Now after ranting about water and bragging about reducing my lawn, a confession. I love Dahlias. Why? I don't know. I don't like daisies and they look a little like daisies. I hate Chrysanthemums and they look kind of like Chrysanthemums. They take up enormous space and then disappear for months; I hate that. And of course, the use up lots and lots of water.
But. . .
They are gorgeous. When they decide to grow, they grow! Fast and furious, up and up, then boom! Flowers! Lots and lots and lots of flowers. In incredible colors and shapes and sizes.
I love Dahlias.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Water, Guilt and Rage (Part 1)
I got the water bills for my garden in Altadena and my garden in Palm Springs (I know, I know - you want to buy it? We can't seem to sell it, although we're trying.) The garden in PS uses twice the water at almost half the cost. We're in a drought here, but it's a desert there - literally. But I have kept a thriving lush garden, oasis-style, in a section of the yard and I am below the water threshold for my plot. Yeah!
Up here I'm watering my garden a lot; Most of the plants are new and trying to establish themselves. I water as little as possible but I still have to water a lot more than I will ever again. With the exception of the lawns (see last post), my plants are drought tolerant, or at least, water wise.
With three old, neglected gardens in my past, I learned a lot about what actually needs lots of water and what doesn't. It's amazing what will grow here without much water at all. These old gardens all had to survive on little more than rain water for years at a time. Agapanthus, bamboo, camellias, gardenias, geraniums, citrus and more all survived or thrived with what nature offered. Some roses seemed okay too, but none thrived and that's okay by me.
So I'm water-wise, water-conscious and conserving as much as possible. Next year I will be able to reduce my water use dramatically. And my reward? I'll save about $14 on my monthly water bill. I'll be spending less on water for two houses and a total of almost an acre of gardens - one garden in the desert and one garden in the middle of a drought - than on my cable TV bill.
Wow.
Nature may be responsible for the drought here but the water crisis is man made and still in the making. Every day I watch my neighbors' automatic sprinkler systems waste water and think about how, for years, the systems were recommended as a way of saving water. Experts poo-pooed hand watering, saying that it was inefficient and it is, compared to expert water analysis and application. But most people don't have experts on staff, many people don't even know how to adjust their sprinkler systems and lots of people just set them for maximum summer use and forget about it all rainy winter long. I roll my eyes every time I see sprinklers running in the rain. Now the experts are back to turning off the systems and watering only as needed day by day or week by week. Even hand watering is back.
I wanted to rant here that the people and the experts responsible for the water crisis are idiots and should know better - or at least know something about water. I wanted to point a finger at the local officials and state government that have let politics business overrule over reason. But isn't that just frosting a dead lily? After all, even the Terminator himself can't run California.
Up here I'm watering my garden a lot; Most of the plants are new and trying to establish themselves. I water as little as possible but I still have to water a lot more than I will ever again. With the exception of the lawns (see last post), my plants are drought tolerant, or at least, water wise.
With three old, neglected gardens in my past, I learned a lot about what actually needs lots of water and what doesn't. It's amazing what will grow here without much water at all. These old gardens all had to survive on little more than rain water for years at a time. Agapanthus, bamboo, camellias, gardenias, geraniums, citrus and more all survived or thrived with what nature offered. Some roses seemed okay too, but none thrived and that's okay by me.
So I'm water-wise, water-conscious and conserving as much as possible. Next year I will be able to reduce my water use dramatically. And my reward? I'll save about $14 on my monthly water bill. I'll be spending less on water for two houses and a total of almost an acre of gardens - one garden in the desert and one garden in the middle of a drought - than on my cable TV bill.
Wow.
Nature may be responsible for the drought here but the water crisis is man made and still in the making. Every day I watch my neighbors' automatic sprinkler systems waste water and think about how, for years, the systems were recommended as a way of saving water. Experts poo-pooed hand watering, saying that it was inefficient and it is, compared to expert water analysis and application. But most people don't have experts on staff, many people don't even know how to adjust their sprinkler systems and lots of people just set them for maximum summer use and forget about it all rainy winter long. I roll my eyes every time I see sprinklers running in the rain. Now the experts are back to turning off the systems and watering only as needed day by day or week by week. Even hand watering is back.
I wanted to rant here that the people and the experts responsible for the water crisis are idiots and should know better - or at least know something about water. I wanted to point a finger at the local officials and state government that have let politics business overrule over reason. But isn't that just frosting a dead lily? After all, even the Terminator himself can't run California.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Lawn: Going, going, gone
We all know it: the Southern California lawn has got to go. There isn't water enough for it. Not to mention time. Mowing, weeding, trimming, all for something that looks - if you do everything right - like a rug. It's boring and very English, or at least east coast.
Yes it feels good on the feet. It's great to lay on and play on. Or for picnics. But you can do all that with a little lawn. You don't need these huge swaths of green for anything but a soccer game. And I'm sure after you've spend all that time mowing, weeing, trimming et al., you're not going to let a soccer team or two play on it. At least I'm not.
So I'm cutting back bit by bit. My partner loves the lawn. Not enough to mow it or weed it but he really likes that suburban homogeneity. He thinks that our front stretch of green makes up for my weird choices in landscaping. It's one thing being the only gay couple on the block, it's another to be the first freaks to get rid of their lawn.
