gardening
Build a Vertical Garden or Living Wall
A new concept is to build up instead of out. You can actually create a garden that climbs up the wall of a building or a solid fence, or construct vertical panels covered with decorative plants. This is a landscaping technique that is catching on to design living surfaces, to increase insulation ecologically and to create lovely gardens in spaces ordinarily too small to sustain a typical flat garden.
The living wall is an ecological way use otherwise wasted surfaces while adding natural temperature controls for heating and cooling structures. But vertical gardening is also very decorative. This kind of garden actually is built UP a wall with the surface designed to be planted. Water naturally drains downward with gravity. As a result there is little waste of water.
Vertical gardens are built from scratch or from kits. Or you can build your own or have yours designed or constructed for you. There are many ways to design these living walls. They can be built up strong fencing – these structures are very heavy – up block, structural or retaining walls, or created on independent panels used either indoors or outdoors. Usually they are formed of steps or tiered pockets that will form footings for the plants to grow. When grown up the wall of a building or other structure, it is important that there should be an efficient waterproof lining between the planting area and the supporting structure to keep water from seeping into walls. Yet the living wall functions like a thick, insulating wall. There are construction and insulation similarities between the building of a green roof and the building of a vertical garden.
Walls can be planted with exotic plants in protected areas, cascading colorful trailing flowers, lush green foliage, drought tolerant plants, or even vegetables and fruits. Imagine the decorative effect you can get from planting a living wall or think about picking a dangling strawberry, snapping off a few tasty beans or popping a cherry tomato into your mouth as you pass by your vertical garden.
If you have a small space that would benefit by being able to grow your garden upward, or if you want a beautiful, ecological wall for natural insulation, or if you just like the decorative idea of growing your own vertical garden or living wall, check into building a vertical garden or living wall.
Blog chat: No rain again for the SCV garden
Once again nature denied the SCV gardens a badly needed drink yesterday despite some weather channels guaranteeing us a 100% chance of measurable precipitation. The forecast doesn’t look encouraging for the next ten days either. This is a good time to think about lawn replacements and drought-tolerant garden designing — before the weather turns hot as well as dry, and water costs increase. If you are growing winter crops, make sure they get ample watering. Vegetables are not drought- resistant can some can bolt if the soil is lacking in moisture. Let lawns stay dormant. And keep your irrigation systems set on low here in the SCV. Even in dry periods, gardens are in a slow-growth season so they won’t need the volume of water required in active springtime growth.
Create an Outdoor Container Garden
Container Gardening
Container gardens are arguably the most versatile way to garden. They can be tiny and set on a table top, fill in a balcony, patio, or small garden space, define the edges of permanent features in the garden, or be integrated into the overall garden design. They are ideal for specimen plants, creating spots of color or sculpting living flower arrangements. You can even grow your own vegetable garden completely in containers. Container gardens are double the fun because you can plant them any time of the year and if you need to protect them in winter, most of them are transportable. If you really want to indulge in container gardening, you can even create an entire landscape in a miniature garden.
Where soils are not fertile, like where I live in the canyon area of the chaparral, containers can be an excellent solution to poor soil. By filling the space we want to plant with a packaged soil, we can get around all that work of digging and amending. Planting in large containers can also be a way to control some wild critter problems, especially the borrowing types like gophers. Even our pets can sometimes be a threat to carefully planted or delicate areas. The control afforded by planting in a pot, a built up, contained area or any other type of enclosed planting space can reduce some of the work and maintenance of growing plants. Of course, there are other concerns that will have to be addressed like watering smaller spaces that will dry out more easily. But a well-thought-out drip or bubbler watering system should take care of the challenge. You can even set your system on a timer so you don’t have to baby sit your watering on a daily basis.
Make your design fit your garden. Think about what kind of receptacles will fit best with the design and style of your house and landscape. Wander through the isles filled with pots, tubs, troughs and bowls at at your favorite garden center and check out all the different sizes, colors, materials and shapes.
Get creative. Recycle an old sink, wash tub, bath tub, a broken fountain or even plant a worn-out boot or hang a planted kitchen colander, or chipped tea pot. Container gardens can created with a collection of the same type of receptacles, one big container, a mixture of different soil holders all in the same material or color, or an assortment of all the above that are designed to build an attractive, overall effect.
