Design trends

How to Create a Beautiful Garden

Fast growing with low water requirements Matilija poppy are sometimes called Fried Egg Plant.

Fall is a good time to design and plant a new garden. I love to read those articles in gardening magazines with titles like “How to Create a Complete Backyard in a Weekend” or “This Front Yard in Just one Year.” If you’re like me you think, “Can I really do that?” There are some short cuts that can make this happen and fall is the perfect time to try out some of them.

Start by making sure you have paths where you need them. Simple flagstone set in sand or soil work fine for meandering through the garden. A more formal and permanent path is needed to lead guests to the front door but stepping stones are quick and easy in other areas. Hardscaping like paths, walks and fences establish the framework for everything else to build from.

If you want your garden to fill in quickly, choose key plants that grow fast and are suited to your conditions of sun exposure, soil type and water availability. Plants given their preferred conditions will grow and flourish quickly. Designate irrigated areas for must-have plants and use plants that like it dry in your other areas. Most important, if you are going for high impact quickly, choose plants that perform right away instead of those needing a few growing seasons to grow in.

Begin your planting by choosing trees and shrubs for structure, especially in the winter. Fast growing trees include chitalpa, red maples, mimosa, birch, Raywood ash, flowering cherry, evergreen pear, bronze loquat and Purple Robe locust.

There are many shrubs that grow well in our area and fill in quickly. Choose from carpenteria, Matilija poppy, abelia, ceanothus, smoke bush, butterfly bush, bottlebrush, choisya, rockrose, escallonia, hydrangea, philadelphus, plumbago, abutilon, Lion’s Tail, Pride of Madeira and weigela.

Next come perennials that mature quickly and make your garden look like it’s been growing for years. East Friesland salvia is one such plant and blooms summer through fall if spent stems are removed. Their intense violet-blue flower spikes cover plants 18″ tall spreading 2-3 ft wide. They look great in wide swaths across the garden or along the border of a path and attract hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees.

Don’t forget the other salvias. There are some 900 species of salvias. They all grow quickly and are the workhorses of the fall garden. Autumn Sage (Salvia greggi) is drought tolerant and deer resistant (really). Although it tolerates some shade it looks best when planted in full sun. To encourage repeat blooms trim off spent flowers stalks when they start to look rangy. They come in a wide range of colors to accent or match any garden. Recent selections include magenta, burgundy, red, rose, pink, salmon and white.

Walkers Low catmint is another perennial that keeps going and growing. This vigorous spreading member of the mint family blooms profusely with little spikes of 1/2 inch periwinkle blue flowers from late spring through fall. Catmints are easy to care for. Shear plants back by half at the beginning of the season and after flowers fade. They are drought tolerant, too.

Where you need a big clump of color to fill in a space look also at mimulus, erysimum, penstemon, mondarda, purple coneflower, verbena de la mina and yarrow. They all put down deep roots and mature quickly. Be sure to include combinations that bloom in different months.

Yes, creating a garden slowly over many years is satisfying, but if you need to fill in a new area quickly, draw on some of these tips and your bare dirt will be full and beautiful in no time.

Design trends

This & That From The Internet

CZU wildfire smoke. Photo taken August 18, 2020 before the fire reached my house.

My friend Evan is a computer whiz and designed my website and blog. He is often researching on the internet and forwards me interesting tidbits of information about plants whenever he comes across something exceptional. I am always amazed what nature does to survive and prosper. Here are just a few interesting facts you might find fascinating, too.

Did you know that trees don’t like wildfire smoke anymore than we do? From a publication called The Conversation ( www.theconversation.com ) which features science and technology articles written by experts, I learned the following facts:

When smoke overwhelmed a research site in Colorado that was studying air quality and ecological effects of wildfire smoke, atmospheric and chemical scientists were able to watch in real time how the leaves of the nearby pine trees responded. Turns out “They responded a bit like us. Some trees essentially shut their windows and doors and held their breath”.

Plants have pores on the surface of their leaves called stomata which take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen as well as other chemicals in the air around them. Smoke from recent wildfires shows up even in grapes and affects the taste of wine.

When wildfire smoke travels long distances, the smoke cooks in sunlight and chemically changes. Mixing volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides and sunlight will make ground level ozone which can cause breathing problems as well as slowing photosynthesis in plants.

