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G ardening S uggestions
November ~ December 2013
What’s the buzz? Pesticides in bee-friendly plants
F
or many years Berkeley Hort has promoted a wildlife-friendly approach to
gardening by offering suggestions for attracting birds and beneficial insects. Additionally, we have eliminated pesticides from
our store that might have an adverse impact
on garden visitors including pollinators
such as bees. Bees are crucial to maintaining healthy ecosystems, even in urban areas
and we want to be proactive in helping them
thrive.
There is a growing body of evidence
which suggests that neonicotinoid pesticides,
or “neonics” for short, are a key contributing
factor to pollinator decline. Concern was so
great that the European Union voted this
year for a continent-wide suspension of several widely used neonics in order to protect
bees. Our EPA continues to allow these systemic pesticides on the U.S. market without
comprehensive data on its impact on pollinators, including Colony Collapse Disorder
in honeybees.
What we find most disturbing are the
results of a recent study that found a high
percentage of nursery plants sold nationwide contained neonic residues; some even
labeled as “bee-friendly.” Granted these sam-
ples were taken at big-box, home improvement stores; we wonder how pervasively neonics are used. Certainly, if we are going to
be marketing products as “bee-friendly” we
want to know that bees will not be harmed.
There are many unanswered questions.
Which plants are treated? What is the residual effect in soil, pollen, seeds, woody tissue? Until we know more we prefer to play
it safe and avoid neonics altogether. We are
in communication with all of our growers to
ensure that the plants we receive have not
been treated with neonics. Our initial investigation has given varied results; some growers are happy to be neonic-free, while others
are hesitant to discuss the topic. This original investigation will take time, so please
stay tuned, and we’ll keep you posted.
In the meantime, you can rest assured
that all of our California Certified Organic
plants are neonic-free, including any plants
from our vegetable and herb tables. We also
do not sell any treatments that contain neonics. Here at the nursery, we are thrilled to
have honeybees, native bees, and other pollinators visiting the flowers in our yard—we
like it that way, and we will work to keep it
that way. —Laura & Paul
Recipe for
Stuffing
Stockings
We e k e n d
Specials
Nov. 1-3
Cyclamen
$5.75 reg. 7.95~ 4” pots
Nov. 8-10
Cover Crop Seeds
30% OFF ~ 1 lb bags
Nov. 15-17
Ferns
30% OFF ~ #1 size cans
Nov. 22-24
Bulbs
50% OFF ~ all remaining varieties
Nov. 29-Dec. 1
BHN Posters
30% OFF ~ all styles/artists
Dec. 6-8
Winter Veggies
$3.29 reg. 4.50 ~ cell packs (organic)
Dec. 13-15
Books & Calendars
30% OFF ~ all titles & subjects
Dec. 20-22
Indoor Plants
30% OFF ~ from our greenhouse
LIMITED TO STOCK ON HAND
NO DELIVERIES ON SALE MERCHANDISE
“The stockings were hung from the
chimney with care, in hopes that
St. Nicholas soon would be there.”
(with a lot of little gifts
from Berkeley Hort!)
November Checklist
£Cut back floppy or overgrown
perennials.
O
ne time-tested means to make
a gardener very jolly indeed is to
stuff his or her stocking with a
Berkeley Hort. gift certificate that
could be used, among other things
for a copy of the wonderful book,
Golden Gate Gardening, by Pam
Peirce. Or the stocking might be stuffed
(and metaphor mixed) with a pair of cozy
new work gloves (opera-length for rose
pruners), or tins of lemon verbena, lavender or rose geranium hand salve. Though
less traditional than a lump of coal, a giant Dutch Amaryllis (Hippeastrum) bulb
would nicely fill out the toe of a stocking, its
bloom brightening the dreary winter weeks
ahead.
Optimistic gardeners hanging kneesocks on the chimney could be indulged
with a batch of shiny new hand tools—
trowels, dandelion forks and such, topped
off with a package or three of California native wildflower seeds. Of course St. Nick
or his minions might simply skip the sock
business altogether and hang a pair of rubber Sloggers gardening clogs on the mantle.
Berkeley Hort. sales-elves will be available
until December 24th at noon with further
suggestions. —Margaret
£Last chance for spring-flowering
bulb planting (check your fridge.)
