Really Fine On-Line Garden Design

I'm not sure I should be sharing this with you. Besides writing, I earn some my income designing residential gardens. And here I am, about to hand you a great, free tool for doing it yourself. But I'm also a teacher and a generous kinda guy, so what the hell?

The local water agencies have shelled out some pretty serious coin to fund a goodie-filled website with lots of water conservation ideas. Follow their advice and you'll save money while helping preserve the planet's most essential natural resource - clean drinking water. You've read my rants ripping folks who let water run down the gutter, or squander it washing sidewalks. (If you want your concrete clean enough to eat off of, toss it in the dishwasher.)

Smart water use in the garden has two key components: Wise water management is important, but putting the right plant in the right placeis where sustainable landscaping begins. Growing conditions can vary widely on a small residential lot: The same plant that thrives in cool morning sun on the east side of your place turns into oven-roasted ‘tater skins when subjected to the summer scorch of afternoon sun. A mounded bed in one part of your yard might provide ideal drainage for natives, while clay deposits in the parkway usually mean the same plant's kiss of death.

With thousands of plants to choose from, how do you decide what to plant? I've got nothing against everyone's go-to garden encyclopedia, the Sunset Western Garden Book (actually, I do… check the link at the end of this article), but what if you could take an on-line tour of LOCAL gardens, click on plants that turn you on, then read everything you'd ever want to know about how to use each one flawlessly, and print out a shopping list?

Then step right up, ladies and gents, for the rip-roaringest, easy-peasy, life-changing garden design website in the whole world. (I'm holding off on giving you the link, cowgirls and stud-muffins, so hold your horses and don't scroll down just yet.)

Get the rest of the scoop at Edhat.com

The Buck Stops Where?

I'm such a wimp. In my pretend world I'm a tough-as-Sally-Hanson's nails investigative reporter, holding the heinous, Earth-defiling villains and water wasters under the searing white heat of my inquisition (which nobody expects). I slash with my rapier-like pen (actually, my 5-year-old, pre-Intel PowerBook G4 laptop keyboard, but that lacks poetic umph), striking fear and shame in their hearts. I'm the genetic mutation of Woodward, Bernstein, Stevie Segal and Godzilla.

My fantasy is broken when the phone rings. The guy in charge of facilities maintenance for a major Santa Barbara institution is just getting around to returning my call.

Sweet! I can lure him in, spring the trap and feel him squirm on the other end of the phone. Now where are my questions? I had them right here. Damn! I'll try to remember off the top of my head.

"Billy, so glad I caught up to you," he says cheerfully, unaware of the impending onslaught I have planned. "I'm so sorry I didn't get back to you last week. I was up to my eyebrows in meltdowns and intended to call. Then I ran across your message and called you right away. What can I do for you, buddy?"

Buddy? The guy sounds friendly, sincere. "Too bad Jack. Justice must be served and punishment meted out. I'm on a deadline for Edhat and I need answers!" No, I didn't actually say that, but I sure was thinking it, in a gruff, cigar-chomping tone.

Read more...

"It's Like Road Rage, Only Wetter" for Blog Action Day

I'm a bit stuck for time, so rather than develop a whole new blog post for this important occasion, I skimmed back over my water-related features and found this very appropriate blog post. It first appeared in the middle of summer 2009, but the sentiment is timely.

Road rage: A motorist’s uncontrolled anger usually provoked by the behavior of another driver. The affliction is officially recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. “Water rage”, however, is not yet listed. But if it were, I’d probably be the poster child.

Recently, Biff the Wonder Spaniel and I were on dawn patrol when lo and behold, a sinuous finger of water was racing down the gutter, leaves riding the surge like a white-water kayak run. As cooling as that image might seem on a warm summer morning, I could feel my body temperature ratchet up and my pulse quicken. Images of an 8-ply, non-kink, heavy-duty, all-weather garden hose noose danced in my head—a textbook symptom of water rage.

The motel three blocks up the street was at it again, watering the four-foot wide strip of turf between the curb and gutter. 1950s-vintage sprinklers sprayed halfway into the street. To top it off, the gardener was hosing down the driveway, thumb pressed over the opening, stubbornly coaxing a few soggy leaves toward the gutter.

What a waste.

[You can finish reading this article, pick up a few tips about reducing or replacing your lawn, and even a link to a zany YouTube video about murdering your lawn by clicking on this link to my Fine Gardening blog.]

