Upcoming Gardening Events and workshops in Butte County

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PHOTO OF THE MONTH: a quick update from the Chapman Elementary School on their 2024 gardening grant project:

The students have been learning about co-planting. This spring they will be planting a classic "three sisters garden", a combination of corn, climbing beans, and pumpkins. The corn provides food, but also acts as a trellis for the beans to climb. The beans provide food, but also add nitrogen to the soil to feed the corn and the pumpkins. The pumpkins provide food, but also shade the roots of the beans and corns so they stay cooler and require less moisture. What a great lesson!

See our school gardening grants page for more info (and to apply for a school grant during our next grant cycle)

Happy February! 🐿️ ❤️ 🎩 🏮

Now is a great time to do the following:

• begin your very earliest indoor seed starting--focus on only those plants that need a long head start like peppers, tomatoes, petunias and begonias (things with larger, fast-growing seeds like marigolds/zinnias/etc can wait until next month, and large seedlings like melons, cukes, and pumpkins can wait until even later)

• Review seed catalogs and place seed orders. Here are some good options: Burpee Seeds, Select Seeds, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, Johnny's Selected Seeds, Park Seed Company, Botanical Interests, John Scheepers Garden Seeds, Redwood Seeds, JL Hudson Seedsman

• cut and bring in spring flowering shrub stems to force them to open early indoors. Forsythia and flowering quince are excellent choices, as are plums and almonds

• plant summer-blooming bulbs like amaryllis (Hippeastrum), canna lilies, calla lilies, gladiolus, Asian and Oriental lilies, tiger flowers (Tigridia), and more.

• purchase and plant bare-root deciduous (leaf-losing) fruit trees (apples, pears, nectarines, peaches, plums, persimmons, cherries, etc)--you can find larger trees and more choices than potted trees.

• plant bare-root asparagus and root divisions of rhubarb

• clean up any faded camellia blooms to tidy up and prevent disease

• prune leafy shrubs and summer-flowering shrubs (butterfly bush etc), but do NOT prune spring bloomers like forsythia and lilacs--you'll be cutting off their flower buds (prune them immediately after they flower)

• plant bare-root and potted roses

• sprinkle seeds around the garden that need chilling before growing and blooming: Shirley poppies, breadseed poppies, California poppies, Nigella ("love in a mist"), California bluebells, and several others

• divide dormant or mostly dormant perennial plants (hostas, daylilies, asters, peonies, etc.)--pot up some divisions to donate to our annual plant sale in April!

• spray peaches, nectarines, and apricots with a dormant fungicide (usually containing copper) to avoid leaf curl disease

• prune grapevines when dormant; pruning in spring or summer causes them to bleed sap

• plant perennials, trees, and shrubs

• plant cool weather veggies like kale, Swiss chard, spinach, peas, cilantro and lettuce

• prune roses now--strip off any old foliage to prevent diseases from overwintering

• plant seeds of sweet peas outside (they love cool weather and need an early start before our heat sets in)

• remember to reduce watering most houseplants when days are short and cool--they use less water during winter

Updated February 2026! 🌟

Many thanks to our February Speaker, club member and former club president, Grant Meyer who gave a detailed presentation on seed starting, titled "There's more to gardening than what you can find at the hardware store". 🌱

Photo courtesy of member Scott K.