£ Plant cool-weather annuals like
Poppies, Stock, Sweet Peas, Pansies,
Violas, Primroses, and Ornamental
Cabbage or Kale.
£ Apply an organic plant food for
slow release of nutrients.
Don’t wait
until spring
Our “fall collections” of Rhododendrons, Azaleas, Camellias, and Japanese
Maples have arrived during the last few
weeks. The Japanese Maples are still
showing a bit of fall color, and most
varieties of Camellia sasanqua are in
bloom. Visit the nursery soon for the
best selection of these choice Asian
plants, and remember that autumn is
generally the best season to plant trees
and woody shrubs. It’s fall: dig in!
£ Be vigilant for cool weather weeds
like bluegrass and oxalis.
December Checklist
£ Deadhead (remove spent flowers
from) Chrysanthemums.
£ Clean and organize your garden
tools.
£ Give Cymbidium orchids bloom
food.
£ Sow wildflower seeds.
£ Turn that compost!
£ Plant green manure (cover crops)
in your vegetable plot.
Reserve Your
Dormant Fruit Trees Now
New Arrivals
Camellias
It is a pleasure to work with the Nuccio
family, and their plants are always top-notch
quality. From the stalwart japonicas to the
fancy hybrids, their introductions and offerings are a blessing to CA gardeners. Once
again they are supplying us with the exquisite Tea Camellia, C. sinensis!
#1 size cans $24.95
Polystichum munitum
Our Western Sword Fern is ideally suited
to planting at this time of year. Under redwoods and the like, they thrive with little
light. Fall rains should help them get established in time for our cool coastal summer.
#1 size cans $14.95
Citrus
Winter is almost here but in the Bay Area
this is a great time to plant, and most varieties tolerate temperatures in the 30’s just
fine. You’ll find lemons, limes, kumquats,
mandarins, blood oranges and navel oranges
among the hundreds of dwarf trees now in
stock.
#5 size cans $49.95
Fig ‘Black Jack’
A staff favorite, this is hands-down our
most popular variety. Dark purple skin and
deep red flesh, multiple crops per year, and
a manageable size when full grown, plant
three! The fruit is similar to Black Mission.
Tall sleeves $29.95
F
or a short period of time, January
through March, we offer dormant deciduous fruit trees. Dormant season is necessarily brief and many plants can be sold
without containers at considerably lower
prices. There is more than a price advantage
too. Dormant plants usually adjust to native soils more easily than actively growing
plants do. And if you make selections from
our bareroot stock plan to get your plants
in the ground the day you take them home.
Apples, figs, persimmons, and plums
will produce reliably throughout the Bay
Area. Peaches, nectarines, and pluots can
perform well also, in situations that maximize winter chill and summer heat. We
stock a good selection of low-chill trees
along with other irresistible varieties that
can succeed in certain microclimates. For
best results locate your fruit trees in open,
sunny places in the garden.
Consider the possibility of mixing fruit
trees into an existing landscape as a hedgerow or, to conserve space or for purposes of
cross-pollination, plant more than one variety in a single planting hole. Summer pruning techniques make it
easy to scale down
fruit trees to garden
size. For additional
informa-
tion pick up the Backyard Fruit Tree handout at the sales counter, or attend one of our
fruit tree pruning workshops in January.
Our complete 2014 fruit tree availability list is currently available both online and
here at the nursery. Quantities are limited.
It’s a good idea to reserve bareroot trees
ahead of season.
New Varieties for 2014
4 Sierra Beauty Apple: A favorite late variety for N. Cal. gardens. Ripe fruit is yellow
with red blushed streaks. A rich sprightly
flavor that is moderately sweet. Excellent
fresh or cooked. Keeps well in cool storage.
Ripens November. Self-fruitful.
4 Frost Peach: Delicious, med-large yellow freestone with red blush; showy pink
blossoms, great sweet flavor for canning or
eating fresh. Heavy bearing. Resistant to
peach leaf curl. Keep to any size w/pruning.
Prefers summer heat. Self-fruitful.
4 Beauty Plum: Sweet flavorful plum,
more widely adapted than Santa Rosa and
more productive in cool, rainy climates.
Bright red skin, amber flesh with scarlet
streaks. Self-fruitful. Very low chill—250
hours.
