Category Archives: planning

WaterSmart Landscape Makeover Class

03 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by in compost, drought-tolerant, planning, Southern California Rain, Uncategorized, water-wise garden

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It took about six hours to dig up the turf.

Bye, bye lawn. It took two guys about six hours to dig up the turf.

I attended my first WaterSmart Makeover Class a few weeks ago. It was really inspiring, so inspiring that I went home and ripped out the grass in the front yard! Actually, I learned that you don’t have to do that. There is a way to eliminate your turf without the expense and hard labor of digging it out, but that is for the next class.

Workbook for WaterSmart Landscape Makeover Series

Workbook for WaterSmart Landscape Makeover Series

The class is put on by the San Diego Water Authority and started with an overview by the Assistant Water Resource Specialist Joni German. I won’t get into all the details of the drought in the state of California but for San Diego, I learned some interesting facts that explain why my Hydrangeas look dead and my vegetable garden won’t grow the same way it did.

First of all she explained that the rainfall in San Diego this year is actually above average! We usually get 10 inches a year and this year we have had 11 inches already. Then why do my plants look so crappy? It is because our temperatures have been hotter than normal for the last fifteen months. 2014 was the hottest year on record for San Diego. This heatwave, combined with our water conservation efforts, have left my garden looking horrible. It’s definitely time for a change.

Change requires work–and homework. I had to do some drainage testing, soil testing, and draw up a basic sketch of the existing landscape and irrigation features. It was stuff I like to do…

Dig a 12 X 12 foot hole fill with water. Let sit 8 hours. Then fill with water. Let sit one hour. Measure how far water has gone down. Look up your results on drainage scale.

Drainage test. Dig a 12 X 12 foot hole and fill with water. Let sit 8 hours. Then fill with water. Let sit one hour. Measure how far water has gone down. Look up your results on drainage scale.

Next class is on landscape design–I’m so excited. The third class is where we put our skills to work and show our design plans to an actual designer. We each get thirty minutes of consultation.  The final class is on irrigation. If you are considering replacing your lawn with water-wise plants, I highly suggest you sign up for this free WaterSmart Makeover Class. It is a very useful and interesting class and it’s FREE. You can’t beat that. You get dinner too.

The next class is on my 15th anniversary. Your spouse can go with you. I’m sure it will be a very educational anniversary. Maybe I can bring some champagne!

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Rainy Day Gardening/Dreaming

04 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by in California native plants, drought-tolerant, gardening, geranium, high-desert, planning

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This past weekend we were stuck inside because of the rain. This never happens here so I went a little stir crazy . I know we needed the rain, but it seemed to last forever. One day I went out in it and scatter snail bait just so I could be outside.

Like gardeners everywhere who have to endure winter weather, I turned to gardening catalogs. How handy they arrived right when the rain did.

High Country Gardens had some really interesting plants and pre-planned designer gardens you can order. They sold me on Russian Sage. It sounds good for the hill because it is low water and likes clay soil, plus it is blue in color. I am going to order some.

I also really like the “garden in a box” packages they sell and I’m really tempted to get one. I’m thinking about Habitat Hero Birdwatcher pre-planned garden by designer Lauren Springer Ogden. All the plants are for sun, low water and clay soil. I’ve never ordered from them so I’m thinking of testing out a few plants first. Since they are based in New Mexico, the plants also withstand cold weather but I don’t know if they will take humidity. Also, they will have to travel from New Mexico here so there is a possibility they won’t last through the mail.

The mail order plants I highly recommend–like a broken record–are from Annie’s and this catalog is full of wonderful temptations.

I know Annie’s plants arrive healthy and ready to grow. My upper hill is full of Annie’s wonderful Bill Wallis geraniums. They flower almost all year and are reseeding. My verbena bonarensis are also amazing and pretty well adapted to the hill, although the ones with full sun have done better than the others. A few things died from the dog trampling them like a tiny fragile cigar plant (which I should not have ordered!) and a heleborous or two. Oh ya, I also killed my beautiful Geranium Maderense when I over pruned it, but it is reseeding too and I still have one big one left, which I hope blooms this spring. (My post called “Easter Greetings” from March 2013 shows both Geraniums.) And my post here, shows another geranium that I bought from Annie’s–it is a more typical geranium with a heart shaped flower. You can also see the verbena boneriensis behind the alstromeria on the hill but it isn’t blooming yet so it looks a little stick-like. It definitely needs to be planted with lower-level plants growing in front of it. But once it blooms, it will bloom all summer.

Anyway, I know you can’t go wrong with Annie’s recommendations. She grows her plants in the Bay Area so they don’t have to travel far in the mail.

I am looking at her “indestructibles” collection and the orange alstroemerias on her web site. She sells out fast so create your wish list on the site and you will get an email telling you when they are in stock and you can order! Then plants arrive in the mail. How great is that! (Just make sure you are home when they get here so you can unpack them and plant them in 24 hours. They usually arrive within two days, I think, but check their website to make sure.)

Here’s a close up of the verbena bonariensis–they make great bouquets:
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Sunday in the Garden: Doodle Update

24 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by in Australian shepherd, chickens, design, dog, garden, planning

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It was a great gardening day today in Southern California. We got a lot of things done that we had on our “to do” list.

At lunch I talked to my friend who reads this blog and she told me I never explained what happened to my chicken after Cleo attacked her. The short story is that she is alive and well and laying eggs. The long story is that about ten days after the attack my daughter came in every upset because she found a giant scab covering a wound on the back of Doodle’s neck. It looked like a wad of tar the size of a small fist. The feathers were gone or falling out. Doodle was lucky to escape with her life. She hid her injury, and despite seeming extra scared of the dog, went back to laying eggs shortly after her attack. In fact, she was the first to give us an egg after a three-month break. We are so lucky and we keep a much better eye on the dog around the chickens.

Today, we made some adjustments in the henhouse and attached their roosting branches to the walls. They were loose before and the chickens had taken to sleeping in the egg box. Now that they are laying again, I want them out of there at night to keep it clean. I am going out there right now to spy and see where they are sleeping. If they are in the egg box, I will push them out! Ha!…

Well a sleeping chicken won’t budge. JHnny and Chicken Little were in the egg box but Doodle was perched on the roost. I was able to shoo Chicken Little on the branch–she was very compliant, but Henny wouldn’t budge. I tried to gently push her but she pushed back with force even though she seemed to be asleep. I thought she might fall out of the egg box, if I pushed her too hard, so I gave up. I will try again tomorrow.

Here are some photos from the garden today and the jobs we did: weeding, although in a drought there aren’t as many weeds; putting compost on all the perennials–finally I am using my compost out of my compost bin–it’s been a really long time and I’ve never used it; planting alstroemeria on the hill and dividing my Princess alstroemerias; fixing sprinklers in the front yard and beginning to replace the base of our old fountain.

One thing I learned about the alstroemerias–the Princess variety that I have on my upper hill are short stalked and grow close to the ground. The pink ones have been very hearty and fairly drought-tolerant. They get full sun up there. I could not find them at my local nursery so I gave up and bought the regular variety for the far right side of the hill–the ugly side. I hope these grow. I wanted orange ones but they don’t seem to have those either. Anyway, I hope the two I planted will grow.

We have some flowers on the apple and the nectarine. The peach is not flowering and I hope I pruned it right. It’s almost time to replant to veggie garden but we still have peas, lettuce and our tomatoes are ripening. Isn’t that crazy? We planted them in November and just ate our first cherry tomatoes last week. The weather is all messed up!

At least it is supposed to rain this week, and I have put the compost out so I am hoping it refreshes everything.

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