As the heat becomes more intense, water becomes critical to you and your plants. Adjust your watering times to provide adequate water without wasting this precious resource.

If your lawn has a significant slope, look at the water flow pattern at least once a month. Adjust the clock on your automatic sprinkler system to make sure you don’t water to the point of runoff. Water pouring sown the gutter doesn’t do a thing to make your grass grown. Try watering for two shorter intervals an hour or two apart to get the needed water penetration. On a level lawn, aim for a water schedule of one-half to one hour once a week with the water going sown 6 to 10 inches and thus encouraging a deep root system for your grass.

Lawns should be aerated (cored/drilled) once a year preferably in April but any time is better than not at all. The device used for aerating should remove a plug about one-half inch in diameter and at least 3 inches long. These plugs should be raked up and composted or disposed of. Do not, under any circumstances, make holes in your lawn with spike shoes. These shoes with nail-like protrusions make holes but wedge the soil around themselves making it even more difficult for water to penetrate. A one-quarter inch ‘top-dressing’ of Gold Rush or Bumper Crop will help fill the holes with porous organic matter and will stimulate growth of the lawn. The use of gypsum on an established lawn is of questionable value.

Lightly fertilizing the lawn once a month will keep it green and fresh looking. If your leave the grass clippings on the lawn, you can reduce your fertilizer usage by 30 to 50 percent. This will not increase thatch which is a mixture of roots and stems.

Lawns should also be dethatched manually or by machine every two years to facilitate water penetration. Lawn care professionals recommend against using fertilizers which contain only Nitrogen such as sulphate of ammonia of Urea. Instead, use a fertilizer which contains high Nitrogen plus some potassium and phosphorus. Ideally, for the Bay Area, the fertilizer will also contain some sulfur and iron.

An ideal spring treatment would be to: dethatch, aerate, fertilize, top dress and then water thoroughly. This treatment will provide maximum water penetration for the following year and stimulate an immediate greening of the lawn.

Interested in where your veggies come from? What to use heritage or hard to find vegetables or herbs you see on the cooking shows? Want to just supplement what you get at the Farmer’s Market?

Then a home vegetable garden is for you!

Home-grown used to be the norm, but now it is becoming a status symbol. The vegetable garden is again coming back into vogue, but with a difference.

Gardens have become smaller. You also probably want to maintain your look of your backyard or patio. So look at the veggie patch in a different way---
• Plant vegetables and herbs that are decorative as well as productive. Parsley, kale, lettuce and beetroot, for example, can create a wonderful foliage effect in the garden if planted correctly.
• Put an herb garden in your kitchen window box.

The best thing about your own herbs and vegetables is the taste. Planting tomatoes in pots so they can be harvested and eaten right away is a treat. It’s easy, and fun.

And don’t forget fruit trees. Combine a little shade in your yard with fruit you can harvest and enjoy. Bare root trees can be ordered for 2007 through our SOFT order program. Get those exotic or hard to find varieties and put them in your own backyard.

The deciduous crape myrtle is among the longest blooming trees in existence with flowering periods lasting from 60-120 days. Crapes come in heights as short as 18 inches and as tall as 40 feet. Leaves are alternate and smooth, but leaf size depends on variety. Flowers are borne in summer in big showy clusters and come in white and many shades of pink, purple, lavender and red. Depending on variety, crapes grow as large shrubs or as trees that may be either upright or spreading. Large varieties are very fast growing and can put on several feet in a single growing season.
Many of our most popular crapes myrtle varieties available for sale these days are hybrids from a series created by the U.S. National Arboretum known as the Indian Tribe group. These are noted for mildew resistance and improved hardiness and are named for native American tribes. 'Cherokee' is a shrubby variety with a loose open form and red flowers. 'Tuskegee' has a spreading form with dark pink flowers. 'Miami' blooms later in the season and also has dark pink flowers. 'Seminole, another later bloomer, has blossoms of medium pink. 'Tuscarora' is a rampant grower with orangy pink blooms, 'Potomac' is pink and 'Tonto' is very dark pink - and so on through an extensive palette. Choose plants in summer while they are blooming so you can pick just the shade of color that you are looking for.
The common name of this plant is crape myrtle not crepe myrtle. It is called this because the flowers have crinkly petals that resemble the material called crepe (which according to Webster is a "light crinkled fabric woven of any of various fibers") but many references tell us that you're supposed to spell it crape when it's in front of myrtle.

Name: Maria Barajas
Position at Wegman's: Cashier
Hobbies: Surfing the Internet
Favorite food: Mexican and Italian
Favorite plant or flower: Daphne 'Odora'
Favorite garden center product: House plants
Any message to the customers: "Enjoy life, keep smiling and keep coming to Wegman's Nursery."