'Summer Strong' contest seeks beautiful landscapes that can take the heat
This is image is from the Regional Water Authority's new water-wise gardening campaign. Courtesy Regional Water Authority
Is your water-wise garden ready for a close-up? Here’s your chance to put a regional spotlight on your lawn-less landscape and inspire other residents throughout the greater Sacramento area.
Local water providers are searching for transformed gardens to feature in an upcoming advertising campaign dubbed “Summer Strong.” In particular, the campaign focuses on beautiful, low-water alternatives to thirsty turf such as vibrant native plants and ways to save water including drip irrigation.
Sponsored by the Regional Water Authority (RWA), the “Summer Strong” contest invites Sacramento-area residents to nominate their water-wise yard (or a neighbor’s) online at BeWaterSmart.info/SummerStrong for a chance to be featured on digital billboards throughout the Sacramento region in July and August. Entrants will be eligible to win gift cards from local nurseries.
“The contest is a fun way to showcase what others are doing to create beautiful, water-wise yards ready to take our summer heat,” said Amy Talbot, RWA’s Water Efficiency Program Manager. “We’re looking for a variety of examples, from small-scale projects and do-it-yourself initiatives to larger landscapes and professional designs.”
The deadline to enter is May 31. Eligible entrants must be customers of one of RWA’s member agencies. The RWA includes about two dozen local water providers from Sacramento to El Dorado Hills and Roseville to Elk Grove.
The campaign encourages residents to make their front and backyards “Summer Strong” – “tough enough to muscle through the Sacramento region’s hottest days and still look their best.” That includes such smart gardening practices as watering trees efficiently, adding low-water and native plants, checking soil moisture before turning on sprinklers, installing a WaterSense-labeled smart sprinkler timer and watering plants in the morning to reduce evaporation.
Learn more about creating a “Summer Strong” landscape and enter the contest today at BeWaterSmart.info/SummerStrong.
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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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