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Garden Like A Vulcan : : Let Logic Guide You

After I've been declared Supreme Ruler of the Universe, I'm making Star Trek's Mr. Spock my Magistrate of Sustainable Gardening. He'll be in charge of a new mega-bureaucracy with far-reaching powers to bring clear, logical thinking to landscape maintenance, because so much of the work people do in gardens makes no sense.

Take raking, for example.

CRS (Compulsive Raking Syndrome)

I don't understand what's so bad about seeing fallen foliage under plants. With all the zero tolerance raking going on you'd think someone had dumped radioactive, Ebola-infested asbestos everywhere. As my buddy Owen Dell says, "Why do you think they call them leaves? You're supposed to leave them there."

Week after week you or your gardener are out there scraping away with one of those harmless looking flex rakes, rounding up every leaf that had the temerity to fall in your garden, and then having the pile hauled away.

That's quite silly, really. Not only are leaves a multifaceted resource for the garden, but excessive raking will eventually compact the soil's surface into an impenetrable, crispy, lifeless crust.

Lots more to read here...

It's Like Road Rage, Only Wetter

In my continuing negligence of this blog, I will once again "repurpose" what's going on in the rest of my blogging life. How I wish I had the time to ponder and print my ADD musings, but, alas, post-retirement life is far more complex than I had imagined.

For your reading pleasure, please pop over to my Fine Gardening Magazine blog. I've got my knickers in a bunch over folks who waste water and ranting in the first and second installments on my series on water conservation and lawn alternatives. I used the phrase "drier than a popcorn fart" and my editor let it through. It brings out the 3rd grader in me. There is also a bit of musing about making nooses out of garden hoses for those who dare to waste our most essential and limited resource.

If you'd be so kind, stop and leave a comment. It feeds my massive ego.

There's also a new(ish) post at my bi-weekly Edhat column about using succulents in the garden. I had the pleasure of lunching with one of the leading experts on the subject--Debra Lee Baldwin--while she was in Santa Barbara promoting her book, Designing With Succulents. Luscious pictures, very practical design ideas, delightful lady.

So click on a few links and see what I'm up to. Maybe someday I'll have enough brain cells and time to refloat this here blog barge.

My YouTube Video is Going Viral!!!

I'm a freakin' rock star on YouTube? How else would you explain 1000 hits in 2 weeks for a bizarre, silly music video?

I co-host a humorous/educational TV show in the greater Santa Barbara region along with Owen Dell. We're called the Garden Wise Guys (sound familiar?) and have been on the air for about 4 years, doing a new show every 3 months. The most recent episode, called Lawn & Order, is all about finding rational ways to reduce or eliminate our wasteful, unsustainable love affair with turf grass.

It starts with Owen and me dressed in orange prison jump suits, awaiting sentencing by the judge. Our offense? Our extreme position about murdering lawns. We get 24 hours to convince the judge that we can tone down the rhetoric and provide a more measured approach to water conservation and environmentally friendly landscaping.

But the high point is the 3 minute music video. It's titled "Takin' Out The Grass Is A Gas, Baby Can You Dig It?" I'd love to tell you more about it, but you wouldn't believe me. So take a look. If nothing else, you'll enjoy my bright flamingo-colored sport coat and stingy brim hat.

I Don't Hate Scotts Lawn Products -- Or Do I?

I’ve been reading lots of blogs and I’ve determined that I have to do something bold to grab your attention, so here goes:

[BOLD LEAD PARAGRAPH]

Dear “The Scotts and Miracle-Gro Company”:

I don’t hate you. I’ve never even met you--not that I’m aware of. I just hate what you stand for. You’re not alone in keeping us shackled to the questionable ideal of the suburban lawn—just kinda the big target with the “kick-me” sign, so I’m picking on you because it’s easy.

Per your web site, it is heartening to see you giving a small nod to using organic materials. Of the 13 products shown on your lawn fertilizer page, the Scotts Organic Choice looks pretty lonely. At least you’re trying to build a little green “street cred”, but we know where your real profits come from and which products get all your promo bucks.

I guess my gripe is that you live and thrive by helping to sustain the myth that a “real” garden has to have “thick, lush, green turf” even if nature and the environment continually remind us that without your toxic products, copious amounts of precious water, herbicides and insecticides we might succumb to YELLOW LEAVES!, NASTY BUGS! (don’t want any of THOSE near our kids) and the silent scorn of our neighbors.

[Pretty damn bold, eh? I’m waiting for their corporate jack-booted thugs to come pound on my door.]

