Volume 36, Issue 2 March/April 2003 Julie Muhilly, Editor

Timely Garden Tips

2003 Saturday Seminar Schedule

New Scott’s Lawn Care Promotional Program

New Services/Introductions

New Information Center

Arbor Day – Plant a Tree!

Pruning. It’s time to prune your summer flowering shrubs (e.g., butterfly bushes). A good rule of thumb is to prune back by 1/3. Don’t prune spring flowering shrubs (e.g., forsythia) until after they bloom. You can cut branches for forcing to bring indoors for some early spring color.

Cool-Season Vegetables. Seed or seedlings can be put in around the first of April. These are asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, onions, peas, potatoes, turnips, garlic. Quick growing salad crops, such as lettuce, spinach and radishes can also be planted.

Summer Bulbs. Lillies, glads, dahlias, iris, etc., can be planted now. Make sure to add bone meal to the planting holes for good summer blooms. Start begonias, caladiums, callas, cannas, etc., in pots indoors on a sunny windowsill. Wait to plant them outside until all risk of frost is past. Both Moana locations have a good selection of the bulbs listed above.

Annuals. Start seeds of cool-season flowers and vegetables this month. Four to six weeks before the average date of the last frost (May 15 in the Truckee Meadows), start seeds indoors for warm-season annuals and vegetables (eggplant, melon, pepper, squash and tomatoes).

Vegetables. Two to four weeks before the last frost date, set out transplants of broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower. Protect plants from late frost for the first few weeks with floating row covers. Moana Nursery is now carrying Harvest-Guard Protective Garden Cover.

Attract Beneficial Wildlife. Encourage beneficial wildlife to stay around your garden and help control pests. Set shallow bowls or birdbath basins on the ground and fill them with water. Rinse and refill regularly.

Birdhouses. Remove old nests, clean the houses, and mount on poles or trees 6 to 20 feet from the ground.

Roses. Prune roses beginning on April 15, Tax Day. To prevent borer damage, seal each pruning cut with white glue. As the weather warms up, remove last year's mulch and leave the soil bare until hot weather arrives.

Ornamental Grasses. Trim ornamental grasses close to the ground before new growth starts. It helps to wrap an elastic cord around the whole clump and use a saw to cut the old stems below the cord.

Please excuse our dust . . .

New Information Centers at Both Stores

Moana Institute of Higher Learning

New Scott’s Lawn Care Program

Arbor Day is the last Friday of April – this year that makes the date April 25, 2003. Do you know your State tree(s)? You’ll find the answer somewhere in this Newsletter.

Professional Answers. . . Professional Results!

We have a new Information Center with an expanded customer self-service counter with reference books, TV monitor with endless loop VHS tapes on various subjects, free Information Sheets, Plant of the Month, Pest of the Month, and Weed of the Month. The expanded self-service Information Center will be manned with our new Consulting Horticulturist on Fridays at the Moana Lane store and on Saturdays at South Virginia.

As the snow’s been falling and the plants are sleeping – we’ve been learning! Our retail teammates have been participating in Moana’s unique new training program to better serve our valued customers. With product knowledge and in-house training seminars, our teammates are ready and able to answer your questions with clear, concise answers. Stop in soon and test them out!

Spring is here! Do you want that thicker, greener, weed-free lawn this year? Then stop by Moana Nursery to get Scotts Super Turf Builder products. Locally, they’re only available at Moana Nursery’s two locations; you’ll also find Scotts Lawn Pros there - - graduates of the Scotts Training Institute - - with expert advice on growing a beautiful lawn in our high desert climate. Make it easy to have that perfect lawn this year. Visit either Moana Nursery location for exclusive Scott’s products and ask our Scotts Lawn Pros today!

So you have just moved into your new home and you can’t figure out what the previous owner was trying to achieve in the yard. "Why is that Colorado Blue Spruce taking over the front door? Is that a utility shed buried under the honeysuckle or is it a greenhouse? Is that funny little plant in the corner of the yard a flower or a weed? Should I kill it or fertilize it?"

At Moana Nursery, we hope to help you overcome your confusion. You first need to get an idea of what you want the yard to look like in the long-run. The spruce may have to come out. A good tree service can help you there. The honeysuckle may just need a good pruning. If you need help identifying a plant, bring a cutting with leaves and flowers if possible to one of our stores and we will I.D. it for you. If it turns out to be a weed, we will help you get rid of it. If it is a flower, we can offer tips on care.

Now it’s time to add your own touches. Maybe you would like a tree to shade the patio. A few flowers along the sidewalk might be nice. Now ask yourself the all-important questions. How much sun will it get? How is the soil? Do I want flowering or evergreen? How big do I want it to be later on? Am I an avid gardener or couch potato? Time and time again we hear, "But I’ll only be there a few years." That is probably the reason why the spruce was threatening to take over your living room!

Once you have answered those few preliminary questions, we can help you find the right plant material. Our staff is always happy to help. In the end you will have the perfect garden to match your perfect new home.

Moana Nursery announces two new customer services with the addition of two well-known local horticulture and nursery team members. We are pleased to welcome Ron Gustafson and Zac O’Neal to our award winning team. They will help us kick-off two new areas of service to our customers.

