A former member of the Arboretum Society’s Board of Directors, Jack draws upon his almost 40 years of gardening experience – including 12 years at Sunset Magazine – to provide this monthly feature.  Included are, of course, tips and advice, as well as anecdotes and stories about gardening and gardeners. His website is: www.jackthegardencoach.com

May, 2010

Starting and participating in a garden club has many benefits to us as gardeners, the community and the planet. This month’s garden tips will be about garden clubs and how to start them, keep them going and livening them up when they get lackadaisical.

1. To start a garden club is easy. All you need is a phone, a pad and a pencil. To keep one going is another story all together. There are several organizations that support new garden clubs, have guidelines and even advice on gaining non profit status as well as insurance policies that are advantageous to participate in. Here are a couple of their web sites. California Garden Clubs Inc. http://www.californiagardenclubs.org/ National Garden Clubs http://www.gardenclub.org/, Garden Clubs of America http://www.gcamerica.org/,

2. Your garden club can have a theme. There are garden clubs for specific plant lovers like Orchid growers, Gardenia lovers, Edible gardens and Native plant societies. A garden club can be a private group of friends or part of the world of gardeners. Some garden clubs travel together while others do field trips. Guest speakers are often invited to bring interesting themes and subjects to the club.

3. The San Mateo Arboretum Society puts on the Hillsborough Garden Tour each year displaying some amazing estates. There are Garden Clubs that provide fund raising functions for charity organizations. Some of these activities are really fun. One example is the Venice Garden Tour where if you have the stamina, you can visit 30 gardens in one day. The Gamble garden tour did that in Palo Alto last month with 6 gardens representing the history of this tour over the last 25 years.

4. Some clubs are more exclusive than others. Ruth Berliner started the Florets Garden Club in Palo Alto in 1965. I have spoken there twice in the last ten years and found it wonderful. In order to be a member though, you have to be sponsored in by another member. This club has only 9 members but is rich in experience and skill.

5. More people are becoming interested in growing their own food. Not only is it fresh and fresh means better tasting, but it allows for varieties that are not available in even the Farmers Market. A garden club that focuses on organic practices, resources and cultivars will tend to be more discriminating about what they are growing. They share readily what they learn and often by getting a newsletter out can share with the whole community. I learned more about potatoes in the last year than I ever thought I would know including a good source for seed potatoes, http://www.ronnigers.com/.

6. Garden clubs help understand the unique microclimates of the area they are growing in. I just joined the newly starting Pescadero Garden Club and the variations of growing environments of our 10 members range from coastal fog to mountain freeze and that is just the cold range. We are getting and giving advice as well as gathering a lot of homework to do that will help everybody grow better gardens.

7. There are several schools that I have visited as a Garden Coach that are growing their own vegetables. Children love learning about nature and a local Garden club can provide a great resource for starting and maintaining a school garden.

8. I don’t want to leave out the social values of being in a garden club. Of the 15 or so clubs that I have spoken to most members are women. This is really good news. Women love to socialize and are really good at it. For men, where else are you going to be around so many women. Who knows, you may learn a thing or two about socializing. Of course there is no reason not to start a mens garden club either. You can trade tubers, watch the game and go out and have a lawn tractor race.

9. It is still early in the summer and planting is going on all over the valley. There is no better reason to gather at someone’s home than to do a mass planting. Especially for seniors who are slowing down a bit. A potluck, sharing and trading plants and planting a flower bed make for a wonderful Saturday afternoon. And the host gets a great show for the rest of the summer.

10. I encourage you, if you are at all interested in gardening to try starting or joining a garden club. Give it a year, and if it does not work for you then move on. Who knows it may just become a life long passion.

