Blog Posts

Nothing but Flowers

10/4/2019

In my previous entry, I reached back to the 90’s to reference Seinfeld. I must be nostalgic, because the Talking Heads’ “(Nothing but) Flowers” was running through my head this morning. I assume David Bryne’s tongue was firmly in cheek when he mourned the loss of 20th century consumer culture:

“Once there were parking lots
Now it's a peaceful oasis
You've got it, you've got it
This was a Pizza Hut
Now it's all covered with daisies
You got it, you got it
I miss the honky tonks,
Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens … ”

I like to imagine planting a native garden as an affirmative act toward shaping some post-apocalyptic (or post-carbon) landscape. Where Bryne saw corn fields replacing discount stores (not realizing how fossil-fuel intensive agriculture really is), I gleefully imagine California sagebrush and coastal goldenbush spreading from surviving native gardens to sprout up between patches of dead lawn in neighboring yards.

I’m not really looking forward to the collapse of civilization as we know it… but I think native landscapes can be a seed source in a different kind of way.

As I explore San Diego neighborhoods on my bike, I’ve noticed that good landscaping seems to be contagious. I’ll ride down one street filled with unkempt lawns and boring shrubbery, then turn the corner onto a block graced by lots of creative, interesting gardens. If this is a benign way to keep up with the Jones, and I’m all for it.

I’ve noticed this with native gardens as well. Once neighbors observe the variety, color, and life that a native plant landscape offers, they get curious and want to learn more. Native plant gardeners, still a relatively rare breed, are usually eager to share their methods and so the native plants expand their range.

For this to work, of course, the trick is to have attractive native gardens. Good landscape design is a prerequisite for a beautiful garden, but even the best design is going to look ragged after a while if you don’t weed regularly, prune seasonally, and water during a drought. It’s a lot less work than maintaining a traditional landscape, but some effort is needed to avoid that post-apocalyptic look.

By creating and maintaining a great native garden, you’re not only adding to your enjoyment of nature in your own front yard, you might be sowing figurative seeds throughout your neighborhood. And doing just a little bit to avoid a future where:

“We used to microwave
Now we just eat nuts and berries.”

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The Bizarro World of Native Plant Gardening

10/1/2019

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Seinfeld fans may remember the "Bizarro Jerry" episode, where Elaine meets counterparts of Jerry, George and Kramer who are kind, caring, and considerate – the opposite of the show’s main characters.

Native plant gardening is the Bizarro counterpart to Turf World -- the traditional lawn-plus-shrubs landscape. Let’s take a look at the topsy-turvy world of native plants.

Native gardening is the opposite of Turf World – the hard parts are front-loaded, but there's less maintenance work and greater rewards in the decades that follow.

Your first obstacle is choosing from among all these strange new species. See a juniper is a one-gallon pot and you know what it will look like in your yard: you’ve seen them in front yards your whole life. But you probably have no clue how that Island Buckwheat will fit in your yard unless you’ve done your homework. And there are hundreds, not dozens, of native species to choose from!

Bizarro installation is a lot more than just rolling out the sod. First of all, you’ll need to kill that sodded lawn. Planting is trickier, since you'll want to place it at the right depth to avoid crown rot. Then you’ll need to bring in the mulch. After all that, instead of a sparkling emerald mat you’ve got spots of green in a sea of brown.

The landscaping industry has perfected the insta-yard: just roll out some sod, stick in a few shrubs and a tree, and you’re done! Developers love this: throw in a few 15-gallon containers and yesterday’s bare ground is a lot ready to sell.

Never mind that their customers will be sentenced to a lifetime of servitude to their yard – watering and fertilizing, mowing and weeding, year after year – it’s all about making that first impression of comfortable, middle-class conventionality.

Instead of the lush growth from day one you get in Turf World, the first couple years of native plant growth is mostly invisible (roots first).

Instead of a comfortable, unchanging green carpet, native landscapes can change from week to week as the different species flower and fruit, attracting wave after wave of insects and birds.

Instead of an unchanging cycle of watering and mowing, as your native garden matures, the need for weeding and watering declines.

Seinfeld’s Elaine rejected her new Bizarro friends to go back to her flawed but familiar companions. You don't need to settle for the status quo, however. If you're ready to make the leap into the upside-down world of landscaping with natives, I’m here to help if you need it.

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Gray skies, nothing but gray skies

9/26/2019

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I felt a few drops of moisture hit my skin as I was walking the dog this morning. We San Diegans love our long cloudless sunny days, but I'm celebrating the gray skies above us today.

Native plants are happy too -- even without any measurable precipitation, the high humidity, cooler weather, and shorter days provide relief from the drought they go through each summer. Their little stomata can open up and get some of that sweet carbon dioxide without too much precious water rushing out into the atmosphere (aka evapotranspiration, or ET).

We're sure to have hot, dry, days in the next months, but these gray skies are a harbinger of great conditions for native plants ahead of us. Container plants grown with regular watering under shade cloth are always in for a bit of a shock when they're stuck into the ground. You can ease their transition by timing your planting to take advantage of seasonal conditions.  Planting into saturated soil followed by careful irrigation will help your plants to establish, but they'll go from surviving to thriving faster if the atmosphere isn't sucking the moisture from their leaves.

Choosing the best time to plant is a balancing act. Over the summer, I've encouraged my clients to hold off until October to plant: even if we can't count on perfectly timed rains like last winter, five months of shorter days sets a limit on how much ET can occur. If this winter's rains follow the pattern of most recent years, it might be better to wait until December or January in hope of having a at least a couple months of good weather working for you.

Although you can't plan for it, the absolutely best time to plant is while it's raining -- a deluge might be miserable, but you can't beat a nice drizzle! In any case, the best time to start planning your new garden is right now.

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Forward>>

Nothing but Flowers

“Once there were parking lotsNow it's a peaceful oasisYou've got it, you've got itThis was a Pizza HutNow it's all covered with daisiesYou got it, you got itI miss the honky tonks,Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens … ”

The Bizarro World of Native Plant Gardening

Gray skies, nothing but gray skies

“Once there were parking lots
Now it's a peaceful oasis
You've got it, you've got it
This was a Pizza Hut
Now it's all covered with daisies
You got it, you got it
I miss the honky tonks,
Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens … ”