Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• Choose living Christmas trees now. Most will be able to be kept in their containers and used for one or two more years as a Christmas tree.

• Stop peach leaf curl by spraying soon with copper sulfate to help prevent this disfiguring disease from attacking your trees next spring.

• Clean up rose bushes by removing spent flowers and raking up old leaves, but wait until February for heavy pruning.

• Feed the birds this winter and enjoy the pleasure of their company. Bird feeders come in many styles and make wonderful gifts.

• Rhododendrons are hardy shrubs that are particularly beautiful in the spring when they bloom. Choose plants now when selection is the best.

Need Gifts for a Gardener?

When times get tough, many of us turn to practical gifts rather than luxury items. For the gardener on your list, there are many practical items that will enhance their gardening experience in the years to come.

Start with a nice pair of leather gardening gloves to prevent injury and chapped, rough skin; or flexible, rubberized cotton gloves that keep fingernails clean and hands dry. There are long-sleeved gauntlet gloves that protect from sharp thorns of roses or berry vines, and “Bionic” gloves made especially to offer people with arthritis a glove with comfort and flexibility.

Kneepads or a kneeler seat make weeding and planting less of a strain, without knee and back pain. The Garden Kneeler Seat can be used for kneeling in the garden and it has handles to help you get up and down. Or flip it over for a seat for resting or working in raised beds.

When it’s time to clean up the garden, there is no finer tool than a “Bos Bag”. This tough, self-standing, washable, tear resistant bag stands open for easy loading and folds flat for storage.

There are few tools more important to a gardener than a good pair of pruning shears. Felco has long been the leader in pruning shears with a dozen different models to accommodate large hands, small hands, lefties, or equipped with a rotating handle to reduce fatigue. Ratchet pruning shears may be just the ticket for light work or delicate hands.

And speaking of tools, the Hori-Hori Digging Tool is a traditional Japanese gardening tool that can be used for just about every kind of gardening, digging, cutting or weeding activity. The stainless steel knife blade is very sharp and concave shaped for scooping soil and other materials.

One of the most coveted garden tools is a good quality digging fork. Beautiful tools from England have a reputation for quality and durability, and are made to be used for a lifetime and passed on to the next generation.

Add a gardening calendar and you and your gardening friends can look forward to another great year of gardening pleasures. Ecology Action has produced a “2009 Garden Calendar” with a handy “things to do” list for each month. The “Gardening by the Moon” Calendar gives detailed timing for appropriate gardening activities, and the “Old Farmer’s Almanac” is a helpful and fun book to have on hand.

We wish you all a very happy holiday season, and hope we can help you be successful gardeners in the year ahead!

This entry was posted on Friday, December 19th, 2008 at 12:08 pm and is filed under Garden Article, Willits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.