A former member of the Arboretum Society’s Board of Directors, Jack draws upon his almost 40 years of gardening experience – including 12 years at Sunset Magazine – to provide this monthly feature.  Included are, of course, tips and advice, as well as anecdotes and stories about gardening and gardeners. His website is: www.jackthegardencoach.com

April, 2010

April is the garden gate to the summer show. This is the month to shop, prepare, plan and plant your beds for the mid summer results you want. I will give ten tips that will guarantee flowers, fruit and produce two, three and even four months from now. The key is following them and adding to them. By adding to these and a hundred other techniques that master gardeners have given freely, you make your garden unique. And that is where the unforgettable years in gardening come from. Here are the tips.

1. Visit the great gardens in our area this week. Don’t wait or you will miss the show that is on now and the beginning of the show that is coming. This will also, if you are observant expose you to the gardeners at work in these gardens. They are busy moving pots around, spreading compost, mulch and new plants for the summer. Take notes, pictures and ask questions.

2. Gardens to visit are Filoli in Woodside, Gamble gardens in Palo Alto, Sunset Magazine in Menlo Park, Hakone Gardens in Saratoga, the Japanese Garden in San Mateo Central Park, Strybing Arboretum in Golden Gate Park and the Japanese Tea Garden also in Golden Gate Park.

3. Visit at least four nurseries and take notes on what is available now in six packs and four inch pots. Look at the annual flowers, the vegetables, perennials and the ornamental plants for color, texture and foliar show. This is a good time to pick up foxglove, larkspur and columbine.

4. Ask the nursery experts, either the Q and A person or the manager what is coming for summer. If their supply is already in ask to be shown what is new and what will be the best for your garden environment (sun, shade, drought tolerant etc.).

5. Buy compost or screen out your compost in your bin. Plan on having enough to put a 3 inch layer over all of your beds. Then till or dig it in 12 inches deep. If you don’t have enough of your own making then buy the remainder from a garden materials supply like Rices Soil Farm Cabrillo Hwy. Half Moon Bay, Lyngso 19 Seaport Blvd. Redwood City 364-1730, Ciardella’s 1001 San Antonio Ave. Palo Alto 321-5913 or Common Ground 559 College Ave. Palo Alto 493-6072.

6. Plant Strawberries, cucumber, squash, zucchini and any other gourds on mounds. This keeps the fruit up and if possible, hanging and dry. When any of these fruit sit on the damp ground they rot. Even commercial organic strawberries are grown on large mounds covered with a ground cloth to keep them dry.

6. Plant tomatoes toward the end of the month and plant them two leaf nodes up the stem. Cut the bottom four leaves off, and plant the stem about 3 to 4 inches deeper than they were in the nursery container. This will get roots started deeply and near the surface. I read last year about gardeners in Santa Cruz that put a fish head in the hole when they planted their tomatoes apparently with great success.

7. Play classical music to your plants. For proof that this works go to Half Moon Bay Nursery on Highway 92 just east of Half Moon Bay and look at all the flowers they have growing. They constantly play opera music to the whole nursery.

8. For ornamental beds, plant ground covers and borders to provide a living mulch and a colorful framing for walk ways, beds and berms. This technique is centuries old and still creates a stunning effect. Ground covers like ornamental strawberry, pacasandra , polygonum, creeping thyme and baby tears work in partial sun and shade. Dollar for dollar, month for month, impatiens are still the best bedding plant for color.

9. This is a good time to buy roses. When the buds open up in the nursery you can see the actual color of the flower. Sometimes this helps in the decision making process. Choose “Hybrid Tea” roses for cut flowers, climbers for trellises and fence applications and shrub roses for filling in. Remember that roses are a full sun plant and also like to be fertilized regularly in order to bloom through the summer.

10. Finish up your plantings with mulch. I like fir bark, leaf and chip litter and wood chips for ornamental applications and hay, straw, and organic compost for herb, and vegetable gardens. The complete garden planting will include fertilizing and watering in the new plants. This will set the show for summer.

