| Soquel Nursery Growers April 2006 Newsletter |
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| Soquel Nursery Growers April 2006 Newsletter |
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| Happy Trails, Eric |
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| Early Birds Get the Plants |
| We are open on Saturday mornings for your spring and summer planting frenzy. Cathy and Willow run away laughing into the forest promptly at noon, so you might want to forego that leisurely Saturday brunch and give yourself plenty of time to shop. We’ll be here at 8:00 am. |
| Lavandula allardii |
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Here’s a lavender you may not know, but we think you’ll enjoy it as much as its more popular cousins. Lavandula allardii has very attractive bright grey-green foliage with toothed leaves. The long, narrow flower spikes are deep rosy-purple. The fragrance is spicy-sweet with a hint of camphor. Its growth habit is open and upright to 3’ x 3’. It blooms all year, unlike angustifolia and ‘Provence’. Other lavenders which bloom all year are pinnata, heterophylla, and the stoechas varieties. |
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| Celebrate Earth Day April 22nd |
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| Digitalis In addition to the ‘Foxy Mix’ we usually grow, we now have two more varieties of Foxgloves. Digitalis mertonenis: Huge rosy-pink bells ‘Pink Champagne': Creamy-yellow throats, with pink blush on the outside. photo: "Foxy Mix" |
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| Yarrows are ready to plant now. Their flat umbels make an important nectar and pollen source for beneficial insects. Butterflies enjoy standing on them and warming themselves. Adult syrphid flies will be attracted to your garden, leaving ferocious larvae to devour thousands of aphids. Achilleas are drought-tolerant, long lasting and require very little maintenance. Our green-leaved spreading varieties make excellent groundcover and withstand occasional foot traffic: Red Velvet: New for us! Deep rosy-red color that lasts and lasts. Appleblossom: Pink and white Grey-leafed clumping varieties stay where you plant them: Anthea: Pale yellow Moonshine: Bright yellow |
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| If you crave Echium fastuosum (Pride of Madiera) but you don’t have enough room, Echium handiense is the plant for you. The electric blue flower heads are more rounded than those of E. fastuosum. Its eventual size is only about 2’ x 2’. Say “handy-en-see”. |
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Arbutus ‘Marina’ is sometimes called Hybrid Strawberry Tree, but it is also called “The Garden Madrone”. It makes an excellent substitute for California’s native Madrone (Arbutus menziesii), having the same beautiful red peeling bark. The native Madrone is notoriously difficult to grow in gardens, as it dislikes transplanting, summer water and disturbed soil. Arbutus ‘Marina’ thrives near lawns or in perennial beds. They are the cute little round-headed trees on the median strip on East Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz. A native Madrone wouldn’t be caught dead in a median strip. Pendulous clusters of pink urn-shaped flowers turn into red rough-skinned fruits. Try pressing them through a sieve to remove the seeds and using the pulp as a substitute in any recipe calling for persimmon pulp. |
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