Gardening tips Archives - Christiane Holmquist Landscape Design

Gardening Offers Abundant Health Benefits

May 16, 2017 By Maria Cannon Leave a Comment

Photo Credit: JesusLeal, Pixabay

Guest Author: Maria Cannon, HobbyJr.org

Gardening is a great way to enjoy the outdoors, beautify your neighborhood and community, and grow nutritious fruits and vegetables. It also helps you get physical activity, improves your mental health, and promotes good nutrition. Whether you are a beginner or an expert gardener, you can reap the many benefits gardening has to offer.

Benefits for the Body

In its Guide to Physical Activity, the National Institute of Health suggests gardening for 30 to 45 minutes in a list of examples of moderate activity exercises. The list also suggests equivalent workouts like biking four miles in 15 minutes and swimming laps for 20 minutes, so if you find those activities to be too much or just not up your alley, consider gardening instead. The CDC suggests varying your gardening activities to keep your interest and to broaden the range of benefits. Rotate days when you weed, plant, dig, water, and prune. Also, incorporate mowing your lawn, raking leaves, trimming hedges, and other gardening activities.

When you are active, you are able to maintain a healthier weight, and you are less likely to develop high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, heart disease, stroke, depression, and colon cancer. Feeling tired after a day spent tending to your garden is a good thing; you rid your body of excess energy, so you sleep better at night and will ultimately wake up feeling renewed.

Benefits for the Mind

Image by Pezibear via Pixabay

Many gardeners find digging, planting, and watering plants to be peaceful. It allows them to escape from their hectic lives. “Tending to plants allows us to tap into the carefree part of ourselves with no deadlines, mortgage or annoying colleagues to worry about,” says Psychology Today. On the flip side, some gardening activities, such as chopping down bushes, can also act an outlet for any bottled up anger.

There is a rhythmic nature to many tasks associated with gardening. While you are weeding, hoeing, sowing, and watering, you get into a groove, and this allows your brain to relax. Furthermore, spending time outdoors has been shown to boost mood and fight depression.

Depression is a mental health illness that affects the whole body. It can cause sleeping problems, issues with appetite, physical aches and pains, and more. Depression can also lead to drug and alcohol abuse and self-harm. Nearly one-third of people with depression also abuse drugs or alcohol. Gardening can be used in combination with other tools to help fight depression and/or addiction.

Children Benefit Too

Image by jill111 via Pixabay

Children benefit from being outside while you garden, even if they do not tend to the garden with you. Playing outside, in general, is good for children. Of course, they may show interest in gardening (kids love to play in the dirt, after all), and you can teach them to have a green thumb, which promotes their future health and provides bonding time for the two of you and develops their communication skills.

If your child helps you, tending to a garden will instill a sense of responsibility, teach them to develop a love for nature, and allow them to tap into their nurturing side. Furthermore, gardening teaches them to eat a healthy and balanced diet. Plants that are easy for kids to grow include zucchini, radishes, and herbs. There also some hearty flowers they could try their hand at. Gardening provides a great learning experience for children to discover the many wonders of science and horticulture. Moreover, whenever they are able to harvest their vegetables or see their flower fully grown, they will feel a sense of pride and a boost of self-esteem.

Growing and tending to a garden lifts your mood, and thus helps you fight against depression. You will also feel less stressed and lower your chances of developing diseases. The nutritional benefit of having a garden that is full of fresh fruits and vegetables is invaluable. You will also get the added benefit of exercise, and if you have children or grandchildren, they can reap the same wide array of benefits. Gardening is truly an all-around health boost. This spring, get to work on your green thumbs. Your health will thank you.

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It’s Raining – It’s Pouring : Protect Your Landscape from Excessive Rain

February 10, 2017 By Christiane Holmquist Leave a Comment

(Photo BBC News)

Hooray – the sun is back again! And perhaps the drought cycle is broken now! Pictures on the news were showing the effects of the recent deluges, and some of them were quite dramatic. Stepping into a puddle outside the front door is annoying but nothing compared to the destruction that water can wreak when not channeled properly. Some of the damage that a deluge can create in our landscapes is beyond our control, such as rising rivers or breaking dams. But rain water washing out driveways, entering patios or – heaven forbid – eroding your slopes can be guarded against.

