El Dorado County master gardeners offer workshop Saturday
Gain inspiration from the Shade Garden at the El Dorado County master gardeners’ Sherwood Demonstration Garden. Courtesy El Dorado County master gardeners
In a region with a notable love of trees, gardeners often face a quandary: What can grow in all that shade?
The UCCE master gardeners of El Dorado County can help with that, offering a free workshop on “Shade Gardening” from 9 a.m. to noon this Saturday, Oct. 29, at their Sherwood Demonstration Garden in Placerville.
“Shade gardens offer cool beauty to your landscape," the master gardeners note. "They add texture, color and flowers. ... Learn what plants thrive in all kinds of shade, dappled to deep."
The Sherwood Demonstration Garden includes a shade garden, plus 15 other garden areas, including an orchard, a rose garden, native plant area and a children’s garden. It is open for strolling both Friday and Saturday this week, from 9 a.m. to noon, part of the Open Garden Day series that continues through November. (Hint: Drop in on your way to Apple Hill.) The garden is at 6699 Campus Drive, Placerville.
For more on El Dorado master gardener programs, go to
https://mgeldorado.ucanr.edu/Calendar/
— Kathy Morrison
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Garden Checklist for week of May 12
Get your gardening chores and irrigation done early in the day before temperatures rise.
* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. Time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.
* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.
* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions. This heat will cause leafy greens and onions to flower; pick them before they bolt.
* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters.
* Plant dahlia tubers. Other perennials to set out include verbena, coreopsis, coneflower and astilbe.
* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.
* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.
* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.
* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.
* Got fruit trees? If you haven't already done so, thin orchard fruit such as apples, peaches, pears, pluots and plums before they grow too heavy, breaking branches or even splitting the tree. Leave the largest fruit on the branch, culling the smaller ones, and allow for 5 to 6 inches (or a hand's worth) between each fruit.
* Thin grape bunches, again leaving about 6 inches between them. For the remaining bunches, prune off the "tail" end, about the bottom third of the bunch, so that the plant's energy is concentrated in the fruit closest to the branch.
* As spring-flowering shrubs finish blooming, give them a little pruning to shape them, removing old and dead wood. Lightly trim azaleas, fuchsias and marguerites for bushier plants.
* Add mulch to the garden to help keep that precious water from evaporating. Mulch also cuts down on weeds. But don’t let it mound around the stems or trunks of trees or shrubs. Leave about a 6-inch to 1-foot circle to avoid crown rot or other problems.