Raphanus raphanistrum or sativius (Wild Radish)

Another weed: Master Gardener Jean Sugiyama at the UCCE office on 7^th St and I identified a sample of wild radish (Raphanus raphanistrum or sativius). Two to three foot tall annuals native to Europe resemble wild mustard. Flowers are white, pale yellow, pink, or lavender with darker veins; their leaves hairy. They absorb and retain nitrates and are toxic when found near agricultural sites where they are considered an agricultural pest. Pull them up before they set seed.

Update on white vinegar as weed killer: it worked within hours on the weeds in my driveway. Say no to chemicals.

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Pictured left to right: Galium aparine (Catchweed Bedstraw), Geranium disectum (Cut Leaved Geranium), Euphorbia esula (spurge).

Scarlet Pimpernel, a cheerful Old World invader of garden and field, has bright green triangular leaves and five-petaled orange flowers about 1/2 inch wide. It has also been called shepherd’s clock or poor man’s weather glass because it opens in sunny weather and closes when overcast or foggy. Pull them up before their round, pale seedpods burst open. Scarlet Pimpernel, the little darlings, were the least of my problems.

Are those morning glories? Oh no! My garden has been invaded by the dread Convolvulus arvensis! This deceitful white flower goes by many other names: bindweed, cornbind, creeping Jenny, or greenvine. Already choking my lavender plants, its roots can penetrate 10 feet underground. This perennial reproduces by rhizome and seed. Seeds can hide for 50 years before coming to life. Pull them up the minute you see them. Heavy mulching or solarization will destroy the seeds, but the roots are tenacious. UCCE Davis recommends removing top growth, till or hoe deeply every 2-3 weeks or cover soil with black poly cloth (solarize).

I have many other weeds that are pictured in the Sunset book but there were a few that were not. I took samples into the UC Cooperative Extension office on 7^th Street and spoke to Janet Rizzo, Master Gardener, class of 2001 from San Anselmo. We were able to pin down three of my pest plants.

Galium aparine aka Catchweed Bedstraw, cleavers or sticky willow was first brought to my attention by my longhaired cat. We nicknamed this plant the “Kitty Burr.” Every year the family pulls up every tangled vestige of this scratchy plant. Now I know why it has been such trouble. This plant appears to pull up easily, root and all, but – it has…Creeping Roots! A native plant sometimes used as a healing herb or for erosion control it has become a major agricultural pest. In our gardens, consistent removal is enough to keep it under control.

Geranium disectum or Cut Leaved Geranium is a self-seeding annual. A ground cover with miniscule purple flowers it reaches 12 inches in height then dries out in the summer. It’s a European immigrant naturalized to California. If I can pull them all up before they’ve set seed I have a chance to beat this one back. It also responds to heavy mulching and solarization.

There are many spurges but all have milky, irritating sap. My particular nemesis are the 6-8 inch tall, pale green bouquets of Euphorbia esula. This is also an agricultural pest. Its seeds remain viable for 8 years.

The white vinegar box claims that its 5% solution will kill weeds (including desirable plants it comes in contact with). Several sources confirm this, especially for young weeds. Mature weeds may require a 20% solution. If you have weeds in an area that you will never plant such as a driveway, spray the leaves with a solution of 1 gallon White Vinegar, 1 cup Table Salt, and 1 tablespoon Dish Detergent. Vinegar is currently under study by the USDA as an IPM alternative to herbicides.

More organic weed killers: boiling water kills weeds above ground and seeds; dishwashing soap, 5 tablespoons per quart of water especially when sprayed on a hot day; rubbing alcohol 1 to 5 tablespoons to 1 quart of water and spray.

For further info: UCCE and Master Gardeners, 1682 Novato Blvd., Suite 150 B, 499-4204. Weed photos online at www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/weeds_common.html.

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Summer bulbs and seeds have been planted, apple blossoms perfume the garden, and spring bulbs continue to put on their bright skirts. Nights are cool; it is not yet time to plant out tomatoes. My shrubs need pruning, but they can wait.

Garden time is comfortable to me, measured by the earth’s cycles, its daily rotation and its annual journey around the sun that produces our tides and seasons. I can feel it in my body, sense it surrounding me.

 Some plants like hop vines or southern kudzu grow six inches or more a day, like an alien life form replicating on fast forward, obscuring everything in their path. Sunflowers rotate on stalks to follow the sun’s progress. A squawking blue jay dives through trees; a hummingbird darts in front of my eyes, hovers a moment and then zips away. These contrast with slow garden time of growth and decay.

My shovel touches the past with every handful of mulch and compost dug into the soil. I know that I am not an original inhabitant or even the last of my place. Deer and Miwok feet have walked on this garden. I have pruned nut and fruit trees, remnants of declining orchards.

