Life After Conventional Gardens: a Liberating Experience

A climate appropriate garden is a beautiful garden!

Now that 2015 is waning and lawn replacements rebates are uncertain (in Santa Clara County, as of this writing) there are plenty of reasons to go ahead with your lawn replacement projects. I hope to continue to see more people taking action to replace high water-use gardens with climate appropriate ones. The current severe drought has forced us to rethink our gardens, and it's been a liberating experience for many.

Several of my garden design clients have been very pleased and excited by their new water-saving gardens that offer flowers and seasonal beauty to enjoy, as well as fresh herbs for the kitchen. I have the impression that many homeowners (especially non-gardeners) have traditional lawns as default landscaping, since it's difficult to figure out what to do otherwise. 

Besides the water savings, a huge bonus is not having to mow and fertilize a high maintenance lawn. A careful selection of appropriate plants leads to a low maintenance garden- that's also liberating!

But even if a patch of lawn is desired (for example, in a kids play area), there are several alternatives to conventional high water-use turf. See the Delta Bluegrass website to learn more. Native grasses offer seasonal beauty and elegance, but are not yet as tough as varieties that have been bred to withstand lots of foot traffic. 

An urn as a recirculating fountain attracts birds to this new garden (former lawn)

In the photos above, a garden we installed last May has grown to be a lush pollinator garden with native and ornamental sages, plus prolific culinary herbs for the kitchen (near the recirculating fountain, above). 
The photo below shows the garden after the lawn died and before the garden re-design:

Former conventional lawn before garden make-over 

A discarded but very nice pedestal fountain in the photo above was repurposed into a charming succulent planter by drilling holes into it so that irrigation tubing could be put in place (top photo). Succulents (as a group) are a great choices for low-water gardens. This group includes sedums, agaves, echeverias, sempervivums, aloes, as well as cacti. Nurseries have greatly expanded their offerings of succulents to meet the current demand.

The image below demonstrates the drama and color that succulents bring to the garden. 

Echeverias are paired with a large sculptural agave for an attractive color scheme
Photo taken at Succulent Gardens, Castroville, CA

The good news is that if you are ready to rethink your conventional landscape and make a liberating shift to a more climate appropriate one, there are more resources than ever to help you make the transition.

Here are some inspirational links to get you started:

Inspiring images of low-water gardens, Sunset Magazine

Santa Clara Valley Master Gardeners Drought Information page- chock full of resources

Xerces Society information page for creating pollinator gardens in California


Garden designed by Patricia Larenas, Urban Artichoke, Mountain View, CA
Garden installed by Jackie Marsey, Paradise Landscape and Garden, San Jose, CA

 Photos by: Patricia Larenas, Urban Artichoke

Creating A Healthy Garden Ecosystem

Pineapple Sage (Salvia elegans) is a favorite of hummingbirds and bees

In a previous post I wrote that by adopting certain gardening practices you can take advantage of “ecosystem services”, which provide pest control, healthy soil, thriving pollinators, and more.  The goal is to strive for a balanced system where natural processes are encouraged and thrive.

Why bother? In a healthy garden diseases and pests are minimized and you are contributing to the health of our environment overall. Here are my favorite tips for creating a thriving ecosystem in your garden.

The Basics: Food, Shelter, Water

To keep it simple think of it this way: an ecosystem is made up of living things and all living things need the basics: food, shelter (a home, i.e., habitat) and water.  In my garden a combination of California natives, ornamental plants (non-natives), and edibles make up a triad that buzzes with life. The native plants encourage wild pollinators and provide habitat and food. A careful selection of water-wise ornamental plants (a must in California) do the same. Edible plants are a diverse group that includes trees, herbs, perennials of many types, and annuals, which include many of our vegetables. In an ecosystem these plants have multiple roles. 

Scarlet Runner Beans have edible flowers that bees love 

Traditional Lawn Centered Gardens are Low on Diversity

Most traditionally designed gardens in urban areas do not have all of the three components above. The typical lawn-centered garden that is overly manicured with nary a leaf out of place is generally not very biologically diverse. Urban and suburban gardens are often designed to minimize leaf litter and emphasize a significant monoculture of lawn space. All lawns are not necessarily bad, it's the practice of using weedkillers and synthetic fertilizers that do the most harm to the ecosystem, in addition to wasting copious amounts of precious water. 