Here are some vital strategies:

Most homes are constructed with drainage in mind, but you should make sure that the landscaping slopes away from your home so that excess water can flow away from it (research the guidelines that may differ depending on surface material). Drainage intakes, grates, swales, trenches, and ditches should be clear and free of any obstructions; so should gutters and downspouts, making sure they channel water down, out and away from your property. You’d be surprised at how much water damage could be averted by simply having fully functional gutters.

Raised Beds, Berms, Trenches, Soil Amendments

When your soil is clayish, it will hold onto water longer, and each additional rain shower will take time to drain away. “Soil prep” (amending your soil with organic matter or sand) to possibly as 6-12 inches deep will increase the clay’s absorption rate and prevent from water clogging the soil pores, thus providing air to the plant roots.

You can provide better drainage for sensitive plants by planting them in berms or artificial mounds.

If soil amendments are not possible everywhere and occasional flooding can’t be avoided, you can move plants onto higher ground, either by putting them in containers, raised beds or berms. “Berming up”, i.e. creating artificial mounds will aid in keeping your plants on the dryer side. Incidentally, creating an undulating landscape with raised areas will make your landscape more visually interesting.
Additionally, creating trenches for the surplus water might be needed to direct the water away from the garden.

Re-direct Stormwater Runoff

Swales, French Drains, Catch Basins, Channel Drains

Filtering the stormwater runoff before it moves downhill is advantageous to neighbor properties and the health of rivers and streams. To do this, create broad, shallow swales. If water is moving at a faster speed and erosion is a problem, install a French drain below the surface.

Consider installing channel drains in patios and driveways to properly handle any water buildup that may occur. Channel drains are installed within the concrete itself, with access vents to catch the water before it presents a threat.

Reduce Impermeable Surfaces

A good deal of the water in our gardens can be traced to impermeable surfaces. “The next time it rains.. trace the water flowing along ditches and gutters back to the points where it leaves your yard. Chances are, it’s cascading off of a solid surface, like a roof or driveway, which prevents rain from soaking into the ground. [These] “impermeable surfaces” are a major cause of storm water runoff, particularly in urban areas.
One way to curb runoff is to reduce the number of impermeable surfaces in your landscape. That allows water to stand long enough for the ground to absorb it. Start by taking stock of the surfaces in your landscape. Which ones are impermeable, and which of those can be replaced with a more permeable alternative? (Source: gardenclub.homedepot.com)

Protecting Newly Prepped Planter Beds

At one of my projects, the crew had just finished removing the old plants and prepping the beds with amendments. When the work needed to be stopped because of the approaching storm, here are the precautions that the contractor took to protect his work from storm damage.

Natural fibers, biodegradable fibers in erosion control

Protect Your Landscape Erosion control wCoir

A freshly prepped planter bed protected from washing out by coconut coir.

He fastened Coconut fiber coir to the edges of the newly prepped planter bed to protect it from run-off and erosion. These coirs or wattles are derived from the husks of coconuts; jute netting (not “poly jute” which is synthetic) and sisal fibers are also used to make semi-permanent netting, mats, blocks, and wattles, all with various usages in bank stabilization and erosion control. They are the strongest and most robust erosion control options available. (Note that natural-fiber netting might be environmentally preferable).

Pebbles

Pebbles protect the drain from clogging from any debris that might get washed into it before plants will do the retention of the soil. Slopes

He also protected the drains with pebbles so that the soil, not yet protected by mulch and plants, would not get clogged up.

Slopes

With the proper mulch, a slope is greatly protected against run-off.

Slopes can cause the greatest anxiety because if unstable they can cause major damage to your home and landscape. The appropriate plants, proper mulching, and the right irrigation system have the greatest chances of success. Unless the nature of the slope is such to requires also cross-drains, terracing and/or retaining walls. A qualified, licensed landscape contractor can help you assess the best approach to stabilizing your hillside, and in more serious cases I’d call upon the expertise of a geotechnical engineer and/or hydraulics engineer.