Build your own container. Anything that could hold water can be adapted. Make sure you have holes for drainage in the bottom of your container so water doesn’t build up and rot roots. And add a pan or tray below to catch drips if your container garden will sit above a surface that can be damaged. Add a layer of drainage material like broken pot shards or gravel to keep soil from sifting out through the holes. Some people like to use newspaper to line the bottom, but this can eventually rot away and leak. Then fill the pot with potting soil, set in and water your chosen plants. (Some people prefer to use no drainage material at the bottom of the pot. It isn’t necessary, but it does keep the soil from leaking out of the holes at the bottom.)
Choose plants that will grow well in the location where they will be planted. For sunny spots choose the many fascinating shapes of cacti and succulents (using a cactus soil mix), and for a lush winter look, plant evergreen plants. For a good design, plant at least one tall, narrow plant and one trailer that will spill down the side of the container. If you want to cheer up your container garden with a burst of color, add annual bedding flowers. They’re easy to change from season to season and can add brilliance when the longer-living perennials are not flowering. Other fun plants for container gardens are herbs or even vegetables. You can add bulbs to a mixed container garden to introduce showy flowers while some of the slower blooming plants are still developing buds.
Container gardens can be accents for the landscape. Add a container garden to decorate an outdoor table. Set containers on retaining walls or crown the tops of pilasters. Cascading plants can enliven a blank wall, cover an ugly tree stump or clothe a space with a sheer drop. Set large containers with tall plants to fill an empty floor space.
Winter container gardens can make gardening easy in cooler, wetter weather. They can accent any space or make a whole garden of their own. And they are a great way to make vegetable gardening with cool season crops like peas, cabbage, fava beans or Swiss chard easy, pest-resistant, convenient and downright ornamental. You can also add some of those annual flowers to perk up a bowl of less decorative edibles. But don’t forget that even edibles can be decorative: use the bronze fennel, red lettuce, yellow-flowering okra or the cascading asparagus pea with its bright red little flowers. Most of these are best planted from seed. Strawberries create their own decoration whether they are planted in strawberry pots or regular pots. Some even grow with decorative pink flowers before setting their delicious red fruits.
Outdoor pots also give you a chance to grow some of the plants you’d love but are too frost shy for you winter climate. You can move the pots under shelter– or even indoors — when cold threatens. Consider some of the dwarf citrus trees or the showy hibiscus for more delicate potted choices.
Whether you are a seasoned gardener or just starting out, planting in containers has a lot to offer both decoratively and practically.
Basic gardening terms and definitions: Mulch
Garden mulch is the use of a material over the surface of soil. Mulch creates a protective layer. It insulates roots of plants like a blanket, holds soil in place and keeps moisture from evaporating too quickly. Mulch can be organic like a layer of bark chips, compost, peat or straw that will eventually decompose back into the soil. Organic material is a good choice for poor soils as it can enrich the content and texture when it breaks down. A protective layer can also mulch surfaces with longer lasting materials like gravel, stone, decomposed granite or sand. Or it can be any other material that will allow water to permeate the layer like tumbled glass, brick, interlocking pavers or any other permeable covering. Stone and gravel drain quickly so they are good mulch for plants that are prone to rotting at the root join like cacti and many succulents. Garden mulch can not only add a layer of protection, it can offer an element of design and decoration by adding a surface texture and color to the landscape or garden bed. Mulch is growing in popularity as a sustainable, artistic and practical way to handle soil surfaces.
Basic gardening terms and definitions: Annuals
Annual flowers are often mentioned in garden talk. Literally the term defines things that last for a year. Annual plants grow for a year or less from germination to death. Some germinate, grow, flower and set seed in a single season or less. Annuals do not die down or go into a semi-dormant rest period then continue to grow as do biennials or perennials. They race through their short lives growing quickly, often flowering profusely so they can set as many seeds as possible before they fade away. This is why trimming faded flowers before they can set seed – dead-heading – keeps them in bloom longer. Annuals are good ways to add lots of color quickly to a garden. They also make excellent fillers for empty spaces in newly planted gardens while larger-growing plants are still small.
