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Learn how to 'firescape' and protect home from wildfire

El Dorado Hills fire station and master gardeners team for free public workshop

Red and white blossoms on salvia plant
Salvia, such as the popular "Hot Lips" variety, is a good choice for firescaping
as well as for drought resistance. Learn about firescaping during a free class
Saturday. (Photo: Kathy Morrison)

When it comes to wildfire, your landscaping can help save your house or cabin.

Learn how during a special free public class hosted by gardening and fire experts – local master gardeners and firefighters.

This in-person presentation is a collaboration between the UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners of El Dorado County and the El Dorado Hills Fire Department, with a local fire station (No. 85) serving as classroom.

From 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, July 23, El Dorado County master gardener Kit Veerkamp will team with Tim White, also a master gardener and a member of the fire district’s board of directors. They’ll focus on home hardening – ways to make it tougher for fire to ever get a toehold near your house. The class also will cover current guidelines and recommendations about defensible space as well as what to plant in a fire-wise landscape.

“Fire Resiliency for El Dorado Hills” will particularly highlight the challenges faced by fire-prone Sierra foothills communities. That includes both firefighting and drought. A fire-wise garden can be water-wise, too.

A big difference between firescaping and low-water gardening: Plant choice. Such favorite low-water Mediterranean plants as rosemary burn easily due to the high oil or resin content in their leaves. Evergreen conifers such as pines also may not be fire-wise – even though they may be native. Low-water native grasses tend to burn rapidly.

Among the plants recommended for firescaping: Daylily, butterfly bush, lavender, salvia, coreopsis and ceanothus.

No advance registration is necessary for Saturday’s class. El Dorado Hills Fire Station No. 85 is located at 1050 Wilson Blvd., El Dorado Hills.

For more information, email
mgeldorado@ucanr.edu or call 530-621-5512.

Details: https://mgeldorado.ucanr.edu/


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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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