Irrigation Systems and Slopes

Of course, the wrong irrigation system on your slope can make all this work worthless. Rotors that apply water “fast and furiously” will throw water on the slope that will run off before it can soak into the plant roots. Also, a water jet that hits plant foliage rather than the small plants behind the obstacle will also cause run-off. In some cases, i.e. with low-growing plants, you can be successful with spray irrigation. Although drip irrigation is often the best way to apply irrigation water. Be careful not to soak the soil too deeply as this may cause more problems that no water at all.

Heavy Iceplant endangers a slope with its weight and shallow roots.

Looking around at nature, the most successful and attractive slopes seem to be those with substantial plant life on them! This is because plant roots have soil stabilization functions, as well as softening the impact from rain, and various other benefits that plants provide here. There are numerous articles written about slope stabilization. I want to quote from one that is posted on the website of Las Pilitas Nursery, a grower of California native plants.

“Most hillsides can be made relatively stable with plants. A planting can stop nearly all erosion and hillside movement in a landscape. Almost. The only way of stabilizing a slope better than plants is a reinforced retaining wall “. Even if you don’t want to use California natives on your slope, you’ll find ideas here that you can transfer to your own slope”

Around Your House

Protect Your Landscape Catch basin_grates

(Photo New England Lawn Irrigation)

Keep your gutters clean, and prevent clogging by installing gutter guards. Gutter guards are the device used to protect the clogging of the roof gutter so that the water from the roof may flow easily and accumulation of water does not take place on the roof but away from the house.

Turn off irrigation

Don’t forget to turn off any automatic irrigation systems until your garden has dried out to a depth of 3-4 inches on the surface. Turning it on again might not be needed until March or April. How do you know that the soil has dried out that deep? Use a soil tube! It’s one of my best tools in the gardening kit.

The most indispensable in controlling landscape water consumption

Water is an “un-precise element” (that’s what the engineer explained to me when I asked him about the brow ditch that the crews were building to divert water from the newly cut slope) and its force and actions not entirely predictable. We can only prepare for it as best as we know. Let’s hope for a safe rainy season and more rain – but of the gentle kind.

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A Matter Of Balance: Don’t Allow the Hardscape to Dominate the Planting

March 9, 2016 By Christiane Holmquist 1 Comment

Don’t allow the hardscape to dominate the planting

Part 2

In my last post I endeavored to put plants in the forefront of our gardens in order to make them softer and more welcoming: Under our southern sun pavements, structures and other built structures create glare and very deep shadows. How can we reduce the harshness of this bright white light in residential landscape design?

I think the primordial quality of a well-designed garden is its ability to let our eyes and minds rest. To that effect, I want to employ shade, light-absorbing textures, coolness, perhaps even the sound of water. I try to balance out the hard structures with drought resistant landscaping and let the plants play an equal if not greater role in the organization and feel of the design. Here are a few tricks how to employ plants to that effect:

hard surface balanced with softening plants

This entrance area can be extremely bright, but Redbuds and oaks add a “roof” to the approaching visitor and create shade.

Don’t let too much hardscape take the warmth out of your garden

No massive gate columns here: The framing of this garden entrance is done by the swollen trunks of Floss Silk Tree Ceiba insignia, which also provides shade; the young mimosa in the island has a very soft light-absorbing deep green foliage and will create a wonderful welcoming coolness.

Even in full non-day sun, someone sitting on that bench would be able to admire the cool blue of this beautiful Potato Bush.

Even in full none-day sun, someone sitting on that bench would be able to admire the cool blue of this beautiful Potato Bush.

Here, a low water and low maintenance clumping grass reflects light like an animal’s fur, and the shade of the shrubs beyond is in contrast to the bright patio on the right.

A boulder echoes the horizontal line of the eaves, while grasses repeat the vertical lines of the window frame.

Plants have many roles: They create the visual pleasure that changes through the seasons because of the seasonal bloom, and they offer a juxtaposition of delicate textures with the outlines of strict architecture or rugged boulders. Plants can repeat the dynamic contrast between horizontal and vertical lines already present in the architecture of a house. Leaning pine branches intersect with vertical grass blades, while vertical flower stems stand at a right angle to a boulder’s edge.

