fall is the best time to plant natives here. The rains water the plants during winter and spring when they are actively growing. Then in summer the plants slow growth and you only have to water every so often to keep them looking good.

It’s Mandarin Season.

Driving through Auburn on down to Newcastle to pick up a maple tree for a customer I passed this old orange grove on Taylor Rd. Taylor Rd. follows the old Lincoln Highway which was the main highway over the Donner Pass down into Sacramento. Long since bypassed by nearby Interstate 80 I like to travel this way when I can. It cuts through a slice of old California, with old gas stations turned into antique shops or real estate offices.

This is Mandarin country. The main variety sold is the “Owari-Satsuma.” These little jewels are also called “zipper-skin”. They have to harvest them with pruning shears as if they pull on them the fruit will come right out of the skin. This has been mandarin and orange country for over a hundred years. Lots of tall palm trees line the roads and the oranges and mandarins are just now ripening.

The sight of these bright little fruit hanging in the evergreen foliage is a cheerful sight now that winter has arrived. Sacramento is under a freeze warning again tonight and at out foothill location the temperature got down to about 27°F this morning.

Since we are further up in the foothills we tuck our small collection of Dwarf Citrus under the over hang of the gift shop and wrap them with thermal blanket at night when it gets this cold. If we do that they come out next spring just fine.

Winter comes knocking.

Winter has finally reached the foothills. There is frost with temps in the mid-thirties. It will start reaching about 50°F this afternoon. Suppose to be a big storm brewing off the coast that will spread rain over the area and snow over 3000 ft. We are at 2000’ elevation so we will miss the snow. Go up the hill about 5 miles and the snow will start. When you get up to about 6000’ elevation the snow really starts with a couple of feet of new snow expected. We will end up with a couple of inches of rain if it pans out.

These are Red-Hot Poker plants growing in front of the nursery. Believe it or not they didn’t receive any water during the summer. Remember it does not rain here for 6 months of the year. They just started blooming about two weeks ago. I didn’t like this plant for the longest time. I don’t know why but I have developed a new appreciation for it. Hardy, deer resistant, is blooming in fall and early winter, and is extremely drought resistant. What a plant! It does have a unique look which needs to be placed properly to work.

January 6th I will be speaking at the Sacramento Home Show on Mediterranean gardening. It is located at the Convention Center downtown and this is the first time I have presented anything for them. I hope to get people who might not otherwise make the drive into the foothills interested enough to want to visit the nursery.

Over the years we have found that speaking to garden clubs, and other interested groups has paid off big time for us. Public speaking is ranked right up there as peoples biggest fear. I have been doing it for over 15 years and while I still get somewhat nervous it has gotten better and I find the rush when you’re done quite exhilarating. If garden center owners want a great way to reach people, public speaking is great because nobody wants to do it. Groups are always looking for speakers and if you or someone on your staff can do it you’ll find yourself being invited all over the place. I do about 10 talks a year outside the nursery and about 20 at our nursery workshops.

When the garden industry should not blog.

Just got the latest issue of Nursery Retailer Magazine in the mail. This is a magazine for the independent garden center. The Publisher, Jeff Morey writes “Yeah, I know what your thinking, ‘Another editorial where the writer has little to say and is just filling space!’ Fear not, I share your contempt for meaningless musings. That’s one reason I’ll never burden you guys with a blog. The few attempts at industry blogging mounted by other industry publishers have, in my humble opinion, fallen short of the mark with non-industry-related, flow-of-consciousness ramblings about irrelevant topics as the movie Snakes on a Plane”

I would have to agree with Jeff. Most of the blogs put out by nursery industry related magazine publishers are boring and not updated frequently enough. It seems to be the “got to keep up with the trends” attitude. If you don’t enjoy doing the blog it is bound to fail. I applaud Jeff for not putting out a blog as it is obvious he would not enjoy doing it and it would turn out like so many others, boring.

Generally the most interesting blogs are the ones where the people who write them have a passion for this type of communication. It's not for everybody and no one should blog because "it's the thing to do". I have started to compile a list of industry blogs at my site "The Art of Running a Small Garden Center."

Fall in the Sierra Foothills.

Now that we are living just outside Placerville we have a 12 mile commute to the nursery. It takes about 20 minutes if you don’t get stuck behind a big truck or horse trailer. The drive takes us right through Marshall Gold Discovery State Park and across the south fork of The American River at Coloma. Once you cross the river you travel up Marshall Road to Garden Valley, about 5.5 miles.

Traveling to Garden Valley you pass through a chaparral region growing on serpentine. Serpentine allows only so many plants to grow, including Toyon, Coyote Brush, and Ceanothus. We don’t have the blue flowering Ceanothus, but a white flowering version. Just as you enter Garden Valley the soil changes and the Cedar and Pine forest begins, about 2000 foot in elevation.

The generally color of fall here is the yellow of the Valley, Black, and Blue Oaks, as well as riverside willows. There are some pinks from the western redbuds and wild pears.

