RANCHO SANTA FE — The Rancho Santa Fe Garden Club got some tips from the pros at its recent meeting.

The club hosted “A Morning In the Garden” on April 2, an educational program with guest speakers Evelyn Weidner of Weidners’ Gardens in Encinitas and organic gardening instructor Connie Beck.

More than 30 members attended the event, pens in hand, ready to take notes before tending to their gardens. If it was gardening tips the attendees were after, they received enough to fill many a garden.

The first speaker was Weidner, who delighted the audience with new varieties of plants. She showed the attendees “pack trials,” which are new plants that have been recently bred and are now being introduced to the public. The geraniums and super petunias on display were new in color and were designed to be more drought resistant. One new begonia, the solenia, was easy to grow, but would sleep all winter and then come back to life in the spring. “Plants are influenced by the day’s length, so when we turn the lights on in the greenhouses, we fool the plants into thinking it’s summer,” Weidner said. This explains why sometimes customers take a plant home only to find it goes dormant on them. “If you bring home the plant too early, say in March, the plant goes back to sleep again until spring rolls around.”

“Regarding begonias and impatiens, my suggestion is to cut them in September and just let them grow and sulk through the winter. Then, when your friends are over, have a drink in one hand, and just (nonchalantly) pinch them back. People will think you know so much!” Weidner advised.

Another tip Weidner offered was when putting together hanging baskets, follow the “Rule of Four — spiky, round, fluffy, floppy.” She said to choose one spiky plant for the center of the basket, add other plant that rounds out nicely, another that is fluffy, and another type of plant that flops over the side of the basket. By putting the four together, a gardener will have a winning combination.

The other speaker was Beck, an organic gardening instructor for the past 16 years. Beck won over the crowd as she talked of plant propagation. “I love propagating plants, it’s a kind of addiction. I love, love, love to do cuttings,” she said.

According to Beck, plants are primarily propagated by three methods: seeds, cuttings and division. “Don’t bury too deeply. Some seeds need light to propagate and these are the things that the companies (that sell seeds) don’t tell you! The smaller the seed, the less likely it needs to be buried,” Beck said.

Beck brought a large bucket of cuttings and demonstrated how to trim and plant each cutting. After cutting below the node, she dipped the cutting into hormone, making sure to knock off the excess.

She also recommended that all cuttings be placed in loose soil. She suggested a combination of loose soil mixed with perlite. “But always press down hard the soil around your cuttings. Make sure they’re secure in the loose soil.”

There is no doubt that those who attended the event headed back to their gardens with good information and plenty of new ideas.

The Rancho Santa Fe Garden Club’s biggest event of the year, the annual Spring Flower and Plant Sale, is coming up May 3 and May 4. Visit www.rsfgardenclub.org for details.