BY AMY BENTLY
Looking to brighten up your garden? There's no better time to go outside and dig in the dirt. In the spirit of the season we asked local gardeners for ideas on how to add color and pizzazz to your garden.
Joyce Dean
Background: The Redlands resident is a civil engineer, has always enjoyed gardening, and has judged many flower shows around Southern California.
Dean, her husband Chris and son are lifetime members of the Redlands Horticultural and Improvement Society.
(The group is holding its 96th annual flower show April 19-20 at 380 New York St., Redlands.)
How she became attracted to gardening: "You learn gardening from your parents. I guess I learned to like it from my mom. My husband is from New Jersey, and he used to go to flower shows with his mom."
Memorable gardening moments: "I love to plant something and see what comes from it." Dean likes to take cuttings that others give to her, plant them and watch them grow.
Favorites for spring planting and color: A fan of roses, Dean suggests gardeners seeking spring color look for some of the newer varieties of the Knockout rose, which has the look and feel of old Ragged Robin roses. Knockout shrub roses are more drought-tolerant, don't have to be dead-headed, and are more resistant to diseases that typically attack roses, such as black spot.
Bare-root roses that were sold at nurseries or garden centers during the winter have been potted at the store by now. Dean suggests buying them in the pot and trying them out in different locations of the yard — while they are still in the pot — to see where they do the best.
For instant color in April and May, she suggests marigolds, daylilies, gazanias, begonias, Shasta daisies and other African daisies. Plant purple and white agapanthus for blooms as early as May.
Jack Christensen
Background: Biology teacher at Chaffey High School in Ontario and longtime gardening columnist. Formerly worked for Armstrong Nursery in Ontario and has developed 81 different roses for the company. Has a Bachelor of Science degree in botany.
How he became attracted to gardening: "I grew up with plants. When I was just a tiny kid, maybe 5 years old, my grandmother took me to a nursery to pick up a flowering plant for Mother's Day. I had never seen an amaryllis before. It was really pretty and this made an impression on me."
Memorable gardening moments: "When I worked for Armstrong Nursery, beside breeding roses, I bred fruit trees. I made a list and discovered we could have fruit in our yard at home every month of the year."
Favorites for spring planting and color: Kalanchoe ("If you cut them back each year, they do very well."); alstroemeria lilies, which bloom all year ("They are easy to grow but when the flowers fade, you have to break off the stem. If you cut it, it won't bloom."); canna lilies; and impatiens ("April is the best time to start them, and then they keep blooming all year until winter kills them.")
Jim Reher
Background: The Fontana resident has been in the nursery business for 31 years and is a licensed contractor. He worked for Sunshine Growers in Ontario and for Armstrong nurseries as a green goods buyer.
He majored in horticultural studies at Cal Poly Pomona, owns Landscape Design by James Reher and is the nursery manager at Thompson Building Materials in Fontana.
How he became attracted to gardening: "My grandparents were both pharmacy majors at USC and ran a drugstore. On the the side, they had a camellia nursery in Chino. My grandparents used to take me out in the yard and say, ‘Do you know what this is? Do you know what that is?'"
Memorable gardening moments: "Setting up this nursery and getting it going has been really satisfying. The freedom of being able to do landscaping is wonderful here. There are no real boundaries; we can build and do what we want to do. To be able to change and be creative is really fulfilling."
Favorites for spring planting and color: Perennials to plant now include African daisies in all colors, nemesia, diascia and penstemons.
Annuals to plant now include marigolds, petunias, carnations, impatiens and begonias, which bloom year-round.
Daylilies will bloom in late spring to early summer. These hardy plants thrive in many conditions and are easy to care for. "They're so forgiving," he said. The flowers on daylilies come in many colors, sizes and shapes.
Reher advises gardeners not to commit to any one color in their spring planting. "You want to have a good mix of colors that is balanced out to make sense." Reher suggests selecting three colors of flowers or flowing plants to plant in an alternating, repeating pattern. Use pinks and purples or oranges, reds and yellows.
Reher advocates downsizing the amount of lawn homeowners have to reduce water demands, due to the ongoing drought.
"I'm encouraging people to do rockscapes," he said.
