Gardening Q&A
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I have planted tulips for the past two years, but very few come up and I don't get many blooms. What am I doing wrong?
Except in the coldest parts of California, we simply don't have the right climate for tulips. It just isn't cold enough. The tulip bulbs you buy will bloom the first year, but very few will survive to grow and bloom again. To add insult to injury, gophers love tulip bulbs. I, too, planted masses of tulip bulbs one year, and the gophers missed only a handful. If you want tulips, buy new bulbs each spring and plant them in pots. I plant pots of tulips (make sure the flat part of the bulb faces outward, so the leaves curl out away from the pot—it makes for a prettier arrangement) and give them as hostess gifts when we visit friends.
My camellias are beginning to produce flower buds. Last winter when I attended a camellia show, I was surprised at how large the flowers were compared to mine. What varieties can I grow to get larger flowers?
The people who raise camellias for show thin the clusters of flower buds to one or two per cluster instead of the usual four or five, so the individual flowers can grow larger. Pinch away the two or three smallest buds in each cluster and you'll have larger, although fewer, flowers.
About Pat Rubin, California Bountiful's gardening expert
For Pat Rubin, gardening is more than just dirt and plants. "It's about history, romance, adventure and people," she says. "And it should be fun."
California Bountiful's gardening columnist has lived and chronicled this fun, hands-in-the-dirt approach for years—and for additional publications including Fine Gardening, Pacific Horticulture, Christian Science Monitor, Family Circle and The Sacramento Bee. Pat has also volunteered as a Master Gardener, speaks to garden clubs and appears regularly on gardening radio shows.
Need gardening advice? Ask the expert!
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I've been growing lettuce and other greens with great success, and now suddenly all I get are flowers. Why?
Your greens are bolting. That means they are producing flowers instead of foliage because the weather is too hot for them and nature is telling the plant to produce seed as quickly as possible. Once the weather cools, you should be able to grow greens successfully again.
I want to build raised beds. How high should they be?
My raised beds are 12 inches high and placed directly on the ground. Some people make their raised beds even higher so they don't have to bend over so far, but the deeper ones need more soil to fill them.
About Pat Rubin, California Bountiful's gardening expert
Pat RubinFor Pat Rubin, gardening is more than just dirt and plants. "It's about history, romance, adventure and people," she says. "And it should be fun."
California Bountiful's gardening columnist has lived and chronicled this fun, hands-in-the-dirt approach for years—and for additional publications including Fine Gardening, Pacific Horticulture, Christian Science Monitor, Family Circle and The Sacramento Bee. Pat has also volunteered as a Master Gardener, speaks to garden clubs and appears regularly on gardening radio shows.
Need gardening advice? Ask the expert!
Send your questions to gardening@californiabountiful.com
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The gophers are getting into my garden and destroying plants. They ate the roots on all my pole beans, and I think they are nibbling at the potatoes. Help!
I've had the same problem. One year I planted pole beans around tall tomato cages, and each day a gopher ate one plant until they were all gone. Moles tunnel through the soil looking for grubs. Unfortunately, their tunneling disrupts and uproots plants. The solution is raised beds with hardware cloth on the bottom to keep these little critters from getting in. Hardware cloth is available at hardware and big-box stores. It isn't expensive. Once you've built your raised bed, staple the hardware cloth on the bottom. The holes are too small for gophers or moles to get through.
I was told some seeds need stratification before I can plant them. What does this mean?
In nature, a plant drops its seeds, and the seeds sprout the following year. They go through fall and winter before coming up in the spring. Some seeds have really hard seed coats; it takes several summers and winters to wear them down enough for moisture to get in and allow the seed to germinate. That is what stratification means, but you can speed up the process by gently nicking or sanding a spot on the seed so it germinates on your schedule rather than Mother Nature's. I remember learning to pour boiling water on western redbud seeds to break through the seed coat to get them to germinate.
About Pat Rubin, California Bountiful's gardening expert
Pat RubinFor Pat Rubin, gardening is more than just dirt and plants. "It's about history, romance, adventure and people," she says. "And it should be fun."
California Bountiful's gardening columnist has lived and chronicled this fun, hands-in-the-dirt approach for years—and for additional publications including Fine Gardening, Pacific Horticulture, Christian Science Monitor, Family Circle and The Sacramento Bee. Pat has also volunteered as a Master Gardener, speaks to garden clubs and appears regularly on gardening radio shows.
Need gardening advice? Ask the expert!
Send your questions to gardening@californiabountiful.com
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