Ron will provide actual at-your-site assistance for local homeowners and businesses desiring a professional and knowledgeable evaluation of their unique landscape needs. Ron will also be available one day per week at each of our locations to provide his expertise and schedule individual visits with you. Ron will fill the gap between the always strong in-store advice given by our nursery and garden center teammates and our full blown architectural design and professional landscape installation services. For $75.00 hourly fee that can be refunded on the purchase of your green goods, Ron will provide our customers with his years of local knowledge and significant horticulture, garden, landscape and exterior design expertise.

For the "do-it-yourselfer" we believe this assistance will be invaluable. "Northern Nevada is a difficult environment for the successful green thumb and, after many years in the business, I will be able to directly help our Moana Nursery customers, in their own yards, to achieve the garden or landscape they want and deserve," said an excited Ron Gustafson.

Ron’s background will be familiar to most people in Northern Nevada as he headed up the University’s Extension Service as the horticulturist and agent-in-charge; but his real fame comes from his regular TV appearances and his weekly newspaper column. Further, he has taught extensively in the nursery certification and Master Gardener programs. Ron has 36 years of experience working with our local weather, soils, plants, insects and more. He has a BS degree in Landscape Design and Nursery Management and an MS degree in Turf Management; he also has arborist, pesticide and water auditing credentials.

The second new service from Moana Nursery is designed for the professional landscaper who purchases from the large and immediate selection of green goods, rock, mulch and more available at both Moana locations or takes advantage of Moana Nursery’s large wholesale growing grounds in Canby, Oregon. These knowledgeable landscape customers need special assistance to be able to provide service and quality to their customers; and Zac O’Neal has put together a team of Moana employees to focus on their unique requirements. We want to make our nursery an easy and convenient place to go for the many fine landscapers in the local communities – nearly a one-stop experience. By adding Zac and his team, we believe we can be their favored partner in delivering a quality product. Zac has extensive nursery and landscape experience and can be a quality resource for our landscape customers, providing a depth of knowledge assistance and value not available elsewhere.

We are very excited to have both Ron and Zac join our growing team of experienced nursery professionals and horticulturists. We think it says a lot about our Moana Nursery green goods selection and quality when the majority of professional landscape contractors purchase their plants from us!

If the whole idea of landscaping and developing your dream garden is overwhelming to you, don’t forget Moana Nursery has it’s own residential Landscape Department complete with everything you’ll need from architectural design to professional installation services available. We can do it all for you!

If your lawn is covered with gray snow mold and/or winter debris, rake it off. Early to mid-spring is the time to aerate your lawns to allow for better water penetration. Aerate lawns using a rental machine or hand-held aerator that removes plugs of soil; rake up the plugs and put them on the compost pile or leave them in place to decompose. Keep the grass well watered, especially along sidewalks and edges. You can feed your lawn this month with a high nitrogen fertilizer such as ammonium sulfate, Scott’s Turf Super Builder. This is the second best time of the year to seed or sod a new lawn. (September is the best) To control crabgrass and dandelion seeds before they sprout, apply pre-emergent. Scott’s Super Turf Builder plus 2 weed control is a good choice for that job. A little preparation now will give you a GREAT looking lawn all summer.

This season Moana Rock adds to it’s extensive decorative and construction rock, soil, mulch, sands selection; we will carry a new line of products including:

Tree Land is restocking weekly now as the season rapidly approaches. Tom Jones, General Manager at South Virginia, tells me we have outstanding specimen Austrian Pines and Colorado Blue Spruces. We also have a "Special Sale" section in Tree Land featuring a good selection of deciduous and flowering trees ready for spring.

We are receiving new indoor plants weekly. Come see our Greenhouse fully stocked with lots of exotic plants, large specimen indoor trees, beautiful orchids and colorful blooming plants that are sure to satisfy your spring fever!

Our seminars are FREE and conducted by our friendly and knowledgeable staff and local garden experts. Seminars will be held at the Moana Lane location at 10:00 am. It is recommended that you sign up for the seminars as space is limited. Refreshments will be served.

Ron Gustafson, Consulting Horticulturist, Moana Nursery

New to the area? This is the one seminar you shouldn’t miss if you are new to the Truckee Meadows. Ron will be discussing the HOSTILE CLIMATE in Northern Nevada. Discussions will include soils and how to work with them, water and how to best use it, and the climate that we deal with. The discussion will also look at some of the plants, planting and care of same.

Robert Desmond, Landscape Architect, Moana Nursery

Moana’s own Landscape Architect will help you to visualize your project, assemble base information, analyze the site, develop a design including principles and elements of design, balancing hardscape and softscape, other design components and implement the project.

Ron Gustafson, Consulting Horticulturist, Moana Nursery

Ron will be discussing types and kind of grass varieties, planting and soils, and maintenance such as aeriation, dethatching, mowing, fertilization, watering, and pest control.

Catherine Hancock, Master Gardener, Reno, NV

Catherine has gardened in this area for 45 years and has been instrumental in the beautification of downtown Reno. She will share her tips and tricks with you for keeping the bugs at bay while still maintaining the integrity of the earth.

(State Trees: Singleleaf Piñon and Bristlecone Pine)
 

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