You said to wait until April 15th......

I know......we always ask you not to prune your roses until April 15th.............and during our upcoming hands-on workshops we will explain why....but.......

Do not try this at home!!!!! Actually, you might have a rose that kinda looks like this one. Old and overgrown, but it still produced the most amazing display of white roses all summer. If Niagara Falls spilled flowers, it would remind you of this rose. We have been asked at least a 1000 times what kind of rose it is. We have recruited ARS judges to help us, we have had at least 25 serious rosearians look at it, we asked the original owners of The Flower Tree, and we did research over and over to try and find out the exact species. We gladly handed out cuttings to any and all that requested them in the hopes that they might bring us back a plant to share. In spring every year we would give it a slight haircut, prune out the dead stuff we could reach, and cared for it with worm castings, fresh organic compost once and awhile but generally didn't do much more with it. With the decision to plant the rest of the beds that surround it this year, and the class when we would do it coming up fast, we decided to tackle it last Sunday.

Michelle and I gathered the tools - large pruners, loppers, gauntlet gloves, rakes and even a shovel to remove another grass that had outgrown it's spot. We spent the better part of the afternoon cutting and stopping - standing back and looking again....and then.....oh my! the haircut this lovely beauty received.

Another before shot..........

A beautiful bud, just filled with the promise of spring...........

The end of the day. Not totally finished. We knew it was going to take a little more pruning to totally get it into shape for the next few years, but the basics are all done. We went from a 7 foot wide, 4 foot high solid mass of thorns and branches.....and reduced it to about 12 major canes.

But here is the best part.......................look real close...........you will see an original Jackson & Perkins tag. Yes!!! Not only do we know now exactly what rose this is...........it is still available. The suspense is gonna kill ya isn't it........

To be continued.................................... see ya soon, Susan

Grimes Point

Every once and awhile, if you are lucky like I am, you get to spend the day out hiking with friends. Such was the case last Wednesday when the three of us - Me, Linny & Charmaine, headed out to Grimes Point. For those of you not familiar with our desert area, Grimes Point is just east of Fallon and contains one of the largest and most accessible petroglyph sites in the United States. There are hundreds of boulders with petroglyphs inscribed in them and most are believed to be over 5000 years old. Managed by the Bureau of Land Management, there are trails that wind all around through the area and over the last 20 years or so, I have been on most of them.

This day wasn't about looking for petroglyphs though. We were headed out for a picnic and just some plain old good quality time with friends. I can attest that we achieved both. After a slow gentle climb up the side of the mountain, we found the bench and display signs that had been placed there for our education, and we settled down for a feast of Danish Blue Cheese, crunchy french bread, apples and oranges, artichoke pesto, pepper spread, and ginger snaps. We munched for an hour or so, all the while filling each other in on what had been occurring in our lives since we last met. The wind was non-existent, a true blessing for this area, and the sun was shining brightly. After a quick photo stop, we headed back down the mountain, belly's and spirits full. The thoughts and memories will keep me full until we get the chance again. Take care, Susan

Churchill Arts Council

Over $20,000 was raised last weekend at the annual Churchill Arts Council fundraiser. It was a great time, and we came home with two new pieces of art, and a stack of poetry books from the silent auction. La Fiesta did a wonderful job of catering, and a fun time was had by all in our group. (Me, Shelley and Jaime)

Top Chef .. Fallon style

Ryan Scott, a contender on the Bravo TV program Top Chef /Chicago, has been visiting with his old friend, and mentor, Steve Hernandez. Steve is the owner with his wife Peggy of one of our loveliest new additions to Fallon in a long long time, The Slanted Porch restaurant. We have the privilege of being located right next door to to this great place, and where Ryan is displaying some of his creative culinary art, so.........last week for our Friday wine tasting at Red Zinnia he decided to bring over some fabulous appetizers that he had paired with the wines we were serving that evening. After the 12 or 14 plates that had arrived, filled with wonderful delicacies had been consumed, he stopped and chatted it up with some of our regulars. Even signed some autographs for some of our star struck wine connoisseurs. Peggy was on hand to help and we managed to keep her out of the restaurant for a short period of time.

We are hoping to see more of him in the weeks ahead as he bounces between Fallon and San Francisco on the search for a location for his new restaurant. That is - in between when he will be appearing on The Ellen Show, with stop offs in New York and other locations doing radio spots as spokesperson for Morningstar Foods. He is a busy young man, who's energy is contagious.