TRANSITION (can’t suddenly switch gears…I have to back my way into the real content)

My last two blogs have set the stage for murdering your lawn and lots of readers seem to want to take it to the next level. I’d love to help, but first a disclaimer. My 35-year experience in the green industry and landscape architecture is from a career based in the benign coastal climate of central and southern California. So when I’m asked by readers from around the country to help them with lawn alternatives the first problem that arises is finding appropriate plants for your specific locale. The environmental and cultural conditions are just too varied for me to claim to be all things to all readers.

SUBSTANCE (here’s the payoff)

So how about I just do some coaching to help you move in the right direction? It’s gonna take me a few more postings to get you there (I just moved to a new home, so writing time is a bit scarce) but keep checking in and I’ll try to get you where you’re going. I also welcome any comments based on your own experiences. Just tell us where you’re writing from.

First things first—are you REALLY going to remove every blade of grass from your current lawn? Do you really need to? Form follows function, so if you’re doing this because you’re just tired of the work and environmental impacts of being a recovering lawn owner, do you have to actually remove the lawn? What if you just tinker with it and let it revert a Darwinian approach? I think that’s still taught in some schools—Survival of the Fittest.

What if you just stopped mowing and watering? What would move in to fill the void? Nature abhors a vacuum, so something is going to find these new conditions very attractive. Yes, the weeds you’re currently keeping at bay might take advantage, but not necessarily. If the watering stops and you rely only on natural rainfall, some of those weeds that thrived on the life-support you provided for your lawn just might give up.

What if you introduce a few new non-turfgrass plants? Here in Santa Barbara, I’d be looking at things like creeping thyme (Thymus serpyllum), Lippia (Phyla nodiflora), some sedges like Carex praegracillis, English daisy (Bellis perennis) or common yarrow (Achillea millefolium). My local favorite to mix in is Blue-eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium bellum), shown in the photo at the beginning of this post. Now where you live, these might not grow, or they might become noxious weeds (Lippia is a scourge in New Zealand).

Your assignment this week: Do your homework by finding some plants that you can allow to infiltrate your current lawn, and start thinking of it as a naturalized meadow. Visit a garden, check your plant catalogs, talk to some experienced gardeners. Let me know what you find.

I’ll be back soon. Promise.

Summer's here and I'm not so thrilled

Those of you who’ve taken my classes or heard me wax poetical about life, the universe and everything (including gardens) know that I’m a slug. Not in the lazy sense, but like the mollusk. I divide people's climate preferences into lizards (who find a south-facing rock and climb up on top of it to toast in peace) and slugs who “glide” to the north side of the rock and try to get under it. Think Tucson vs Seattle.

So imagine the sinking feeling this morning when instead of waking to the June Gloom of gray skies and droplets on the ground, there was that yellow gas ball some 93 million miles way shouting “It’s the first day of summer, rejoice!” Bah, humbug.

For our gardens, it’s a mixed blessing. I know that my new buddies at the Rose Society, where I spoke last week, are jumping backflips. Sunshine chases away mildew, makes buds burst, and cranks the photosynthesis machine into overdrive. It’s great for your t’maters and p’taters, too!

But the solar Scrooge in me knows that the plants in our parks and backyards will be consuming more agua, wildfires are more likely, we have to slather on more sunscreen, and be more alert about our personal hygiene (so as not to offend). We'll be watering our lawns more, even if we're not actually sure they need it.

So, I hope you enjoy the Solstice Parade downtown. Don’t want to take that away from ANYONE. But PLEASE, monitor your irrigation this summer so as not to waste a precious drop--Santa Barbara has special concrete sidewalks that don't need irrigation. Water in the coolest times of the day. Check the automatic controller if you have one, or turn on the kitchen timer if you’re setting up a hose, just to make sure you’re not overdoing it.

Last thing—a few hours after you’ve watered dig down with a trowel or a soil probe (free from your water agency) and see how far the water really went down; then adjust your timing.

So, I’ll be crawling back under my rock while y’all play in the sun. See ya when the gloom rolls back in.

Sexy Sumptuous Color / Water-Wise Plants

We drool when we see those garden photos on the mags at the dentist’s office. Sensuous burgundy leaves, fragrant gray-leaf lavendar, delicate pink flowering shrubs. Looks like it belongs in front of Muffin Mouse's little cottage in merry old Newark. Ya just wanna take a bite out of it!

But much of the stuff we lust after in garden books doesn’t make sense in our semi-desert Santa Barbara / SoCal climate. We just can't shake that temperate climate aesthetic. So do we resign ourselves to a life of sensual deprivation or do we waste one of the most precious resources we have coaxing lush growth in a climate that’s supposed to be sporting sagebrush?

