Frosty times have arrived in Flagstaff. The forecast says that most evenings will dip to or just below freezing, so it’s time to talk about what to do in your garden (and how to save those last veggies and tomatoes in your fall harvest).

First off – the frosts of fall are not as threatening to your garden as those unexpected freezes we get in the spring. Your perennials and shrubs won’t be devastated – this is part of the natural ebb and flow of the seasons for perennials, so most likely the frosts will just put them “to sleep” for the winter a little sooner.

You do want to ensure that your plants are well watered prior to a frost to protect them.

As far as veggie gardens go, you can protect plants with frost cloth when the temps get down to the 30s, but if you are trying to harvest, now’s the time to get those last tomatoes and green peppers indoors and let them ripen in the cozy warmth of your home.

A few tips on ripening veggies inside.

• Pick any full-size peppers or tomatoes that are green
• Pick an area of your home that’s a bit dark (a laundry room, an insulated garage or even your kitchen as long as you remember to keep your veggies covered).
• Make sure your veggies are a couple of inches apart. Why? Because if any of them ripens too quickly and begins to rot, it’ll spread to the other veggies.
• Cover with newspaper.
• Check on them frequently as they will ripen quickly.
• Enjoy when fully ripened!

Other miscellaneous things to do as the weather gets colder: Deadhead your spent perennials and collect the seeds. Apply mulch, which will help insulate plants in the colder weather. And get into the habit of unhooking your hoses from spigots at night so your pipes don’t freeze. You may need to drain your hoses after use as well.

Hope you are enjoying this beautiful fall and the cooler temps!

Happy gardening,
Misti

This week it officially became Fall – and that means lots to do for gardeners.

I know some of you are ready to pack up your trowels and call it a season, but this is the perfect time to extend the season and enjoy some more quality time outside.

But what exactly does fall gardening look like?

The threat of a freeze is always looming, so I’ll be honest with you – you’ll likely lose your “non-hardy” annuals. In fact, if you’d like to save any of them, I’d suggest cleaning them up and moving them inside.

But you can replace them with some fall favorites like mums, asters, flowering cabbage and kale, all of which will keep your garden looking beautiful for several more weeks. Meanwhile, spring blooms like pansies and violas have made a reappearance and aren’t threatened by a little cold weather – or even snow!

If you haven’t yet, make sure you get those spring-blooming bulbs into the ground before the freeze. Plus there’s still time to plant some cold-season veggies.

Fall is also a great time to get trees and perennials planted. I know the temptation might be to wait until next year, but there are a lot of advantages to getting them into the ground now. You’ll get more growth out of the plant next year if they are planted in the fall. Also, there’s less up-front care that is required when you plant this time of year.

The bottom line is any excuse to be outside gardening during this beautiful season is a good thing!

Hope you are enjoying your Fall and we hope to see you soon at Warner’s Nursery.

Happy Gardening,
Misti

Don’t let summer end too soon.

Now with the current weather, I know it might seem ridiculous to remind you that it’s still summer. It’s been in the mid-80s most days and that kind of heat is probably all the reminder you need.

The thing is, there seems to be a shift that happens in August, particularly if you have school-age kids. They go back to class and we let summer slip away. Summer isn’t just about a set number of days on the calendar; I think it’s a state of mind as well.

While the weather is still warm and the flowers are still blooming, make sure to take advantage of the outdoors and your backyard or patio. Savor these last easy going, relaxing days and store up your great summer memories. Before you know it, the leaves will turn and the snow will fall.

