MARINA GRAND OPENING PARTY!!

The forecast looks beautiful for this weekend's Grand Opening Party...Stop by!



Saturday, March 31st, 11am to 3pm
3237 Pierce Street (between Lombard & Chestnut)
415-440-1000

• Music and Free gardening product samples (including ladybugs, seeds & soil)
• Salad making demonstration & samples by the chefs at Lettus Cafe Organic
• Ribbon cutting ceremony by the San Francisco Botanical Garden at noon
• Raffles for gardening treats & Peet's Coffee & Tea coupons
• Grand Prize Raffle for a free Sloat garden design by our Design Department
• Balloons for the kids! Mascots, too!
• Free Sloat T-shirts
• Terrific specials!

Hope to see you there!!!

SALE this week!!

We are so excited... thrilled even, to be offering these incredible specials in honor of our new store in the San Francisco Marina on Pierce Street. Visit our Sales & Specials page for full details on these incredible prices.

UPDATE from our Third Avenue location...

This just in! We now carry a nice selection of outdoor bromeliads for both sun and shade. And the newest Pacific Coast Iris hybrids are just starting to arrive... and they are STUNNING.

Sloat's Third Avenue location: A day in pictures

Vibrant indoor and outdoor plants in stock and ready for your yard or deck this weekend!

Sloat Boulevard location: A day in pictures

Helen Winkler shows off a beautiful Hardenbergia and Tool expert Drew Kellner demonstrates how to clean and care for tools at a recent Sloat Tool Care seminar.


The nursery is stocked for the weekend!


Still life with azaleas and statuary

Talkin' about bees...

Bees have been a hot topic in the news as of late, and with good reason. These critters are important pollinators to invite into your garden. Check back in with us next week for a list of plants that attract beneficial insects. In the meantime, we present the following Bay Area related bee links.

Urban Gardens: A practical guide to introducing the world's most prolific pollinators into your garden


SF CHRONICLE: BEES ON THEIR KNEES, GARDENERS TO THE RESCUE
A world without bees is a world without chocolate: UC professor
says urban gardeners could save California's native bee population
and avert an ecological catastrophe

Yup, we have 'em.

In this week's San Francisco Chronicle Home & Garden section, the friendly Bay Area based West County Gardener gloves are featured. Sloat Garden Center carries West County Gardener gloves with pride -- they are durable, comfortable and well made. We're reprinting the article below.

HOT STUFF FOR THE GARDEN
San Francisco Chronicle
Laura Thomas
Wednesday, March 21, 2007

One challenge that's been met

San Francisco gardener and bicyclist Beverly Schor invented a better garden glove back in 2001 that has spawned many imitators. "In our own small way we have revolutionized garden gloves," she said recently. "We sell all over the country."

Her West County Gardener company makes gloves of synthetic suede that are designed to be flexible, lightweight, washable and durable. When Schor first designed the glove, most gardening gloves were made of cotton -- which wore out quickly and didn't really protect the hands -- or leather, which got stiff and sweaty.

Her first two gloves were a simple work glove for weekend gardeners and a waterproof glove for techies. They were followed by the landscape glove, the 3/4-finger glove and her latest, the rose glove. The thorn-resistant leather glove designed with a material used in motorcycle gloves is a godsend to rose gardeners, Schor said.

"It really created quite a stir," she said. "Rose gardeners are absolute fanatics, a special brand of people. To produce a colorful and synthetic material (for them) was just special."

The gauntlet-style glove (shown above, $30) is great for working with poison oak, berry bushes or juniper, "anything that has toxic oils and a scratchy texture," Schor said. It comes in two colors, ruby and saffron, and in sizes from XS to XL.

UPDATE from our Mill Valley store

At our Mill Valley store on E. Blithedale we have lovely peonies, hostas, dogwoods (that are absolutely loaded with buds and beginning to bloom), lots of great japanese maples, blooming ceanothus and many rhododendrons just about to burst into bloom!

UPDATE from our Sloat Boulevard store

Just in at our Sloat Boulevard store in San Francisco: lilacs, crabapples, native plants, phormiums, kangaroo paws, spanish lavender, lotus, lithadora, nemesia, diascia and bougainvilleas.

Now how's that for horticultural excitement?

For directions to our Sloat Blvd store, click here

Strawberries are here!

Our stores are now stocked with strawberry plants -- some of our locations have 3 different varieties: Sequoia, Chandler, Alpine, Quinalt....and more.

Get 'em in the ground now for spring fruit!

CONGRATULATIONS to our Adopt a Garden Project grantees!

For the Spring 2007 semester, KIPP San Francisco Bay Academy/Gateway High School and Dianne Feinstein Elementary School will each receive $1,000 garden grants based on their gardening goals and plans.

With the grant monies, KIPP San Francisco Bay Academy/Gateway High School will plant edible fruit trees and vegetables for students to sample. Dianne Feinstein Elementary School has plans to create a 5-senses garden and also plant fruit trees.