These dark bromeliads provide contrast to the lightness of the house’s walls, strappy irises play off of the low horizontal stone wall, and palms throw their interesting shadows on the walls.

Although many “hardscape elements” are used here, plants scale down their proportions and make them soften until they almost disappear. Plants are employed to edge this stone path, and instead of an umbrella or arbor, the tree canopy on the left shelters a bench.

While the stone and wood create light and dark structure, plants soften the overall effect. Even the light-colored pavers are more inviting when edged in grass.

Here, the stone flower beds will start to look less heavy when the vines start to take over the arbor and the perennials and shrubs gain their mature height, cascading over the sides to soften them. While distinctly dividing the side of the house into different areas, each area becomes its own secret garden.

Plants create suspense: Where is the path leading? Your eye bounces down the path from the Aloe to the pink flowering Rock Purslane to the yellow Mexican Marigold. They thus create the illusion of a larger yard.

A minimal structure for vines will soon create much-needed shade, while all around plants absorb some of the light. The purple-flowered tree is a Jacaranda; the white shrub on the left is Iceberg Rose.

Soon, the three Podocarpus trees along the back wall will be tall enough to screen out the neighbor’s house and all boundaries will be obscured, thus creating total privacy in a natural setting.

Plants help to separate this sitting area from the entrance and to make if feel more private.

This design also creates the illusion of distance, giving the front yard a larger feel. The small deciduous shrub will provide more shade and privacy as it matures, and give an excellent opportunity to use creative landscape lighting to add drama at night by revealing its beautiful branch structure.

Instead of walls and doors, planter pockets serve to break up the pavement and to separate one usable area from another.

Getting away from hardscapes is a challenge; there are sexy materials that don’t need watering or maintenance, and will last close to forever. Stone, wood, glass, metal, and even fiberglass or plastic are very versatile and lend themselves to a variety of different uses. Be it fencing or furniture, these materials can help us give places to ‘hang’ our plants, much like in a big wardrobe.

Many landscape architects and landscape designers in San Diego (and elsewhere) have been trained to use these materials as the back-bones and foundations to build around – and upon – with plants in secondary filler roles. But plants can also serve this purpose; let yourself fall in love with the texture and structure of a plant, or your favorite tree, or a color, and design around that.

Tell your designer that this is the plant you want to showcase or use. Say you want a great big hedge of something to serve as a fence. Think about using our native Toyon Heteromeles arbutifolia, or a Silverberry Eleagnus pungens. Both are tough shrubs with attractive foliage, colorful berries (Toyon) and fragrant flowers (Silverberry) that are very undemanding in soil, water or light and that can be sheered, pruned or trained into small trees or an evergreen screen. If you prefer beautiful craftsmanship, think about how a simple perfect circle carved from stone, laid in brick, or made of wood can’t help but stand out best when surrounded by the chaos and asymmetry of plants.

Right now is a great time to look for California natives, drought-tolerant succulents and waterwise perennials, shrubs and trees at your local nurseries!

I believe this is a topic that will interest many gardeners, and I’ll talk about it in greater detail and colorful examples in a presentation at the Water Conservation Garden in El Cajon on June 11, at 9:30 a.m., in a class entitled “Balancing hardscapes with plants”. Look for a detailed description in the coming weeks at the Garden’s website. I’d be happy to greet you there!

Help! My Gardener is Ruining My Garden!

July 25, 2014 By Christiane Holmquist Leave a Comment

Ingredients for your own Eden: Take a bit of space, add an inviting piece of furniture, surround with a beautiful plant screen and groom well.

Just recently I got an SOS call from a client who is desperate to find help with a nightmare she is experiencing with her present maintenance company: Plants in various states of wilt or decay, with bare spots in the landscape; succulents drowned, groundcover smothering everything in its way, and most offensively, “alien” plants willy-nilly planted, presumably as substitutes, that have nothing to do with her landscape design and that she never approved.

A sorry sight: There are bare spots on this slope where the groundcover died; the succulents are the wrong ones, and other plants are missing from the original design.