A former member of the Arboretum Society’s Board of Directors, Jack draws upon his almost 40 years of gardening experience – including 12 years at Sunset Magazine – to provide this monthly feature.  Included are, of course, tips and advice, as well as anecdotes and stories about gardening and gardeners. His website is: www.jackthegardencoach.com

I think it is time to cross a line. So far in my writing I have kept the subject gardening. It is time to talk about architecture. The difference is scale, level of responsibility and money. Architecture determines the cities, parks and corridors we use every day. We all make the decisions where we live and how they look and work. This months tips will be on taking part in that.

1. Our cities have the best land, the best water and the best climates around. This is why people are attracted to them. They can always use improvement in the realm of landscape architecture. Choices are made by elected officials as to how these improvements are made. Participate in these decisions, learn what is going on and stay appraised.

2. Many home owners are changing their landscapes to drought tolerant, sustainable, and productive use. Big lawns are perfect first steps in this conversion. Participate in encouraging park conversions and public areas to these new types of use.

3. Money is a big reason why landscape architecture is low on the priority list of city improvements. Encourage city governments to develop volunteer programs, consolidate resources, utilize recycled materials and plan in longer term incremental changes. Or, just spend more on landscape projects.

4. Encourage professionals to participate in design, construction and maintenance programs.

5. Educate yourself in landscape architecture. The internet is a great resource. Look into the ASLA American Society of Landscape Architects www.asla.org/. They can refer architects to talk to about changing on a big scale.

6. When you travel, notice the parks, streets, city centers and landscape architecture and take notes, photos and videos of what works for you. I found the Jardin de Plants in Paris an inspiration although there is way too much turf for our water situation to allow.

7. Encourage more plantscape and less hardscape in landscape architecture. What this means is less concrete and more plants, less paving and more flowers, less questionable sculpture and more plant sculpture.

8. Community gardens are becoming more popular as the slow food and eat locally movements are developing. The quality of community gardens and their programs can always use improvement. It is to every ones benefit.

9. Redesign your own garden to compliment the whole. I don’t mean have every yard identical. Be creative, innovative, expansive in your ideas and at the same time be intelligent and subtle. Blend in plant choices that compliment the neighbors while showing off your design talents.

10. Design your yard to be an example. Everybody is watching everybody else. Good design gets copied and bad design ignored. If you have an idea for an innovative landscape use, try it. Who knows it may make a better place for all of us to live.

11. Forward these tips nationally and internationally so everybody gets involved in improving landscape architecture.

A former member of the Arboretum Society’s Board of Directors, Jack draws upon his almost 40 years of gardening experience – including 12 years at Sunset Magazine – to provide this monthly feature.  Included are, of course, tips and advice, as well as anecdotes and stories about gardening and gardeners. His website is: www.jackthegardencoach.com

February, 2010

I watch a lot of movies. I get them through the mail, watch them and mail them back. I love it. Mostly, I watch documentaries, history, nature and biographies. Most recently I watched “Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts” about Philip Glass the composer. Several things Glass says in the biography touched me in their similarity to gardening. This month’s tips will visit some of these ideas.

1. Allen Ginsberg told Philip Glass ‘first idea, best idea’. The theory goes that if you have an idea (usually in the time it takes to blink, see Malcom Gladwells book “Blink“) it is good to go with it. How does this apply to gardening? In the garden there are a thousand decisions to make. What do I plant? Do I prune now? Which cut first? What do I fertilize with? And on and on. Try using the first idea that comes to mind. It will save time and it may very well be the best choice.

2. When he was composing and playing in lofts in SoHo New York, Glass often had 25% to 30% of his audiences walk out. Did he stop composing? No, he kept on with the work he was doing and suggested they find their own favorite music. Do this in your garden too. Your garden is your living art and what others think is none of your business. The important thing is to keep gardening.

3. Be a little “Nudge”. Glass’s sister Abramowitz called Philip (when he was a young boy) “a little Nudge”. A Nudge is a bother, a bit of a pain. If you are a bit of a bother in your garden, it will show better results. Be picky, don’t put up with just any design or planting scheme. Be a Nudge.

