Realizing that the competition among landscaping companies San Diego is strong, landscape designers vie for the homeowner’s choice with their best photo of their most artful work because to do so is accepted theory practiced and taught by marketing experts.

This puts me into a bind of sorts:  What is my best work?  I thought I knew that, but when I show my portfolio to potential clients I get the most divergent comments on my work that make me question this assumption. Take this example:

This landscape design appeals to me, and I feel it is one of my more successful ones.  I love how the grasses capture the light, and how the pinks and purples in the foreground harmonize with the greens.  It’s a romantic and successful arrangement of textures and shapes, evoking an idealistic and earthy mountain scene, and many people who see it exclaim “How beautiful this is!”  and “I love this”.

You can perhaps imagine my amazement when I experienced for the first time a client who, with a crinkle in her eyebrow, said “Nah… This looks too weedy for me”.  Other comments have been “too crowded”  and “too jumbled”.

Or take this example of a DIY landscape design:  Here I helped a homeowner fine-tune her front yard landscape design ideas, advised on her selection of drought resistant plants and assisted with the plant layout (this was in order to qualify for the City of San Diego’s  Lawn Replacement Rebate Program.)

The application for the rebate was successful; the homeowner received a partial reimbursement of the turf removal/installation cost.  Better still, her front yard captures the admiration of her neighbors who admit that “there’s now so much more going on” in her yard and that “it is so alive”! My client loves it and is very happy with the design.

(The project is shown here right after planting; nothing has grown in.)

Would you say that the photo of this garden deserves a place in my portfolio as my “best work”?  Is this design artful? Would you like it?

Contrast this project now with this:

I just love this arrangement of two classy chairs, the glimpse of an elegant pavement and a pretty table décor, against a green plant screen that evokes privacy and peace.  The vase and flowers on the table add beautiful, warm colors to the scene and give it a lively spark. Who wouldn’t want to sit here? Don’t all elements combine to make you relaxed as you imagine yourself sitting here?

Without doubt this is a very inviting scene, and I have yet to hear an indifferent comment about it, but is it artful?

In the end I think this is a fairly irrelevant question.  I have found that what counts to my clients is the style they prefer, that speaks to their aesthetics.

Since I have realized this, I find my work much more satisfying.  Of course there’s the tough project once in a while: Designing a garden that excludes anything attractive to bees is “unnatural” to me, even though I understand the client’s fear of bee stings… …(This design incorporated lots of grasses and plants that don’t flower very often, such as Agaves, and wind-pollinated plants, as much as I could determine this.)

Equally, creating a landscape that categorically excluded trees was a challenge.   But I tried my best and gave him what he wanted -  he wouldn’t have felt at ease in a landscape with trees.  So even this was in the end a good experience, and the homeowner was very comfortable with the design.

When I help my clients turn their landscape design ideas into a project that works for them, I’m successful, and they enjoy the beauty they see. And although I have my personal preference as to how I want to use plants to give life to a space, I try to temper it and put my client’s glasses on, so to speak. (That’s why designing a garden without trees or flowers is harder to do).  Sometimes the happy circumstance puts me together with a homeowner who loves my own style, and those designs are most inspiring to me.  But whether those designs or any other ones that I do are artful only you, the user, can say.

Everything about the location of their new home appealed to Ara and Diego:  Conveniently located at a comfortable driving distance to schools, work (both work in medical research at a local university), shopping and cultural events of San Diego, and located in a quiet residential neighborhood, it offered a magnificent view of San Diego Bay, right from their back patio.  It had a good-sized landscape with many fruit trees and room for Diego’s exotics collection; it even had a pool and large play lawns for the couple’s three children.

The home’s architecture and layout however left a lot to be desired:  The 70’s style red tile roof of this Perceived-Spanish fantasy weighed heavily on it; chopped-up rooms and lack of windows and doors were not taking advantage of one of the most prized attributes to Southern California lifestyle:  Our brilliant skies and mild temperatures inviting “inside-out living” spaces that blend seamlessly together.  Ara and Diego dreamt of taking advantage of all as much as possible; with their love of contemporary and mid-century modern art and architecture they decided on a radical transformation of their new home. The changes would not stop at the home itself; picket fence, spindly palm trees and neatly hedged shrubs did not fit into their aesthetics either nor into their sense of sustainability.

One of the first things they decided on was to lift off the heavy roof, revealing the clean horizontal lines of a modernist bungalow, and refreshing the exterior with a white smooth “Santa Barbara” stucco.  On the inside, rooms were enlarged, and in the center a large community space created that floats seamlessly from living to dining to living space. The old entry hall was removed and replaced by a courtyard that is open to the front yard; a room addition created a U-shaped patio in the back yard.  Here a warm, barefoot-friendly Ipe deck is a continuation of the wood flooring indoors and invites as much living outdoors as possible, facilitated by sliding doors that connect every room with the outside.