Basic gardening terms and definitions: Deciduous
Deciduous plants are those that drop their leaves – usually in the winter months. All plants slow growth when the days grow shorter. Evergreens retain their foliage even though they become partially dormant in less favorable weather conditions. Deciduous plants divest themselves of foliage and regrow anew after their rest period is over. There are advantages to both. Evergreens will shed a little foliage all year round, while deciduous plants lose it all at once.
The Chaparral Biome
There seems to be some flexibility in the application of the term ‘chaparral’ when it comes to gardening. Some definitions refer only to the small-leaved, drought-tolerant plants typical of certain climates whereas others define it as specific parts of California. Still others refer to the chaparral as a particular shared ecology and plant environment.
A biome is the term that refers to shared environmental elements. A chaparral biome would cover all the areas that have similar climates and conditions. These areas would likely support similar plants and many of those plants are likely to grow reasonably well in interchangeable geographical biomes.
The chaparral is an area with little ocean influence where there are hot, dry summers with little to no rainfall. Winters are relatively mild with few or no hard frosts and most of the rainfall. Different areas of the chaparral have varying soil compositions, but all are fast draining. Dry air, low rainfall and the daily wide temperature ranges of many of these areas make them wildfire prone. In addition to California, much of the Mediterranean, some of Australia, South America and South Africa are all part of the chaparral biome, whether they are considered ‘pure’ chaparral or not. Most often people think of the chaparral as the home of the western cowboy movie. Certainly much of the colorful history in the settlement of California did range across the chaparral areas.
We are located right in the prime area defined even in the most stringent terms as the chaparral. Whether you are a resident of Sylmar, Agua Dulce, Santa Clarita or Acton, you are right in the middle of the chaparral – as defined by even the most exacting geologists. In fact, the chaparral extends into Santa Barbara, through inland California up through Bakersville, Riverside, and Escondido, and right down through Los Angeles and throughout San DIego. There are different parts of the chaparral like the coastal chaparral, desert chaparral or the mountain chaparral. All are home to tough native plants that live with long periods of drought, wide daily temperature ranges and soil with little fertility.
Not only does the term chaparral carry the romantic, historic image of the old cowboy shows but chaparral plants are some of the toughest and durable plants for demanding environments. With the changing climates around the world, resilient, drought-tolerant plants are becoming more and more in demand in many gardens. The growing demand has encouraged plant breeders to expand the most decorative chaparral plants into extremely showy garden varieties. As a result there are more ornamental chaparral plants available for planting in demanding landscape environments.
These plants are beginning to find homes in gardens all over the world where drought and climate change are encouraging gardeners to seek resilient plants that can also be decorative in the landscape. The chaparral biome, once seen as nothing but ‘scrub’ land, is beginning to bloom into a fine source for drought-resistant garden material.
Smart landscaping: lawn substitutes
As water becomes scarcer – and it will continue so long as our population continues to grow whether there is a rainfall shortage or not – it may finally be the time to reconsider the habit of one old landscape tradition: the lawn. If you think of the fact that until the turn of the last century, the lawn was virtually unknown in American gardens, you might realize how closed-minded we’ve become about our lawns. The lawn became a stylized competition with England in the beginning of the 1900’s and made perfect sense in areas of the East Coast of the United States where rainfall was plentiful, homes built on large lots of land that needed covering, and populations small enough to make no harmful ecological footprints on the land. But things have changed across the country. And dry areas have never been home to abundant green growth or heavy human populations – until now.
So, rather than battling nature, increasing water regulations and escalating water costs, here are some suggestions to convert your lawn into smart landscaping with lawn substitutes.
Start out by making sure whatever lawn you retain is useful. Use it only where it looks best and is practical for children or pets to play. Then replace the other areas with attractive, easy-to-care-for or more useful lawn alternatives.
You might want to turn your space into something more colorful by planting a water-wise garden. Gardens can be more interesting than flat lawns and can make better use of space, too. Design your garden to have paths that meander throughout so you can enjoy a fascinating walk and watch your flowers grow or the birds and butterflies enjoying your garden. Consider placing a hammock or seating area inside the garden as a private spot to read, meditate or just relax and watch nature.
