Book in Spanish
Question from Coralie:
I love your month-by-month gardening book. Is it printed in Spanish? I would love to give a copy in Spanish to my gardener.
Answer from Pat:
I wish my book was available in Spanish but alas it is not! (Suggest a Spanish edition to Chronicle Books.) However, some of the gardeners we have here in Southern California don’t read, even Spanish.
I will ask the publisher for this too!
I had a trusty gardener who cared for the yard for years without issue. Sadly, I had to hire a new one, and while he was good for awhile, so much of my yard has died back in the past couple of years. I can’t replace him yet (I need the help), so I need some advice.
One of the biggest issues right now deals with cedar chips I spread as mulch in the beds around the house foundation this summer (roses, camellia, sword fern, calla lilies, and some bulbs). My gardener’s recent “efficient” manner with the blower and watering has buried/mixed many of the wood chips in the soil. I’m concerned about the chips robbing nitrogen from the plants. I explained how this will kill my plants, and then I dug out the chips from the watering basins and showed him how the mulch needs to sit on top, but I’m finding it’s a losing battle each week. I’ve tried to dig out the soil and use a screen to sift the soil through the wood chips, but I can’t get it all, and I know it’s bad to dig under a camellia. What can I do to fix this and how can I keep it from happening in the future?
(The beds are muddy messes for most of the winter and rock hard in the summer, and where I have lawn up to the house, the stucco loses out to his weed wacker, so I prefer to have the mulch)
Thanks Pat!
In general I don’t approve of cedar chips or any kind of wood or bark chips as mulch. I far prefer something more natural looking or unevenly shaped, for example, simply the mulch that comes from tree trimmers or pruning companies after they put it through their grinder. These people will often be willing to dump a pile of this mulch onto your driveway and your gardener can spread it. Pine needles are also great to use under camellias and azaleas.
I deeply sympathize with the fact that gardeners brought up in tropical climates have no understanding of mulch or of the point of using it. Perhaps in future it might be best to have watering basins left without mulch on top so that when your gardener squirts water full-force into the water basin there will be no problem. You are correct in thinking that it would be unwise now to dig it out and your idea of a screen on top is a bit too complicated to work.
Here is what I suggest: Stop buying bagged ceder chips. Instead, mulch with a commercially made bagged or trucked “compost” or chipper materials (free) from pruning companies. Do not bother digging out those that are already buried. Apply gypsum once a year to help break up heavy clay soil. Don’t worry too much about wood chips subtracting nitrogen since main roots of plants you have mentioned are not on the surface of the soil. Feed your camellias three times in summer at Fourth of July, 4 weeks later and Memorial Day. If they are not growing as well as usual, increase the fertilizer slightly at these regular times. (Not now!)
Regarding week-wacker, please be sure your gardener does not damage the bark of trees and shrubs. If it helps, just know I deeply sympathize with your problems!
My books are currently out of print but all of them are available from Amazon.com.