5 things to do in the garden this week:
Grapevines and fruit trees. Now is the time to clonally propagate grapevines, fig and pomegranate trees from cuttings. In a full to partial sun location, take a spade or shovel and make a slit in your soil that is eight inches deep. Insert a 10-16 inch terminal stem cutting with at least four buds into each open slit, making sure that at least two buds from the cutting are beneath the soil surface. Soak the soil in the slit before closing it up tight around the cutting. Make sure that the soil around the cutting stays moist, but not saturated, in the months to come. A year from now, you can unearth the cuttings, which will have rooted abundantly by then, and plant them in the locations of your choice. Thanks to Greg Alder (gregalder.com) for providing this propagation tip.
Vegetables. You can germinate tomato seeds indoors on a sunny window sill throughout the winter. Plant them in small clay pots or paper cups, making sure you punch drainage holes in the latter. Another technique utilizes peat pellets, peat pots or peat cubes for seed germination. Seedlings growing in these biodegradable starters can be transplanted into larger containers or directly into the ground without disturbing their roots. Since the ground never freezes in Los Angeles or anywhere further south, you can plant here virtually year-round. However, seedlings of tomatoes and other frost-sensitive plants should be covered at night from late November through mid-March. The easiest way to do this is with a 1-gallon plastic pot – that ubiquitous black container used for growing nursery stock — turned upside down. To be safe, nurture your seedlings indoors until March 15th since frosts in this part of the world rarely occur after that date.
Herbs. Greek oregano (Oreganum heracleoticum) is a robust perennial that grows 18 inches tall and wide. It is one of the more pungent oreganos. Incidentally, oregano and marjoram are both from the same genus with marjoram being sweeter than oregano. You can substitute one for the other in recipes as long as you double the quantity of marjoram where oregano is called for. These two herbs, thyme, rosemary, and bay leaf are best used when dry, while basil, parsley, chives, tarragon, and cilantro are best used fresh. You can substitute fresh for dry herbs but you will need to triple the quantity of fresh herbs to equal the pungency of their dried counterparts. After five years, the pungency of Greek oregano wanes but the plant can easily be propagated from shoot tip cuttings. Greek oregano seeds and starter plants are readily available through online vendors.
Flowers. According to Pat Walsh’s “Southern California Gardening: A month-by-month guide,” the best time to plant azaleas and camellias is when they are in bloom, and many of them are blooming now. The reason for this is that when these plants flower, their roots are dormant. Planting later on, when roots are actively growing, can hinder all-around growth. When azaleas and camellias finish blooming, there is a surge in root growth, with which you do not want to tamper by planting at this time.
Petal blight is the principle pathogenic scourge of camellias. You know you have petal blight when the edges of your flowers turn brown. Eventually, whole flowers and sometimes every flower on a plant turns that color. To prevent this disease, Pat Welsh recommends cutting a circle of shade cloth that matches the canopy diameter of your camellia. Then, cut from the outside of the circle to the center, where you will cut a small circle that will enclose the base of your shrub. When flowers drop, remove the shade cloth and dump the flowers that collect there in the trash. Petal blight develops when camellia blooms fall to the ground and deposit spores they may be carrying beneath the plant. When it rains or sprinkler irrigation is on, fungal spores will splash up from the ground onto the plant’s flowers. As long as your fallen camellia flowers make no contact with the earth and you continually remove them to the trash, petal blight should not be a concern.