Ara’s and Diego’s creative passions didn’t stop at the house : They were interested in landscape design help that would complement and soften the crisp edges of the home’s modernist design; it needed also to reflect the couple’s artwork and accommodate their active lifestyle. The new landscape design should work with the dry California climate as a low water landscape; it should only require a modicum of maintenance, and it also needed to incorporate Diego’s exotic collection of cacti and succulents.

As we were brainstorming possible landscape design ideas, we agreed that the lawns had an essential place in the landscape as much-used play areas for the couple’s children and their friends. Both the back yard landscape design as well as the front yard are designed around the children’s activities.

The entrance patio, right next to the garage and the driveway, was a bit too open to the public; we wanted it to be off-set without employing a heavy screen.  The pavement here consisted of a beautiful travertine tile into which we cut out a row of tiles, just between it and the driveway.  Here we placed a couple of naturally rusted steel troughs that “enclosed” the patio and created a visual although very low separation between the two. More a suggestion rather than an actual screen, a lacy curtain of horsetail reeds creates greater privacy for this courtyard that is open to the public yet can’t easily be scrutinized by passersby.

Decorating the wall across from the breakfast room we mounted a red metal sculpture fabricated after Ara’s and Diego’s design. It decorates a fountain trough made also of steel left to rust naturally.  (The fountain is presently under repair, and the trough not filled.)

With the heavy roofs gone, the horizontal lines of the architecture dominated the landscape.  I employed xeriscape plants whose dramatic shapes, intricate textures and sky-reaching forms contrast with the regularity of the architecture and lend an exotic touch to the landscape:  Dracaenas Dracaena marginata, Ponytail Palm Beaucarnea recurvata, Caribbean Copper Plant Euphorbia cotinifolia and Purple Peppermint Willow Agonis flexuosa ‘After Dark’ lend the height and the dark color accent; Agaves and cacti the exotic notes; bold Aeoniums and Rock Purslane Calandrinia spectabilis  the color and visual interest.  A giant New Zealand Flax, Rushes and False Yucca Hesperaloe parviflora lend the airier character, and to all xeriphytic perennials contribute a softening effect.

The old access to the side yard was re-designed; a good-looking Ipe fence picks up the material used in the back yard for the deck extension and inside the home for the flooring.

Diego had already started a substantial collection of fantastic cacti such as Cleistocactus and Cereus monstrosus; also Foxtail Agaves, Aloes and a giant Euphorbia canariensis; some of them had been salvaged from his previous home.  They all found their new home in this xeriscape San Diego and are a much better aesthetical fit for the home’s architectural style than the clipped shrubs and fence of the former landscape.  Some of them act as their own dramatic pieces of art and have prominent places in the landscape (here across from the red metal courtyard sculpture).

A local gravel called ‘Palm Springs Gold’ serves as mulch and adds a textural element. It is also a clean foil against which the colors and textures of these plants stand out. It evokes a desert  scape in which succulents are used in great numbers together with long-flowering and lasting perennials and other drought resistant plants.

More from common sense and the desire for sustainability than aesthetics, the existing pool and part of the previous deck (bordering the new Ipe deck) were integrated into the new landscape and allow a smooth access from house to pool, play lawn and garden.

When the weather is warm which is around 300 days a year, the family keeps the windows and sliding doors to this terrace open.

What an exciting project this was, and how satisfying.  To me as landscape designer San Diego it reflects a new “California Mix”:  A definite aesthetic sense influencing the design of home and garden without ever imposing a purist’s approach; a strong desire for a sustainable landscape design that honors the style of the owners while acknowledging the needs of the family and the environment.

One of my very first backyard landscape design projects was a small urban backyard renovation where the homeowners were tired of lawn and old shrubs.  Ryan and Jill were dreaming of a much more peaceful, enchanting scene and asked me to design a pond that they could view from their deck.

The sound of water running in a small creek from a small rocky “outcropping” and mound in a far corner of the garden into the pond, and a dense leafy screen surrounding the garden would make the backyard very private and block out most of the city noises.

The design was installed some 8 years ago, and I recently went back to visit and to see how pond, fish and homeowners were doing.

I did arrive with some trepidations: My original choice of screening trees had not been the happiest:  The Brazilian Tipuana tipu is a beautiful tree with lacey foliage and a wide, umbrella-like crown.  It fits well into a low water landscape, is ‘green’ through our Southern California winter but starts shedding its foliage when most other deciduous trees have leafed out already. This takes several weeks until, in early summer, it bursts into the prettiest bloom of orange-yellow Sweet Pea-like flowers.  Besides the leave drop problem I had expected that the trees in this xeriscape design would crowd each other out eventually, and I was expecting that the homeowner might regret that selection.

I was thrilled to see a scene not much changed since the garden had been installed:  The creek was still running to the pond, providing needed oxygen and delighting us with its gurgling and bubbling sounds.  Some twelve smallish Koi were busily milling close to the deck as the evening was approaching, to receive their daily feeding.  The peaceful mood was still there as were the trees, although the homeowner said he would remove them soon because he intended to install solar panels on his roof.  To my relief he said that he had loved their look and therefore didn’t mind the extra maintenance.  I asked him about his maintenance program, and he explained that he adds a biological clarifier on a weekly basis, and an algaecide as needed (both are biological controls).   He also uses a skimmer and filter cloth, hidden under a fake rock, that get cleaned weekly (except during heavy drop like the Tipus drop their leaves); then there’s a biofall (where the waterfall starts) in another plastic box that has the same filter mesh at the bottom and 2 mesh bags of rock. The leaves and petals are not too bad, he says – even when the wind has blown an extra load of petals into the water.

