Busy, busy season begins to see some slowing down...

Hello again!!

Having moved from winter directly into the summer dries, we've been running busy here in the Landscape Department. Building pathways, walls, garden designs, irrigation and container plantings. Far more busy than we thought we'd be considering the times.

But at home, I've finally decided to actually put vegetable (well, lettuce and spinach) and some strawberries in my garden. If i can keep the grass and weeds out. Compost to top-dress is next so I won't need to water as much. I have no real irrigation system in this garden yet, but if these plants start to suffer, I may have to get some 1/2" to 1/4" poly lines in with some low to the ground spray emitters in there for them. My garden is a low water site which means, if I'm feeling nice, I'll help get the plants started with water and proper planting, (usually...maybe..) but if it doesn't survive, then it wasn't meant to be in my garden. The veggies, however, I guess if we're going to eat them, I'll water them... I guess...

Oh, and that Spanish Lavender (far right int he above pic) did have a partner in the space where the veggies (and echinacea starts) are, but alas the winter was terrible on them as well. The surviving Lavender will probably see the compost pile later this summer... But look at the bloom, man!..

In this other picture, the iris are going crazy around my birdbath (which I have to empty every few days or it will be a mosquito bowl.) The colors are pretty accidental but cool. Note the small abelia to the left of the shot. It came from a container that it outgrew and is sitting where a Full sized Hebe "Amy" had lived for 3 years until this one. If the Abelia survives the transplant, It'll make a nice accidental replacement. I neglected to bring down that Redtwig Dogwood this winter as well, now look how big it is. Next year, I'll have to down to 18" and watch those red twigs go mad...


This last shot is of Gabriel and I working on his playground area. I'm extending the rubber-scape (salvaged along with the play structure from a client's yard..thanks to that client!). We're attemtping to add a slide to the structure. Gabriel is my 3.5 year old, not the youngest member of the hardscape team, but he sure is a goofy little helper!!

Cheers and Happy Summer in SanDiego?.. where are we?... what month...?

From:

THE WASTELAND. TS ELIOT.

Part One: The Burial of the Dead.

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers....

I had to do it. Especially since my survivor lilac is pushing out so many new blooms. The word April makes me think of this amazing, crazy poem. Long poem for sure. This is just the first few lines of the piece which is 4 long sections. But a delight to read, especially out loud...

The Trees (Philip Larkin Poem)

The trees are coming into leaf

Like something almost being said;

The recent buds relax and spread,

Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again

And we grow old? No, they die too.

Their yearly trick of looking new

Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh

In fullgrown thickness every May.

Last year is dead, they seem to say,

Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

The Report from the garden. Mine and others.
So, I got tired of writing about the cold. Dear Weather, Quit it!. Thanks...

Now, for the fun part. Spring! I think...
A Katsura in my back yard that I'm using for screening from a giant new house has just started to leaf out. As well, the Physocarpus (nine-bark) is in full leaf. The maples are doing it too. But the fuchsia is just now showing signs of re-emergence. Come on warm!

It's time to make those remove or save decisions with regard to the winter death. The green leafed Hebe's seem to have weathered things well. The Hebe "Red-Edge" also fared pretty well in most cases.

We have had to remove a number of Prostrate Rosemary, even the most established have died. What to do about replacements? Some clients who liked the Hebe "Amy" or "Co-ed" seem to want to try the same again, even after they are advised that those varieties may not make it next season. But others really want to replace with something that is more likely to make it. So much depends on a micro-climate. Comment back if you know of varieties that made it through un-phased.

More later...thanks for reading..

ANd then the frost and more snow and now frigid air..

It's not the refrigerator; it's colder. I spoke last time of spring and of course it's around the corner. By this time next week, we'll have spring-like temps for good, (I think). But this is a badly timed bit of winter re-dux. The new growth on cutback roses (among other things we've already been working on in the post-president's day rush to prune), is prime for the bite of cold this week. Micro-climates are important factors in the nature's cruel decision as to whether the tender new growth lives or dies. South-facing walls and areas that are somewhat sheltered will, perhaps, fare better.

Just to clarify one thing. The freakishly cold temps this winter, the record breaking cold events are not an indication that "Global Warming" is not happening but rather more likely part of the bank of evidence that Climate Change, caused by the warming temps on the Earth's surface and water, really is happening. The term Global Warming seems to trip people when they see weird cold trends and shifting climate in places that are just not usually this chilly. The Earth's climate is changing and there are things that we could do about it to slow the porcess or adapt to the process.

For sure, we can do the usual drive less, bike or walk or ride public transport, we can heat less, and all that. We can als be less heavy on the food production system. Eat more locally, more sustainably, grow your own food, perhaps.

I've started plans for my own garden of food. (Notice that I've started the plans and not the actual work). I'm going to grow lettuce (easy crop), chives, spinach, tomatoes (in a container in the hottest part of my yard), basil and maybe some blueberry shrubs. The 3 year old loves blueberries. Bringing it all back to our own spot of ground (if we have one) or our own porch of containers, maybe we can help a small bit. Maybe that small bit we each do will add up to a big force for change..

Stay warm, here comes the Frost!

Timing... Spring's gotta be here soon!

I've done nothing in my own garden yet. Nothing at all. And yet the crocus and iris near that red-twig are making a show of early spring. Indeed this is the year I'll want to hard prune the red-twig Cornus, but maybe I'll wait a bit.

Out in the gardens around town we're focusing on that early spring shrub pruning. Cotinus and Cornus, Salix and Roses are all getting some good attention as the season pushes onward.

The designers are busy replacing or re-working winter trashed areas of the garden. As we remove the whipped Phormiums (notice the partly flat one behind these irises) and Hebes, sometimes a good amount of space opens. The obvious sustainable solution is drought tolerant, native oriented plants, but maybe now we also have to think more about cold hardy plants too. If the air temps are low enough long enough (which they were this winter) the soil levels drop too chilling rootballs that may not be able to take it. So now Phormium which doesn't mind a bit of snow and ice is resembling a very bad hair-day. The big ones can be pretty hard buggers to dig out, for sure. It can be somewhat refreshing to rip out things that didn't make it and start over.


I'l end this post with a bit by the great mad man poet e.e. cummings... (read it a few times out loud...)

"Spring is like a perhaps hand..
(which comes carefully

out of Nowhere) arranging
a window, into which people look (while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here) and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things, while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there) and

without breaking anything."

Snow again? Is the garden still ok?

Some may be worried about the recent snow and its effect on anything that you may have already cut back in the garden. That Buddleia or Cotinus that just got whacked with early bud swell is in a delicate stage. But the only real worry will be if temperatures drop and stay low. The snow really isn't helping matters, but it's not doing as much damage this time a week of 20 degree temperatures would. As long as the overall temperatures stay above freezing, we're ok. Snowfall ahead of a freeze helps insulate from the frigid air that ruins tender growth.
That said, I looked out my kitchen window at the melting snow on an untouched Choisya. I noticed that the weight of the snow had helped complete a branch tear near the middle of the shrub that had started with the the December and January storms. It will need some restorative pruning for sure... I'll get to that when it warms up!