All posts by Jan Nelson

I am a landscape designer and consultant in the Santa Cruz mountains in California. I write a weekly gardening column for the Press Banner newspaper. I am also a Calif. Advanced Certified Nursery Professional and managed The Plantworks Nursery in Ben Lomond, Ca. for 20 years.
Design trends

Bare Root Roses & Pruning

Hot Cocoa was introduced in 2002 but is still a popular selection.

I see some outstanding new rose varieties available for the 2023 season. It won’t come as a surprise that they are all very fragrant and have good disease resistance. So while you’re out in your garden pruning your existing roses consider adding a new one or two now available in barefoot form as they are less expensive than the canned ones. Here are a few that caught my eye.

Heavenly Scented is a traditional hybrid tea rose with both a strong scent and disease resistance. This stunning rose produces 4-5 inch salmon blooms that have a great spicy-fruity fragrance and are good for cutting. Also out this year is Picture Perfect, a bright fuchsia rose with a creamy white reverse. With strong disease resistance and showy fragrant blooms borne on long stems this is another great rose for bouquets.
Or maybe the magenta Sultry Night with touches of blue and a lighter reverse would look stunning in your garden alongside Uptown Girl which is a great beginner’s rose with scalloped coral-pink petals with the look of English roses?

Distant Drum

But what about pruning those existing roses in your garden? First of all remember that roses are super forgiving so just go for it and you can trim them up again later. Here are some tips to get started.

Most of us want our rose bushes to produce lots of roses on a compact shrub and not just a few exhibition size blooms so prune your shrubs moderately. The goal is to keep the center of the plant open for good air circulation aiming for a vase-shaped bush with an open center. Cut out canes that cross, appear weak or are diseased, spindly or dead. Healthy canes appear green or reddish while old and dying canes are brown. Cut back the remaining stems by about one third. When pruning, cut canes at a 45-degree angle just above an outward facing leaf bud or a swelling on the cane Slant the cut away from the bud to encourage growth outward. Clean pruners after every use to prevent the spread of disease and keep your pruners sharp.

Heirlooms roses such as David Austin, other old antique garden roses, and floribunda roses require less pruning because their open look is part of their charm. Keep this in mind and prune lightly. Old garden roses that bloom once in the spring should be pruned after flowering.

Same goes for climbing roses. Cut out extra stems if there are too many and also cut back long established canes to about the place where they are slightly thicker than a pencil. Then cut each side stem down to several inches. This will make the cane flower along its complete length for a beautiful spring display.

Strike It Rich

It’s best to prune your roses before roses start leafing out or some of their energy will be wasted. Pull off and rake away any old leaves. They can spread fungal spores. Consider spraying dormant plants with a combination of organic horticultural oil and copper soap or lime-sulfur. If you usually only have problems with black spot you can use a mixture of 1 teaspoon baking soda with a few drops of light horticultural oil in 1 quart water and spray every 7 to s10 days during the spring.

Prune your roses throughout the growing season, too. Deadheading, or cutting off spent flowers, encourages plants to re-bloom. Mulch around your roses to conserve water and encourage soil microorganisms.

Design trends

Time for Bareroot Edibles

Bareroot fruit trees in their temporary home.

The other day I visited 3 local nurseries to see what’s new in their bare root edible selection. In addition to the classics I found a ton of new varieties for containers and smaller home gardens. Now is the time to add ornamentals and edibles like fruit, nuts, berries and vegetables while they’re available in bare root form. They are easy to plant, economical and establish quickly.

What first caught my eye at Mountain Feed & Farm Supply in Ben Lomond was the selection of blueberries for containers. I’d have a hard time deciding between Pink Icing, Jelly Bean or Peach Sorbet which is described as having summer leaves of peach, pink, orange and emerald green and grows only to 2 feet.

There are so many fruit trees now available for the home gardener. If you have limited space there are multi-graft trees that combine compatible pear, peach, apple, plum and nectarine. There’s even a “fruit cocktail tree” that combines totally different stone fruits.

Then the selection of miniature nectarines and peaches caught my eye. Scarborough Gardens in Scotts Valley also has a nice selection of these showy spring bloomers with delicious full size fruit including Necta Zee. This sweet, very flavorful yellow freestone has beautiful red skin, ripens in late June to early July and is self fruitful. Dwarf peaches and nectarines grow to about 6 feet making them perfect for the smaller garden.

The Southern Bartlett was found on an old Louisiana homestead and needs only 400 hours of chilling.

If you’ve always wanted a Bartlett Pear but didn’t think it would grow in your garden think again. I saw a Southern Bartlett at Scarborough Gardens. This chance sport needs 400 or fewer chilling hours and was found on an old Louisiana homestead, It is self fruitful.

Shop for your plants in January or February while they are still dormant. Once leaves emerge or flower buds start to swell, roots have already started growing. You want your tree to start developing new permanent roots in their final home. Stone fruits such as apricots, peaches, plums and cherries are going to start waking up first so they are best put in the ground soon. Fruit trees like pears and apples wake up later so you can wait a bit longer to plant those varieties.