I remember what the previous owner grew on this site. Welcome irises have multiplied and sweet lilac blooms each spring. Sharp-thorned roses, citrus and cactus were removed to make the garden child-friendly. I recall fragrances of gardens past: my mother’s roses, lily-of-the-valley, violets, peony, marigold, and zinnia; remember the beauty of grandparents’ high-summer foxglove and hollyhock leaning against a fence. I smell new-mown grass and feel my child-self rolling downhill, accelerating and laughing. I remember replacing a raised bed with sand for my children to build in and the years of wonder it has brought them and their friends. I remember my small daughter crawling though wild onion flowers, standing in bright tulips.

Dawn’s bird chorus finds me in the garden, looking for geese skeins flying overhead like broken lines of text, listening for their approaching honks. I surprise salamanders under logs as I clean under the camellias; they freeze and allow me to hold them for a moment before I relocate them.

By the light of a full moon I hear spring tree frogs; inhale fragrant winter daphne, summer jasmine, the herbal smell of California chaparral or eau de passing skunk. I am present for the butterfly migrations and the ladybug massing.

Photosynthesis is a silent process. I cannot hear tree roots as they burrow and crack, invade pipes and house foundations. Colorful lichens grow on serpentine rocks on surrounding hills, breaking them down into small particles that wash down to the bay or settle into the valley clay of my garden. I know the nurturing and sometimes overwhelming power of sunlight, the power of rains whether they heal or lay waste. My compost quietly decomposes; worms, ants, beetles, bacteria and termites are hard at work. Nothing in the garden goes to waste but is recycled to enrich the future.

 I make plans to increase the wildflower garden and enlarge my butterfly habitat. Which vegetables shall I grow next season? I browse catalogs, haunt nurseries; lay plans for seed planting, pruning, harvesting. Visualized diagrams are sometimes transferred to paper. When I look out into the yard, newly planted trees provide magnificent shade; knee high shrubs have become backdrop and privacy screen; rocks dumped haphazardly around coalesce into a rock garden. My dreams include flowing water whose imagined sound is already cooling my guest’s spirit. Carefully placed bunch grasses have grown high. In my vision they stir in the wind that will broadcast next season’s seeds.

This is where I am, moving at garden speed through space on this spinning planet with my feet firmly planted on the ground; past, present and future are unified; my senses are nourished.

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2005 Spring Home and Garden

Mulch

Are your plants stressed? Mulch keeps plants cool, conserves moisture, and suppresses weeds. Mulch breaks down and enriches your garden soil. As it decomposes it must be renewed periodically. Large grade mulches decompose more slowly than small; big chunks of redwood will last longer than small chips. Pull mulch a few inches away from the trunks of trees and the base of small plants to prevent bacterial or mold growth on the plants.

Shredded redwood bark, “gorilla hair,” is not recommended. Banned in some areas of Novato, shredded redwood is more combustible than other mulches and can become a dense, water shedding mat.

Good mulches: grass clippings, clean straw (no seeds) and compost, redwood bark and pine needles for acid soil loving manzanita, azalea or rhododendron. Cocoa bean hulls are a decorative mulch with a pleasing fragrance. Note: cocoa beans are toxic to dogs.

Containers can be mulched just like a garden. Move containers away from heat retaining and reflecting walls in the hottest weather. Grouping container plants together helps to keep them cool in the summer. If you plan to travel, move your containers to a shady spot.

Try “lasagna” or sheet mulch on garden patches that need rejuvenation. Layer newspaper, grass clippings, manure and compost. Keep moist and in a few months it breaks down into fabulous soil that you can plant directly into.

To create paths, top a thick layer of newspaper with bark chips or decomposed granite. Michelle Derviss Landscape Design of Novato recommends using a stabilizer with the granite so it doesn’t turn into mud. As a less expensive alternative to decomposed granite Michelle lays down a permeable cloth weed barrier and tops it with a layer of gray Stony Point 7/16 gravel. As the gravel breaks down the fine particles compact and the larger ones remain at the surface. Her garden and its gravel pathway are regularly featured in Sunset and other gardening magazines.

If you have tree work done, ask your landscapers to chip the trimmings for you to use for mulch. Do not use eucalyptus or acacia.  I use chipped oak and pine in my own garden. Novato’s yard waste program provides compost and bark chips free to Novato residents at 550 Davidson, bring a truck and shovel. Marin Landscape Materials on Redwood Blvd. is a good source for stone, bark chips or sawdust mulch, 897-1337, www.coloredgravel.com.

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Shopping and Planting in a Summer-dry Climate

I’ve been enjoying this fabulous wildflower season by going on some ranger led hikes in Marin Open Space. Hiking with these knowledgeable rangers opened my eyes and ears to easily overlooked flora and fauna that share our hillsides. The website www.marinopenspace.org has information on future hikes which continue throughout the summer.