4. Do something completely different. Glass said “if you don’t need a new technique (to do a piece of art) then what you’re saying probably isn’t new“. In gardening, the techniques we use are those of design, planting, cultivating, pruning, watering, fertilizing and harvesting. Think about how you can do these differently to get different results. Ask yourself if you can change one thing to make a big difference.

5. Gardening is art and art is different than farming or Golf course maintenance. Art uses the part of your brain that knows what it likes without thinking about it. Art speaks from and to the heart. You can hear this in music composed by great composers like Philip Glass. Try to look at your garden with heart. Think of what plant in all the world would make you happy to see every day. Then find a way to get and grow that plant.

6. Here is a practical tip. Now is a great time to plant blueberries. I was talking to Brad at Half Moon Bay Nursery 650-726-5392, and looking over his stock of blueberries. I think I am going to get three varieties of “Highbush Blueberries”. The plants are long lived, hearty and with cross pollination will produce heavily. Call Brad for the recommendations for your area.

7. Finish up your pruning even if your deciduous plants have started sprouting. It is better if you do winter pruning when it is dead cold but if you are late, do it any way.If the plants drip from their fresh cuts don’t worry. They will stop in a few days. Don’t cut conifers or you will have to clean up the sap though.

8. Clean up brown or finished Camellia blossoms. The brown is caused by petal blight, a fungus. I haven’t found a truly good control for this but it is always good practice to remove infected blossoms. If you know a method for controlling petal blight in Camellias I would appreciate being able to pass it along.

9. As for garden contractors, the most recent advice I got was to ask . . . Do you want it done right, well, fast or cheap? Pick two. Look into the directory of Aesthetic Pruners of Ornamental Trees and Shrubs www.aestheticpruning.org. This is a list of highly trained and or experienced gardeners that can possibly even get three of the above list accomplished.

10. There is so much gardening to do, so much music to compose and so much life to be lived. I think the only way to truly get it all done is to multi task. Grab your I-pod, put on some Philip Glass bring out some snacks, a notebook, paints and an easel, have some clay handy and a friend or two to share the experience with and go for it. I am sure the flowers will bloom all the more.

A former member of the Arboretum Society’s Board of Directors, Jack draws upon his almost 40 years of gardening experience – including 12 years at Sunset Magazine – to provide this monthly feature.  Included are, of course, tips and advice, as well as anecdotes and stories about gardening and gardeners. His website is: www.jackthegardencoach.com

January, 2010

I am amazed by what takes place in gardens when looked at closely. Getting to know the plants I am growing, where they originated, what their ideal environment is and how to compliment that environment gives me years of continuing education. This months tips will be on how to learn from your garden in order to make it better and better.

1. Learn a plant a day by getting a plant encyclopedia and trying to identify a new plant each day. Learn its Latin name “Genus and Species” in order to have a sure identification and the ability to communicate with other gardeners better.

2. Study some plant structural characteristics to help identify and remember what you have seen. Here are some basic questions. Is it a tree, shrub, ground cover, flowering plant or a food plant? This narrows down the search considerably.

3. Look at the green part. Does it have leaves? Are they opposite each other on the stem or alternate? Do the edges have teeth on them or are they smooth? How thick are the leaves?

4. Find a healthy plant and look at the soil it is growing in. Try to notice if it is moist, dry, sandy or with a lot of organic matter? Is it hard or can you stick your fingers down into it pretty easily? These things tell you what the plant likes and flourishes in.

5. Learn where different plants come from. Cyclamen for example are found in a surprising number of countries. Here is a website with a lot of information on Cyclamen http://www.cyclamen.org

6. I have found people interested in gardening to be very creative, intelligent and even flamboyant. Get out and meet some gardeners, if nothing else, it will make you more interesting yourself.

7. Get yourself a good magnifying glass or jewelers loop. Look at leaves, bark, stems, flowers, insects, worms, slugs and snails, roots, seeds and a thousand other things.

8. Visit many gardens. My personal goal is to visit 100 world class gardens. I still have about 70 to go.

9. Share your garden with others or if you don’t have a garden, adopt one. There are community gardens to join or even parking strips to spruce up. I know one horticulturalist that cultivated a street median in San Francisco.