What about “visitors”?  He has created some hollow spaces at the bottom of the pond under several overturned clay tiles where the fish hide when an occasional heron or egret comes to visit.  Raccoons merely push a few of the smaller rocks around in their attempt to catch a Koi, but always give up – they don’t like the deep in the middle of the pond where the fish hide.

Over the years Ryan and Jill have enjoyed their water feature that always entertains them with a lively yet peaceful scenery:  There are rocks and boulders, rushes and grasses at the water’s edge, and there’s the cherished Pineapple Guava that has grown into a graceful large shrub, on the other side of the pond.

There’s the play of sunlight on the water’s surface and the steady darting of dragon flies or other beneficial insects that land on blades and pads of Iris and Water Lilies.  Birds of course come to the water’s edge to bathe and drink as well as other critters.  Visitors come to stay, such as frogs, others wonder out again, such as the occasional raccoon.. There’s the comfortable chair across from the deck inviting to sit and watch the activities at the pond from a different angle, especially the perennial glint and splash of the Koi fish.  There are lots of babies at this time -  they are the babies that hatched in early summer of last year.

I’m not an expert in pond building or maintenance, so here’s a quick overview (and I don’t claim completeness):

The prominent ingredients of a fish pond are water, plants, fish, snails, soil, light, temperature – and time.  After all the ingredients have been put together, it takes time for all to balance out and grow into a clear pond.

Algae, while they are unsightly, may not necessarily be unhealthy; they can make the water appear brownish or green, or grow as fine threads or moss-like coverings on shells, snails, walls and stones.  Small fish can feed on some of these algae… Threadlike algae are often associated with crystal clear water and are evidence of the oxygen-generating ability of algae. A lot of things feed plants, algae and fish:  Food that we give the fish; foliage that drops into the water and decays; and the waste that fish produce.

Adding aquatic plants to a pond not only increases its visual appeal and natural look; floaters such as Water Hyacinth , marginals such as Water Iris , and Water Lilies help reduce algae as they feed on nutrients or block out sunlight – both will starve the algae. Shading the water with leaves keeps the water cooler which is desirable.  Chemical control may also be used if necessary, however great care must be taken to select chemicals safe for fish and plant life.  As the pond matures, the need for chemicals should diminish.  Keeping decomposing material in the water to a minimum will also lower the nutrients in the water, less food will then be available for the algae to feed upon. Prune off old leaves and skim the surface for fallen leaves.

The pH of the water can also affect pond balance, and there are formulas suggested to help achieve it. Also, you can determine the most balanced amount of fish and plants for your pond by calculating the water’s volume and surface area.

I’m not an expert in pond matters; I’d rather refer to an ‘ocean’ of information and helpful videos online… You can contact the local chapter of the California Landscape Contractors Association to refer you to a San Diego landscaper experienced in pond building.

And mosquitoes?

Did you know that fish eat mosquito larvae and that mosquitoes don’t like moving water? Keeping your water moving and cleaning off debris regularly that provides hiding places for mosquitoes is a good recipe to control mosquitoes.

What not to love about a pond!  I myself have one, as part of my front yard landscape design, by my front door.  I watch it from my living room window, and although its location isn’t perfect either (the previous owners must have decided to live with the maintenance; they created the pond at the edge of an oak canopy), it’s a most cherished delight of my garden.

Whenever I see the shade sails in this garden, I have the sensation of floating through the landscape, as though the patio was a ship sailing past islands of colorful plants and fun activities.  I also think of comfort; activities beneath these sails are protected from drizzle, fog and sunshine without being weighed down by heavy beams.

CASE STUDY IN LA JOLLA

In the above backyard landscape design, the installer designed a combination of 2 super-imposed sails made to specs from sun-rated HDPE (high density polyethylene) fire rated shade fabric, sage green, both in a triangle shape. After determining the specific angle that was needed to block out the noon sun, one sail tip was attached with a strong stainless steel cable to the 1^st story façade of the L-shaped house; a second point of attachment is on the roof of the lower arm of the L, where the actual anchoring was achieved by attaching to the roof beams.  The 3^rd sail tip is attached to a steel post with a 4’-6” foot-deep base set in concrete that is hidden among the bamboo culms. Together both shade sails are very efficient at blocking the sun of the dining area, and their swooping outlines impart motion and energy to the landscape.

These sails can also be mounted vertically to block out a bad view; in this project the sails served to screen out the neighbor’s house that was looming behind the fence.

In cases where there is no house or roof to attach the sails to, free-standing posts are planted to which the sails are attached.