The pictures are of Coloma, crossing the river and the view into the valley on the road to the nursery. The old stone building is the only one left in
Garden Valley from the 1850’s.

Fall at the Garden Center.

We have started to get goodies for the gift shop. We will have a children section with tools, bug viewers, stepping stone kits, paint a birdhouse, etc. we will also have a chair and a shelf of reference books concerning horticulture that the customer can look through. We had kept these behind the store counter before for our use, but I think this will be better. Coffee will be available in the store so you can pick it up and cruise to the gift shop if you want, and do a little research!

Looking through all the trade publications we get you could be intimidated when you see some of the gift shops and coffee bars going in at some of the larger garden centers. We’ll just take the same ideas, miniaturize it to fit our space and see what comes.

I got a questionnaire from a student at Davis who is majoring in Horticulture. He wanted to know how the retail industry was doing and whether starting a nursery was a viable thing. I was pleased to see someone in the younger generation interested in this business.

I filled out the questionnaire and sent it back. Yes, you can make money in this business if you have patience and a positive attitude! This is agriculture and we share the same concerns as farmers. Not only do you have the retail environment to deal with but the weather becomes the overriding factor in how well your business will do that year. Just like the farmer, we plant our crop in the spring and hope Mother Nature allows the customer to get out in the garden, and our garden center.

These pictures are from our second annual scarecrow contest. After people make them we leave them up for one week so those who drive by can check them out. At night we have a street light on them, which gives the whole scene a surreal feel. This is great fun and I hope it gets bigger and better each year.

The blogging nurseryman blogs again!

I can’t believe my last post was the third. Where does the time go? The rainy season has started here in northern California. We had about an inch of rain yesterday. The rest of the week looks dry through the weekend.

We have had a lot going on as far as cleaning up the nursery. We have several large valley oaks (Quercus lobata) on the property and they have been dropping leaves like mad. Normally I would just let the leaves sit, but you have to get through the walkways so it’s been clean up every day. It also has been raining acorns which if they hit gets your attention. These don’t rake up so well.

We are also re-opening our little gift shop where I have my office, so we are moving the office next door. The gift shop was fun and the only reason we had not kept it open was our attempt to live in the house where it’s located. We’ll after a year of living in a really small place we relocated to a larger home, a few miles from here where Monica and I will be much happier.

The other thing I have come to realize is that I do need to get away from the business a day or two a week. Living at the nursery means living the business 24/7. While there are certainly benefits to being here I also enjoy the fresh outlook a day or two off gives.

That fresh outlook has stimulated some ideas about where we want to take the nursery in the future. I feel that finding a niche(s) that you can own is the way to go in the small garden center business. Trying to please everyone just doesn’t work and if we are going to thrive in this competitive market we have to think “outside the box”. More on that later!

Sorry about not posting sooner. I appreciate the e-mails wondering where I was, and will do my best to keep you informed more frequently. It’s going to be a fantastic year ahead and I would love to share it with you!

Less plant disease with "Messenger"?

My friend Saul, who writes a garden column for the Auburn Journal asked if I had heard of a product that he is writing about called “Messenger” by Eden Bio-Science. He had visited a grower of Camellias who had been using it and liked it. Since I had not heard of it I did a little research. According to their website “The technology is based on a family of naturally occurring proteins called “harpins”.

Harpins “stimulate natural reactions in plants that enhance disease resistance, growth, and flowering” according to Eden Bio-Science. It’s a powder that is mixed with water and sprayed as a fine mist on the leaves about every 3 weeks. Bio-science says that the use of “Messenger” “means healthier plants, more flowers, more fruit, and your best garden ever! This revolution in plant care and production is now available to you for home and garden use. Now all your flowering plants, flowers, and trees can be healthier and more productive.”

This is exciting stuff as the product is quite safe to use and has been approved on aquatic plants, on or above the water line, as well as endorsed by The American Rose Society. I wonder if Barrie at Garden Mob has heard of this? The Bio-Science Web site say’s “Messenger can be used on all types of plants growing indoors and outdoors, including edible fruits and vegetables right up to the day of harvest.”

If it is what the say it’s another step in controlling plant diseases which often involve some of the most toxic of fungicides. Since we are considering carrying this product I was wondering if any one out there knows about it, has bought it, or is using it?

Palm controversy.

In case you think garden aesthetics would never be a political issue look no further than Placerville (known in the old days as “Old Hangtown”). This is the county seat of El Dorado County and our nearest large town. According to The Sacramento Bee the city council has decided to have In ‘n Out Burger remove the two palms that we talked about earlier. If you remember the two palms took the project over the requirement that 50% of the landscape be El Dorado County natives.

The palms have become one of the main campaign issue in the upcoming city council elections. The local paper The Mountain Democrat recently posted an editorial on the issue. They, like my self think it’s silly to have to remove the palms now that they have been planted.

