Top ten native plants for The Sierra Foothills

The following are in my opinion the top ten native plants that adapt well to average garden conditions. They tend to establish easier than othertypes of natives and are a great starting point for someone interested in native plants.
1. California buckeye (Aesculus californica)
2.Western Redbud (Cercis occindentalis)
3. Flannel Bush (Fremontedendron californicum)
4. Blue Oak (Quercus douglasii)
5. Valley [...]

California Holly

Here is one of the foothills most beautiful native plants, Toyon ( Heteromeles arbutifolia). Known also as California Christmas Holly, since it has berries around Christmas time. It is said that Hollywood got it’s name because of the large amount of Toyon growing amongst the chaparral.
Toyon is one of the more adaptable native plants for [...]

Turkey day and dormant spray

Thanksgiving, besides being my favorite holiday is also when you should think about applying your first application of dormant spray to fruit trees. It’s called dormant spray since you spray it when your fruit trees are dormant. Once the leaves have fallen, and through February our trees are dormant or asleep. It’s during this time [...]

A day off!

We’re off today. Our good friend and employee Rob offered to work for us today, so Monica and I could get a day off. I think we will head up Hwy. 49 towards Nevada City. Maybe we will stop by Weiss Bros. nursery in Grass Valley. Other than that we will just enjoy having nothing [...]

Protecting your plants from the cold

We had frost just the other day. It burned the leaves on the figs and finished off the summer vegetable garden. The first frost always surprises and if you not careful you can lose that jade plant you brought up from The Bay Area. Jade plants are [...]

Train your vegies up.

I like to train my cucumbers, squash, melons, and other vining vegetables up using bamboo tee-pees. As the vine grows I just keep tucking the foliage into the tee-pee. The fruit develops of the ground and withing easy reach. this is a great method for vegetables grown in containers.

A new blog

This is the second blog for The Golden Gecko Garden Center. Our first blog “The Blogging Nurseryman” has become my way to address issues in the nursery business as well as other odds and ends I want to talk about. That being said we felt that we needed a new blog to discuss with you [...]