Horticulture

Oleander that inhabits freeway medians is poisonous enough to be hazardous. Two tons of Buick cruising at 65 miles per hour past such oleander has more potential to be hazardous. The risk associated with toxic plants within freeway medians is as limited as their...

Bare root season begins as the year ends for a simple reason. That is when deciduous plants are dormant. They are unaware of the otherwise distressful process of relocation. This is also why winter is the season for dormant pruning. Such pruning would be...

Few trees that inhabit home gardens begin their residency as nature intended them to. Most are exotic, from other ecosystems, regions and climates. Almost all initially grew in nurseries, with their roots confined to cans of soilless media. Most rely on pruning and binding...

Maya Angelou likely enjoyed gardening. She said, “In diversity there is beauty and there is strength.” That is how the healthiest of ecosystems, including home gardens, function. Vegetable gardens are generally diverse. However, each group of a particular vegetable is rather homogenous. Crop rotation...

Warm season vegetables, or summer vegetables, can occupy a garden systematically. A few lingering cool season vegetables may continue production for a while. Warm season vegetable plants can replace them as they finish. Several warm season vegetable plants should start as early as possible....

This is extreme dormant pruning. Pollard and coppice pruning involve complete removal of all new growth. They typically involve growth from a previous season annually. A two-year cycle involves growth from two previous seasons, and so on. This repetitive pruning to the same origins...

Winter is bare root season, which is the best time for installation of deciduous fruit trees. It is also the best time for dormant pruning of deciduous fruit trees. Evergreen fruit trees do not get much attention. Installation and any pruning of evergreen fruit...

Ferns are foliar perennials. They provide neither floral color nor fragrance. They provide neither fruits nor vegetables. With few exceptions, they provide no shade. The very few that are deciduous are not impressively colorful for autumn here. Ferns can not grow as hedges. Nor...

Saturation of the soil should be a rare problem within the local chaparral climates. Water is a limited resource. That is why plants that are not native or endemic to other chaparral or desert climates rely on supplemental irrigation. Many exotic species would not...

Autumn foliar color certainly is pretty while it lasts. Although less prominent locally than it is where cooler weather begins earlier, it is an asset to many home gardens. It generally appears a bit later within mild climates here, but might also remain suspended...