DETERMINING SHADE AND EFFICIENCY

The shade sails above were tested in a mock-up prior to installation. Other methods include “shade auditing” and  shadow mapping.

BENEFITS

• Protection from UV rays (some fabrics offer up to 97 % UV protection);
• Custom designed to fit the project’s requirements, in triangle, or trapezoid/square shapes (some standard sizes are available);
• They represent cool landscape ideas that add value to the home and attractiveness to the landscape;
• They can serve as vertical screen to increase privacy or block out a bad view;
• They can be designed and installed to withstand high wind ratings.
• Low maintenance: Yearly washing is recommended (some installers offer this service).

PRODUCT QUALITY
Every component of a shade sail is designed to stand up to the rigors of day in–day out exposure to the sun.  Many shade sails also have an up to 10 year manufacturer’s warranty against UV degradation.

DESIGN

As landscape designer San Diego, I love the contemporary character of these structures, their playful and even elegant forms and subtle colors. They make for an artistic statement, be it in a Mediterranean landscape, an eclectic “California mix”, or the landscape design adorning a modern home.

Since the sails can be mounted on roofs, façades or free-standing posts not planted in a fixed square or rectangle, I enjoy the artistic freedom that this allows my residential landscape design; these free-form shapes can totally transform a bland landscape into an architectural showpiece.

How a homeowner with an artist’s love of beautiful details and a receptive landscape designer found synergy and fertile ground in the garden

A couple of years after installation, this garden has matured beautifully.  I cherish the artistic collaboration with my clients; it contributes to very personalized and satisfying designs.  In this project the teamwork was particularly fruitful, as Melissa F., entrepreneur, artist and singer/song-writer,  contributed an immense flow of creative ideas and suggestions.  The result is a garden that is beautiful and incredibly peaceful.

Melissa calls it her ‘outdoor home’ because it’s all here:  living room, kitchen, sitting room and lounge, and vivid plantings that make all come to life.

The previous backyard landscape design consisted of an uninspiring courtyard that a planter bed set in the middle made user-unfriendly.

Melissa and Todor love to cook and entertain outside.  To blend the kitchen seamlessly, we used bamboo facing, echoing the indoor flooring and the living bamboo hedge.

Under the cool shade sails the outdoor dining area feels like it has always been there.

For each material selection we explored the idea of “weathering”, inspired by the mottled copper caps on eaves and fence posts and the home’s faded wood siding. The naturally rusted steel used for edging, planting troughs, fountain and gas lights provides that patina; matte concrete and exposed beach pebbles continue the theme.

Organized to allow for entertainment, relaxation and play, the garden creates a dynamic and sunny ‘outdoor home’ where plants add color, life and interest and prevent the built elements from overpowering the garden.

The bamboo hedge is a beautiful response to the construction of an oversized home in the neighbor’s yard that threatened the privacy and intimacy of this garden. The hedge helps focus the eye on the interior and defines the boundary of this backyard. It’s exciting to see how the black Bamboo stems echo the dark pavement in a wonderful contrast to the surrounding green foliage.

Most of the original overgrown “tropical” plants were removed and replaced with low maintenance plants. This xeriscape landscaping was composed in colors of Melissa’s preferred color palette:

Forest Pansy Redbud, bronze Sedge and golden Kangaroo Paw, purplish Echeveria and in-ground Bromeliad with striking foliage. A few splashes of orange and red add highlights to the picture.

One of the landscape lighting ideas was to use steel “fire” troughs.  They provide light, warmth and entertainment after nightfall.  While their mottled rusty walls continue the theme of weathering, they also tie the different spaces together.

The steel fountain complements the materials used in the landscape and has a calming effect on all senses.

If synergy is  “the ability of a group to outperform even its best individual member”, then this residential landscape design is a beautiful example of how two creative individuals with their own aesthetics found common ground in the garden and created a product that will satisfy its owners for years to come. (Landscape designer San Diego Christiane Holmquist).

Photography:  Patricia Bean Architectural Photography

Reading yet another list of gardening chores for this winter (it does provide our best gardening season), I notice that there are a lot of ‘to do lists’ published online and in gardening magazines about how to prepare for the next year in our gardens.  Feeling slightly guilty about wanting to stay indoors and relax a bit, I wondered ‘Why not write something about the fun stuff that can help us become better gardeners, enlighten and entertain us, without being a chore?’

Celebrate, entertain and learn

The San Diego Botanic Garden in Encinitas offers great cultural activities for visitors of all ages, gardener or not.  Visit their “West Coast largest interactive Children’s Garden”, enjoy their holiday lighting displays, or participate in their classes, docent or self-guided tours, bird watching events.  Not to miss is their annual “Sculpture in the Garden” exhibit.

Come to see their fascinating botanical plant groupings.  One of them is designed like an amazing “underwater” garden where succulents and cacti evoke a fantastic world of coral reef marine life.