Furthermore, the flowering plants in these traditional gardens are usually not allowed to form seeds, and they aren't selected for their value as food for wildlife. In fact, some hybridized flowers don't produce pollen (sterile hybrids), which is considered a messy drawback for cut flowers brought into the house! 

In short, the traditionally landscaped garden is low on diversity, and a healthy ecosystem is just the opposite.

Transforming Your Garden 

The Big Three: Edibles, Natives and Ornamentals

In my garden, a combination of California natives, ornamental plants (non-natives), and edibles make up a triad that buzzes with life. I didn’t follow a formula to arrive at this combination- it happened naturally during the process of redesigning our yards. The native plants encourage wild pollinators and other beneficial insects, and provide habitat and food. A careful selection of water-wise ornamental plants (a must in California) do the same, as do edible plants.   

 Chamomile is a lovely ground cover with a delicate apple scent

Among my edible plants I’ve included a variety of perennial culinary herbs that insects love. These herbs have low water requirements: oregano, sweet marjoram, sage, rosemary, winter savory, lovage and different thymes. Allowing them to flower is critical. Not only do they attract pollinators, they are essential for cooking (the flowers are edible too), and can be cut back periodically after flowering to renew their foliage.  With these attributes they are popular in gardens for Mediterranean climates like ours in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Herbs are planted around my raised vegetable beds as permanent companions to seasonal vegetables to maximize pollination and bring in beneficial insects.

Flowering herbs and edibles ensure that my front yard is buzzing with life

Trees and Shrubs
A mature tree is extremely valuable and not readily replaceable. They provide us with numerous benefits that we take for granted at our peril.  A mature tree is an entire ecosystem that contributes (at a minimum) habitat for wildlife, shade, food, organic matter through leaf litter that feeds the soil as it decomposes, they transpire moisture into the surrounding air to regulate the local temperature, and their extensive root systems are part of the ecology of the soil food web. 

In keeping with my strategy of using natives, ornamentals and edibles, here are the trees in my garden: avocado, Meyer Lemon, a Blood Orange, Pomegranate, Santa Rosa Plum, a Pluot, a multigrafted apple, California Buckeye (Aesculus californica), Flannel Bush (Fremontodendron californicum), Coast Live Oak (Quercus agrifolia), and Crepe Myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica). 

Our shrubs provide a dense screen along our backyard fence and they are a favorite nesting place for local birds. They enjoy foraging on the ground where wood chips have replaced the lawns, and I provide water in two birdbaths for them.

A Morro Blood Orange

You can build your ecosystem over time as you learn more about the best plants to include for your climate zone.  It’s a lifestyle choice and gradual process of discovery. Select plants that have flowers and seeds attractive to the local wildlife.  

Birds enjoy hunting for bugs in my lush artichoke berm 

Remember that a healthy garden is lively with activity!

Related posts you might enjoy:
Maximize Free Ecosystem Services in Your Garden
The Rewards of a Seedy Garden
Your Garden as Wildlife Habitat
An Inspiring Talk by Toby Hemenway (author of Gaia's Garden)

Photos: Patricia Larenas, Urban Artichoke

What is Sustainable Gardening? My Test Case with Surprising Results

Replacing an old juniper hedge with a beautiful flowering, edible rosemary hedge that bees love is a good thing, right? In my sustainability analysis I'm surprised at my conclusions, but at peace with my decision.

Sustainability: What it is

What is meant by sustainable practices? At its core, it means taking into account the impacts of our actions on the environment, on people, and on economic concerns, so that we don't compromise the future. Deciding on whether to replace my standard- issue suburban juniper hedge with a rosemary hedge turned out to be a good test case. Here's why:

Sustainable gardening puts to use the principles of sustainability, and there is actually a document to point to for these so called Hannover Principles, also known as, a "Bill of Rights for the Planet", which are used as guidelines. They are credited to William McDonnell Architects and were developed for an  EXPO held in Hannover, Germany.