Have I got a deal for you! Call now and you can have the best of both worlds! Operators are standing by.

The key is understanding what makes a plant composition attractive to you, and “reverse engineering” it to its basic components. If your bippy gets all aroused from the combination of sky-rocketing yellow blooms framed by dark green weeping foliage, find something in your own neck of the woods that gives you that effect. Don't try to import something from another climate that needs a life-support system we can't afford!

The photo above gives the look of a lush English garden, but all the plants would survive with a monthly deep soak in the summer and no supplemental water for the rest of the year.

That dark burgundy foliage is a flowering plum with a deep root system that doesn’t need much pampering. The graceful pink flowers are bursting out of a tough-as-nails New Zealand Tea Tree. And Lavendar is a Mediterranean plant that needs no help from us, thank you very much!

So you can have it both ways—drop-dead-gorgeous garden and treading lightly on the planet. Pretty sexy, eh?

Who Needs Water, Anyway?

“Southwest Water Supply Dwindling” was the headline on the morning drivetime NPR story yesterday. You know the drill. Low rainfall, diminished snow pack, too many overdeveloped communities competing for the same Colorado River water. Lake Powell took 17 years to fill and 8 years to lose half of it’s supply. The “bath tub ring” indicating the “full” level is 100 feet higher than the current water level.

And just before I left the house and heard the NPR story, the LA Times was writing about that city’s need to impose stricter conservation measure NOW, not wait until there’s nothing to conserve. Another story discussed the drought on the East Coast, so this isn’t just about the usually arid West.

This isn’t the first low rainfall year, or if it is another real drought, the first of those. Is it global climate change or another natural cycle? In practical terms, does it matter? Maybe if I don't pay attention it will fix itself. And how does this affect our public and private landscapes?

So while this information bounced around my brain on the way to work, I passed 3 commercial gardeners (let’s make that “plant janitors”) hosing down their clients’ sidewalks. As best I could tell, they were using the same water that could be used to drink, cook, irrigate water-wise landscapes, wash ourselves.

Need I pose any solutions? I think we’re all sharp enough to understand that H2O is a precious, limited resource and there are appropriate uses and inappropriate uses. How about acting that way? I’ll save you some reading time and skip the stuff about the right tool for the job (think brooms), tolerance of leaves in the landscape, not using lawn as a decorative frill, etc.

We love our landscapes. But we need to move to a low-impact, low water-using model. How about now instead of after the water police come shut us down?

Playing in the Sprinklers

It's Sunday and Owen (other Garden Wise Guy) and I are getting ready to shoot a new segment for Episode 7 of our show. We've discussed water-wise irrigation from many angles, but it always assumes that people have automatic irrigation controllers, underground piping and pop-up sprinkler heads. But what about everyone else--the folks who never invested in a professional sprinkler system, or renters who just have a hose and a thumb?

There's no reason that some of the common-sense principles of irrigation can't be adapted to a low-tech, Fred Flintsone system. There are a lot of gizmos in the gardening section you can buy. Here are a few rules to get you started.

1. Use the right tool for the job: If you have heavy soil or a slope, get a sprinkler that puts water on the soil gradually, so it has a chance to soak in before it runs off. Sprinklers that water an area, then move away and return would be the oscillating fan sprays and impact heads (those are the ones that look like the head of a bird and go "tsch, tsch, tsch"). If you need to slow soak under your fruit trees or rose beds, how about a leaky hose that lets water trickle out. You can snake it around the bed and let it gradually seep for a few hours.

2. Water to the correct depth: Lawns have relatively shallow roots, so it doesn't take long to get the soil moist, but large shrubs and trees have deeper roots. The best thing to do is dig down or get a soil probe (a hollow tube with a "T" handle) and see how deep the water really went. If you're watering deeper than the roots, you're wasting water.

3. Control how long you water: A kitchen timer or a watch with a timer with a loud signal will remind you that the water is running. Start with short increments (10 minutes) and check the results. Dig down or use the soil probe and see how close your guess was. If you need more, set the timer again. There are even electronic timers you can install between the hose bibb and the hose!

We all know the meditative benefits of standing with your thumb over the end of the hose, sipping on something cool and watering the lawn. Two problems with that: A) Your thumb will give out before you actually apply enough water to soak in, and B) the impact of the water hitting the soil compacts the top, turns it into crust, and keeps the water from soaking in. Kinda defeats the purpose.

So invest in the right tools, pay attention, use your water efficiently and you'll have time to strip down to your skivvies and play with the kids in the sprinklers! Who cares what the neighbors say?