The Water Conservation Garden in El Cajon is a public garden that focuses on a fun, entertaining approach to education where the local homeowner, student or casual visitor can learn about water conservation in the xeriscape landscaping and “the sustainable use of related natural resources”.  Classes and events provide landscaping ideas, and their next greatly enjoyable and family-friendly event is the Spring Garden Festival in April.  (If you need help with water conservation in your landscape, or with fire prevention, composting techniques or seek your trees, this will be the opportunity for you to put your questions to various experts in their fields.) And don’t miss out on their seminars and classes, tours and events.

Sheer bloom

Cantua 'Hot Pants'

If you love Magnolias, Roses, Silk Cotton Trees or exotics that you can’t grow in your garden, see what’s blooming month by month at the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden.

Combine a visit of the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino with a stroll through (and perhaps plant purchase at ) the 12 magnificent garden areas.  “The Botanicals Gardens contain more than 14,000 different kind of plants in more than a dozen principal garden areas, including the Rose, Shakespeare, Camellia, Jungle, Palm and Chinese gardens. ” They offer a truly enriching experience, to be repeated at different times of the year to see what’s in bloom.

Floral wonders, and other fascinating things in the desert

At about one hour’s drive in the east county is the Anza Borrego desert that is famous for its spring wildflower bloom.  Depending on rainfall and other weather conditions, you can visit the wild flower stands from mid-February through early April.

The Anza Borrego Desert State Park also offers educational events captivating at all ages.  Organized hikes accompanied by naturalists, star gazing events, wild flower and bird watches begin as early as January 1.  See here their Interpretive Schedule.

For the birds

Did you know that one of the best-known raptor watch sites of the country is located in this county? The Wildlife Research Institute in Ramona draws visitors from all over the world, especially in January when the watch (various hawk species, falcons and Golden Eagles) watch is on.

Learn about California native plants, buy some, and be inspired

One of the finest growers just over the county line is the Tree of Life Nursery in San Juan Capistrano.  Not only do they grow a beautiful variety of California native plants, they also publish their availability and plant catalog online, with an outstanding amount of plant profiles, planning tools and ‘how-to’ recommendations.

Harvest your own winter-grown veggies

If you manage to get your winter vegetables  (“cool season crops”) in the ground now, such as carrots, broccoli, beets, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, peas, radishes, spinach and turnips, you’ll be harvesting in due course.   Learn more about vegetable gardening at the Vegetable Research and Information Center of UC Davis.

California wildflowers “for the picking”

Now is the time to sow our California native wild flowers; for extra good germination, sow seeds just before a big storm or between storms:  California poppies, mountain garland Clarkia unguiculata, purple owl’s clover Castilleja excreta, baby blue eyes Nemophila menziesii, Chinese house Collinsia heterophylla, and farewell to spring Clarkia amoena.

Get ready for more entertainment in your garden

Perhaps it’s time to consider enlarging your entertainment spaces, or to put a roof over your existing patio, so that you can expand your outdoor activities?

Or is it time to add some ‘drama’ to your garden and let it come to life by night? Read here about some basic information about low-volume landscape lights that might help you select and build your system.

Look to these sources for help with your gardening questions or for great plants

Here are some suggestions of drought resistant plants that bring some color punch to your winter garden.

Waterwise Botanicals in Bonsall grow a wide range of excellent garden plants for the low water landscape. They offer detailed plant photos and descriptions as well as a newsletter and maintenance tips.

The newsletter provided by Walter Andersen Nurseries is always a great read.

San Marcos Growers grow “the best” in xeriscape plants and are always adding new ones; their plants are as great as their educational website.

Read here the very useful  Green Thumb’s Nursery blog and month-to-month gardening guide.

Your garden is waiting  -  patiently.

There’s time now to plan for a pretty, satisfying garden next year.  And while you diligently take care of all the chores in your garden, don’t forget to get inspired by visiting one or the other locales mentioned here, and add your own dream destinations.

In the  meantime, I hope you are enjoying these holidays and wish all my friends a wonderful, prosperous new year.

I imagine that low water landscaping fans here in the south-west share a common tingling sensation in the finger tips these days; the recent harvest moon and the longer nights awakened out plant lust:  Without doubt fall is here, and soon we can work outside again without risking a heatstroke.

So what better time to consider our next moves in our low water landscape?  On my list the to- do-chores are conveniently intertwined with the to-buy-list:

Replace the plants that haven’t made the mark; there are much better ones available.

In the increasingly hot summers these past years, a number of my drought tolerant plants have been looking sparse, lanky and tired; even when cooler temps set in they didn’t pick up the pace.  I’m itching to replace them with tougher plants: Mountain States Wholesale Nursery specializes in desert plant species promised to do better in our climate and soils. Although not ‘a desert’, our climate in San Diego is getting drier, and our occasional ocean winds should be a bonus (salt spray and heavy clay soil excepted – please check on the individual plant’s requirements). Their plants are retailed at Kniffings Discount Nurseries in El Cajon ; (they will order for you what’s not in stock.)

Here a 3 beauties that I’d like to try:

Leucophyllum candidum ‘Thunder Cloud’  Thunder Cloud Texas Sage

An evergreen shrub with compact form, silver foliage, deep purple flowers summer/fall. Blooms repeatedly; needs well drained soil.

