Are you ready for more gardening? We are not just talking about more of this incredible spring we have been having, we are talking about the hour long program of Garden Time. This weekend marks the last half hour program of Garden Time until July. Starting next weekend we are going to be a hour long program. That is great for you, the viewer, since we will be able to bring you more information, and it is great for us since we are able to get out ourselves and see more garden centers and nurseries! It will be a fun couple of months!

We are just 2 weeks away from GardenPalooza. We just received even MORE giveaways today. 30 Seconds Cleaner has given us some gift packs to give away. They are now added to the list of great prizes and gifts that we will be handing out to lucky winners on April 11th at Fir Point Farm. Don’t forget our BIG prize of up to a $2,500 garden visualscape makeover from French Prairie Perennials. We will see you all at Fir Point Farms in Aurora on the 11th! Check out www.GardenPalooza.com for more details.

This week we featured...

Planting a Strawberry Pot

With the push for edibles in the garden the last few years we had the idea of bringing those edibles to your doorstep. We stopped by Little Baja (503-236-8834) to get some ideas from Wayne about planting strawberries and how to choose a pot to bring your fruit and vegetables to your deck or patio. First we pulled a strawberry pot out of his inventory, which was no problem with all the pots he has on the lot. We learned that you need to plant in layers. You don’t just fill the pot full of Black Gold soil and shove plants in! You fill your pot with soil up to the first holes and then place your plants in and then move to the next layer. We also learned a little bit about strawberries. ‘June-bearing’ gives you one crop. ‘Ever-bearing’ and ‘Day Neutral’ gives you 2 or more good crops of berries through-out the summer if you treat them well. There are a couple of other things that growers do to get a good crop… plant new berries every 3-4 years. For a list of varieties and recipes, check out www.oregon-strawberries.org. Finally we talked about planting trees and other fruits and vegetables in pots. Smaller varieties of fruit trees are very popular right now and you can even find single trees with multiple varieties on one trunk. These are great in containers. Wayne even told us about people who plant tomatoes in pots on their deck! Sounds like a winner to me! The reason for choosing a clay terra cotta container is in the clay. Clay breathes and allows air and water to move freely through the sides of the container. This makes for a healthier and happier plant. If you are looking to bring your gardening ‘up close and personal’ check out the selection of containers at Little Baja on Burnside in Portland.

Jan’s March Tips

This month we have already visited with Jan McNeilan about some early spring tips for the gardener. This warmer weather had people a little freaked out a few weeks ago, so we stopped by for some early tips. Now we are returning for a refresher course. Jan started by giving us a Ray-ism. Ray is her husband and the former State Master Gardener coordinator. Someone once asked him if they should fertilize their roses since they didn’t see any new growth on them in the early spring. His response, ‘would you feed oats to a dead horse’? Funny, but he had a point. If you don’t see new growth on your plants then don’t waste the fertilizer. Wait a few weeks and see if any new growth starts showing up, then fertilize them! We then talked about pruning grapes. A lot of people think that it is too late to prune, but it isn’t. It is better if you do it earlier in the winter, like mid to late February. You can still do it for the next few weeks but you will notice them ‘bleed’ a lot. This is just fluids, a sap, that is rushing up the stems but it isn’t doing any long term damage. You can take up to 90 percent of the plant away when you prune and they will still do well and produce fruit. Just remember to do it as soon as you can and remember to cut them back earlier next season. We then got another warning about moving too fast in the garden. We are all wanting to start planting but Jan advised that we hold off until the soil temperatures warm up a little more. Even when the temps reach 70, the soil was still at 40 degrees. Wait until the soil is a little warmer, at least 55 before you get anything in the ground. You can still continue cleaning up the garden for the next few weeks. Also, be careful about applying mulch to your garden. A layer of mulch on cold soil could hold that coldness in and then it will take your soil even longer to warm up. For more gardening tips you can check out the OSU Extension website, http://extension.oregonstate.edu/gardening.

Garden Allergies

Spring is the time for gardening! The change in the weather is drawing everyone back outside and into the garden. It is also the time for lots of pollen in the air. For those who suffer from allergies, this is a terrible time to be in the garden. But did you know that there are ways to alleviate your allergy suffering? To learn some tips for making these symptoms tolerable we stopped by Providence St. Vincent Medical Center on the west side of Portland and talked to Dr. Ken Weizer. He told us that more than taking over the counter drugs to feel better, you should take a look at your overall health. Dr. Ken recommended that we start by drinking lots of water. Allergies can dry out your sinuses and that can make matters worse. The fluids in your nose help to flush out the pollen and other allergens. Also remember to wash your hands and face often. You carry a lot of the allergens around on your hands especially after working in the garden. You can help yourself by keeping those hands clean. You can also wear a mask. This creates a physical barrier for allergens to go through. You don’t have to have those plain ugly white ones either. We found some cool ones at My Air Mask, check them out. You can also help your sinuses by washing them out with a neti pot. This is a container that you use to pour water through your nose and sinuses to clean them out. When you get home Dr. Ken also recommends that you wash your clothes and bedding often, especially your pillow cases.

Another way to help your allergies is to be selective in your garden plantings. We found a new book called ‘The Allergy-Fighting Garden’ by Thomas Leo Ogren, which gives you tips for smart landscaping to help with your allergies, just be aware that there are plants all around that will still be producing pollen, even if you reduce the ones in your garden. Sometimes the pollen is just the last straw for our systems. Some people have a lot of little allergies and once the pollen hits, it is just enough to push us over the edge! Dr. Ken recommends that you contact your doctor to see if there is a way to figure out the other little triggers and see if you can reduce those as well. Providence has lots of resources Including their Integrative Medicine site, and their page on seasonal allergies. So look up these resources and then get out and enjoy your garden!

Dividing Epimediums

A few weeks ago we stopped by Sebright Gardens (503-463-9615) to get some tips on dividing hostas. This week we returned to visit with Thomas, one of the owners, about a very overlooked plant in the spring garden, epimediums. These dry shade plants are great for the early spring garden. A lot of them have striking foliage and almost all of them have incredibly unique blooms. These blooms are delicate but overwhelming! Thomas pointed out that a lot of people simply don’t know how to divide them. That means that they can get pretty big and take over your perennial garden. He gave us some tips for how to divide them correctly. Epimediums are a woody rooted plant and that can make them tough to divide. Look for the small heads of the new growth just starting to pop out when you divide. Once the leaves start to show you will need to wait to divide these plants. The new growth is pretty brittle so you have to wait until it hardens off before trying it later in the season. Start your divisions by cutting from under the plant and then teasing the roots apart. Separate the smaller crowns apart and then replant them in a good soil that is well-drained. If you were really lazy and had a large clump you could just drive a shovel through the clump and cut off large chunks!

Sebright right now carries over 90 varieties of epimediums for sale and Thomas showed us a few that they carry including ‘Versicolor’ with wonderful multicolored blooms, the light violet blooms of ‘Dark Beauty’, so called because of the dark burgundy foliage. ‘Hot Lips’ was next with the deep red colored blooms and finally the white star-shaped blooms of ‘Arctic Wings’. So you can see these plants are great in the early spring garden and they can continue to delight throughout the rest of the season as well. Next spring you should try an epimedium in your garden. You can also visit Thomas at the Sebright Gardens booth at GardenPalooza at Fir Point Farms on April 11th.