In 1892, The Home and Farm company of California advertised property in Novato with the following description: “The soil is rich, deep and warm, so diversified that all of the products of the semi-tropics and temperate zones are produced in perfection without irrigation…The climate especially for those with weak lungs is unsurpassed…the most delicate plants and flowers flourish throughout the year.” From Novato Township, Land Grant to WWII, May Rogers Ungemach

We are blessed with a Mediterranean climate in our valley between bay and ocean with wet and dry seasons. Extremely hot weather rarely lasts more than a few days and is tempered by welcome fog pulled in by the heated up Central Valley. I like to visit nurseries in late spring and early summer, to see flowering plants at their best and find the largest selection. It is a holdover from east coast gardening tradition where spring is the best time to plant.

Every year I purchase several varieties of tomato in the largest possible pots to guarantee that I will have at least a few summer BLTs and a batch of homemade tomato sauce. There’s no way to forecast if the warm nights will outnumber the foggy ones. Roses thrive in summer heat so this is a good time of year to plant roses. Just remember to “water them in” well after planting. The single most important thing you can do: amend the soil with plenty of compost when planting and mulch well.

The summer-dry season in Novato is not the ideal time to plant perennials and landscape plants. Newly planted trees and shrubs will struggle in what can be scorching heat and strong afternoon winds. An alternative to consider would be to make your plant purchases now when the selection in nurseries is at its best. Group them while still in their containers in a semi-shady spot near the house and a water outlet where you can keep a sharp eye on them. Plant them after the first fall rains. When the weather cools in fall and the ground is evenly moist plantings establish roots more easily and have a much greater chance of success. Deciduous trees, in particular fruit trees, are best planted when dormant in winter.

Growing vegetables or annuals mixed in with any new perennials or landscape plantings forces me to keep that area watered for the summer. Annuals make good indicator plants to remind me to water when they wilt. I’ve found it’s also a good idea to concentrate on one small project or garden bed at a time. There are so many things I want to do in the summer months that I develop garden ADD and forget to check watering on remote plants. Timers and drip systems can help the lazy summer gardener.

Zone your plants by their water needs when you design and plant so that high water usage plants are restricted to a small area near your house or patio. This accomplishes four things.  One: You can get maximum enjoyment from those impractical, high water-use semi-tropicals and annuals; Two: It makes them easier to care for; Three: Plants with higher moisture content are more fire resistant and desirable to have near the house and Four: They help cool the house.

As you move out into your yard and possibly into a wildland interface, water use should diminish to the point that your outer yard is summer-dry, some grasses and wildflowers may need to be mown. A low-water use garden can be lush with bunch grasses and prolific bloomers such as penstemon. A totally summer-dry garden does not have to mean dead looking. Fire resistant succulents like sedums, echeveria and aloe look good year round especially in the summer. There are many bulbs that flower in late summer after their leaves die back such as native lilies, Amaryllis belladonna (naked lady) or nerine. Some Iris douglasiana will bloom a second time. In my own summer-dry garden, euonymus and pittosporum shrubs remain green; Salvia greggii reaches its peak beginning in mid-summer and dietes (fortnight lilies), buddleia and bottlebrush bloom on and off all season. I personally like the restful, quiet time of a summer-dry garden. Think about it: nothing to prune, weed, or water. I’m very interested in the Australian natives such as maleleuca. My favorite book on the subject: Plants and Landscapes for Summer-dry Climates of the San Francisco Bay Region.

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February 9, 2005 Winter Garden Care, Pruning

The sun is out, warm rain washed breezes carry the sweet scent of Daphne odora through the open door. My violets are still bloomin’ crazy. Ceonothus and manzanita are about to open; unfortunately so are the ah -a-choo! Acacia. I was thrilled today to see my second year asparagus tips have come up. Onions are sprouting from where I left seed heads in the fall. The flower bulbs I planted so hopefully last fall are coming up, growing inches each day. Everyday I walk the garden paths to see if their swollen buds have opened. What colors will they be?

Don’t delay this year with your annual pruning. Even lazy gardeners will want to be done cutting back their fruit trees and roses by the end of February and sooner rather than later.

It’s important with fruit trees that you know what type of branch or stem the fruit will grow on. Peaches produce fruit on one-year-old wood and need heavy pruning to prevent limb breakage from the weight of fruit.

Apples, apricots, cherries, pears, plums and almonds fruit on the same spurs for many years.  They need to be pruned hard for best results, but if you get carried away you can cut off all your fruiting spurs. Sadly this happened when we first moved into our house. Our garden had been neglected to the point that we had a team come in and cut everything back. It was three years before our apple trees fruited again.