SIZE (H X W) 3 feet x 3-4 feet

WATER Low

GROWTH RATE Slow

HARDINESS 10º F, USDA Zone 7

PRUNING : Shear in late spring if at all

Hesperaloe parviflora ‘Perpa’   Brakelights Yed Yucca

Red Yucca  Brakelights has vivid red flowers from Sept. to June that attract hummingbirds; it’s a compact grower with narrow, leathery, blue-green leaves. This tough, low maintenance native to Texas and Northern Mexico thrives in full sun and reflected heat; good specimen container plant, suitable for a wide range of climates and soils.

SIZE (H X W) 2 feet x 2 feet

WATER Low

GROWTH RATE Slow

HARDINESS -20º F, USDA Zone 5

PRUNING Remove old flowers

Desert Willow Lucretia Hamilton Chilopsis lineraris ‘Lucretia Hamilton’

The natural form of this deciduous tree is multi-trunked with a graceful, weeping appearance with long, narrow leaves and attractive burgundy trumpet-shaped, orchid-like flowers. Blooms appear in terminal clusters from May through October. The resulting seedpods cling on branches throughout winter.  After flowering, long narrow seed pods are produced.

SIZE (H X W) 18-20 feet x 18-20 feet

WATER Low

GROWTH RATE Moderate

HARDINESS -10º F, USDA Zone 6

PRUNING Prune to shape

And now to my to-do-list:

On the very top of my to-do list is “Renew landscape mulch”

My layer of mulch has thinned considerably over the last season, and it’s time to replenish it – benefits will show in a few weeks.

Here’s what mulching does;

• Mulch will reduce the amount of water that evaporates from soil, greatly reducing the need to water.
• Mulch improves the quality of your soil by breaking up clay and allowing better water and air movement through the soil.
• Mulch provides nutrients to sandy soil and improves its ability to hold water.
• Mulch acts as an insulating layer on top of soil, keeping it cooler in the summer.
• Mulch keeps weeds down, and the weeds that do grow are much easier to pull.

Mulch like you mean it;

• Before applying mulch, remove weeds and water thoroughly.
• Replace the grass under trees with mulch, to mimic the way trees grow in nature.
• Keep mulch 6-to-12 inches away from the base of trees and shrubs.
• Apply 2-to-4 inches of mulch in all planting areas. Finer mulches (sized a half-inch or smaller) should be applied no more than 2 inches deep. Courser mulches, such as large bark chips, can be applied 4 inches deep.

 Shopping for Mulch

Mulch is available by the bag or in bulk. Bulk mulch is measured in cubic yards. You can calculate the volume of mulch you need by multiplying the area (in square feet) by the depth (fraction of foot, not inches), then dividing by 27.

Here’s a link to  FAQ about mulch that holds a table that will guide your calculations:  http://www.agriserviceinc.com/faq.html

Here are links to more providers of mulches, top soils, amendments:

El Corazon Compost Facility (AgriService), Oceanside.

San Diego Landfill, San Diego (some products are is free for SD residents) .

For the County of San Diego, for locations to recycle your green yard debris and woody material or to pick up compost and/or mulch consult the Compost and Mulch Facilities Guide.

My take on maintenance:  Cut down on it.

Garden maintenance may occasionally be tedious, but most of the time it’s simply gardening, and that’s what many of us love to do.

Be confident:  a garden is rarely finished.

It’s the journey that counts.  You might have a very special micro climate formed by the special building materials of your home, or the particular accumulation of decomposed granite or boulders or sediment soil…

Gardens are not static.

We just don’t have control over climate, or over the individual plants.

Shy away from things that cause frustration:

-          Shrubs and trees that outgrow their space ;

-          Plants that need better drainage than your soil can provide;

-          Flowers that are unsightly after flowering, that are susceptible to diseases or flower only for a short time (f.e. Hybrid Tea roses)

Choose low maintenance plant:

They demand very little but will pay you back with permanent interest from their beautiful structure and exceptional texture:

• Agaves
• Foliage plants such as the stunning Safari Sunset Conebush Leucadendron ‘Safari Sunset‘, terrestrial bromeliads (see Rancho Soledad Nursery, Rancho Santa Fe, for their great collection of Aechmeas, Vrieseas, Dyckias and more; many of these with very low water needs)
• Perennials grasses (f.e. the beautiful Melinis nerviglumis Ruby Grass )
• Succulents such as low-growing Graptopetalum   or Sedums
• Crimson Grey Geranium (also called Kalwerbossie Geranium) 

Employ the permanent colors from hardscape – that’s a no-maintenance garden:

• colored concrete, flagstones, DG (decomposed granite)
• attractive gravels & boulders
• glass and concrete balls
• attractive furniture
• colorful containers
• garden art
• shade sails
• pillow and cushions, umbrellas

Are you getting anxious yet to get outside and let your creativity flow? Shape your garden, enjoy the changing season, experiment?  I’m sure you have many landscaping ideas of your own. Enjoy this season; soon the winter rains will help us establish our new plantings and will reward us with new growth and even bloom  -  the year in the drought resistant landscaping is long from over.