She is very upset that the trust that she placed in her grounds-person was wasted and is worried that the quality of her landscape is seriously endangered. As I’m working out a plan to help her, the horror litanies from other clients come to mind: “My landscaper has hedged this shrub into a blob although I told him to leave it alone”, or “My gardener doesn’t know how to prune these perennials”, and “My slope is all washed out and plants are dying on it; should I just pave it over?” and “I don’t know why he chopped my tree”.

Obviously, these home owners don’t have a maintenance company that is well trained; their crew’s work might actually harm the long-term health and beauty of the landscape, instead of safeguarding their investment.

Spotty irrigation has caused bare spots in the lawn; shrubs under the trees have been pruned into unnatural shapes.

For these homeowners it is frustrating to realize that, after several years of ‘care’ by their gardening service the actual state of their landscape is far removed from the one they once dreamed of. What happened to original design intent? How is it possible that these landscapes are ‘monotonous’, overgrown or disfigured? Obviously, the regular mowing, weeding, trimming and blowing weren’t what was needed. What went wrong?

Perhaps it helps to consider the type of gardens that we want today: In my view, the showcase gardens (most often lawn-centered) in which we display exceptional roses, exotic palms or other specimen plants are no longer relevant, at least here in Southern California. On their way out also are the gardens designed with stately foundation plants around a lawn that highlight our social status, or that are plain buffer-zones between us and our neighbors.

The gardens of today that many people dream of are extensions of our living spaces. Here we play and entertain, relax in privacy and seek a modicum of nature. For our landscapes to become true sanctuaries to recharge in, we need to create gardens that engage our senses. These are no longer areas to be tamed and trimmed but places to work in with nature, using light, rhythm, space and texture, and where we respect and enjoy the changes that come with time.

A beautiful example of what excellence in maintenance can achieve. Photo courtesy Watersedge Landscape.

So how do we find this maintenance professional who understands this and who will respect the original intent of the design, and who will safeguard our investment? Who nurtures the landscape, rather than whipping and hedging it into shape? Who we can rely on to insure that the landscape matures and thrives as planned?

Communicate with your designer

The shrub by this front door is just too big, and its maintenance will eventually result in suppressing its growth leading decline and eventual death. This obviously was not the best design choice.

When you create your landscape plan (whether with the help of a professional designer, or with your own energy and creativity), you will have the opportunity to consider many elements that will inform the design and that ultimately will determine the amount of maintenance:

How controlled do you like the plantings to be? More formal, or more naturalistic?

What feel? Urban, woodsy, tropical, southwestern, California relaxed, formal Mediterranean, etc…

How densely do you like it planted? With a dense plant cover, or more with recognizable “individualistic” plant quilt?

Are you comfortable with the old standards, or do you prefer new exotics?

Do you like the natural, relaxed shape of shrubs that sometimes can be picturesque with unusually angled branches, or do you prefer it tight and controlled?

Would you be a friend of seedheads, or do they look too weedy to you? (Many perennials require regular deadheading to look good and keep blooming.) Can you stomach wispy grasses, or do you want them at all times neat and clean looking?

What type of growth on your trees can you expect (this will tell you how soon you need to consult an arborist)?

How will the garden look right after installation; what look can I expect at maturity and how long might it take to see a definite change towards fullness of growth?

Which plant is supposed to be a single-stem plant; which one will need to be trained into multi-trunk specimen?

Who is going to do the maintenance? You yourself, or a maintenance service? Are you interested in protecting your garden, or would you think that the type of work needed in your garden requires specialized training and education?

Your responses to these questions help determine the selection of plants and the amount of maintenance. It will then be important to communicate this design intent to the maintenance service.

These questions will also influence your selection of the right maintenance company that has a track record of doing quality work.

A barren slope despite of regular irrigation… Most likely the irrigation water was applied so fast that it ran off before it had time to sink into the earth… which left plants on this slope to die from thirst.

In my next post I’ll write about the other pieces of the maintenance puzzle.

