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Tag Archives: drought-tolerant

Getting Tough on Turf

09 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by ninagarden in drought-tolerant, water-wise garden

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Tags

drought-tolerant, waterwise

Now we are on a fast track for turf removal. My first waterwise landscaping class is September 23. The class comes with a survey of your yard to help you make your new landscaping plan. They came to survey our yard last week and let me to take a picture to document the process.


See Cleo in the picture? She can’t stand not being in the middle of everything!

They tested the water pressure of the sprinklers too.

Now I just need to speed up time so I can go to class and make my plan.

Back to school for me too!

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Garden Stars: Flowers that Re-Seed

25 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by ninagarden in drought-tolerant, Flowers, geranium, wildflowers

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Tags

annuals and perennials, California native plants, chickens, drought-tolerant

My friend was visiting my yard a few weeks ago and she said, “Wow. You really worked in your garden a lot this spring. You have so many flowers.” Truth is, I haven’t! I have mostly been crawling around on my hands and knees pulling weeds.  The flowers I have are self-sowers or perennials that re-seed. Every spring, they come up and I just sit back and pull weeds out so they can grow.

Here is an example of Toadflax, which is growing in my front yard. I planted a package of Toadflax about ten years ago, and every year it comes up like this, a frothy mass of colorful flower eye-candy. Of course, it needs water, which our winter rains usually supply, but even in the drought and hardly any water at all, it grew like this:

Below is a native purple geranium ground cover that also grows all over my front yard. I love native geraniums because they re-seed. You can also see lavender mixed with it. Lavender will also re-seed  and you can transplant the baby lavender as well as the geraniums around the yard to fill in bald spots.

Another great re-seeder is verbena. I just learned that the type of verbena that I have growing naturally in my yard is called Moss Verbena. It is drought tolerant, according to the new book I just bought Water-Wise Plants for the Southwest, by Nan Sterman, Mary Irish, Judith Phillips and Joe Lamp’L. Nan Sterman is in San Diego so her advice is particularly relevant.

GROWING TIPS: What are the secrets to re-seeding these plants? You have to live with a little ugly when the blooms die. Just let them go to seed and let them get brown. Then when you cut them, leave the cuttings out where you want them to re-seed. You don’t have to do this forever, just until they dry up a little.

For example, have you ever noticed that when you cut lavender and bring in for a bouquet, after a while you see little black dots all over your counter? Those are the seeds. They are miniscule. When I trim back all the lavender after the spring blooms, I thrown the stems in the ground for a while so the seeds fall out. Same idea.

Here is my list of perennials that can re-seed in my garden–hopefully, they will in yours too:

  • lavender
  • native geraniums; geranium incanum; also Bill Wallis geranium as referenced in my post on Annie’s Nursery; oh great, geranium incanum is also invasive according according to the link above. Oh well, I can live with invasive. I can’t live with dirt!
  • verbena (moss)
  • euphorbia caracias
  • Santa Barbara Daisy
  • Jupiter’s Beard or Red Valerian (some say this is invasive but my hill is so hard to grow on that I don’t care)
  • Pacific Coast Iris or Douglas Iris (a native plant, it is considered invasive by some so beware)
  • yarrow (but it often doesn’t bloom in my yard)

For annuals that re-seed in my yard:

  • Toadflax
  • Other wildflowers like California poppies or any poppy
  • sweet peas (believe it or not)
  • nasturtiums

The hens might help. I find little tomato plants growing from seeds that they pooped out growing all over!

Nasturtiums on the hill:

Mother-in-law’s Squash Tip: Plant squash in mounds. Put five or six seeds in each mound and place a stick in the middle of it. That way you can find where you planted it.

I think that makes sense, right? At least it did when she told me on the phone yesterday. Now that I write it down, it doesn’t. But I’m going to give it a try.

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Santa Barbara Gardens

08 Monday Sep 2014

Posted by ninagarden in Botanical Garden, California native plants, California Riviera, drought-tolerant, Santa Barbara, Santa Inez

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drought-tolerant, native plants, Santa Barbara gardens

This is a pictorial of beautiful places around Santa Barbara and Santa Inez Valley.

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Enjoying the day at the Buttonwood Winery & Farm in Santa Inez Valley.

 

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Zinnias and salvia at Buttonwood Farms in the picnic area.

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Seaside daisy for sale in Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens, a great place to visit! It is great for kids too because there are tons of short trails to walk, shade in the canyons, a cool gift shop, etc.

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Santa Barbara Bontanic Gardens where you can learn about native plants and drought-tolerant plants, plus get ideas for water features like this one. Now wouldn’t that be nice in your backyard?

 

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Going to Santa Barbara? You gotta go to Andersen’s Danish bakery! I just had to throw this in! You get hungry gardening (and visiting gardens).

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Coastal redwoods in the canyon at the Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens, a place to cool off and slow down.

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Native plants for sale at Bontanic Gardens. I hauled home three: a verbena (Verbena lilacina “De La Mina”), a coral bells variety native to the Channel Islands (Heuchera maxima) and a Seaside Daisy (Erigeron glaucs). I wanted to buy a lot more but I didn’t.