What’s most important here is the city government is trying to come up with a foothill aesthetic. The editorial says, “Instead of suggesting the business add some native plants such as blue flowering ceonothus shrubs or redbud trees to bring the native plant ratio into compliance, the city Planning Commission ventured into that elusive regime of what's proper and what's not proper aesthetics. The majority pooh-poohed palms trees as some Southern California alien life force. Unfortunately, these commissioners are not familiar with their own town. There are quite a few palm trees around town and they are old enough that they probably predate paving and cement sidewalks on Main Street. There is no ‘mountain town’ aesthetic that we should be forced to live with, otherwise every new commercial building would be required to be built of sheet metal or brick or stone.”

In Placerville the city council wants to promote a foothill aesthetic in its commercial landscapes. So what’s the foothill aesthetic? Our region lives off vacationers who visit the area for its natural beauty as well as the gold rush history. We are just 5 miles from Sutter’s Mill and Marshall Gold Discovery Park. One of the first things the new settlers did was plant non-native species they remembered from home. The giant black locusts that line the streets of Coloma are non-native, as well as Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima) which has spread all over. Soon as the settlers realized they would grow here they planted Palms. If you drive through Newcastle or Loomis you will see rows of palms well over 100 years old that line some of the streets.

It would seem that the City Council wants to come up with an aesthetic that was the foothills before the settlers arrived. How reasonable is that considering the history of the last 150 years here is about man changing the environment? You cannot go anywhere in the foothills and not see the results of gold mining on the land. Osage orange, old fashioned lilacs, rambling roses, and palms are growing in Marshall Gold Discovery Park. There are two 100 year old palms planted in front of one of the historic homes right in town.

This argument may show up at a town near you soon. What are the towns aesthetic and who decides. Should we turn our backs on 150 years of gardening history to try and create some type of aesthetic that existed before the settlers came?

So it’s about more than a couple of palms. It’s about elected officials deciding what is “proper” landscaping for the rest of us. Since this is one of the main issues for this election well see who get elected. Pro-palm or anti-palm, its your vote.

Garden Center Cafes

Today's Garden Center points us to recent study by Horticulture Week, a British on line web resource. Now this is a British study and I am not sure if it relates to Garden Centers in The United States, but I bet it will. According to a recent conference of the Horticultural Trade Association (HTA) in the U.K. Qualitative research by Illuma Research and the HTA showed cafe's are becoming meeting places in garden centers, according to the magazine. Sixty-five person (sic)of visitors told Illuma and HTA it was important to have a Cafe. An interesting note, too, is that "mums with toddlers" and "empty-nesters" were the most frequent visitors to the cafe.

We are always being invited to go on tours of Europe and especially Britain where we are told that the future of garden center retailing is being mapped out. While we have never found the time to take one of those European tours I read about what nursery people see there. It would seem that bigger stores, complete with cafes are what is hip. I actually find these reports depressing as a smaller garden center owner. 65% of visitors say it's important to have a cafe. We are are thinking about a coffee kiosk but the idea of building a cafe is just not in the cards, yet.

I think the most important thing to glean from a study like this is just how picky people are becoming. I can't even imagine that a cafe would have been necessary 10 years ago. Now if you want the business and don't have a cafe you might be out of luck. You cant't argue with peoples wants. They are what they are and we have to adjust or see our business slowly go away.

While the idea of building a cafe can be daunting for a small garden center, I do find hope in this report. It seems people want to hang out at garden centers that cater to their needs. Maybe we cant build a cafe, but we can offer a cup of excellent coffee and great places to sit and enjoy it. A small coffee kiosk that dispenses coffee, cappuccino, and other drinks might do the trick. Winter time is a problem as we don't have the room to set aside for a cafe. But during the dry season wondering through the nursery with a cup of good coffee is something our customers say would be nice. So next year we will do that.

Sometimes these reports seem to say, "Hey if you don't have the money to put in a cafe, bone bar for the pets, and giant indoor greenhouse shopping area, you're doomed. These studies seem to be aimed at the large garden centers who can implement these ideas. We smaller centers have to read these reports and come up with creative ways to provide the same experience, yet with a limited budget.

Organic Lawn Care to be Promoted on HGTV

Green Beam News points us to Safe Lawns Org. (warning, has irritating music when you open the web page. I hate this and generally leave a site before I figure out how to turn it off.) “an international coalition of for-profit and nonprofit organizations plans to promote organic lawn care and resource conservation throughout 2007.”The main participant in this program is Bradfield Organics, a division of Purina Mills. According to Bradfield’s web page “Made from alfalfa and other natural ingredients including humates, molasses, sulfate of potash and poultry proteins, Bradfield Organics fertilizers are clean, convenient and easy to use. The new line is designed for long-lasting results in pastures, yards and gardens.” What is poultry protein? Is it what I think it is?

According to Safe Lawns Org. “the effort is being led by HGTV host and People Places & Plants editor Paul Tukey. The campaign will be touted by more than 100 garden writers and industry professionals.”

We like this program as it shows a way to have a lawn yet reduce the amount of synthetic products used. I use E.B. Stone "Natures Green Lawn Food" and have been impressed with how much better organics work to keep the lawn green while reducing the frequency of applications. "Natures Green" was one of the first natural lawn food's offered and it's good to see more brands coming out.