Another great way to use that lawn space is to turn it into something productive. You can grow a vegetable garden that will feed your family with healthy, fresh food. And not only will food be more nutritious when fresh picked, but it will taste remarkably better. An edible garden will use more water and will require soil amendments. It will also not be all that low maintenance. But it will pay back double everything you put into it! …Not so true about a lawn.
You can also cover wider areas with more-exciting-than-lawn substitutes. There are colorful ground-cover plants that won’t need mowing and can even offer tinted foliage or cheerful flowers. Some ground-covers are considered to be ‘steppables’ which means they can take some light foot traffic. Or if you prefer, you can design a fun stepping stone pathway to meander around your planted area.
Another possibility to cover wider areas efficiently is to use non-living materials. You can find rocks, stones and gravel in many sizes, shapes and an amazing array of colors. Even decomposed granite is being quarried in a rainbow of colors. Use these non-living materials to fill spaces, draw pictures and designs or outline shapes. You can get as artistic as you’d like and make a whole conversation piece out of filling in an area of your garden. And you’ll get something that looks great while demanding practically no maintenance or water, yet will keep down the dust on windy days.
One more idea — if you really like grass — is to build yourself an ornamental grass garden. There is a wealth of different colors, sizes and textures in the grass family. You can find soft, mounding, low-growing clumps in blues, reds, oranges, grays, yellows and more in Festuca and Carix. Or you can go for the graceful wild oats or swaying Miscanthus family with members that offer colored design patterns in every leaf. Mix in a lot of drought-tolerant grasses and you will have minimal maintenance and a garden filled with interesting shapes and forms that dance gracefully in the wind.
You don’t have to give up on lawn altogether. Lawn grass can be very useful for play, sports and picnics. Keep a lawn where it earns its ‘keep’. But if you are going to have to fuss, feed and pour a lot of water into it – all for the honor of mowing and edging it – you might just as well get value back for all your effort. Landscape smart. We don’t need to be constrained by out-dated styles. Not too many people feel wearing a bustle or a top hat is appropriate today. Perhaps we should look at our attitude toward lawns, too. It’s been a hundred years and we can choose better now. Or at least be a little choosier.
How to Care for Rosemary Christmas Trees
For a number of years, rosemary Christmas trees have become popular as replacements for the traditional Christmas tree. Little wonder the idea works well: these plants are small and fit comfortably on a tabletop, smell delightful, are studded with little blue flowers, and you can even pinch off a few leaves for seasoning tasty dishes in the kitchen.
But a rosemary Christmas tree is not a tree at all. It is simply a carefully pruned shrub. So, unlike the living Christmas tree bought in a large pot, it will not grow into a tree if planted outdoors. It will also be difficult to keep in a neat, conical shape over the coming year so you can use it again next year. You can do it, if, after the holiday season is over, you grow it on by placing it outdoors in full sunshine and make sure you keep it carefully pruned on a monthly basis. It will essentially be a topiary in a pot like a boxwood or other sculpted shrub.
On the other hand, rosemary makes a wonderful sprawling shrub for a sunny part of the garden where the soil is not too rich and you have excellent drainage. You can grow it outdoors in a large pot in full sun if you don’t have the proper drainage, soil, sun, or protection from hard frost in the garden itself.
During the holiday season give your rosemary Christmas tree the brightest window you have for good light. Don’t over-water. Let the soil dry fully down to an inch or two before watering again. Use a tray beneath to catch water when it drains through but don’t leave the pot standing in water.
After the holidays, set your rosemary Christmas tree outdoors in a shaded area for a week or two before moving it into sun if you are going to grow your rosemary on outside. If you live where winters are likely to fall below the 20′s Fahrenheit, you will have to keep the rosemary indoors in the sunniest spot you can find until temperatures outside warm in the spring.
Rosemary is a natural shrub with a somewhat sprawing habit. It accepts some severe pruning when it is young, but as it grows, it becomes woody and rangy. Enjoy your young plant as a Christmas tree, then let it grow on to its natural form. Rosemary is not only an attractive evergreen shrub, but it is perfect in the herb garden. Snip off branches to make pot-pouries, add to sachets or collect leaves to season meats, potatoes or other favorite dishes year round.
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