Successful Backyard Landscape Collaboration in La Jolla

January 23, 2013 By Christiane Homquist 8 Comments

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

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 outdoor kitchen seamlessly, we used bamboo facing, echoing the indoor flooring and the living bamboo hedge. Now, 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, many of them from the sub-tropics. 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

Hot tropicals on a water budget – xeriscape landscaping with brilliant color

June 22, 2012 By Christiane Homquist Leave a Comment

Bright summer light washes out the colors in the drought tolerant landscape

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 drought tolerant tropical shrub

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.

Variegated Brazilian Skyflower Duranta repens variegata as tropical addition to xeriscape designs

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.

My Favorite Drought-Resistant Plants for Southern California

February 8, 2012 By Christiane Holmquist 3 Comments

As I explained in my last blog post, Southern California is a challenging environment for landscape designers. We certainly love to help our clients create lush gardens full of plant life, but we must also be aware of the garden’s water needs, especially in the face of the many years of drought we have suffered in Southern California.

I’ve met many homeowners who are looking to develop more water-conscious landscapes in their front yard and backyard but don’t know where to begin. Many worry that drought-resistant = a backyard filled with cacti. Not true!

There are plenty of beautiful plants that thrive in a desert environment. Below is a list of some of my favorite drought-resistant plants. Each one of these plants can provide life and color to your front or back yard without requiring a lot of water or maintenance.

Mulga Acacia aneura

Description: The Mulga is an evergreen shrub whose canopy can extend to the ground, and can thus be used as screening plant. It can easily be trained into a small, umbrella-shaped tree that slowly grows to a height of 18 or 20 feet spreading to about 15 feet.

Why I Like It: I love the Mulga for its graceful appearance. It comes into bloom in spring, and its canopy of silvery-gray leaves contrast prettily with its yellow flowers. When in full bloom, this tree stands out as an attractive accent plant in any desert landscape.

Maintenance: Prune to shape as needed.

Grevillea ‘Winpara Gem’

Description: This handsome, large shrub is a fast grower in well-drained, alkaline soils. It likes full sun and partial shade and is drought tolerant once established. It can reach up to 10 feet with variable width.

Why I Like It: The Grevillea it is an attractive shrub with upwards reaching branches, clothed with gray-green leaves. It carries bright red flowers at the branch tips that attract bees and hummingbirds. The heaviest flowering occurs in late fall/early winter and lasts over several weeks with intermittent blooms throughout the year. With its size, the Greviillea makes an attractive screening shrub or handsome accent in coastal or inland plantings.

Maintenance: Prune to shape as needed; give it occasional deep watering

Trailing Buttercups (also called Sundrops), Calylophus hartwegii

Description: This must-have perennial thrives in hot, dry locations. It is native to the western region and reminds me of Evening Primrose with bright yellow, four-petaled flowers against narrow, ferny leaves. Trailing Buttercups are low growers and spread out about two feet. Flowering reaches its peak in the summer, and depending on location, takes a rest in late summer to re-bloom again in fall.

Why I Like It: I like this plant because of its toughness and versatility. Once it’s established, the Trailing Buttercup can tolerate a great deal of drought and can also take regular water if drainage is good.

Maintenance: Give Trailing Buttercups occasional deep watering ; cut back hard (down to about 3-4 inch) in late winter to prevent it from getting sparse and sprawling.

The Ghost Plant, Graptopetalum paraguyense

Description: The Ghost Plant is not nearly as scary as its name implies. This clumping succulent grows up to seven inches high and produces branching stems, which will spread indefinitely (though slowly, making it easy to control). Plants will turn gray-blue when grown in shade and gray with a twinge of pink in full sun, with sprays of white or yellow flowers in spring. With its gray-blue fleshy leaves, the Ghost Plant provides a nice contrast in color, texture and form with many other plants and combines well with perennials and taller shrubs. The Ghost Plant is suitable as a groundcover in areas without foot traffic, as filler in rock gardens, or as spiller from hanging baskets and pots.

Why I Like It: I don’t know which aspect of this plant is more endearing, its elegance, low water needs, extremely low maintenance requirements, ability to fit into different design types, low height and handy size, or its readiness to grow from leaves, stems or divisions.

Maintenance: Don’t overwater; nip or prune to control spread; plant broken stems to multiply your Ghost Plant.

