Volume 32: March 2008
  1. March To-Do List
  2. Children's Easter Planting at Roger Reynolds---Sat., March 15th, 1 - 3pm.
  3. Save the Date! Tomato Kick-off---Sat., April 26th, 1 to 3pm. Talk with Professional Growers
  4. Special Deal on Organic Rose Care Kit - 3 Products for $21.99!
  5. Spring Veggies….What to Plant? And When?
  6. Spotlight on Ceanothus, California's Perfect Drought-Resistant Native
  7. Fabulous Fruit Trees Feature Top Taste-Test Winners! Mature Apple and Pear Espaliers from Bountiful Farms
  8. RRN Partners with the American Horticultural Society! See Our Planted Containers at the SF Garden Show
  9. Culinary Surprises & Crowd Favorites from the Citrus Tasting
  10. Carriage Stop News…Easter Is On Its Way!
  11. e-GardenClub Special Offer of the Month - 10% Off All Annual Bedding Plants
March To-Do List
  • Prep the veggie bed before you start planting. Amend with Bumper Crop, among the best organic soil amendments around. Layer several inches of this fantastic stuff on top of your old soil and dig to at least a depth of six inches. Don't know how much to use? The back side of the bag has a square footage chart to figure out how many bags you need.
  • If you can, rotate veggie crops when you plant this year. Especially important with tomatoes, which are prone to diseases when planted in the same spot year after year. (If you can't, be sure to plant varieties that are more disease resistant.) Our first shipment of tomatoes has already arrived!
  • Use Dr. Earth's organic fertilizers for your edibles. Try planting some veggies now and more when the weather is reliably warm. More and more veggies are coming in, so start checking out the aisles to see what we have.
  • Weed problems? Try an organic pre-emergent like Concern. It is a corn gluten based product that really works! Corn gluten contains a substance that inhibits seeds from germinating. The trick is to put it on before the weed seeds germinate. Many weeds are starting to germinate now but more are yet to come!
  • Prune! If you haven't done so, cut back leggy and overgrown plants. The frost is over; the spring flush is about to happen. Consult a good pruning book before you prune flowering shrubs such as hydrangeas or you might cut off the blooming wood. If you don't have a fine pair of pruners, treat yourself to a pair of Felcos.
  • Remember those nasty Western Tussock Moth caterpillars last year? Spray with horticultural oil to smother them before they hatch. (And after they hatch? Use Safer's Bt spray.)
  • Good time to get more citrus in. Frost has passed. Spring growth is about to happen. Nothing like a winter-bearing navel orange (Try Trovita or Cara Cara orange for something really sweet) or a delicious mandarin to brighten up the home menu. Remember: citrus is your winter-bearing fruit!
  • Plant, plant, plant! Take advantage of the damp soil while it's still easy to dig. Soil is bad? Depending on what you're planting we have plenty of soil amendments to fit your needs. Black Forest Organic Compost is excellent for loosening up hard clay soils and planting shrubs and trees. There's Acid Plant Mix for shade and acid-loving plants like rhodies, camellias, citrus, blueberries, azaleas, and ferns. Rose Plant Mix is an easy way to make your roses happy.
  • Fertilize, fertilize, fertilize! All plants right now would love a good feeding. As the soil warms and gets a bit drier, roots are able to take up nutrients---as long as the nutrients are present in the soil. Go organic with Dr. Earth's line of fertilizers and good ol' Fish Emulsion. Or be environmentally responsible and keep your synthetic fertilizer numbers on the lower side (under 10-10-10) to reduce environmental damage due to run-off into waterways and wells. A good synthetic fertilizer is Formula 49 (8-4-4), which we use in the nursery for our shrubs and trees.
Children's Easter Planting At Roger Reynolds---Saturday, March 15th, 1-3pm.
Bring the kids, select a container and then, with the guidance of our staff, create a colorful Easter planting for mom, dad, grandpa, grandma or any special person. We provide the tools, expertise, soil and clean-up. Great fun for all!
Save the Date! Tomato Kickoff---Saturday, April 26th, 1 - 3pm. Talk with Professional Growers

This is a not-to-be-missed opportunity whether you've planted your tomatoes or not (the beginning of May is a traditional planting time for many gardeners). Roger Reynolds will host a "tomato day" with the folks who grow tomatoes professionally. Have tomato questions about varieties? Diseases? Problems? Growing practices? This is a fabulous opportunity to get the answers straight from the people who grow the plants you put into your garden. Meet the wonderful Pilar, owner of Sunnyside Organics, and the knowledgeable representatives from Sweetwater Nursery and DoRights!
Special Deal on Organic Rose Care Kit---3 Products for $21.99!
Save bucks on this offer! We want to encourage folks to go organic by hacking the price of these rose care products considerably when you buy all three: Rose Planting Mix, Dr. Earth Rose & Flower Fertilizer and Dr. Earth Rose & Flower Spray. We're hoping you'll pitch in and help reduce nitrogen and phosphorus run-off into our environment plus reduce the amount of toxins in our yards. (Not to mention, helping bee populations rebound.)
