Just got the latest issue of a new national garden center magazine called “Garden Chic, The art of niche retailing.” It is published by the same people who put out “Nursery Retailer”, another trade magazine. They had spotted our website a few months ago and felt is was nice enough to feature in the latest issue. Four web sites were featured from across the country. One in Texas, www.arborgate.com, Bainbridge Ohio, www.eaglecreekgrowers.com, www.chelseagardencenter.com in New York, N.Y., and ours www.thegoldengecko.com.
Most of these garden centers have been around for a while, and to have our web site compared to other leading garden centers is exciting. We are proud that our little garden center, which will be celebrating it’s second anniversary May 6th, has been noticed.
Love this new Heucherella ‘Sunspot’. It has electric yellow leaves with blood-red center patches. It hasn’t bloomed here yet but will have spikes of small, brilliant rich pink flowers above the foliage, like a sea of foam creating a stunning color combination.
The heucherella’s are crosses of coral bell and tiarella’s. These crosses, as well as the coral bells are becoming one of our biggest sellers in the perennial world. It’s no wonder, since I can remember when coral bells was green leaf with red flowers, and that was it. Now with these new varieties you get colorful leaves that in many ways out do the flowers these plants produce. They are great in containers or flower beds and don’t need as much fussing as plants that require you to constantly groom the flowers.
This new “Sunspot” Heucherella would look great with Japanese Blood Grass (Imperata) or any dark foliaged perennial. They do best here in filtered sun, as the hot late afternoon sun can bun the leaves. They are a herbaceous perennial, which means they die down in the winter, but return in the spring. They are very cold hardy and can be grown as high up as Lake Tahoe.
Have you seen the Redbuds in bloom? Driving where the native foliage has been undisturbed look for a shrub that is leafless, with colorful sweet pea shaped, magenta flowers growing on the branches and even the trunk. These are the Redbud (Cercis occidentalis). They are native to the west slopes of the Sierra Nevada below 4000 feet.
During the summer they are inconspicuous among the other native plants. They usually grow about 8 to 18 feet tall. Most grow several trunks from the base. Leaves are bluish green about 3″ on diameter. In the fall the leaves turn a light yellow or red.
Don’t even think of trying to transplant one from the wild. They are notorious for being difficult to transplant. They are also hard to find in garden centers. I tried growing about 50 of them last year with about 10% success. They are susceptible to root rot, and even with excellent drainage are hard to grow. If you do want to try one in the yard find a full sun spot, with excellent drainage, and give it a go.
I find the eastern Redbuds (Cercis canadensis) to be easier to grow in the garden. They tend to grow into a small tree, rather than a large shrub, but have the pretty sweet pea like flowers.
If you want to enjoy what is one of our most beautiful flowering native shrubs, head to the hills this week as they are going to be in full bloom.
Interesting request from a customer. Customer comes into the garden center with the complaint that her tomato plant has fungus, and that she need’s a fungicide. Now since we wouldn’t think of selling tomatoes earlier than late April, I knew shehadn’t bought it from us. No big deal, as she thought enough of us to get a organic fungicide for the plant. She didn’t want the ready to use, but the concentrate, which cost $13.00. The tomato was bought at Home Depot for less than a dollar. Did it have fungus on it when she bought it, or did it develop in her yard with the rainy cold weather we have been having?
Two points stand out in this. One, in the foothills where we garden the last frost of spring almost always occurs between May 1st to the 15th. The ground is not warm enough to grow the plant now anyway. So putting in a tomato in the ground now before May is taking a huge chance.
The second point is, wouldn’t it be better to just get rid of the diseased plant and re-plant later, at the appropriate time, rather than spend a bunch of money on fungicide?
We feel funny about offering plants at the wrong time of the year. The Home Depot, and stores like it don’t. They have all the warm season stuff for sale now, as well as plants like bougainvillea that don’t even grow here, except as an annual. Sure you could use the bougainvillea as a annual, but does The Depot tell you that?
I get customers who come in and ask where our warm season vegetables are. When we tell them it’s to early to plant, some ask why they would be for sale at The Depot if it wasn’t the time to plant, and go off to purchase them anyway.
The only way we in the independent garden center business can fight this is through knowledge. We may reach only 10% of the gardening public, but we have to, since I feel it is just wrong to push plants at the wrong time, or plants that are not for the climate zone we live in.
What do you think?
If you are not coming to our workshops you might be missing out. We built a raised bed inside, since it was raining outside. It is now in Monica’s garden where we added another foot of height so we won’t even have to bend over to work in the garden.
Here we see Boy Kitty and myself starting the bed. The plastic hoops will hold frost blanket or bird netting up and over the plants.
With all the rain we’ve been receiving this goose decided to head to higher ground. He and the flying pig don’t seem to mind the rain. I, on the other hand, am a bit tired of it.