Monies for the Adopt a Garden project were raised by Sloat Garden Center’s production of a 2007 School Garden Calendar. Featuring 13 school gardens around the Bay Area, the calendar was created to illustrate the positive impact that gardening at school can have on Bay Area students and their communities. Sloat Garden Center will choose two additional schools for the Fall 2007 school semester.

A Terrific Spring Celebration is just around the corner

In honor of our new store on Pierce Street in San Francisco, all Sloat Garden Centers will host Spring Celebrations during the week of March 26th through April 1st. Stay tuned for details...

Gardening Quote of the Day #3

A flower is an educated weed.
- Luther Burbank, American botanist, horticulturist
and pioneer in agricultural science

Nursery Snapshot! Mill Valley...

Impatiens wait patiently at our Mill Valley store

Gardening Quote of the Day #2

The trouble with gardening... is that it does not remain an avocation. It becomes an obsession. - Phyllis McGinley, American poet

How to grow, harvest and store Herbs!

Herbs are on special at Sloat during the month of March for Gardener's Reward Members (Buy 3, get 1 Free), so we thought we'd include information on our blog about growing, harvesting, storing and cooking with fresh herbs from the garden. Enjoy!

GROWING
· Most herbs like six to eight hours of full sun. Don’t worry, in our coastal regions the sun is still penetrating through the fog.

· Well-drained soil is essential. If drainage is poor, work in plenty of organic matter or grow in raised beds or containers.

· Work in a complete fertilizer (EB Stone Organic All Purpose, Tomato & Veg Food, SureStart or Alfalfa Meal for vegetarians and vegans).

· Water regularly until the plants are growing steadily. Then most will need only occasional watering. Exceptions are basil, chives, mint, and parsley, which prefer evenly moist soil.

· Herbs can be tucked in established beds and borders or in a pot close to the kitchen door.

· Many herbs attract beneficial insects if they are allowed to flower.

· Annual herbs like basil should not be allowed to flower.

· Keep plants pinched back regularly.

HARVESTING AND STORAGE
· Gather herbs when they have the optimum amount of essential oils. This is when they are just about to flower and the buds have formed but not opened. Harvest should be in the morning before the sun hits them but after the dew has dried (and ideally, on a dry day that has been preceded by at least two sunny days). Mints, however, have the most oil in the leaves when the spikes are in full bloom.

· When gathering a large quantity of herbs use an open weave basket or container that allows good air circulation, not plastic bags. You can cut back a perennial herb to about half its height and can cut down an annual to a few inches or remove it entirely if it’s the end of the season.

· Wash the plants in cool water immediately after gathering and spread on towels, and pat dry.

· To store in the refrigerator, place between damp paper towels and place in plastic bags.

DRYING
· Wash the plants in cool water, spread on towels and pat dry.

· Herbs with smaller leaves can be dried on the stem; these include thyme, summer and winter savory, rosemary, oregano and marjoram. Make small bunches, tie them at the top and place in a brown paper bag, secure at the top and hang to dry. Herbs are dry when the leaves crumble off the stem. After crumbling off stem store in a clean, dark-colored jar.

· For some herbs, you must strip the leaves from the stems before drying; these include basil, dill, lemon balm, lovage, mint, sage, lemon verbena and tarragon. Place the herbs on a cookie sheet and dry in an oven at 125 degrees F for a few minutes before placing in an airtight container.

FREEZING
· Wash the plants in cool water, spread on towels and pat dry. Spread them in a single layer on a pan and put them in the freezer. After they are frozen place herbs in plastic bags, push all the air out of the bags, label and date them, and keep in the freezer.

· Herbs that freeze well are dill, mint, sorrel, sage, chervil, oregano, thyme, borage, summer and winter savory, chives and lemongrass. (Chop chives and lemongrass before you freeze them.)

· Some herbs can be frozen in herb butters. The basic mix is a ½ cup fresh chopped herb to ½ cup softened butter, after mixing double roll in foil, label and date. Butter can be kept for up to two months. Thaw and use at room temperature. The herbs listed above can be used this way in addition to basil, lemon verbena, and scented geranium leaves.

· Another way to freeze herbs is to make a paste by mixing 1/3 cup of oil with 2 cups of herbs in a blender until smooth. The paste freezes beautifully in sealed jars. It will also keep for about a week in the refrigerator. Herbs that are good candidates for grinding into pastes include basil, chervil, cilantro, coriander, dill, fennel, marjoram, mint, parsley, rosemary, sage, savory, and tarragon.

· Herbs can also be frozen to make decorative ice cubes for party drinks. Boil the water first to make it clear, once it has cooled fill the bottom of the tray with the boiled water and freeze. Arrange the herbs you plan to freeze, and then continue adding water until the tray is filled.

Gardening Quote of the Day #1

"Gardens are the result of a collaboration between art and nature."
- Penelope Hobhouse, garden writer & educator

A sunny, gardening weekend in the forecast!

This picture (taken at our 3rd Avenue store) features the store's mouse-catcher in-residence, "Monkey". He's a cutie and loves to show off Sloat's new spring furniture line. Stop by and meet him this weekend!

Ranunculus & Anemone - Can you say that 3 times?

