Placer County master gardeners show how to attract more beneficial insects, birds and bats (yes, bats) to your landscape
Squash blossoms need bees or other pollinators to produce squash, one of many crops dependent on outside help. Debbie Arrington
It’s time to talk about the birds and the bees (and butterflies, too). No, not that talk, but how we people can help wildlife while it helps our gardens, too.
A lot more critters than honeybees take part in flower pollination. Learn how to make pollinators feel at home in your landscape during the free workshop, “What's the Buzz about Pollinators?”
Offered by the Placer County master gardeners, this 90-minute class will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 15, at the Roseville Utility Exploration Center (RUEC). The group will meet in the center’s courtyard to see nature in action.
“Bees? Please! Pollinators like bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and bats are an integral part of our ecosystem and are beneficial in the garden,” say the organizers. “Learn about the different pollinators and their life cycles, what plants attract these hard workers and how to provide for their habitat. Before you know it, your garden will be fluttering with life.”
This course is just in time for Pollinator Week, June 17-23. All of June is designated as Pollinator Month.
The workshop is open to adults age 18 and up. Although the class is free, registration is required. Sign up here.
RUEC is located at 1500 Pleasant Grove Blvd., Roseville.
For more classes and details: https://pcmg.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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