Here  are some ideas of things to do to enjoy these last weeks before gearing up for the fall:

1. 1. Backyard picnic – When is the last time you pulled out a blanket, gathered everyone around and enjoyed some nice “al fresco” dining in your own backyard? If you’ve been growing veggies, you probably have lots of super fresh food to enjoy, which you can pair with a nice glass of wine or some ice tea or lemonade.
   2. Barbeque – With the monsoons lessening the wildfire danger, now is a great time to have a barbeque and it’s a great excuse to gather the kids in the backyard for a few games while dinner is on the grill.
   3. Unplug – Give yourself a digital detox by spending some time outside and off your phone, tablet or computer. And, by the way, that means no headsets or earbuds. Go outside, listen to birds and leaves in the wind, and take your eyes off that screen. There’s more to life than the Internet. Bonus points if you strike up a conversation with another human being. 🙂
   4. Freshening up the garden – Most of your garden is probably doing fine, but it’s likely that some of your annuals have either exhausted their blooms. Grab a few six packs of things like portulaca or diamond frost euphorbia and use them to patch up sections of your garden. They are great late summer plants and can tolerate any end of season hot spells we get.
   5. Watch a sunset. We are blessed with some amazing summer skies to enjoy in northern Arizona. Find a spot and take a moment to really enjoy them.
   6. Join us for FLAVOR. Before summer ends, Warner’s Nursery will be the venue for a brand spanking new event, the FLAVOR Northern Arizona Food and Wine Festival. It’s a great way to learn more about local wine (and mead!) makers, brewers, restaurants and our good friends at the Sweet Shoppe Candy Store. Music and more, all on our beautiful grounds at Warner’s. You can learn more about it here.
   7. Spend every moment you can outside. No, summer isn’t over, but it is in limited supply. The days are getting shorter, the temperatures will soon drop and the holidays will be here before you know it. So make hay while the summer sun shines.

Happy gardening,
Misti

We at Warner’s have been providing gardening help to generations of Northern Arizona residents for almost 50 years and in that time, there are questions that are just like perennials – they keep coming up every year. What are the best times to plant trees? How do you deal with garden pests? How much sunshine or shade does this plant or that one like?

But most often the questions turn to watering, particularly when it comes to trees and shrubs. So here’s a compilation of the questions we get most frequently about making sure your trees and shrubs have enough moisture not only to survive, but thrive.

How often should I water? Here are some general guidelines for trees and shrubs:

• For the first three weeks of a new tree or shrub, you’ll want to water at least once a day with a slow drip for at least 20 to 30 minutes. If it’s particularly warm or dry, you’ll want to make that two or three times a day.
• After the first month, switch to once every other day until the winter.
• Trees don’t really fully establish their root systems until four years in, so in years two and three, you’ll want to water two to three times a week during the spring through the fall, dropping down to once a week after the tree is established.
• During the winter, your watering can drop off to about once every three to four weeks.

Is it absolutely necessary to water in the winter? Isn’t the snow enough? Winter watering cannot be avoided. Snowfall should not be counted on for winter moisture; we could get a 3-foot snowstorm two months into the season, but those drier earlier months are enough to damage a newly planted tree or shrub. Also, keep in mind that a foot of snow might only work out to an inch of melted water, which might evaporate as quickly as it melts and not reach the bottom half of the root ball.

Can’t I just throw a five-gallon bucket of water on all of my plants? It is important to do a long deep soak instead of quick and heavy watering which the root ball doesn’t soak in very well (an hour soak is ideal). Our highly porous soil requires that slow trickle so that water doesn’t run off.

Will plants survive using reclaimed water or well water? Using reclaimed water is nice, but any well water or grey water has to be tested for salts and hard minerals. These elements can kill a tree over time if they build up in the soil.

I have a drip system, is it safe to leave town for a while after my plants are planted? Drip systems aren’t foolproof. Timers fail, malfunctions happen, hoses occasionally disconnect. So if you need to leave town, make sure someone is checking that your new tree/shrub is getting thoroughly soaked and your timer is running properly.

Do I still have to water if it rains? YES. Unless it rains consistently for 5-6 hours in the day, you have to deep soak. A typical monsoon lasts less than an hour and only wets the top 4 inches of the soil.

If you have any questions on watering – or any other gardening issues – please feel free to ask our experts here at Warner’s Nursery. We are happy to help.

