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Put your garden on a 'water budget'

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED MAR 8, 2021

Yellow flowers and lots of colorful bushes

A garden on a water budget can be full of color and textures: This is the Water
Efficient Landscape at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. (Photo: Kathy Morrison)

Is your landscape ready to go on a budget?

Much of your garden’s ongoing expense: Water. And that’s also the type of budget your landscape needs.

“You and your family likely have a household budget, and so does your landscape – a Water Budget,” says the Regional Water Authority, the umbrella organization for Sacramento-area water providers.

But first, you need to know your landscape’s water use and plant needs. Learn how during an upcoming online webinar, “How Much Water Does Your Landscape Really Need?” Registration is now open for this free workshop, set for noon March 25.

“Explore ways to reduce the amount of water used in your landscape based on the types of plants and watering methods you select,” say the workshop organizers.

Although we’re getting rain this week, Sacramento’s long-range forecast looks pretty dry. That will make this informative session extra useful to anyone looking for ways to be smarter about water use. During Sacramento’s warmer months, most residential water use is outdoors.

Presented by the RWA and hosted by the City of Roseville, this one-hour lunchtime workshop will be led by local water-efficient landscape experts Cheryl Buckwalter, Soleil Tranquilli and Marcia Scott.

Among the aspects they’ll tackle:

* How to determine how much water you currently use to irrigate your landscape.

* What a Water Budget is and how to create one.

* How to use resources to help you determine the actual water needs of your plants.

* How to plan your “hydrozones” so plants with the same water needs are grouped together.

Once you learn those how-to’s, you’ll be ready to help your landscape live more beautifully – even on budget.

Register at: bit.ly/HowMuchH2o

Learn more at https://bewatersmart.info/ .

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GENERAL GARDENING

An article about gardening.

Keywords:

drought-tolerant plants gardening Sacramento workshop drought events water conservation Regional Water Authority water efficient gardening irrigation

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Garden Checklist for week of Nov. 3

November still offers good weather for fall planting:

* If you haven't already, it's time to clean up the remains of summer. Pull faded annuals and vegetables. Prune dead or broken branches from trees.

* Now is the best time to plant most trees and shrubs. This gives them plenty of time for root development before spring growth. They also benefit from fall and winter rains.

* Set out cool-weather annuals such as pansies and snapdragons.

* Lettuce, cabbage and broccoli also can be planted now.

* Plant garlic and onions.

* Keep planting bulbs to spread out your spring bloom. Some possible suggestions: daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, tulips, anemones and scillas.

* This is also a good time to seed wildflowers and plant such spring bloomers as sweet pea, sweet alyssum and bachelor buttons.

* Rake and compost leaves, but dispose of any diseased plant material. For example, if peach and nectarine trees showed signs of leaf curl this year, clean up under trees and dispose of those leaves instead of composting.

* Save dry stalks and seedpods from poppies and coneflowers for fall bouquets and holiday decorating.

* For holiday blooms indoors, plant paperwhite narcissus bulbs now. Fill a shallow bowl or dish with 2 inches of rocks or pebbles. Place bulbs in the dish with the root end nestled in the rocks. Add water until it just touches the bottom of the bulbs. Place the dish in a sunny window. Add water as needed.

* Give your azaleas, gardenias and camellias a boost with chelated iron.

* For larger blooms, pinch off some camellia buds.

* Prune non-flowering trees and shrubs while dormant.

* To help prevent leaf curl, apply a copper fungicide spray to peach and nectarine trees after they lose their leaves this month. Leaf curl, which shows up in the spring, is caused by a fungus that winters as spores on the limbs and around the tree in fallen leaves. Sprays are most effective now.

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