Recently I had a chance to apply these principles to my hedge replacement plan. I took a short course on  sustainable practices  through my horticultural program this summer and it was a good eye-opener that got me thinking deeper about my own approach to gardening. I have to give credit to instructor Frank Niccoli, a sustainable landscaper who teaches in my Environmental Horticulture and Design program.

My Test Case

We inherited the junipers when we bought our suburban home, and I've never found them attractive, in fact they irritate me.  They don't flower, they are prickly, and I don't like their odor. They are leftovers of gardening practices popular in the 50's and came with our house.  In contrast, rosemary is an attractive shrub with lovely sky blue to purple flowers that attract bees, has a wonderful fragrance, is useful in the kitchen and can be pruned into a hedge. It's also drought tolerant. On the surface it seems like an obvious decision to go ahead with my replacement scheme.

But I applied sustainable principles in analyzing my plan and I was surprised at my conclusions. See if you agree.

My Analysis

To remove the juniper hedge I would have to:

1. Pay someone to take out a row several feet long of these shrubs.

2. Pay to have the roots removed so that I could plant something in their place; leaving any roots means they might grow back.

3. Pay to have the waste from the shrubs be disposed of at the dump, because they cannot be used for mulch.

Additionally,

4. The energy use involved in removal and transportation to the dump are costs to the environment (pollution and use of petroleum based non-renewal energy).

5. The truckload of yard waste is needlessly adding to the landfill, which is a societal cost, since garbage keeps coming, but landfill space is limited.

The Benefits of Doing Nothing

Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing; here are the arguments for keeping the junipers:

1. The juniper shrubs have the advantage of being drought tolerant which is very important in my dry California climate.

2. There are currently no monetary or environmental costs to keeping the juniper hedge as is (I've been hand-pruning for the past several years).

My Conclusion

Sadly for my rosemary hedge fantasy, the resources required to replace the junipers with something I happen to like better far out weigh the benefits. Part of the equation is that I already have several rosemary bushes that provide herbs for my kitchen and flowers for bees. I also grow a profusion of other herbs and flowering plants that benefit my garden ecosystem.

Thinking in a New Way

“Sustainable design is not a reworking of conventional approaches, and technologies, but a fundamental change in thinking and in ways of operating–you cannot put spots on an elephant and call it a cheetah.”

- Carol Franklin, Andropogan Associates LTD.

A sustainable approach to gardening and to our lifestyles in general, means that we take a global approach to everything we do by weighing the impacts. For the gardener this means that we consider the inputs and the outputs of our home gardening practices. This simply means  that a minimum, we think carefully about the types of plants that we grow and landscape with, fertilizers we use, and what we do with garden waste.

In my test case the arguments in favor of replacing the juniper hedge with pollinator-attracting rosemary are weak when considered in the context of my particular garden.

Therefore, the junipers will live to see another day and having realized the real costs, it's a decision I can live with.

Photo: Patricia Larenas, Urban Artichoke

Treasures From Used Bookstores: Gardening Books

I have a growing collection of beautiful gardening books thanks to my favorite used bookstores. Once I discovered that their gardening sections are usually well stocked with great books, I’ve been padding my own shelves at home with some gems at low cost. Some are no longer in print, so that's another reason to spend time browsing in these shops. 

Herbal Knowledge is Timeless 

Some of my best finds are herbals, books on growing and using herbs. Herbs are essential in my garden for cooking and for brewing teas. I’ve written previously about their benefits to the garden ecosystem. 

And these books don't get outdated. This is knowledge that has been gathered and passed down through generations that will always be useful. 

Three Books for Your Gardening Collection 

Here are some of my favorite finds that I think you'll enjoy too. If they aren't available in your used bookstore, you might find copies online: 

1. The Forgotten Art of Growing, Gardening, and Cooking with Herbs, by Richard M. Bacon, 1972, Yankee INC. 

This medium-sized paperback book is packed with information about kitchen herbs, including how to design herb gardens and how to grow herbs indoors in restricted spaces. It has numerous short recipes (no detailed cooking instructions) and a chart for which herbs to pair with specific foods. There are also recipes for making skin creams, scented oils, and even how to use them as pesticides. Interestingly, this book is one in a series of “The Forgotten Art of…” books (others are: Building a Good Fireplace, and Building a Stone Wall!). 