4 Plum Parfait PlumCot: Plum & Apricot hybrid with a unique blend of flavors.
Pinkish-orange skin, crimson & amber
marbled, sweet flesh; freestone. Very early
bloom on a compact tree. Self-fruitful. August harvest.
Dr. Chlorophyll
Advice for the horticulturally harassed
For your amusement and education, some vintage 1993 Dr. C. Enjoy!
Brassica
A Cool Genus for the Cold Months
B
rassica is but a single
genus of plants including an astonishing number of cool
season vegetables. They
have long been in cultivation; some for over 2,000
years.
Kale, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and bok choy are just a few
members of this diverse group. These
leafy greens are rich in vitamins, fiber, and
cancer preventing compounds. Brassica
seeds germinate best with a soil temperature around 70 degrees. Start seeds indoors
during cold months for a quicker rate and
a higher percentage of germination. Plant
established seedlings in moist, nutrient-rich
soil. Plants may be harvested throughout
the winter months. Pull mature leaves from
the side of the plant while keeping new
younger leaves.
Seeds for the Season
We are fortunate to live in an area where
vegetables can be grown year-round. Take
advantage of the more consistent soil moisture and cooler air temperature. Some
plants like the brassicas,
thrive in these colder
months.
4 Early Purple Vienna
Kohlrabi: A mildly sweet and juicy
root vegetable whose leaves can also
be used as a kale or collards substitute. Find it in the exclusively organic
Irish Eyes Seed section.
4 Dwarf Blue Curled Kale: An extremely
cold hardy kale that can be used in soups,
stir fry, salads, and made into chips. Find it
in the Lake Valley Seed section.
4 Great Green Mix: This fantastic seed
blend includes five different members of the
brassica family: garden cress, tatsoi, tendergreen mustard, giant red mustard, and
arugula. Find this blend and a multitude of
other organic seeds in the Redwood Seed
section.
4 Scarlet Frill Mustard: The lacy purple
leaves of this mustard have a mildly spicy
flavor. Mix into salads or use as a fancy frilly
garnish. Find this and other authentic Asian
vegetables in the Kitazawa Seed section.
Happy sowing to all, —Ivy
Upcoming Free Classes
Rose Pruning
Fruit Tree Pruning
Saturdays, January 4th and 18th
at 10:30am
Saturdays, January 11th and 25th
at 10:30am
“California is a Garden of Eden
A Paradise to live in, you’ll see.
But believe it or not,
You’ll not find it so hot,
If you ain’t got the Do-Re-Mi.”
—Woody Guthrie
“Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade.”
—Rudyard Kipling
NANCY NON SEQUITUR
“Another myth went up the chimney faster
than Santa Claus with the revelation that
the poet John Keats, like the rest of us, was
dead wrong in Endymion when he called
sleep ‘full of sweet dreams, and health, and
quiet breathing.’ We should have known
better in this, a frustrating world of shifting shibboleths about health. Remember
when beefsteak would induce strength,
not a coronary? How we jogged our way
to crippled knees? How we learned about
Reyes syndrome long after we dosed our feverish kids with aspirin, as directed? How
an unlucky generation of pregnant women,
deprived of coffee, now learns it’s not going to hurt the baby? Wine? Good for the
heart. Milk? Nope, too much fat. Water?
Think about lead. Nonetheless, we never
questioned the restorative balm of a good
sleep. It’s supposed to knit the raveled sleeve
of care, but that’s not what was reported
last week in the New England Journal of
Medicine by Dr. Virend Somers of the
University of Iowa. Dreams, it seems, invite
heart attacks. Monitoring the sleep of eight
volunteers, researchers noted lowered rates
of heartbeats and blood pressure until the
onset of dreams. And then the sympathetic
nervous system, which isn’t all that sympathetic, kicks in with stress hormones that
are blamed for conditions that can clog the
heart’s own arteries.
“To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay,
there’s the rub.”
We’ll be closed for our annual
winter nap from noon on
Tuesday, December 24
until Friday, January 3, 2014.
© 2013 Berkeley Horticultural Nursery
www.berkeleyhort.com
510-526-4704
Closed Thursdays
1310 McGee Ave, Berkeley CA 94703