Spring Vegetables….What to Plant? And When?
Who knew when we left that hunter-gather era behind, we'd have to wrestle with the perennially daunting questions of: What to plant in our vegetable garden? And when? The good news is, our vegetable section at Roger Reynolds answer those questions for you….Now that the frost is over, we're bringing in lots of edible offerings. Tomatoes are here---with more coming in every week! Basil is just starting to show up, although it might be a little cool yet for that delicate herb. More herbs are popping up. As always, lettuce graces our aisles. Peppers are available along with various squashes. Within a few weeks, we'll see lots more offerings from the growers. Don't forget to amend your beds with organic Bumper Crop to add nutrients and increase drainage.
Spotlight on Ceanothus, California's Perfect Drought-Resistant Native!
Ceanothus is one of those plants that doesn't get the respect it deserves. This lovely native plant has naturally adapted to a wide range of micro-climates up and down California, often under quite harsh conditions. Most ceanothus are evergreen and remarkably drought tolerant---almost cactus-like in their water needs. (A few varieties need some summer watering.) Leaves are often notably deep green and it's the small-leafed varieties that are most deer-resistant, such as the beautiful shrub 'Julia Phelps' with its tiny leaves and deep indigo blue blowers or 'Dark Star' with its eye-catching, cobalt blue blooms. There are also tree forms of ceanothus, like 'Ray Hartman.' Ground cover forms are abundant, including 'Yankee Point' which gets two to three feet tall with a spread of eight feet or the popular 'Carmel Creeper,' which gets about two feet with a spread up to fifteen feet. A great one for the home garden is the 'Louis Edmunds,' which can tolerate heavy soils and summer watering.
Fabulous Fruit Trees Feature Top Taste-Test Winners! Mature Apple and Pear Espaliers from Bountiful Farms!
The edible landscape is taking off! More and more folks realize they can enjoy a mix of fruits and ornamentals. Plus, our prices are great since our fruit trees come in bare-root and we pass on the savings to you. We just unloaded another bare-root shipment from Dave Wilson, including the top taste-test winning Van's and Craig's Crimson cherries and Red Fuji apples. We snuck in some more nectarines and peaches that are also taste-test winners: the Arctic series of white nectarines; Double Delight nectarines (gorgeous flowers!); Snow Beauty and Arctic Supreme white peaches; Double Jewel peaches (stunning double, deep pink flowers); the famous Suncrest and July Elberta peaches. Not to be missed: leaf-curl resistant Frost and Q-1-8 peaches plus more Montmorency sour cherries. Last but not least, (big drum roll): the mind-boggling, six-foot tall, espaliered apples and pears from Bountiful Farms!!!
RRN Partners with the American Horticultural Society! See Our Planted Containers at the SF Garden Show!
What an honor! The American Horticulture Society asked Roger Reynolds Nursery to sponsor its booth at the 2008 San Francisco Garden show this month at the Cow Palace. The booth's theme is "plants that do regionally well." Perfect for us since that's our speciality. RRN's diplay artists, Rod and Kitty, are putting together striking combos of colorful plants and potting them up in beautiful containers (check out the stunning, blue-jade, raku-like pots). The booth will feature many fabulous specimens, including: 'Magical Gold' forsythia (huge, yellow flowers), erysimum 'Apricot Flame,' cestrum 'Newelii' with its rich red flowers, 'Santa Teresa' Italian lemons, 'Yankee Point' ceonothus. The SF Garden Show opens on Thursday, March 13th for four days. Don't miss it!!
Culinary Surprises & Crowd Favorites from the Citrus Tasting
The citrus tasting by Generation Growers last month was fantastic! Lots of folks tasted a wondrous range of the winter-bearing varieties, including the elusive Gold Nugget mandarin, which came within a commendable range to living up to the impossible hype of being the "world's best tasting citrus," (according to UC Riverside citrus experts, who hybridized Gold Nugget). Oranges were a big hit: Cara Cara and Trovita amazed everyone with their sweetness. The Page and Owari Satsuma mandarins were crowd faves. Oro Blanco grapefruits continue to dazzle taste buds this year. Perhaps one of the biggest surprises was the flavor of the Santa Teresa Italian lemon. Not only did it have the tantalizing tart qualities of a good lemon, but it had heady lemony flavors many of us have never tasted before. We sold out of every Italian lemon that day. "Unbelievable!" to quote more than a few people.
Carriage Stop News - Easter Is On Its Way...
Yep, Easter is almost here. The Carriage Stop has a great selection of Easter décor and gifts: vintage-inspired bunnies and chicks, green moss rabbits (on a spring that makes them look like they're hopping), handsome crackle-finish rabbits, stone bunnies for garden paths, and beautifully handcrafted cards by Tonia Otero. Of course, we'll have a terrific selection of spring color: hydrangeas, azaleas, tulips, orchids and more!
March 2008
10% off All Annual Bedding Plants
Say the magic words, "I belong to the e-GardenClub," and get 10% off any annual bedding plant through the end of March. Lots of great choices and more spring selections coming in every week. Sorry, does not apply to special orders and can't be combined with other offers.
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