Santa Cruz Garden

If your Santa Cruz home needs beautifying, vines can be the answer to your landscaping questions.

• Vines can be used to screen unattractive features. Whether it’s the neighbor’s mess, an alley or whatever, you can hide it from view with vines grown on a fence or trellis. If it’s a retaining wall you want to hide, you can plant vines above it to cascade down and transform the area.

• Create shade quickly. If you have too much sun at your Santa Cruz home and don’t want to wait several years for trees to grow, erect an arbor and plant vines to grow over it. If it’s big enough, consider placing a bench or picnic table underneath and have an oasis for gatherings.

Here are some perennial vines to consider:

• Clematis is a…

Is there anything more enchanting than having hummingbirds visit your Santa Cruz real estate? These tiny creatures are the size of a large bug. Their lightning speed, amazing hovering abilities and threadlike tongues are a marvel to behold.

Here are some ways to make your Santa Cruz real estate attractive to hummingbirds:

1. Hang hummingbird feeders. This is the quickest method.
 Make it sweet. Fill your feeder with a simple solution made of one part white sugar to four parts water.
 Don’t use honey. Solutions made with honey will ferment and can kill hummingbirds.
 Keep it clean. Rinse the feeder before every refilling, and wash it periodically. Be sure to rinse the soap out very thoroughly. Once a month, disinfect with hydrogen…

April begins gardening season, the time we get antsy to start working the soil, thinking about fertilizing the lawn and planting flowers in our Santa Cruz home.

Whether you’re preparing your Santa Cruz home to put it up for sale or just doing general maintenance and upkeep, here is your to-do list:

Annuals and Containers:

• Deadhead flowers to promote more blooms.
• Clean and sanitize summer containers, and plan your design for the summer.
• Plant summer annuals after the last frost.  Bring them indoors or cover with a cloth during a late cold snap.
• Start seeds indoors for annual herbs.
• Plant annual herbs such as basil and cilantro after the last frost.

Lawn:

• Raking should be your first task of spring lawn care. This…

Preventive maintenance is crucial to the value and upkeep of your home.  Keeping your Santa Cruz real estate in great shape with regular check-ups will save you the headache and cost of emergency repairs.

Here are six items to add to your outdoor spring maintenance checklist:

1. Clean the Gutters:  Gutters work best when clean and free of gunk.  Check yours for foliage, tree limbs, etc., especially if trees hang over the roof.

2. Make sure the downspouts are clean:  They should point at least two feet away from foundation walls.

3. Check exterior paint: Look for chipped, cracked paint.  Scrape off any failing paint, sand it down, prime the surface, and paint it with a high-quality, low-VOC exterior paint.

4. Brighten your Santa…

Flowering shrubs add interest to any landscape and early spring is an ideal time to plant them. Shrubs are relatively maintenance free. Once you plant them, they are a perennial source of beauty.

Keep these tips in mind as you plan how to dress up your Santa Cruz home with shrubs.

• Plan ahead. Make sure you know how tall your chosen shrub will grow. Don’t place a tall selection in front of a window where it will block your view.

• Coordinate colors. Consider how well the color of your new shrub’s flowers will complement the color of any established flowers that will be blooming nearby at the same time.

• Go for fragrance. Flower color is not the only thing to consider. What could be nicer than having the scent of lilacs wafting…

You’ve heard about the plight of honey bees. But did you know there are 4,000 species of native bees in North America? Many of them are in peril due to habitat loss and pesticides. While they don’t produce honey, these insects are a vital part of our ecosystem. If the (non-native) honey bees continue to have troubles, we will need our native bees more than ever to pollinate our crops and gardens.

The vast majority of native bees are solitary rather than social insects. Unlike honey bees and bumble bees, each female has her own nest, so you don’t need to fear the possibility of being attacked by the colony. Solitary bees are docile and do not have the painful sting of honey bees.

Here are some ways to welcome native pollinators to your Santa…

Sure, it’s still winter outside, but what could be better than dreaming of next summer in your garden? Now is the time to order your seeds, before the rush. Make 2012 the best year yet for gardening at your Santa Cruz home. Here are some advantages of ordering your seeds from home:

• Enjoy a wide selection. You’ll find a wide variety of seeds in seed catalogs, from heirlooms to hybrids. View page after page of vegetables in different varieties, with details on each one’s traits, giving you loads of options.

• Relax in your Santa Cruz home. No need to waste gas and fight the crowds next spring.

• Order online. Most seed catalogs have online ordering. What this means is, if you know a particular cultivar you want, you can do an…

As a seller preparing to sell your Santa Cruz home, you may be busily emptying closets and painting walls, but don't forget about the outside of your house. Home buying is emotional and, like many emotional reactions, it can be heavily impacted by first impressions.

Here are some suggestions on how to encourage love at first sight by increasing the curb appeal of your Santa Cruz home:

• Tidy up – You may be so used to seeing the crumbling stack of firewood by the garbage cans and the old paint cans by the shed that they fade into the landscape, but potential homeowners see the mess.  As you look at the outside of your house, think about what you can throw away or put out of sight. The broken swing on the tree actually takes away from the grandeur of…

All things must pass. No matter how the gardening at your Santa Cruz home went this year, it’s getting time to move on and change with the seasons. Here are some tips to help you:

• Dig those sweet potatoes. Harvest sweet potatoes before the first frost, or they will be ruined. If you wake up and find the frost has hit before you had the chance, run out there immediately and at least cut the vines off at the base of the plants. This may stop damage to the roots, but you still need to dig your sweets before the next frost. After digging, cure them by keeping them in a warm, dark place like the attic of your Santa Cruz home. This sweetens them up and gets them ready for storage. After curing, store them somewhere that never goes below 40 degrees; they can…

Maybe your vegetable garden has been neglected lately. Take heart, fall will be here before you know it, and all things can be renewed! Here are some tips to get the garden at your Santa Cruz home reinvigorated.

• Pick a cool morning. Don’t try going out there on a hot, sticky afternoon. Watch the weather and plan ahead. Be ready to get out there early.

• Make an evaluation. First things first. Do you have harvested corn stalks that need to be removed to make room for late short-season crops? Do the tomatoes need some compost? Need to replenish mulch? Make an inventory of tasks and prioritize.

• Tackle those weeds.  If you’re like most of us, chances are there are some weed problems in your Santa Cruz home garden this time of year.  Don’t try to pull…