Nevada Landscape Trade Show

Catching up on some posts after I finally downloaded my camera. This is Karen Rockwood and I at the Norman's booth during the Nevada Landscape show up in Reno last month. Norman's supplies us with a large amount of the trees and shrubs that we sell at the nursery. Most years we have been able to get over the hill in February to choose our own trees, but this year with the storms we had to rely on Karen to pick us out the best she could find. I am happy to report she did a great job. We have worked with her for the entire 8 years we have owned the nursery, and have always been impressed with her quiet and professional demeanor. We are hoping to get back over the hill to the nursery again soon. Somehow meeting at the trade show wasn't nearly as fun as touring around the 100's of acres on the golf cart.

And they call the wind..................trouble!

I don't know about you, but I don't really like the wind much anymore. I used to.....I would fly a kite as a kid, I would listen to the chimes in the trees out back make their beautiful music, I would watch the kite surfers sail across the waves when we would visit the kids in Ventura, I would watch the trees bend and dance in the breeze..............all this was before I bought a nursery.

Now, not so much. Yesterdays wind storm played some major havoc at the store. Thankfully for us my husband is pretty good about watching the weather, so last Saturday he worked the entire day putting away the roughly 800 trees that we got in on Friday. He had seen the system that was moving in and thought it would be a good idea to get them all tucked into their places and tied up before the winds and "wishful" rain showed up. Wise man! However, while he got most all of them put away, we didn't get them all tied up until yesterday, in the middle of the storm. No rain! just wind....and more wind....and yet more wind. Marlea and I were outside most of the entire day tying them all down and getting them watered in. Michelle stopped by for a class that she is doing with the local high school and helped us out quite a bit, all of us laughing that we only had to go home and add a little water to our faces and we would have an expensive "mud mask" all set to go.

By the time 5 rolled around and we went to close the gate most all the trees were tightly tied up, watered in and ready for what would come later. But the rest of the nursery was showing some damage. The gazebo out front was on it's side. Most of the banners on the front gate were torn and blowing in the breeze, trees that were out in displays were on their sides and empty pots that had been carefully stacked in the recycling area were blowing about in the parking lot. Oh, and the greenhouse roof, yep, panels were flying.

Last night as I sat and read my book and listened to the noise outside as not one, but many branches were breaking on my own trees here at home, I could only wonder, what we will find this morning as we open the gates.

March winds in Fallon.....you think we would be prepared for them, but every year....oh my!

Pruning with Jay

This last Saturday found us gathering in the slightly chilly "Green Room" for another informative class, this time on pruning. Jay Davison, our Area Soil specialist with the UNR Co-operative Extension office was on hand for the 8th year in a row to teach us the ins and outs of pruning just about everything. We covered fruit trees, shade trees, hedges, perennials.....you name it. After an hour inside, we headed out front to do some pruning on the flowering crabapple 'Florabunda' that is by the front door of the gift shop. He started in, and I cringed a little at the the thought of loosing all those beautiful buds that would be opening in the next month. I gathered up branches and passed them to all that wanted to take some home to force inside the house and enjoy now. Jay finally "felt my pain" though and stopped the actually pruning, and showed me where to do the cuts after it blooms. So, you will see me out there sometime in late April taking care of the rest of the pruning that this particular beauty needs.
It was out back to the display garden next to take a look at the old apple tree that he has been working on for the last 7 years or so. A little bit each year, he takes some branches off and checks to see for the overall health of his old tree. This year he found a bug infestation of scale that was never there before, so the dormant oil, an organic way to control the bugs, will be coming out of the storage room and the tree will get a good soaking this week.

After the class was over, it was on to the worm bin to open it up and check on it's progress. There are what seems to me to be thousands and thousands of worms tucked under the lid. I can't wait for Darren Murphy, from Sierra Worm Solutions to come back out in the early summer to help us harvest our first crop of castings. He is the one that installed the system for us and is the local "go to" guy for all worm related things in this area. We will be having another seminar with him soon, so watch your emails for updates.The day turned out to be a beautiful one. Slightly cool, but the sun was shining and no big winds to speak of. Bob was busy on the forklift most of the day putting away all the trees we just got in. It looks so great to see the nursery filling up with all the promise of spring.

See you soon, Susan