Drying herbs for Herbs de Provence: thyme, rosemary and lavender

2. Herbs: Gardens, Decorations, and Recipes, by Emelie Tolley and Chris Mead, 1985, Houston Home and Garden. 

This is a gorgeous book that is up there in the coffee-table-book category. It’s a hefty hardcover in a large format, and full of glossy color photos. The authors feature forty herbs for the garden with a paragraph or two about each, but the generous amount of photos of featured gardens across the country (plus one in England) make this a perfect book to curl up with and savor. The authors showcase different herb gardens, from cozy and quaint to formal, and discuss design ideas. Detailed recipes beautifully photographed are another plus. The back of the book has a directory of herb shops and gardens. I’m glad I didn’t have to pay full price for this one! 

Delicate and lovely Silver thyme flowers

3. Rodale’s Illustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs, Claire Kowalchik and William H. Hylton, editors, 1987, Rodale Press. 

Wow. This is my hands-downs favorite reference book, probably influenced by the fact that it was my father’s book. My hardcover copy has over 140 herbs. Each entry includes historical anecdotes as well as uses, cultivation, drawings and photos. The descriptions of the herbs are very thorough, and include detailed horticultural notes describing the leaves and flowers, growing zones, and Latin names. Besides charts for pairing with food, this book has sections on herbal botany, a history of herbs, and the use of herbs in healing. This one is a must for anyone interested in herbs. 

Do you have a favorite gardening book you picked up used? Let me know - I'd love to hear about more old gems...

 A version of this post was also published on Eat Drink Better

Photos: Patricia Larenas

Grow an Herbal Tea Garden

Clockwise from left: chamomile, lemon balm, scented geranium, yerba buena, bee balm

A cup of fragrant herb tea is a natural choice when you want to avoid caffeine. And best of all, you can grow a variety of wonderfully scented herbs in your garden or in containers.

Create an herbal tea garden and snip off a couple of fresh sprigs whenever you want a comforting cup of tea. You can also dry your herbs and keep them for winter use in airtight containers and to give as gifts. Your  garden will come alive with their spicy scents and with appreciative wildlife. Bees, hummingbirds and butterflies love the flowers of many herbs. It's a pleasure to rub the leaves and enjoy a whiff of all the different perfumes while working in the garden. Many will do well potted into containers for your porch or patio.

Some of my favorites are: lemon verbena, bee balm, chamomile, scented geraniums, catnip (aka, catmint), pineapple sage, and lemon balm. I recently found a lemon-scented catmint at a local nursery that I've added to my herb garden.

Hummingbirds and bees love the scarlet flowers of pineapple sage

Brewing Herbal Tea

To brew herb tea just add a few leaves or sprigs to your tea pot, or follow this basic method from Rodale’s Illustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs:

1. Use a non-metal tea pot to preserve the true flavors.

2. For hot tea use 2 tablespoons of fresh herbs or 1 tablespoon of dry per cup of water.

3. For iced tea use 3 tablespoons of fresh herbs or 2 tablespoon of dry per cup of water (to allow for ice cubes).

4. Bring water to a boil, then pour over the herbs in the tea pot; cover to steep.

5. Steep for at least 5 minutes, test for taste, steep longer if desired.

Serve with honey, lemon or orange slices, or sprigs of fresh herbs. I like to add a dab of honey to both hot and iced tea. For iced tea add the honey before chilling the tea so it will dissolve.

Brew Your Own Flavored Tea Drink

You can use your herbs for hot or iced tea. Brew them in combinations or try flavoring a cup of green tea with lemon verbena or bee balm. Iced green tea is really good flavored this way- have you noticed the trendy ice tea drinks sold in nice glass bottles? You can make your own, just flavor it with a bit of honey while it's still hot, chill it, and enjoy.

Teapot Therapy

The pleasant ritual of brewing tea and enjoying a couple of cups from my teapot is very soothing. If you don’t have a teapot you can brew your tea right in your cup, just cover it while it’s steeping and strain out the herbs by pouring it into another cup to drink. Then keep an eye out at garage sales or pottery sales for interesting teapots to collect and enjoy a daily herbal tea ritual.

Published on Eat Drink Better

Photos: Patricia Larenas, Urban Artichoke