So get out your Sunset Western Garden Book or Pruning Handbook and double check your fruit trees’ requirements.

There are simple guidelines for basic pruning of any fruit or rose. Remove dead or crossing branches. Buds and branches should point outwards. Cut back inward pointing branches flush with trunks. Cut back remaining stems from 1/3 to 2/3 to stimulate new growth. Fruit trees and roses then produce larger flowers and fruits. Remove water sprouts on fruit trees (these are whip-like stems that point straight up or out) and root suckers from below the bud onion of roses (that’s the graft, a swelling at the base of the trunk).

As long as you know what style of rose you have and prune appropriately to encourage the correct shape, it is hard to go too wrong. You need to know whether you have a bush, standard, climber or shrub. Whether you go in with a hedge trimmer or pruning sheers, your roses will be healthier.

Give your woody perennials a haircut. This includes plants like cistus (rockrose), lavender, rosemary, and sage. These plants will be more compact when pruned which also prevents center die-out. Cut them back before they have time to produce flower buds. It is recommended that buddleias be trimmed about 2/3 down. Easy to say until your butterfly bush reaches 12 feet in height. That’s a lot of shrubbery. This year I’ve decided to thin them instead. They will still flower well, just not as many.

Keep your camellia petals cleaned up from the ground to prevent camellia petal blight. At the garden centers this month look for bare root fruit trees, roses, asparagus, citrus in bloom, and summer blooming bulbs. This is a great time to plant while we still have relatively cool weather and the possibility of more rain. Seed cool weather greens like lettuce, arrugula, or bok choy.

Hundreds of geese straggle in skeins across the sky like jumbled type, though individually small in the distance, their loud honks call to me from outside the house. More warm weather is in the forecast; you know where I will be. Let me out of here!

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January 19, 2005 Bats in the Garden

Dear Lazy Gardener,

 I would like to attract bats to my garden to help control the insect population and because I think they're fascinating creatures. I live in the middle of the city but I have seven heritage oaks, several fruit trees and a tall pine. I've heard of bat boxes. Where can I get some and what do I do with them after that?

Thank you!
Future Bat Lady

Dear Bat Lady,

You may already have bats. If you want to encourage more bats to hang around, there is a free plan at the California Bat Conservation Fund’s website: www.californiabats.com. There are photos of the most commonly found bats in the Novato area. There’s more bat house and condo plans at Bat Conservation International: www.batcon.org and www.batmanagement.com.  In addition to more bat information, both sites have kits and books available.

Sarah, at the Marin Master Gardener desk in Novato, considers bats an asset to a garden and a useful weapon in integrated pest management (IPM). Bats eat many insects: mosquitoes and mosquito larvae, squash beetles, stink bugs and crop pests.

By constructing bat condos, vineyards are inviting bats to their cellars; central valley farmers and Cal-trans are welcoming bats to freeway retrofits. 12% of the bridges in California have already been retrofitted for bats. Within the last 50 years, 80-90% of the native bat population has declined. Bats need all the friends they can get.

Orphaned or hurt bats are cared for at Wildcare: Terwilliger Education and Wildlife Rehabilitation, www.wildcaremarin.org, in San Rafael where they receive R&R and rehydrate.

Bats with broken limbs or serious injury are referred to Patricia Winters in Novato, President of the California Bat Conservation Fund and bat foster mom. There a vet specialist attends them. She is part of a volunteer network in Santa Cruz and the East Bay who are also foster bat parents. After 3-5 months of healing, bats are banded before release, typically to an already established colony at a Napa vineyard only too grateful for more winged helpers.

Patricia can be contacted at 415-893-9532. The all-volunteer organization is supported solely by tax-deductible donation.

The three most commonly seen bats in Novato and the most likely tenants for a bat house are the “colonial” bats, typically two to three inches long. The Mexican Freetail has a large “skirt” for scooping up bugs; the Yuma myotis (Little Brown) hunts mosquitoes and larvae over water; the Pallid is cream colored, with large eyes and feeds on the ground. They are known for leaving insect legs behind them on porches. All are hibernating now and won’t be out until the weather warms.

It takes time for nature to work out a balance between predator and prey. If your neighbors use pesticides it will be hard to establish a bat colony. Children should be taught never to touch any wild animal, living or dead. If you have bats in your area, your eaves and walls need to be securely sealed. Bats can enter your house through 1/4 inch holes.

Locate bat houses away from yours on a post or south facing wall with at least 6 hours of daylight, away from lights at night and within 1,500 feet of water. Bat houses require some maintenance. Paint them black or dark brown, score the interior surface (for climbing) and clean out wasp nests.

Just think of all that lovely nitrogen-rich $1 per ounce bat guano you can have.

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