With their striking structural forms, masses of large leaves or finely cut foliage, and hot flamboyant flowers tropical plants create a lush look evocative of paradises far away. To some it’s wasteful to create tropical gardens in our desert scape, and they might even feel that tropicals don’t “fit” here.

I’m not in favor of creating landscapes that evoke the tropics – it’s too difficult to ignore the ever-present Eucalyptus or the native Chaparral on our dry mesas or in our boulder-rich foothills.  I love the California native landscape, and I love desert plant species and Mediterranean plants.  However, in the hottest months many of the gardens that are landscaped with drought tolerant plants look drab and lifeless.  Perhaps it’s due to a fine layer of dust… or the summer dormancy of our drought resistant plants.  For those of us who want to add a bit more ‘spice’ to our bleached-out gardens here are more “wanna-be tropicals”. They’ll add hot, energizing color and lush foliage, yet as drought tolerant plants fit into a true xeriscape San Diego style.  (See my previous blog post about this subject.)

Aloe rudikoppe 'Little Gem'

This tough succulent produces beautiful orange, exotic waxy flowers year round, in contrast to many other Aloes.  It’s superb also for its toughness as it can tolerate regular water to dry conditions and thrives even on the northside of buildings where it never gets any direct sun.  1 ft 6 inch height, spread 2 ft; hardy to 25F.

Bougainvillea Torch Glow

As a shrub that slowly grows  6 to 7 ft tall and 5 ft wide this Bougainvillea is more adaptable to smaller gardens than its rambling brethren. With hot pink flowers for most of the year it can be paired with succulents, tropical looking plants or desert gardens as it is very drought tolerant once established.  Hardy to the mid 20s.

Daylily Black Suave adds a great color highlight to the gardem

This is a wonderful highlight of color in the garden with deep red, luxurious flowers.  Height about 1½ ft by width 1½ ft. In massing it would have a great impact.  Blooms in spring and again in fall.  A good technique to coax it into re-bloom and remove spent leaf blades is to cut the whole plant about 6 inches above ground when the first flush of flowers is gone.

Sweetshade Hymenosporum flavum produces sweet fragrance and adds tropical flair.

When in bloom in early summer, this evergreen tree is quite showy with yellow fragrant flowers against glossy green leaves. It has an open, graceful upright habit and can reach a height of 20 to 40 ft and a spread of  20 ft. It likes sun to partial shade, well-drained soil and is water-wise. Early pruning will result in a stronger, denser plant.

Rose Cherry Bomb adds an explosion of color to the low water landscape

This rose is perhaps a perfect stand-in for Hibiscus without its problems of mildew or whiteflies… It produces sweet rosy red, 2-3 inch single-petaled blossoms with ruffled edges, on beautiful bronze/dark green disease resistant foliage.  Approximately 5 – 6′ tall and wide. Flowers most of the year with nice hips in winter;  full to part sun, and hardy to -15 F.

Tupidanthus is surprisingly versatile and even moderate in its water needs

With glossy, evergreen foliage and a very tropical flare, this shrub can grow to 30+ feet in height and can be trained into a single trunk tree. Stems produce bright green, palmate lobed leaves that slope down. Loves the sun or partial shade, and medium water.  Hardy to 28 degrees

It surprised me to learn that many of these plants that I had formerly considered ‘water huggers’  need indeed much less water, as the grower of these plants, Tom Jesch of Waterwise Botanicals in Bonsall explained:  With the appropriate watering rhythm in their establishment phase they will push out their roots far and deep which makes them much more resistant to a low water regime than we are used to believe.

With our rising water cost and the prolonged high temperatures that have parched so much of our land water conservation and drought resistant landscaping is on all our minds. So it’s wise to look for plants that fit into our xeriscape designs, but we don’t need to deprive ourselves of a lush look and energizing colors.

Bright intense light and June haze over drought tolerant landscape

What comes to your mind when you hear the term ‘xeriscape landscaping’?  Drab, color-less expanses of thin blades, sharp spines, gravel and dusty mulch? Blue-gray foliage with some pale shriveled-up flowers?

I exaggerate of course. But have you noticed how in our lovely county, when it’s summer in earnest, and especially around noon, many plants seem to “hold their breath”?  Their colors look faded and washed out in the glaring sunlight; some stop blooming, curl their foliage or actually shed it. In my garden, my very controlled watering régime is only half to blame (after all, I’m gardening with drought tolerant plants); for many of my Mediterranean plants it’s summer dormancy, their genetic response to the intense light, extended drought and heat.

