Hundreds of water-wise selections available; see them in bloom
The succulent tables always are popular spots with shoppers at the UC Davis Arboretum Teaching Nursery plant sales. Kathy Morrison
What kind of water-wise plants will thrive in your garden? It’s likely you’ll find them Saturday at the UC Davis Arboretum’s public plant sale.
On Saturday, April 29, the Arboretum Teaching Nursery at UC Davis hosts its biggest public sale of the spring. From 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., everyone is invited to browse and buy.
Members of Friends of the Arboretum will get a head start on new offerings. Friends members get early access at 8:30 a.m. Not a Friend? Not a problem. New Friends can join at the gate or in advance online with instant perks: a $10-value appreciation gift and 10% off all purchases.
The Arboretum Teaching Nursery is located on Garrod Drive near UCD’s small animal veterinary teaching hospital on the university campus.
Before the event, prospective shoppers can check out the plant list and photos on the arboretum’s website at https://arboretum.ucdavis.edu/plant-sales. The inventory list is now up to date – and very tempting.
This spring’s inventory features hundreds of water-wise perennials, shrubs, bulbs, ground covers and trees – all proven to love growing in the Central Valley. That includes California natives as well as plants from other Mediterranean climates.
Recent warmer weather has prompted many of these plants into bloom. See well-established specimens in the nursery’s demonstration gardens.
Featured in this sale are the ever-popular Arboretum All-Stars – tough, easy-care, low-water flowering plants with added benefits; most support pollinators and native wildlife.
If you can’t make Saturday, there’s only one more chance to shop the Arboretum Teaching Nursery this spring. A giant clearance sale is planned for 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. May 13.
Details and directions: https://arboretum.ucdavis.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.