10. Teach a young person about gardening. They say the teacher learns more than the student. If you know something interesting about how to garden, share it. It will make the world a better place.

A former member of the Arboretum Society’s Board of Directors, Jack draws upon his almost 40 years of gardening experience – including 12 years at Sunset Magazine – to provide this monthly feature.  Included are, of course, tips and advice, as well as anecdotes and stories about gardening and gardeners. His website is: www.jackthegardencoach.com

December, 2009

My Aikido teacher just celebrated 50 years in the martial arts. Frank Doran of Stanford Aikido and Aikido West in Redwood City is truly a great teacher, I recommend you see him teach. Aikido is called The Way of Harmony and is often used by peace officers, teachers, social workers and community leaders to quell potentially violent situations before they become out of hand. In the garden there is a lot of potential for conflicts and violence to our plants and our bodies. Here is how to use Aikido techniques to harmonize with your garden and create the win win results we all want.

1. Know your garden and all its strengths and weaknesses. The better you know the sunny spots, shady spots, too wet and too dry places the better you will be able to deal with them before they become problematic. In Aikido the advanced student knows what the attackers strengths and weaknesses are before the attack even starts. This gives them the where with all to blend with the attack and redirect it.

2. Get to the problem before it becomes a problem. If there is a potential for weeds, then put down mulch before they even sprout. If you spot the beginnings of an infestation of aphids, slugs or any other plant eating pest, deal with it at first sight, before it becomes a problem.

3. Know your strengths and weaknesses as a gardener. If you can only garden for one or two hours a week, use this knowledge to your advantage. Have tools in a convenient location and keep them clean and sharp. Have all the amendments, fertilizers, compost and mulch near the garden so it is accessible when you need it.

4. Plan for the goals you want and the timing you want them to happen in. Planning in the moment is an art but planning ahead is a skill we can all learn. Plan out your spring garden now while it is cold and wet. In Aikido a technique is rehearsed over and over again until it becomes automatic and doesn’t even need to be thought about.

5. When problems arise, relax and breathe. Getting uptight is the last thing we want to do in a garden or in life. We grow plants ourselves to have the best, freshest and most interesting flowers, fruits vegetables and landscapes right where we are. These places bring harmony just by existing.

6. Be co-ed and ambidextrous. In Aikido every technique practiced is done by everybody with everybody and we use both left and right equally. This way we are able to stay centered and balanced. In the garden I try to use all the tools left handed as well as right handed. In garden coaching I encourage everybody to garden, men, women, boys and girls, young and old. In this way, all are participating in working toward growing their food and cultivating the landscape.

7. Warm up and stretch before and after any physical activity. This has many rewards. It helps us know where our aches and pains are so we pay better attention to them and it helps those sore spots heal. Go slow at first, then increase your pace. I used to train at two speeds; fast and out of control. I think now, looking back (I haven’t trained in 23 years) that I may have been a much better Aikido student and certainly a better gardener if I had gone a little slower.

8. Work from your center. If you can imagine holding your arms up as if reaching for the sky, and spreading your feet as if to anchor to the earth you will know exactly where your center is. Move around the garden with this center in mind. This will give you much greater stability, leverage, power and endurance. Once you do it for a while, you will know immediately when you are out of balance.

9. Pay close attention to everything around you. Notice the temperature of the air, the moisture in the soil, the sounds of the breeze, where the clouds are and which direction they are moving. In Aikido as in all martial arts, knowing what is going on around you at all times is the best way to avoid trouble. In the garden, knowing when weather will change can help you prepare for it.

10. I know a 90 year old farmer here on the coast side that still climbs up on his tractor and discs his fields. He says that he still climbs up there but he cannot jump down like he used to. Know your limits in the garden. If the digging, hoeing and heavy work is getting to be too much for you then it is time to teach a young person how to garden. The younger the better. They learn really fast and have great energy.