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.

Would Someone Please Make Those Planets Align?

I don't know what's worse--plant janitors (can't call them gardeners) with no understanding of sustainable landscaping practices or the owner who pays them and lets them get away with all sorts of heinous acts. In this week's column at Edhat.com I explore why the buck keeps getting passed around.

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?