1. Plant artichoke from seeds or root divisions – basal shoots with roots attached – at this time. If you can grow a single artichoke plant, you can grow a whole yard full of them. Shoots that grow out of the base of the plant – when they have grown to eight inches in length and have roots of their own – can be separated from the mother plant in the fall or the spring and transplanted and then grow into producing plants in three to four months time. While you wait for the edible flower buds to appear, you can enjoy the artichoke’s deeply cut, silvery foliage which is on display throughout the year. An artichoke can produce a crop for six years but, meanwhile, you will have propagated many new plants from it before its demise.
2. It’s not too late to plant California wildflowers and see them bloom this year. Plant them where nothing else will grow and you could be in for a pleasant surprise. They do not need to be fussed with as most of them will germinate on the soil surface or just beneath it as long as they do not dry out once germination occurs. After scattering the seed, walk on it so that it makes contact with the soil. If you wish, you can cover the seeds with a very thin layer of fast-draining soil or planter mix to protect from desiccation and from birds. The Theodore Payne Foundation nursery in Sun Valley (theodorepayne.org) has over a hundred species of wildflower seeds from which to choose.
3. There are four plants that spread wantonly in my sunny frontyard and you may wish to consider planting them in yours this spring for long-lasting color displays. The first is Pervuian lily (Alstrroemeria sp). It proliferates not only by seeds but by underground rhizomes as well. It completely disappears in the winter but comes to life more vigorously than ever each successive spring. Flowers are pink (and this is the cultivar that spreads most readily), red, purple, orange, or yellow and have a vase life of two weeks.
Montbretia (Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora) spreads both by ever-expanding clumps, thanks to its bulb-like corms, and by seed. It is extremely durable and you can be sure whether you plant a corm or scatter its seeds, it will grow without any additional effort on your part. Its sword-like leaves grow three feet tall and its flowers – borne alternately on two-foot stalks at 30 blooms per stalk, are narrow trumpets that blare in fiery oranges and reds. I have two memorable perennials whose seeds sprout at will throughout the garden. One is pride of Madeira (Echium candicans), with huge wands of purplish blue flowers. The best venue locally to view these plants is on the bluff that overlooks the old casino building on Catalina Island, where they grow in great profusion.
The other seed-scattering perennial is upright myrtle spurge (Euphorbia rigida). This succulent is presently showing off domed chartreuse flower clusters, but its eye-catching, chalk-blue stems and pointed leaves add a pleasing touch to every garden bed all year long.
4. If you do not have a yard or a patio but still want to grow vegetables, you can do so with grow lights as long as you are aware of the distance needed between lights and plants for your project to be a success. A reader sent me photos of tomato seedlings that were growing indoors that had turned completely yellow. The seedlings were under grow lights and, in such circumstances, either too little or too much artificial light had caused the leaves to yellow. As a general rule, grow lights should be positioned between two and four inches from foliage, with the lights being raised as the plants under them grow taller. If lights are further away, foliage is likely to turn yellow. By the same token, grow lights should be turned off at night (for at least eight hours) or leaf yellowing could also occur. If you do grow seedlings indoors, I would advise procuring a seedling heat mat for as little as $15 through online vendors. A seedling mat speeds up seed germination as it does rooting of cuttings taken from herbs, ground covers, and fresh terminal shoot growth of many ornamentals.
5. When planting shrubs and trees, keep in mind that the hole you dig should resemble a satellite dish; it should be three times the diameter of the root ball and the same depth. A plant’s feeder roots are confined to the top few inches of soil and this fact underscores the importance of applying and maintaining a layer of mulch that keeps these crucial roots cool and stress-free. When extracting the root ball from its container, make sure the roots growing in a circle have been untangled or pruned back. The root ball may need to be drastically reduced in size to remove all the tangles, but only in this way can you be sure that the roots remaining will grow straight and not just circle the planting hole and possibly cease to grow altogether. You may think you are doing harm to the plant by radically pruning its roots when in fact you will be giving it the best possible opportunity for root expansion.
Send questions, comments, and photos to joshua@perfectplants.com