Published March 2, 2006

Kathleen Hill is co-author of six guidebooks to the West Coast, including “Sonoma Valley—The Secret Wine Country” and “Napa Valley—Land of Golden Vines.” Catch her “The Kathleen Hill Show” on KSVY-91.3 FM Mondays at 3:00 p.m. Send tidbits to hilltopub@aol.com.

Garden Snippets:
Sonoma County Master Gardener Jim Lang will show guests how to get rid of gophers and moles at a free workshop on Saturday, March 4 from 10 a.m.-noon at the Sonoma Valley Regional Library, 755 West Napa Street, Sonoma. Now this should be interesting! Is the key to getting rid of them chasing them over to a neighbor’s garden or out into the street? For more info call the Sonoma Master Gardener office at (707) 938-0127 or visit http://mgsonoma.ucdavis.edu.

Sonoma Overlook Trail Task Force is sponsoring a rare-chance walk through the 162-acre Van Hoosear Wildlife Preserve on Saturday, April 1 from 10 a.m. to noon, with a wine and cheese reception following the walk—something to appeal to everyone! Marilyn Goode, Patricia Westerbeke, and Joy Moulton own the preserve, which they inherited from their parents, the Van Hoosears, who bought the property between 1935 and 1962.
Wildflowers will hopefully be wildly in bloom and abundance, thanks to the family’s habitat restoration, using selective grazing, mowing, and hand-weeding to protect the preserve’s wildflowers and other native plants.
The Van Hoosear Wildflower Preserve is protected forever through the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District and the California Department of Fish and Game’s Wildlife Conservation Board. The Sonoma Ecology Center provides restoration planning and management services for the Preserve.
A donation of $25 for the Wildflower Walk will benefit Sonoma Overlook Trail, which is sponsoring the walk along with the City of Sonoma. Space is limited to 25 walkers. For reservations and more info, call Hope Nissan at (707) 996-5526.

Send snippets of garden news to hilltopub@aol.com.

The weather gods and goddesses have brought us an odd month weather-wise in February, ranging from early summer a couple of weeks ago, to British Columbia cold more recently.

A few hints from the Jolly Green Goddess of dos and don’ts given the Fahrenheit ups and downs:
Don’t take winter for granted. Remember to water plants in pots and planters on porches and even in the ground if it isn’t raining. I have had to save my treasured chard with water and cauliflower growing on the south side of our house many times. While I planted it up against the white house to maximize southern sun exposure and heat, that location also puts it under the roof eaves so that not much rain gets to it even if it is raining.

As roses begin to generate those petite, gorgeous, and tender new-growth red leaves, cherish them, but snap off the ones budding toward the center of the rose bush. Those little inward growing delicate leaves will eventually turn into strong branches that will cover the “ball” of the rose, which is supposed to get rays from that big orange ball in the sky. It’s emotionally hard to abort them now, but even more difficult later.

Be sure to cut the healthy-looking suckers sprouting up from the base of your rose bushes. They draw energy from the main branches that will generate your favorite roses, and won’t produce flowers themselves. Leave only new branches developing from above the “ball.”

It’s also a good idea to re-evaluate the pruning you have done and give your roses, wisteria, and fruit trees a second look. While you thought you did it perfectly, a second check almost always reveals little branches that should be cut to open the sun stream routes into the heart of the plant or tree.
Some people are spraying their roses now to prevent bugs from munching them to smithereens, but I prefer not to. Frank Wedekind, the late Master Nurseryman of Wedekind’s Nursery on Broadway, used to say that “the best spray is water.” So when those little white or black gobblers show up, I spray them either with a hose or with a spray bottle of water.

Many of us who had flood waters around our homes are finding that low-lying plants have a light brown coloration left by those waters filled with questionable content. If the plants are still alive, keep spraying the leaves with water to wash, and water them. JGG is going to wait until the weather warms and remove those tainted leaves.

Some people are talking about completely replacing their post-flood lawns, because lawns that were flooded also have that solid-silt-crust look, which may keep nutrients and water from reaching the roots. As your local frugal gardener, Jolly Green Goddess is going to wait a little later in March or early April and rake deeply the affected places, then scatter new lawn seed to be saturated with April showers, and see how it grows.

While many of us are eager for some bright color in our lives, resist the temptation to buy all those cute little flowers arriving at stores and nurseries, at least for a couple of weeks. We still have big frosts sparkling across our roofs and lawns. Old-timers warn that we should never plant tomatoes until after April 15 (a day that lives in infamy anyway for Americans) because of potential freezing.
If gardeners or potential gardeners are looking for something constructive to do while treading water before the start planting gun goes off, those who like raised veggie beds might start building them. There are some advantages, although JGG likes to get down and dirty in the real soil of the earth’s surface.

Raised beds are easier to reach (you don’t have to bend so low) but be sure to build them narrow enough so that you can reach across to the center rows easily without straining your back. You have to fill the raised bed boxes with soil, so you can fill them with whatever combination you want, and supposedly soil and plants get better drainage in raised beds.

Be careful about what wood you use to build raised bed boxes. Some gardeners like to use old railroad ties because they are thick and substantial (and heavy). But railroad ties are also usually treated with creosote and other baddie chemicals, and have disqualified some organic gardens from certification until they are removed and the soil has time to purify.

We can also start to plan and acquire plants for herb gardens, which grow almost equally happily in pots or gardens. One of my favorites is lemon thyme, which appeared to have died under my kitchen window, but traveled under a Spanish tile path and popped up amidst lawn several feet away. More on Herb the herb in two weeks!

It’s time to turn your compost to let the decomposing bottom stuff air out and put the part that’s been exposed to the air on top down under to ferment a bit. Think about spreading it around your planting area, especially potential veggie beds, in the next weeks or two. When you do distribute the compost, use a pitchfork, shovel, rototiller or strong friend to turn the compost underneath in order to maximize its effectiveness throughout your garden.

If you haven’t started a compost pile or can, it’s never too late. Just collect your veggie table scraps in a colander in your sink and every day take it out and dump into an old garbage can, preferably with a lid to keep local wild animals from feasting, and throw in any garden plant material that isn’t diseased. Eh voila! You have the cheapest, purest soil additives available.