Master Landscaping
http://www.masterlandscaping.net

Meet with landscape designers at 10 private gardens and landscapes they designed and installed from Southern Marin to San Rafael, Terra Linda and Novato. These gorgeous, well-established gardens may feature a stone fountain, pond, waterfall or beehive.

Whether your garden has shaded or sunny areas you will get great ideas for successful plant combinations. Tour gardens are diverse, but all are pesticide-free.

Gardens may feature a creek with stabilization project, steep terraced hillsides with oaks, redwood and fern bordered rock creeks, succulents and ornamental grasses, fruit trees, lawns, herbs and medicinal plants or flat meadow areas. Some are Asian or English garden-influenced with a California twist. See ways to better use rain and irrigation water on your property.

Learn how the right plants and planting can reduce fire danger around your home. Garden includes natives and other Mediterranean summer-dry climate plants.

Discounts to visitors are offered on landscaping services. Refreshments provided and free resource booklets and other garden experts are available at each site to answer questions.

Marin’s Eco-Friendly Garden Tour Sat., May 17 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Featured designers include PlannedLand, Jeannine White; Edger Landscape Design; EcoScapes, Leslie Patton; Quinn’s California Landscapes; Blume & Dean Landscape; Equinox Landscape; California Native Landscapes; EcoLogic Landscaping, Leith Carstarphen; Reilly Designs and Art Gardens Landscape Company.

Registration required, directions provided at time of registration: Call Gina Purin of MCSTOPPP at 499-3202. Cost: $15 per adult.

Support Community Gardens with City Council

The cost of fresh fruit and vegetables is going through the roof. Many children have lost their connection to the earth and its seasons. Seniors have become increasingly isolated. People from all walks of life have little or no access to garden space, whether apartment renters or folks who own condos, townhomes or McMansions. Community gardens bring people together, provide opportunities for socialization and education on healthy gardening and eating.

Please contact the Novato City Council and let them know you support community gardens. The Garden Committee has identified two good potential locations. Novato covers a large geographic area and one garden would be a great start, whichever location they choose.

For little cost to the city, it will bring great benefit to Novato residents. Individuals including seniors and families with children will be able to experience the pleasure of gardening, the health benefits of garden exercise and fresh, pesticide-free food.

The Novato Community Garden Committee has been working with the city and other groups to find a permanent location. They received grant funding through the Kaiser Foundation and Supervisor Judy Arnold that will help the gardens get off the ground. Ongoing funding for insurance and water management will be provided by nominal annual garden plot rental fees.

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Gardening with native plants - that is, with species that grew here before the first settlers arrived from Europe - has always had its supporters, Landscaping Services but it’s a trend that’s getting stronger as part of the eco-friendly movement. Advocates argue that because native species have adapted to local conditions, they’re easier to grow, less likely to invade other parts of the garden, and require less water, pesticides and fertilizers. They also maintain that native plants are the best choice to attract birds, butterflies and other wildlife.

Does this mean we should dig up our non-native perennials and shrubs and replace them with ferns, trilliums, and maples? Not according to two Ottawa garden experts. They say that while native plants do offer advantages, the most practical approach — and sometimes the most eco-friendly — is to integrate them with non-native species, finding the best location for each plant.

“There are a lot of generalizations about native plants, but these aren’t always true,” says Eva Schmitz, owner of Artistic Landscape Design. Take the statement that native plants are hardier. “A species from a country like Russia may be just as hardy as a Canadian native, perhaps hardier,” she says. Nor are native plants necessarily less invasive.

“Some natives spread very quickly,” says Adele Courville, design centre manager at Rockcliffe Landscaping. “An aggressive, self-seeding native may be fine for a woodland area, but not for an urban garden. You can try to stop a plant from spreading by creating a barrier below the soil surface, but in time, it will over-root and won’t survive.” While she believes that native plants are the best for wildlife,

Ms. Schmitz considers this to be a generalization, too. “Birds and bees are attracted by colour and shape. They don’t avoid a plant because it’s originally from Europe or Asia.”

Rather than focusing on whether it’s native or not, both women stress the importance of picking plants that will suit their location in the garden. How well any plant does, they say, depends on whether you have the light, moisture, soil and other conditions it needs. Native white spruce, for example, flourishes

in the forest, but can’t take city pollution; red lobelia thrives in water, but will die in a dry location. “Many native Ontario plants grow in woodlands with rich,

organic soil and plenty of water and shade,” Ms. Courville notes. “They won’t succeed in dry, full sun environment.You must provide similar conditions or a native species can wind up being high maintenance.”

In the wrong space, natives may be as susceptible to disease as other plants. “If you have a native, upright phlox in an area with poor circulation, it will get mildew,” Eva Schmitz says. “Again, it’s about putting the right plant in the right location and keeping it healthy. That’s also the best way to eliminate the use of toxins such as pesticides. I don’t spray any plant.”

Besides being a practical solution for many gardens, integrating native plants with other species boosts can boost variety and visual appeal. Natives can be straggly and inconspicous-looking, and depending on the plant, may take as long as five years to bloom. “Natives that have been hybridized often provide bigger blooms,” Ms. Schmitz observes. “They may also be taller, more compact, and have stronger stems and healthier leaves. In fact, native plants can be made richer with hybridized versions.”

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Long after the delicate lettuce goes to seed and well past the tomato season, some gardeners are still harvesting vegetables. Anyone who plants root vegetables, including carrots, parsnips and beets, can look forward to backyard crops well into the first winter snowfall. Unlike typical vegetables that die with the first frost, root vegetables thrive and provide a special treat for the patient gardener. “The carrots you dig up in the middle of winter are the sweetest. So are the parsnips,” says Vermont-based garden expert Edward C. Smith.

Although root vegetables don’t continue to grow in late fall or early winter because of a lack of sun, the plants do undergo a transformation, say garden experts. Carrots and parsnips change their starch to sugar to prevent ice crystals from forming inside the plant cells, according to Smith, author of “The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible” (Storey Publishing, 2000).

You can keep beets, carrots and potatoes in the ground until December if you cover the plot with dirt and a layer of straw, says Terry Nennich, University of Minnesota Extension horticulture educator.

But unlike carrots, parsnips, beets and rutabagas, radishes should be pulled as soon they’ve grown to an edible size. Radishes develop a strong taste if left in the ground too long.

“Some farmers pull up their parsnips in the spring,” says Nennich. Smith lets his root vegetables linger in snow-covered soil using a fiberglass fence post to mark the bed so he can find his crops.

DisplayAds (’Middle’);If you’d prefer to dig up root vegetables and bring them indoors, choose a storage space with high humidity and temperatures ranging from 32 to 35 degrees, Nennich says, because higher temperatures will lead to reduced storage time.

Tempting though it is to wash vegetables, keep them dirt covered until you’re ready to prepare them. “You may break the skin even if you can’t see it and then white mold sets in, infecting the vegetable,” Nennich says.

Winter Harvest Tips

If having a winter harvest appeals to you, here are some tips to keep in mind. Plant root vegetables late July or the beginning of August for early winter harvesting. Carrots can be tricky to grow. “The number one mistake people make is planting carrots too thick. Carrots need a lot of space; otherwise they can’t get big,” says Terry Nennich, University of Minnesota Extension horticulture educator. The tasty root vegetable is also prone to insect infestation. Earwigs, for example, feast on carrot seedlings. Gardening author Edward C. Smith recommends growing carrots in containers, not the ground. “Earwigs don’t seem to bother container plants,” says Smith, author of “Incredible Vegetables from Self-Watering Containers” (Storey Publishing, 2006).

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