Not Happy With Your Yard Design? Improve Your Plantsmanship

January 5, 2012 By Christiane Holmquist 2 Comments

When you look into your front yard and backyard what do you see? A beautiful, sweeping vista of plants and colors or just a big pool surrounded by plain grass?

Think about how much time and effort you spent decorating your house; turning it into a unique place that reflects your tastes and preferences. Your front and back yards deserve a similar treatment. If you’ve just got a carpet of grass with little or no landscaping, you are missing out on what could be an amazing, dramatic and relaxing extension of your home.

It’s time to get in touch with your inner plantsmanship.

What’s plantsmanship? It’s a character trait that involves the celebration of plants. A grass yard or a yard completely taken up by a pool and barbeque doesn’t present a colorful, texturized environment. Plants add these features. They also help express your unique character and bring your yard to life, literally!

Throughout my many years as a landscape designer in San Diego County, I’ve found so many ways to use different plants to design a front or backyard retreat homeowners enjoy spending time in. Trees can cast shade, succulents provide color and require little maintenance and water. Bamboo can add dimensional texture as well as a natural privacy wall.

These are just a few examples of how plants can help homeowners design their yards with purpose. This is plantsmanship.

How do you get plantsmanship? It’s easy. Just open your eyes and start looking around you. You’ll begin to notice the plants in your neighbor’s yards and how they function in the overall design of the yard. Ask your neighbors the names of the plants you like and then do a basic Google search to learn more about what environment the plant requires, how much maintenance it needs to thrive and how it grows.

If you live in San Diego or Southern California, it’s especially important to learn about the water needs of a plant before you put it in your backyard garden. You’ll most likely want to look into drought-resistant plants, which will require less water and maintenance.

Take some time and gather information naturally. I also recommend that you visit a local botanical garden and a local nursery to get even more ideas and great information. I volunteer at the Water Conservation Garden in El Cajon and love answering questions.

Once you feel your plantsmanship growing (pun intended), it’s time to start planting. Begin with a small project, maybe just one side of the house and see how it goes. As you gain more confidence and a better understanding of how outdoor design works, you might want to take on your whole yard.

If that seems too intimidating, you can always call a landscape designer like myself to help you create something truly magical. Landscape designers are experts at helping homeowners turn a plain yard into a destination full of color and natural beauty.

Tune into your plantsmanship, and go out and make your yard beautiful!

DIY tips for a pretty, low water landscape: Resolve, muscle power and a love of plants (City rebates come handy)

October 31, 2011 By Christiane Holmquist 2 Comments

Lawn-centric front garden a true zero-scape

A traditional "zero-scape"

Congratulations to Jeanie and Lee in Scripps Ranch, for their resolve and their love of plants. Going from a lawn-centered “zero-scape” to a garden alive with xeriscape plants with beautiful colors and textures, and doing this with their own landscape ideas and muscle power demands respect.

Hoping to qualify for San Diego’s rebates for turfgrass removal and the installation of a micro-irrigation system, they discussed the how-to with a City inspector and put a design together. Here’s where Jeanie called me in to review her design and desired plants.

Lawn gone

Assessing soil, micro-climate and the slightly sloping terrain I found that her wish list had excellent “bones” in it that needed few adjustments.

Almost finished

The permanent features to remain were the concrete turf edge, the edged planter beds and the palm trees (they would have their own irrigation). I recommended importing several large boulders which would help “ground” the landscape.

To add volume where the palm trees are only accents I suggested a couple of small trees, on both sides of the house; here Jeanie chose 2 ‘Catawba’ Crape Myrtles, one of them a multi-trunk specimen.

As we were fine-tuning her design and discussed longer-blooming low maintenance plants, Jeanie said that she likes to garden and is not averse to some maintenance, such as deadheading the Early Sunrise Coreopsis periodically to encourage new bloom.

Early Sunrise Coreopsis

I explained that Gazania would not be attractive long enough during the seasons. Instead I suggested Ghost Plant Graptopetalum paraguayense, an elegant, slowly spreading succulent whose grey-pinkish rosettes would make a pleasing connection with Coreopsis, Walker’s Low Catmint and Gaura, all on Jeanie’s list of favorites.

