We seem to have achieved the perfect fall balance of playing in the garden and hibernating, brought to you and your neighborhood by our on-again-off-again sunshine and rain.
The ebbing and flowing of early winter, and what seem like occasional spring days, feels good to us, and it probably feels good to our plants as well – nothing too harsh, as we all ease into December and colder months.
Occasional rain helps us keep our irrigation systems turned off, which is good for Sonoma Valley, Sonoma County and the whole planet.
If you have the urge to dig new flower beds, work gently, and make sure not to cut important roots or sprinkler system pipes. We just carved out a couple of tiny crescent areas by removing two ugly box hedges that were ruined by our neighbor’s dogs.
First we will fill those new beds, and then we will move on to vegetable-planting ideas.
There are still a few snapdragons around in local nurseries, although Lydia Constantini of Sonoma Mission Gardens on Arnold Drive suggests waiting to plant them until February because those planted too soon seem to go to sleep in December and January.
For years I planted snapdragons in November and December so that when we came home at February spring break from teaching at the University of British Columbia we would have something pretty to look at. It worked. They did slow down, but I cut them back and they started blooming again in February or March to welcome us home at the end of the semester in April. In fact I have nursed these “annuals” to last and repeat this process for three to four years.
For my little crescent planters, and as other low-growing color for winter, I am aiming for super-brilliant white, pink and red cyclamen, primary-color primroses, and maybe a few pansies.
Some of the most beautiful gardens on the West Coast are in Victoria, British Columbia, where we recently visited. Those competitive estate gardens that I often mention, as well as city garden Beacon Hill Park, are loaded with solid plantings of one color of each of the above, in addition to flowering cabbages, which grow well in Sonoma but are not edible.
You might consider planting cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, chards and spinaches either along borders or in planters, or even in containers, depending on your space or lack thereof. Lettuces make great border plants to integrate into your garden or to substitute for flowers, and assures that you have good salads through the winter.
This is a great time to plant bare root trees, and your Jolly Green Goddess still recommends planting a tree that bears fruit. You can add to the spring beauty of your garden if you consider the color of the blossoms, such as shades of pink and near-reds in plums and cherries and white to soft pink in some nuts and apples.
If you plant bare roots now, winter is a good time for the trees to use their energy for developing roots, since later in the year their energy will be used for blooming and producing fruit.
Sonoma Mission Gardens still has nine varieties of apple trees and many kinds of figs, cherries, apricots, nectarines, peaches, persimmons, plums, prunes, Pluots, pomegranates, almonds, cherries and flowering plums. The latter supposedly don’t produce fruit. I say “supposedly” because many years ago we bought a non-producing peach tree at Wedekind’s Garden Center that our daughter Erin chose for its bright pink color and it has produced peaches for years. For super discounts, SMG’s bare root pre-order sale runs through the end of November. Regular bare root prices prevail in December, when the plants and roses will actually be in.
SMG also has a great supply of bare root artichokes and asparagus and jillions of berries such as Black Satin Thornless and Marion blackberries; Heritage Red, Bababerry Red and Fall Gold raspberries; and tayberries, boysenberries, loganberries and strawberries, with several varieties of blueberries soon to arrive.
If the season and weather turn your salivary glands to thoughts of strawberry rhubarb pie, at least plant the ingredients now so you can make organic pies next year.
Check out the onion sets and garlic bulbs, and plant “green manure” cover crops such as fava beans (I finally planted those purple ones from Sooke Harbour House’s garden), mustard, or vetch, which sounds wretched, to mix into your soil in the spring for natural nitrogen and other fertility goodies.
Both Sonoma Mission Gardens (Craig Avenue and Arnold Drive) and Wedekind’s Garden Center (Broadway at Watmaugh Road) sell wide varieties of holiday tree ornaments, with many under $10, to cheer up yourself or a friend.
A six-pack of veggies or flowers makes a great gift when you visit a friend or relative over the holidays, and the recipient will think of you, for better or for worse, when weeding, watering or nibbling.
Another resource: garden center Fort Collins.
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Rebecca Bozzelli has just become garden manager of the Sonoma Garden Park and will work part time starting in December. Bozzelli recently completed the horticulture certificate program at U.C. Santa Cruz and the garden teacher training at Occidental Arts and Ecology Center. She has also worked as a garden educator and as director of the Koshland Park Community Learning Garden in San Francisco.
