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Coastal View News • Tel: (805) 684-4428
Happy New Year! garden gossip CHRIS & LISA CULLEN
orchids didn’t bloom, they may need more sun, fertilizer or re-potting. If your lavender died, it may have gotten too much water or it didn’t get its annual cutting-back. You get the idea. Mid-January can be a busy month in the garden with all that rose and fruit tree pruning, so the beginning of the month can be spent shopping for bareroot plants, perusing seed catalogues and dreaming of what’s to come; this may just be our favorite season. Until next time, fill your garden with joy! ––Lisa and Chris
Wow, what happened to 2013? It seems like just a few months ago I was trying to figure out how I was going to write “2013” and, oops, it’s gone. Well, Happy New Year, 2014! Since this is a bit of a down time in the garden, take this opportunity to review garden successes and failures in hopes for a better garden in the year to come. This reviewing the past step is pretty important as it allows you to see what is and isn’t working in your landscape. The first step in any improvement is an assessment. Take a look around and find everything that is right about your garden. Don’t start by looking for what’s wrong, start with what’s right. You’ll be surprised at how many right things there are. How do you decide what’s right? That is part subjective and part practical, but regardless, I think you will find more right than wrong. Once you have estab- Rosarian Dan Bifano demonstrates proper rose lished all that is great pruning at the A.C. Postel Rose Garden near the about your garden, you Santa Barbara Mission. can look around and see what needs improving. If a plant isn’t thriving in a particular spot, or if a tree isn’t giving fruit or shade or whatever it Every year in mid-January, the Santa is supposed to do, don’t just go ahead and Barbara Rose Society takes on the heroic plant another of the same type, find out task of pruning A.C. Postel Rose Garden why it didn’t thrive. (across from the Santa Barbara Mission). Don’t fight Mother Nature. If one plant This is a fabulous opportunity for anyone didn’t do well in a particular spot, find wanting to know more about pruning of out what will flourish there. In some cases roses. Santa Barbara’s best rosarians will what will do well in a particular spot is be there to demonstrate proper technique. gravel (recall that advice about Mother If you are a Rose enthusiast or a beginNature). ner who’d like to more, don’t miss this This also applies to method. If your event. This year the pruning will take orchids didn’t bloom, if your lavender place on Saturday, Jan. 11, beginning at died, if your roses got mildew, then solve 8:30 a.m. Refreshments will be served. that problem before planting more. This Bring pruning shears and loppers and past year rodents decimated my garden, wear a long-sleeved shirt, sturdy shoes so before our spring garden is planted and pruning gloves. we need to build proper barriers. If your
Rose pruning clinic
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Garden to-do list
Buy bare-root plants while they are available Prune roses Dormant spray roses Prune deciduous trees (fruit trees, Japanese maples, crape myrtle) Dormant spray deciduous fruit trees Do an irrigation check and repair any leaks Adjust automatic irrigation to winter settings Apply layers of living compost and rock dust around every plant (rock dust is for re-mineralization of the soil) Re-apply mulch Pray for rain, do a rain dance, wash your windows, wash your car and always leave your umbrella at home. We need rain!
Chris and Lisa Cullen, owners of Montecito Landscape, have been creating beautiful gardens for over 40 years. Listen to Garden Gossip radio show on AM1290 every Friday at 11 a.m. and 9 p.m. and Saturday at 11 a.m. Do you have a question about your garden? Contact us at 969-3984 or lisacullen@montecitolandscape.com. Or via snail mail: 1187 Coast Village Rd. Ste. 160, Montecito, CA 93108
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