So I was excited when I got an invitation from  Waterwise Botanicals in Bonsall to visit their growing grounds:  Tom Jesch introduced us to some traditionally considered “tropical” plants with their expected attributes: Lush foliage, glossy leaves and brilliant, intense color, but that perform, with clever irrigation practices, like drought resistant plants:  After planting, you water deeply and then repeat the cycle on the same day or the day after. Re-water about 10 days later (or earlier, depending on how much water your soil retains). When the establishment phase is over (usually 6-9 months), you can stretch the period between waterings to greater lengths (again, this depends on how well drained your soil is or how much water your soil can hold; a good amount of organic matter increases its water holding capacity…)

If you are looking for some strikingly colorful additions to your low water landscaping, check these plants out.  I, too, look forward to incorporating them into my landscape designs:

Royal Queen Pereskia grandiflora violacea gives a punch of color to the xeriscape design

Royal Queen is an attractive answer to our water crisis. With glossy evergreen foliage (that hides its thorns – it’s in the cactus family after all) and clusters of orchid-like purple flowers from late spring to fall, this shrub lends our low water landscaping a colorful and “royal” touch. It likes regular watering but is equally tough in dry conditions, partial or full sun.  It’s partially deciduous in winter and tender to freezing temperatures.

Uses:    With its size of 3 to 4 ft in height and width, I’d use it as center of a flower bed design, as specimen, (in winter, when it’s partially deciduous, I’d distract from it with other green or flowering plants); or I’d use it in mass plantings where its sparser look in winter is not a problem. I’d also use it in a container if it can be rolled out of sight in winter.

The Variegated Brazilian Sky Flower Duranta repens variegata lends a tropical touch

Shiny leaves with bright green and cream variegation, drooping clusters of lavender blossoms in spring to summer make the Brazilian Skyflower an attractive large shrub that grows to 12 – 15 ft tall by 8 ft wide but can also be trained into a small tree.  It thrives in the heat, sun or part sun. It needs regular water (as in every 10 days or so), and it’s hardy to the high 20′s. A note to gardeners with children:  This plant produces yellow berry-like fruits (the plant is also called “Pigeon Berry”) that are toxic if ingested.

Uses:  I’d use it as screen, or train it into a small attractive evergreen patio or container tree.

I’m excited to have found more plants that are suitable for the drought resistant landscaping, and I look forward to using these when I need to give my xeriscape designs more punch.  And there are quite a few more to cover -  look for them in my next post.

Browsing at my neighborhood garden center for a special Mother’s Day plant, I notice the pink and purple/lilac flower clusters of Hydrangeas strategically placed at the entrance. I’m impressed by their gorgeous petal ‘bombs’ and think that this old stand-by would probably wow my host, too.

But then a thought steels itself into my mind: How long will my gift decorate my host’s table?  Will she throw it away when the bloom is over, or will she plant it? This frilly one wants much more water than our rainfall provides, and many of our local micro-climates and soils are anything but easy on it. The farther away from the coast it grows, the sooner it will require shading from the hot afternoon sun, and then it wants coddling with acid-forming fertilizer to keep its color, and regular and pricey water.

As landscape designer San Diego that practices xeriscape landscaping and sustainability, I love plants that wow me AND have a good ROI, that are attractive low maintenance plants for the low water landscape. Check out these:

A Matilija Poppy Romneya coulteri  in full bloom makes your jaw drop, and bloom is now starting, right in time for Mother’s Day.  The fist-size flowers are carried atop 6-10 ft stems, for several weeks, exuding a strong fragrance of fresh apricots. This perennial shrub needs no additional water once established; it fits into all zones except mountains and deserts, likes sun or partial shade, and is adaptable to all soils except those that drain poorly.  Establishment can be difficult, but once successful, it will send out underground stems in sandy or rocky soil and more slowly in clay soil and is thus difficult to contain. It is best planted along barely cultivated margins, on slopes as erosion control, in dry areas or along parkways. It should be cut down to a few inches above ground in fall to remove old foliage.

Consider also our native wild lilacs, the Ceanothus family that equally fit well into xeriscape designs. The members of this group can be evergreen groundcovers or small trees; some species have brilliant blue flowers, others range in hues of purple, violet and white. They keep their great form year-round, survive the greatest summer heat as true drought resistant plants; they make valuable contributions to any habitat garden by providing food (butterflies, insects, seeds) and cover.

Ray Hartman Wild Lilac Ceanothus arboreus ‘Ray Hartman’  is striking with glistening green leaves, a height of up to 18 ft, and with rose-colored buds and profuse clusters of sky blue flowers. It grows reliably in both interior and coastal sites.

California natives bring a sense of heritage and a connection to the future; they have an incredible potential in all sorts of garden designs if we understand which plants perform in which conditions. With lots of different foliage, flower colors and textures they’ll make your garden interesting in all seasons, and with careful selection you can get year round color because some plant will be in bloom any time of the year. With little needs to additional water or maintenance they are choice candidates for the residential landscape design that satisfy us for years to come and have a high ROI.

For other exceptional non-native plants for drought resistant landscaping, see my previous posts on My favorite plants for Southern California , on Gardens Exciting and Alive – Year round,  Water-wise roses and more.

Check these links for recommended growing conditions, descriptions and sources:

Moosa Creek Nursery

Las Pilitas Nursery

Tree of Life Nursery

Theodore Payne Foundation