Happy Gardening,
Misti Warner-Andersen

In my last blog, I talked about all the wonderful things that come with monsoon season – free water, cooler temps, a chance to practice some great conservation techniques like water harvesting.

But there is a downside. Hail.

Damaged caused by hail is just terrible, as anyone knows whose had hail damage to a car or house. It’s also horrible to gardens, often destroying in minutes the beautiful veggies or flowers you have been cultivating for weeks or months.

Truthfully, even really heavy rains can cause damage, so it’s fortunate that you can mitigate the threat that the weather poses – before, during and after the storm.

The best thing you can do beforehand is to get rid of any debris in your garden (which storm winds could turn into projectiles) and prune dead or weak branches. Your strategic cuts are far more preferable to a storm just stripping a plant willy-nilly. For some taller plants, you might want to also give them a little support by tying them to a metal or wooden stake.

When a storm hits, your best bet is to cover plants. I use frost cloth since it’s strong but breathable. This will not only protect all of your garden from hail, it will keep drought-tolerant plants from becoming water-logged.

If you have a greenhouse, you’ll want to put a tarp on that as well to protect the roof from hail damage. One year our nursery had terrible damage to our panels, so I speak from experience.

Your biggest job will be after the rain and hail are over – cleanup, checking over plants to assess damage, doing repairs where you can (or replacing plants that can’t be salvaged), and preventing problems that sometimes come up after a lot of wet weather.

• Check for visible roots, particularly with newer plantings. When heavy rains hit, soil around a plant can erode, so make sure the storm didn’t leave roots exposed and tamp down the soil around your plants.
• Check your containers for damage and make sure they are draining properly.
• Monsoons can bring with them moisture-loving fungus, powdery mildew, black spot and mushrooms. Spray your plants on a dry day to prevent these problems (particularly Aspen, which often succumb to black spot this time of year.)
• Mushrooms should just be pulled out, but only if you have pets or kids who will get into them. Otherwise they can be left.

I haven’t given up on loving monsoon season – plants are thirsty creatures and the water makes weeding your garden beds easier – but there are preventable issues that can come up with all that rain and hail. With some thought and care, you can protect your plants from the worst that the season has to offer – so you can spend more time enjoying the best.

Happy Gardening,
Misti Warner-Andersen

It hasn’t quite hit us yet, but we are right on the verge on Monsoon Season, with its cooler temps and welcome water.

We often talk in this space about being “water-wise” in our dry climate – things like using drip irrigation systems and selecting drought-resistant plants for your garden. Now, as the monsoon season starts, it’s time to take advantage of the weather by practicing rainwater harvesting.

There are lots of great reasons to harvest rainwater: lower water bills and general water conservation immediately spring to mind. But it’s also better for your plants since it’s not treated with any chemicals and it reduces soil erosion.

Rain barrels, which can be any container you use to catch water from a downspout, typically have a screen mesh to prevent debris from getting into the container and a spigot allowing you to attach your hose to the barrel and water your plants or grass.

You want to make sure your barrel is on a sturdy platform. Remember, unless you plan to install a pump, your rain barrel will be using gravity to move the water from the barrel through the hose and into your garden or yard, so the additional height will help increase the rate of flow.

Here are a few tips to make using a rain barrel safe and easy:

• You can use emitters and timers with your rain barrel system for distribution, but make sure they are for low-pressure systems. If you get parts that require 10 or 15 pounds of pressure per square inch (PSI), they will not work with your rain barrel.
• Make sure to keep your rain barrel clean; remove any debris that might block the screen mesh and clean the inside regularly to reduce algae growth.
• Keep your rain container out of direct sunlight. That will slow down evaporation of the rainwater you collect and also discourage mosquito breeding.
• Make sure no one drinks from this water. This water is great for your plants, but it’s not potable, so you might want to mark it so and take extra care that your kids and pets don’t try to drink from it.

Properly thought out and installed, rainwater harvesting can be great for you, your wallet and your garden.

Happy Gardening,
Misti Warner-Andersen