Napa

by Penny Pawl, UC Master Gardener of Napa County One of my favorite drought-tolerant plants is the smoke bush (Cotinus coggygria). This wonderful bush is sometimes called smoketree. It is native to southern Europe and temperate parts of Asia.

By Susanne von Rosenberg, UC Master Gardener of Napa County If you live in an older home, you likely inherited some amount of old landscaping.

By Susanne von Rosenberg, UC Master Gardener of Napa County Rainfall totals over the past 30 days range from a low of 8-1/2 inches in downtown Napa to more than 15 inches in parts of St. Helena and Angwin. You can check the rainfall totals near you on the One Rain Napa website.

By Susanne von Rosenberg, UC Master Gardener of Napa County One thing that Master Gardeners talk about a lot is putting the right plant in the right place. That means choosing plants adapted to the climate, to the soil in your garden and to the amount of sunlight and water they will receive.

By Penny Pawl, UC Master Gardener of Napa County Fall and winter are great times to do sheet composting in your garden. So just what is sheet composting and what are the benefits? Some people call it smothering, sheet mulching or lasagna composting.

By Susanne von Rosenberg, UC Master Gardener of Napa County One of the pleasures of gardening is having the freshest possible ingredients available for cooking. Another one, if you do it right, is saving money.

By Penny Pawl, UC Master Gardener of Napa County Three years ago, I wrote an article about creating African keyhole worm-compost bins in my garden beds. This summer it was time to harvest compost from two of the bins.

By Penny Pawl, UC Master Gardener of Napa County As you drive around Napa Valley at this time of year, you see many beautiful shrubs and trees blooming in a varieties of colors. One standout is crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia), which has been imported from Asia, India and Australia.

By Susanne von Rosenberg, UC Master Gardener of Napa County Some gardening advice seems so sensible or obvious, or has been repeated so often, that we know it to be true. As gardeners, we need to be careful about falling prey to myths.

By Susanne von Rosenberg, UC Master Gardener of Napa County It's been impossible not to notice how different our fall season is from what we were used to in the past. Rains come four to six weeks later, if they come at all.