Now is the time for these early spring plants and we have them in stock in a rainbow of colors. So colorful, so lovely, so much fun to pronounce....

A beautiful day in the neighborhood

Molly at our Sloat Boulevard store smiles next to a very lovely Sango Kaku maple

The Wonders of Wisteria

This beautiful, flowy, romantic vine is on special for GRP Members throughout March at all Sloat Garden Centers ($29.99 -- 5 gallon container).

About Wisteria:
This long-lived twining, woody deciduous vine needs full sun, good drainage, a very strong support system, regular water the first season, and very-well amended soil (don’t forget the SureStart). Failure to get nutrients into the root zone at planting time can result in the common ‘my wisteria doesn’t bloom’ complaint, more on that below. Seed pods are poisonous.

Wisterias need a very strong, sturdy arbor, pergola or trellis since they can become very heavy with age. If the trellis is attached to the house, it should be planted on the farthest post, and let it fill in by gradually growing toward your house. They can clog the rain gutters, lift roof shingles, rip up flimsy trellises, and strangle small trees.

Basic Training: Train the main leader to the upper part of the support system and cut it off when it reaches the desired height. Train the main side branches horizontally at least 18’ apart from each other. The first season do not expect prolific blooms since vegetative growth is being encouraged to establish the scaffold/framework. Remove stems that interfere with the desired framework; pinch back side stems and long whips.

The young wisteria will send out a lot of skinny, rapidly-growing, soft vegetative shoots (which make leaves, not flowers) in the spring and summer. These shoots are called runners, or whips, and are roughly the thickness of a phone cord. Some of these can be forced into becoming a spur system by heading back to 3 to 6 inches from where they join their parent scaffold branch. Check out the Cass Turnbull “Guide To Pruning”, pp.196-201, for some great pictures and pruning advice. Page 199 has an excellent explanation of the spur system. Correctly pruning wisterias is another solution to “why doesn’t my wisteria bloom?” This plant will need dedicated pruning every winter and cleanup pruning every summer. NOTE: Wisteria flowers develop in buds near the base of the previous year’s growth.

Fertilizing: Wisteria need very little feeding once established, Nitrogen fertilizer will encourage vegetative growth, not blossoms. Katy Thompson, Advanced CCN Pro, recommends an annual application of Agricultural Lime in the spring since wisteria like a neutral to slightly acid soil pH of 6.0-7.0

The Difference between Chinese and Japanese Wisteria:

Japanese: The pendulous flowers clusters (racemes) are 12”-18” long, and open gradually from the base of the cluster as the leaves are developing during May and June. They are very fragrant. The compound leaves usually have 13-29 leaflets. The vines twine clockwise.

Chinese: The racemes open all at once (ooh, ah) in May, are 9”-12” long and have a mild sweet fragrance. The compound leaves have 7-13 leaflets, the vine twines counter-clockwise.

Trivia Note: A Chinese wisteria planted in 1894 by William and Alice Brugman in Sierra Madre, California now weighs more than 250 tons, is more than one acre in size and has become one of the seven horticultural wonders of the world. It is named by the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest blossoming plant in the world, and is the star of Sierra Madre’s annual Wisteria Festival.

What are those big trees?

Adalberto Garcilaza at our Sloat Blvd location poses with the cedars set in a display.

The large trees in 24” boxes currently residing at our Sloat Boulevard location are cedars. They are between 16 and 19 years old from Woodburn, Oregon. They have been field-grown and were transplanted 2-3 times to prune the roots before their final move three years ago into the boxes.

They love living in the Pacific Northwest but will also do well in a Mediterranean style garden. They need deep well-draining soil, full sun and moderate water the first several seasons. They are drought-tolerant when established.

These awesome specimens are grown from grafts; and include Cedrus atlanctica ‘Pendula Glauca’ which is grafted onto regular Cedrus atlantica rootstock, as well as a stunning Cedrus ‘Aurea’ with golden foliage. There are several trained in the serpentine form but the natural growth habit for the ‘Pendula Glauca’ is to grow out and down. The grower tells us they have to keep training them to grow up or they will be VERY big and wide! They make an amazing espalier. We met somone whose grandparents planted one in the 1960’s against their fence in Mt. Vernon, Washington. It is still living and is 4’ tall and 60 feet wide.

These lovely conifers are closely related to Cedrus deodara, our own California Christmas tree. They are not pines, so have none of the problems that plague pines. Their smaller blue needles give the tree a softer appearance. The blue foliage and interesting shape make a stunning focal point. They also look gorgeous alongside phormiums, cordylines and blue fescues.

Sunny skies ahead

We're expecting a sunny March weekend in the Bay Area...how exciting! We hope your plans include gardening...ours do!

5 things you may not know about Sloat Garden Centers

1. Our company is independently run and family owned. We employee over 150 Bay Area people who love gardening.

2. If you can't find what you're looking for, let us know. We can order it from one of our other stores or from one of the hundreds of purveyors we purchase from each year.

3. Because of our extensive pottery connections, Sloat has become a direct importer of pottery from seven different countries.

4. Sloat is open year round, except for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day.

5. We will celebrate our 50th anniversary in 2008.