december garden soil tips
If working in the garden is something you enjoy, then take advantage of Santa Clarita’s cool weather to get outside and work off holiday stress. There are plenty of chores to do in December. Take the opportunity to clean up dried leaves (especially after winds), plant hardy perennials, bulbs, mulch flowerbeds, turn the compost heap and prune back roses, shrubs and trees. Soil is easier to dig when moist, but try to avoid working in wet mud. Walking on wet soil tends to compress it and can squeeze out the air spaces between soil particles already in short supply with clay soils. Mixing in compost and peat as well as manure will help add the organic matter soils in the Santa Clarita area are lacking. Chose to dig your soil a few days after rain showers so the soil is moist but not wet (assuming the weather cooperates). Watering a day or two ahead in dry weather will serve as well. If you plan to grow edible root crops, skip the manure, as it tends to make the roots fork. Peat will add texture, moisture retention and acid to your soil. Azaleas and Camellias, Gardenias and Astilbes really love that acid soil, as do blueberries. Many shade loving plants prefer a more acidic soil as their natural habitats are usually woodlands (hence the love of shade) where falling foliage forms a natural acidic compost. The trick to successful plant growth is to imitate the natural environment as closely as possible. Although most plants tolerate conditions beyond the ideal, the closer you come to supplying a plant’s native needs, the more that plant will thrive. It’s logical. So, as you amend your soil, think of what you plan to grow. A lime loving plant will not be happy with acid soil. Most of our full sun natives prefer a calcareous (lime) soil since that is what is most prevalent in this area. If you think about it, most acidic soil comes from the breakdown of organic matter so you are likely to find such soils where lush growth has taken place in the past. Looking at the limestone and rocky, semi-barren hillsides of the canyons, you can understand why the soil is ideal for plants liking quick drainage and calcareous soil. You can chose to amend the site to the plants you want, or plant the type of plants ideal for the site. It depends on your taste and the amount of effort and money you want to expend.
If your compost has become an even brown color with no stickiness or smell, you can hand pick or screen out any larger pieces of material and spread it in flowerbeds and vegetable gardens. All areas like homemade compost and it works as great mulch for plants exposed to cold or drying winds. It also protects plant roots from hot sun. In fact, the stuff’s great to use all year ’round. Just make sure the mulch stays a couple of inches away from stems and trunks. (That goes for all mulches, not just compost!) Ideally it should extend to the outer tips of the plants’ branches. You can also mulch whole flower or vegetable beds. Organic mulches eventually break down and are incorporated into the soil by worms and insects adding helpful organic matter to our hungry soils. You can also buy protective mulches in the form of bark, straw, compost, cocoanut hulls, and more. Sawdust and shavings from woodworking are better composted first as they will rob your soil of precious nitrogen as they break down. Decorative stones and other non-organic matter can also function as a protective mulch. These last longer, but add no organic material to your soil. Make sure the material is small enough to allow the soil to ‘breathe’, in other words, don’t cement over plant roots! If the mulch isn’t sufficiently porous, it will barricade essential air and water from the roots. Apart from that, it’s hard to go wrong by mulching and there is a wonderful choice of materials to add color and design to your garden, not to mention the benefit of no mud splashing or gummy footprints following your feet into the house!
Once again I want to remind you that this is a great month to get back some of what you put into your garden. Open space, the glint of light on a drop of water, the sound of the breeze or a hummingbird, a shiny orange berry; these are nature’s stress healers. Holidays are filled with the great expectations that are ideal for stress whether they lead to fulfillment or disappointment. Don’t let those great expectations derail you from enjoying the gift of life, moment by moment.
Jane has produced hundreds of landscape designs, each one a unique work of art specially adapted to the client’s tastes, needs and budget. She also does on site consultations and coaching through Gates & Croft Horticultural Design. You can find her online listed under The Garden Coach Directory or check out her site at http://www.gardengates.info for more gardening and landscape design information for the greater Santa Clarita area.
During past decade, Jane has been writing landscape design and gardening articles for newspapers like the Los Angeles Daily News and local magazines like The Agua Dulce/Acton Country Journal and Santa Clarita Living Magazine. You can find over a thousand articles she’s written nationally on the internet for the Examiner, eHow and InfoBarrel. She also continues to paint, draw, illustrate and cartoon. She is one of the featured artists published in the 2009 ‘100 Artists of the West Coast II‘ just released by Schiffer Publishing Ltd. and available in major book stores and on the internet. Her original paintings are handled by the Orlando Gallery in Los Angeles, CA.
Contact information for Jane:
661-299-5383
