Gardening on the north coast in coastal Humboldt county, Eureka, California. This magazine is for all gardeners who enjoy gardening in the California coastal climate. Join me as I grow my garden in the beautiful setting of an historic...
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Gardening on the north coast in coastal Humboldt county, Eureka, California. This magazine is for all gardeners who enjoy gardening in the California coastal climate. Join me as I grow my garden in the beautiful setting of an historic Victorian home.
The kiwi vines are starting their rapid growth during the warmer coastal weather. Now warmer coastal weather here means 60 to 70 degrees. We're still in the mid 50's to 60's most days in April. Once March hits the kiwi leaves start budding out and forming. The kiwi vines produce very small, pretty ivory cream colored flowers before setting fruit. This vine covers many months of leafing out, flowering then setting fruit for the winter season. This last winter the fruit just didn't ripen... Read Full Story
As fall continues on the north coast I'm still finding growth happening with new and established plants. The sword fern I planted next to the front porch is sending up a new curled white fern shoot from the base of the fern I planted in spring. I originally dug up from the main fern plant from under the holly trees, one of two sword ferns I brought with me from Petaluma. When first planted this fern it had a rhiazome with two frond stems and some roots; now a third frond is curling up from... Read Full Story
One of the four semi-hardwood fuchsia pieces my neighbor gave me looks like it is rooting already. This particular cutting is the biggest of the semi-hardwood pieces she gave me and was planted directly in the long back yard border where gorgeous two toned pink fuchsias are planted on either end of the border. The original fuchsia from the neighbor's yard has giant sized flowers of dark purple and red and are really beautiful. This past weekend I gently pulled on the cutting stem and it... Read Full Story
In our garden the summer heaths and heathers are starting to bloom. The heaths are new in the garden this year and are producing quite a few large bell shaped flowers for being such new plants in the garden. This past October the heather farm was selling larger sized plants at a low cost, the heaths and heathers were $3.50 for a gallon size plant which is a great price for heaths and heathers. Normally a four inch pot costs more than this, I've paid anywhere from $4.50 to $7.00 for a four... Read Full Story
This past weekend was spent pruning, weeding, watering and mowing, the usual summer activities in our north coast garden. Growth is rampant for the pink jasmine vines and the green and purple flowered passionflower vines on the fence. I pruned back the rampant growth of the pink jasmine vine on the porch to keep it shaped. Next weekend I'll need to prune back the runners on the jasmine vines on the back deck. The pruning never ends here in summer season. The passionflower vines on the fence... Read Full Story
This past weekend I spent time working in the front yard and did more work than I usually do for the day. I started off with mowing the lawn, trimming the lawn with the weed whacker will wait 'till next weekend. I trimmed up the roses as I do every few weeks, cutting back their excessive upward growth above the shape of the rose bushes. The flowering of the roses has basically stopped now. I've fed the roses before blooming time and feeding makes no difference in terms of the length of... Read Full Story
The purple flowering passionflower vines on the trellis in the front yard are growing slowly this year. It could be because of the lower rain levels for the year or because of the cooler weather that has been happening in June, cooler even for the coast at this time of year. It is finally started warming up to the 60's in the past few days with some bright sunshine. I'm starting to see some minimal growth on the trellis passionflower vines this past weekend. Usually by now there is a good... Read Full Story
This time of year our hedge in the front yard is showing its end of summer growth spurts and sending up long branches from the squared off hedge. It looks pretty silly and uneven. There is so much trimming to be done in this yard and the hedge certainly needed attention. Last weekend my husband brought out the hedge trimmer and trimmed it up, producing plenty of trimmed branches. At least its less than the first year, the hedge had not been trimmed prior to us moving in and there was twice as... Read Full Story
Pruning time is almost every month in my garden. I have so many established plants in place from the previous owner that I spend a lot of my time pruning. The only tree that doesn't need pruning is the drooping cherry tree, for which I'm grateful. My husband had planned to trim back the curley willow tree in the front yard. I pruned it back last fall after all the leaves had fallen off and it went nuts this year with growth. We both trimmed the curley willow, me with my hand pruner and my... Read Full Story
We were driving around town checking on a hardware store to see if there was a garden center. There wasn't which was disapointing . The garden center we usually go to has very expensive pots, too expensive. I wanted to find another garden center we could shop at for pots and other items I can't always find at the main garden center. As we were driving back from the hardware store my husband remembered another hardware store coming up and we pulled into the parking lot. There was a big garden... Read Full Story
