Through the Garden Gate

Often quite warm, June is full of gardening events and blooming salvias. Depending on what kind of plants you grow, water down your garden and mulch it heavily with good organic compost. Don’t forget to leave soft, unmulched soil for the bees and other critters that need places to nest. I notice that the mourning doves love dust baths…they like loose, dry dusty soil in which to sunbathe. The dust is a natural mite repellent. Who needs chemicals when you have dirt!
I had an “Oh, NO!” day in my garden in May. I discovered that four of my manzanitas had mealy bugs! The sucking insects were on the ground in the mulch, they were lodged in all the nodes of twigs, they were on the main trunk and they were on the leaves, which were turning yellow and drying up.  I know mealy bugs from the days that I had houseplants…they are tough to get rid of. I never imagined that they could show up on manzanitas!
I also knew that plants don’t normally become pest-infected unless they are stressed for some reason. So I became a bug-detector and examined the shrubs’ environment and the possible reasons for this attack.
I think I have solved the causes and I have squished and squashed and rubbed out as many of the little white cottony nests as possible. I then used a Safer product spray with pyrethrins and stashed liquid ant traps at the base of each shrub, wondering if they were doing the “milking” as they do with aphids.
I believe the causes were dual. The manzanitas were not receiving their maximum amount of sunshine, nor the maximum amount of air circulation. I had mulched with fallen oak leaves all around their trunks over the years, and unfortunately, the mulch was right up to the trunks. There were lots of other plants crowding around and shading…even though they were natives doing the crowding, they were not allowing air and sun to penetrate into the manzanitas.
I thought about what a manzanita forest looks like: There is no understory and the leaf mulch is of manzanita leaves only. I had been doing a lot in error. Although I think I know a fair amount about gardening, I had allowed the manzanitas area in my yard to become overgrown with other plants. I think I have “fixed” it, but I continue to squish new-looking nests and I hope that the manzanitas will now be happy enough to outgrow these rascally bugs! A bitter lesson and I hope of some help to you who have manzanitas or other chaparral-type shrubs and plants in your yard!
Wild strawberries grow as a ground cover throughout many parts of my yard. I don’t remember if I planted them or if they have come in naturally with the robins or jays. This spring, the strawberries have been abundant, delicious little red globes hanging everywhere, especially on the berm around the little wildlife pond. I have been watching and nibbling when they seemed ripe, but often they tasted sour. One day I saw the two nest-building robins that have been coming to the little waterfall to pluck mosses for their nest. They were grubbing around on the berm and I saw with binoculars that they were plucking strawberries and gulping them down. They had waited until they were truly ripe…they were smarter than I! I imagine that these berries are the “woodland” strawberries (Fragaria vesca ssp. californica), they match the description in books, but I don’t really know. I highly recommend them, as they creep through the underbrush, and don’t seem to bother any other plants, and provide wildlife food for robins and jays and your grandkids!
The California Native Plant Society’s lecture is on June 18, Tuesday, at 7:30 p.m. Talks are free and refreshments are provided. They are at the Luther Burbank Art & Garden Center, at 2050 Yulupa Ave., in Santa Rosa. Please call Leia at 322-6722 for more information.
For the first time ever, the organic nursery at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center will be open to the public during the spring and summer on a regular basis– every weekend from May 25 through June 30, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.– featuring perennial plants, generally in one-gallon pots. In addition, they are featuring one of the wonderful tours of their organic gardens on June 15: tours last two hours and start at 10 a.m. OAEC is on Coleman Vly. Rd. in Occidental. Their phone number is: 707-874-1557, ext. 101 or visit them online at

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Have a happy June, full of gardening events and planting!

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