The research group in Colorado didn’t set out to study the effects of wildfire smoke on plants. As we know too well, 2020 was a bad year for wildfires. When thick smoke came through the field where they were working, they did their usual tests to measure leaf level photosynthesis of Ponderosa pines. They were surprised to discover that the tree’s pores were completely closed and photosynthesis was nearly zero. The trees weren’t inhaling the carbon dioxide they needed to grow and weren’t exhaling the chemicals they usually do. They were effectively holding their breath but not before having been exposed to the smoke.

It’s unknown how long the effects of wildfire smoke lasts or how repeated smoke events affects plants, including trees and crops.

From a newsletter called Aeon, I was reminded of the extraordinary complexity of plants behavior and the relationship with their environments, each other and with other living beings.

For instance, most plants respond to damage to their leaves by releasing volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Some of these activate stress related genes, some have antibacterial and anti fungal properties. Some VOCs specifically repel the attacking herbivore with nasty taste or toxins and some plants can identify which specific herbivore is attacking and produce different responses accordingly. Even more interesting, some VOCs attract predators of the insects that are attacking the plant. An attack by an herbivore can also induce the plant to produce more nectar which encourages insects easy from the leaves.

I won’t go into the philosophy of plant behavior outlined in the article but it was most interesting. But that’s all for now.

Design trends

All About Dry Creek Beds

Coming from a meeting with a client in Scotts Valley today I saw a really well designed dry creek bed. I didn’t get a picture today but I’ll go back, it was that good. How will this year’s La Niña affect our rainfall ? According to NOAA (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration) our chances of La Nina winter rains are average to slightly above. So with winter fast approaching you may be wondering how to channel that extra rain that runs down your property and do it with style. Here are some tips.

A dry river bed can slow runoff, spread it out and sink it back into the soil. Connected to a downspout they keep even more rainfall on your own property. sA dry river bed is a rock-lined swale that uses rounded river rock in addition to vegetation to allow runoff to soak into the ground. Make sure there is a 2% slope from beginning to end to ensure that water is conveyed away from your house to the desired location. Non-woven geotextile fabric is often used underneath the rock.

You can create a depression or rain garden at the end of your dry river bed and plant it with plants that tolerate wet feet in the winter. Both a dry river bed and a rain garden allow water to sink back into the ground. The plants remove pollutants from runoff from roofs or other impervious surfaces.

A rain garden might be a simple, shallow depression filled with plants that can flourish in both moist and dry conditions. The size and depth will depend on your how much water you need to capture in a winter runoff

Sometimes a dry river bed will receive so much runoff that a dry well or dispersal pit is installed at the end. If you have a high water table or clay soil the water may not always soak in fast enough and an overflow device like this is needed. The goal is to keep water on your own property and not in the street or the neighbors’ yard.

There are good looking dry river beds as well as bad looking ones. A quick Google image search will show you what I mean. Your goal is to create something that looks like it belongs right where it is. The plants, the accent rocks, the cobble, the location – all need to work together.

If your property has a natural slope follow the natural terrain if possible. You can install a dry river bed on flat land also by creating a channel for the river bed to follow. Keep in mind that even a dry river bed is more interesting if it is not all visible at once. Soft, flowing curves and bends create a natural look.

Start with the rocks and cobble. Rounded river cobble looks most natural for the creek bed. In nature, water flowing down a river would round off sharp rock edges to produce cobble of different sizes. A river never has just one size of rocks and yours shouldn’t either.

Accent rocks can be any type that you like as long as you get a variety of rock sizes and shapes. Use the larger stones to direct and channel water. Placing rocks on the outside of a curve creates a more natural look.

As in all gardens there is always a bit of maintenance to keep things looking and working great. Weeding in the first couple of months while plants become established is important. Replenish mulch as needed until the plants grow in.

Periodically remove leaves that have landed in your river bed and reposition rocks moved by runoff to keep your dry creek bed working for you when you need it. Also don’t start your dry creek bed too close to the foundation of your home if that area is flat. You can direct the water through a drain pipe connected to a downspout to a lower starting spot in your garden.

So whether you are adding a dry river bed to add interest to your lawn-free landscape or to double as catchment for winter storm runoff, make yours look like it’s always been there.

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