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Make a star of your backyard

Local garden needed to illustrate new museum’s water-wise display

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED JAN 22, 2021

Your garden could be in a museum display this year. (Photo courtesy Regional Water Authority)

Is your garden ready for its close-up?

Maybe not right this minute, but envision your backyard as spring flowers bloom and water-wise plants look their best. Even the dog’s little scrap of lawn is vibrantly green.

That’s just what the Regional Water Authority needs.

The umbrella agency over the greater Sacramento area’s water providers, the RWA has long been a proponent of garden makeovers and water-wise landscaping. The RWA’s Water Efficiency Program is working on a special project: A museum display on wise-water use at home.

This display will be featured at the new SMUD Museum of Science and Curiosity (MOSAC), scheduled to open later this year. Housed in a historic power station on the banks of the Sacramento River near downtown, the new state-of-the-art science center will help educate thousands of Sacramento-area students as well as inspire visitors of all ages. (Read more about it here: https://visitmosac.org .)

Currently, the RWA is looking for candidates for its inspirational and water-wise backyard, says Amy Talbot, RWA Water Efficiency Program manager. Specifically, the backyard should be well-maintained and include beautiful and colorful low water-use plants as well as a small grass lawn.

“If selected, RWA will send a professional photographer to take images of the yard,” Talbot says. “A small stipend for maintenance may be available.”

To nominate your yard or for questions, contact Talbot at atalbot@rwah2o.org or call (214) 914-2510.

For more information of water-wise landscaping and other saving tips, visit: https://bewatersmart.info .

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gardening Sacramento backyard gardens museums water-efficient plants Regional Water Authority water-wise gardening landscaping

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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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