 

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Santa Barbara Mission on a Sunday morning with rose garden in forefront. Overall, it was very dry and dusty but the roses were still in bloom and better than mine at home!

 

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Yarrow and verbena bonarensis at Buttonwood Farms.

 

Last stop was Rancho Olivos to buy olive oil. I snuck into the corral next door to take a picture with a horse because I needed one for the Babbit Ranch newsletter where my blog will be mentioned soon! Can I please keep this horse?

Last stop was Rancho Olivos to buy olive oil. I snuck into the corral next door to take a picture with a horse because I needed one for the Babbitt Ranches newsletter where my blog will be mentioned soon! Can I please keep this horse? Thank you to Christopher Davis of the Grapeline Shuttle for taking this photo! (and a great tour of the wine country!)

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Carpenteria Californica in Bloom

10 Thursday Apr 2014

Posted by ninagarden in California native plants, drought-tolerant

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Tags

California native plants, drought-tolerant, flowers

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Finally, one of my Carpenteria has bloomed. I planted these plants up on my back hill almost two years ago–here’s a picture of it when I first planted. I don’t know if the warm, dry winter encouraged it or not, but I’m glad it finally bloomed.  I noticed little pods forming all over the bush a few weeks ago and finally they opened to reveal a white flower with a bright yellow center. I see one of my other Carpenterias now has pods too so another one will bloom any day.

This California native has dark green leaves. They are shiny and waxy looking. The plants are shrub like but mine grow taller than wider. You might say they are a little spindly, but they are a nice bright spot of green in the landscape. They are supposed to grow 4 to 8 feet high and five feet wide. (Mine are maybe two feet wide.)

The blooms are pretty and almost look like roses. I think in a few days, the shrub will be covered with blossoms.

I don’t even water it! Very drought tolerant! Keep that in mind! (They were very hard to find at a nursery. I think I had to order them and no one even knew what they looked like.)

The soil up on the top of the hill is not too bad, but not too good either –patches of clay everywhere. The description of this plant says it lives in clay or loam soil, tolerant of sun or shade. Flowers May through August–yipee! And they are supposed to be fragrant.

I guess I better go smell the Carpenteria Californica!

 

 

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Serious Drought Stuff

01 Tuesday Apr 2014

Posted by ninagarden in California native plants, drought-tolerant, garden, Southern California Rain

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

drought-tolerant, planning, succulents

Note: of course, I started writing this last week and now that I have time to finish, it is raining :-0

I heard the governor on the radio the other day, and it made me realize my yard might not get much water this summer.

This is serious stuff. And it is likely to continue into the future. I might as well face the facts.

I have decided to delay planting our front yard. Why plant, if I can’t water or shouldn’t water? I am going to wait until the fall when it is cooler.

That said, I am also going to plant even more drought-tolerant plants. This poses a problem for my style of gardening — I love cottage gardens. I am not a fan of a cactus or succulent garden; I have seen enough of those growing up in the desert!

I am going to search for cottage plants that don’t take water. The one that comes to mind is lavender. My lavender on the “hell strip” by the street never gets water. I spray it for a second or two once in a while to wash off the salts. I think the morning mist waters it.

I could plant my whole fountain area in lavender and have a few of those succulents that have the hot pink flowers–Calandrinia spectabilis. It is supposed to be indestructible, which is good.

Sage (the herb), salvia, alstoemeria, moonshine yarrow and a native verbena like De La Mina also might be good. I rarely water my alstoemeria once established and it still blooms. I also think artichokes would be nice–of course, they will likely need a little more water. That is one thing I have learned that can be difficult about mixing low water plants with ones that need more water–if you water too much, you kill the drought tolerant ones and if you water too little, well you know.  I think you have to pretty much go whole hog with drought tolerant! At least zone your plantings to match your sprinklers so you can have a low water area, and if you need it, an area that needs more sprinkling. Usually the plants will live without water but they just won’t bloom. I have found this true with day lillies.  They like water to flower.

Of course, grass falls into this category. We have a tiny figure eight of grass, which is ugly anyway due to other grasses mixing in and compacting of the dirt (and holes the dog dug).  We could brick it over or try a native grass–no more mowing. Another option is to make the grass even smaller and edge each border with a gravel or river stone then have the grass. I have seen this in larger yards and it looks beautiful.

In the shade, I like drought-tolerant ferns: here is the article I have been searching for in Sunset Magazine on ferns that like it dry. And this article has some other ideas for “wild and romantic” drought tolerant designs. Some of those look pretty.

Better Homes And Gardens has some other good garden ideas for drought-tolerant plantings. This page for Intermountain Nursery has a lot of the plants I like. You can see moonshine yarrow, mimulus, and other plants here, including Carpenteria Californica, which is planted on my hill and is about to bloom for the first time. (Maybe it needed a really dry year to bloom.) I am really excited to see it and will post a photo.

Looks like I will have time to plan this new drought-proof garden all through the hot, long summer.

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