Catmint Walker's Low

Ghost Plant

For a captivating contrast to the frilly perennials we added several Foxtail Agave A. attenuata and ornamental grasses; for me the grasses are matchless in adding a relaxed and naturalistic, almost mysterious feeling to the landscape. Here Jeanie picked a short Purple Fountain-grass variety in a local nursery.

Purple fountain grass is a drought tolerant ornamental grass

Airy Purple Fountain Grass

Complimenting the drought resistant plants would be a Dwarf Yaupon Ilex vomitoria ‘Nana’ that I hadn’t used myself. My research showed that it might need a bit more water than the other plants, but Jeanie wanted to give it a try. This shrub, at 3-5 ft high/wide, develops a refined, attractive appearance with careful pruning – a task that she looks forward to.

Completed

And the cost? Jeanie and Lee invested about $3,200 on materials plus $1,200 on labor to help Lee; the rebates should amount to about $1,070. Not bad for a diy landscape that can save them 60 to 70% water and is so pleasing to look at. As one of their friends exclaimed who came by and admired their achievement: “This front yard is so much alive!”

Read about the City’s rebate program: http://www.sandiego.gov/water/conservation/residentialoutdoor.shtml

Lush yet water-wise – even with roses. Here’s how.

October 4, 2011 By Christiane Holmquist 1 Comment

WaterwiseBotanicals roses embellish Carmel Mountain Plaza San Diego

Tom Jesch's water-wise roses at Carmel Mountain Plaza San Diego

“Drought tolerant”, “desert plant species”, “drought resistant landscaping” – that’s not for me, you might think: Giving up on your roses might be a thought too painful to contemplate. And what you have heard about xeriscape designs seems to be a lot of “zero-scape” to you… Roses are thirsty – aren’t they?

I noticed the water-drop symbol by the names of many roses at WATER WISE BOTANICALS in Escondido (formerly Daylily Hill). That meant that these are “water-wise” – what are these roses about?

Tom Jesch of WaterWise Botanicals explained to me that we can indeed create a lush yet water-wise garden without depriving ourselves of these beauties. Have you ever noticed, along old highways in California, old abandoned farmhouses that still have a large rose bush clambering up its side? Nobody has cared for it in decades, and yet it still thriving. So what’s the secret?

The right selection

At Waterwise Botanicals, the roses with the water-drop symbol are the best of their shrub roses- those that flower the best, are most durable and the most water-wise.
English and Austin roses tend to be less water-wise, as well as many of the older European, double and heavily petaled varieties, or ones that have a growth characteristic very similar to Hybrid Teas.

Nearly Wild

The right establishment

For the first 2 weeks after planting: Water your roses almost every day, and deeply; thus they get their roots down deeply. Add extra nitrogen fertilizer for the first 3-6 months to develop lush foliage.

For the next weeks/lasting 2-3 months: Go to a deep watering schedule: 2 days on, 2 days off, 1 day on, 1 day off, and then repeat that cycle. It’s the repeated deep watering that gets the roots deep so that eventually the watering cycle can be stretched.

After 2-3 months: Go to a cycle that is 2 days on (or 2 cycles on 1 day, 1 morning/1 evening), then 5-6 days off; repeat cycle.

If you keep this schedule for the first 1-2 years (consider also how dry your weather is; wet winters speed up the establishment of your plants) you will have established roses that can do very well by receiving a good deep watering (two days in a row, or twice in one day) and then off, for up to 10 days or more, during the hottest part of the summer, in most California coastal, and coastal inland valleys.

For your next project, consider these (these look more like Rockroses without their early demise and unruly spread):

Rose Nearly Wild (see above); height 2’ by 3’ spread; hardy to -15° . Full to part sun. Rose pink, white center blooms during spring to fall.

Sharon's Delight

Rose Sharon’s Delight. Height 2′ , width 3′. Hardy to -15°; full to part sun. White blooms during spring to fall.

Visit the fabulous demonstrations gardens and naturalistic pond at WaterWise Botanicals, and see many more exciting roses at www.waterwisebotanicals.com