What fruit tree varieties can you grow here in the mountains? Well, almost everything. Most of us get 700-900 chilling hours per winter. What does that mean? Well, many fruit trees, lilacs and peonies need a certain number of hours during dormancy where the temperature is 45 degrees or less. You can give the plant more chilling in the winter but not less. Those in coastal Santa Cruz can grow Fuji apples as they require only 300 hours of chilling but not Red Delicious. We can grow both. Late rains can knock blossoms of a low-chill tree that has broken dormancy but we gardeners bet on the weather cooperating all the time. Some years you win, some years nor so much.

What if you don’t get full sun where you’d like to grow fruit trees? Apples, pluots and plums are good choices for an area that gets some sun- at least 5 hours a day during the growing season. The ideal is full sun but these trees will still set and ripen some fruit in partially shaded conditions. With peaches, nectarines or apricots it’s a different story. These fruits need hot sun to develop sweet, tasty fruit. Too little sun and they will not deliver anything close to what you have in mind.

What’s the correct way to plant a bare root tree? Mountain Feed & Farm Supply in Ben Lomond has a great web site with all the information you need to get your new fruit trees off to a good start including planting, pruning, staking, mulching and care as they mature. Visit www.mountainfeed.com for all the information you need.

Don’t plant in heavy saturated soil with a high clay content, however. If your soil drains poorly it’s best to place your bare root tree at an angle in a trench, cover with soil and water in. Wait to plant until the soil is crumbly and friable with plenty of pore space. Digging in waterlogged clay soil is one of the worst things you can do for your soil’s health.

With a little planning you can have fresh fruit 7 months of the year. By growing your own fruit you’re not at the mercy of mechanical harvesters and shipping practices. You can grow fruit and harvest it when the time is right. Homegrown fruit is a world apart from agribusiness and much less expensive than the Farmer’s Market.

Design trends

Plants that Fight Indoor Pollution

Parlor palms clean the air inside your home and are safe for pets.

Because of all the power outages recently, I’ve needed to set up a portable propane heater as well as start a fire in the fireplace to keep warm. I know even with ventilation there are lots of potential pollutants that have found their way into my home. For most of a winter day, our homes are closed tight with no windows or doors open to let out pollutants and let fresh air circulate. Toxins such as benzene, formaldehyde, and trichloroethylene can be released from furniture upholstery, carpets, cleaning products, paint, plastics and rubber. Carbon monoxide from the incomplete burning of wood and nitrogen oxides from cigarette smoke, vehicle exhaust and smog can also be present in indoor air.

Then there are airborne biological pollutants. These include bacteria, viruses, animal dander and dried cat saliva, house dust and pollen. House mites, the source of one of the most powerful biological allergens, grow in damp warm environments. Mold and mildew grow in moist places like central heating systems and are just one more source of indoor pollution.

Many common houseplants help fight pollution indoors. They are able to scrub significant amounts of harmful gases out of the air through the everyday processes of photosynthesis. The first list of air-filtering plants was compiled by NASA as part of a clean air study published in 1989 which researched ways to clean the air in space stations. As well as absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen, as all plants do, these plants also eliminated significant amounts of benzene, formaldehyde and trichloroethylene. Other studies added to the list of chemical pollutants and the best plants to remove them.

NASA researchers suggest that the most efficient air cleaning occurs with at least one plant per 100 square feet. Even the microorganisms in potting soil remove some toxins. Yikes, who knew all that was going on right under our noses?

Some of the easiest houseplants to grow are some of the best to have in the home. Just about all the potted palms are good. Also rubber plant, dracaena ‘Janet Craig’, philodendron, boston fern, ficus, peace lily, Chinese evergreen, spider plant, snake plant, pothos, English ivy and phalaenopsis orchids are high on the list of plants that fight indoor pollution.

If you have a cat of dog that you share your home with most of the above plants aren’t safe for them if they are chewers according to the ASPCA website. While all plants clean the air only ferns, spider plants, areca and parlor palms and phalaenopsis orchids from the above list are safe.

Other houseplants toxic for dogs and cats according to the ASPCA are asparagus fern, lilies, cyclamen, jade plant, aloe vera, azalea, begonia, ivy, mums, coleus, sago palm, kalanchoe and rubber plant. Keep your pets safe by keeping toxic plants out of reach.

Bromeliads clean the air inside your home and are safe for pets

There are many houseplants that are safe for cats and dogs and every plant photosynthesizes and cleans the air to some extent. Some of the common ones include African violet, aluminum plant, bromeliads, peperomia, areca palm, polka dot plant, cast iron plant, Christmas cactus, chenille plant, creeping Charlie, false aralia, Tahitian bridal veil, wandering Jew, goldfish plant, piggy-back plant and the succulents, donkey’s tail and hens and chickens.

With a little planning you can clean the air in your home while keeping the pets safe.