But it is going, bit by bit. I started with the borders, expanding and aggrandizing them inch by inch and now foot by foot. They are up to three feet on one size, and six on the other two. He didn't really notice it and he loves the new plants - lush green plants that take up to two thirds less water than the lawn.
Next is the center planting bed, situated so the sprinklers hit it with the least amount of water so I can start reducing the watering time as soon as it's in. He's going on a business trip next month for a week. He'll be surprised when he gets home.
Yes it feels good on the feet. It's great to lay on and play on. Or for picnics. But you can do all that with a little lawn. You don't need these huge swaths of green for anything but a soccer game. And I'm sure after you've spend all that time mowing, weeing, trimming et al., you're not going to let a soccer team or two play on it. At least I'm not.
So I'm cutting back bit by bit. My partner loves the lawn. Not enough to mow it or weed it but he really likes that suburban homogeneity. He thinks that our front stretch of green makes up for my weird choices in landscaping. It's one thing being the only gay couple on the block, it's another to be the first freaks to get rid of their lawn.
But it is going, bit by bit. I started with the borders, expanding and aggrandizing them inch by inch and now foot by foot. They are up to three feet on one size, and six on the other two. He didn't really notice it and he loves the new plants - lush green plants that take up to two thirds less water than the lawn.
Next is the center planting bed, situated so the sprinklers hit it with the least amount of water so I can start reducing the watering time as soon as it's in. He's going on a business trip next month for a week. He'll be surprised when he gets home.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Old Garden in Front
Someone said what separates high art from gardening is the fact that a garden does not survive the gardener. I thought of all the gardens I have known where the garden passed on or the garden was sold along with the house and gradually - or sometimes overnight - the garden was no more. And then I bought a house with an old garden. Not old by East Coast standards but old by California standards, 50 years this year.
The back yard was virtually untouched for 35 years, maybe more. The front yard was clear cut by the executor (it was an estate sale) in hopes of making the place more sellable by making it visible. So I had what, I thought, was an old garden, untouched, in back to work with and what, I though, was a blank canvas in front. Not so either way.
As soon as the rains started, the front yard started to grow. At first, some tired old fescue revived a little bit. But then what grew surprised not just me but the neighbors who swore that the lawn was just dirt and weeds before the St. Augustine grass popped up. But it must've been there all along, just barely surviving for years, a sprout here, a spring there keeping it alive. But with water, lots of water, the St. Augustine grass thrived and spread filling in all the holes in front within six months. Then the dichondra started appearing here and there. Now the St. Augustine is what most of the neighbors have in their yards but neither me nor they have seen dichondra in years and years. But after all, it is a midcentury house and what else would you put plant in 1949 but dichondra? It's an odd mix at the moment but I like it, and I know the dichondra is doomed, either by the flea beetles that killed it in the 60's or by the St. Augustine which is ruthless.
Then a bird of paradise (strelitzia reginae) popped up on one side of the house and then on the opposite side, framing the front yard. One was right behind where I had planted a new bird of paradise. Right in between the two birds, a Tropicana rose (at least I think it's a Tropicana) sprang up. None of the neighbors who garden remember seeing any of this before. Perhaps it was buried underneath all the mess.
Then right in the midst of my new succulent bed, to the right of the driveway, some aloes and a Jade Plant (crassula ovata) joined in, just in the right place, just in the right bed.
The sense of a garden past, the feeling of a connection to whomever had gardened here before me was warm, comforting, like my grandmother looking over my shoulder and nodding yes, yes, yes in approval to whatever I was doing. It was also a little spooky.
And now I'm worried. So far my garden has been blessed, everything is working amazingly well. But I have to move that rose; it's just not in the right place. And I wonder, will the other gardener in my yard approve?
The back yard was virtually untouched for 35 years, maybe more. The front yard was clear cut by the executor (it was an estate sale) in hopes of making the place more sellable by making it visible. So I had what, I thought, was an old garden, untouched, in back to work with and what, I though, was a blank canvas in front. Not so either way.
As soon as the rains started, the front yard started to grow. At first, some tired old fescue revived a little bit. But then what grew surprised not just me but the neighbors who swore that the lawn was just dirt and weeds before the St. Augustine grass popped up. But it must've been there all along, just barely surviving for years, a sprout here, a spring there keeping it alive. But with water, lots of water, the St. Augustine grass thrived and spread filling in all the holes in front within six months. Then the dichondra started appearing here and there. Now the St. Augustine is what most of the neighbors have in their yards but neither me nor they have seen dichondra in years and years. But after all, it is a midcentury house and what else would you put plant in 1949 but dichondra? It's an odd mix at the moment but I like it, and I know the dichondra is doomed, either by the flea beetles that killed it in the 60's or by the St. Augustine which is ruthless.
Then a bird of paradise (strelitzia reginae) popped up on one side of the house and then on the opposite side, framing the front yard. One was right behind where I had planted a new bird of paradise. Right in between the two birds, a Tropicana rose (at least I think it's a Tropicana) sprang up. None of the neighbors who garden remember seeing any of this before. Perhaps it was buried underneath all the mess.
Then right in the midst of my new succulent bed, to the right of the driveway, some aloes and a Jade Plant (crassula ovata) joined in, just in the right place, just in the right bed.
The sense of a garden past, the feeling of a connection to whomever had gardened here before me was warm, comforting, like my grandmother looking over my shoulder and nodding yes, yes, yes in approval to whatever I was doing. It was also a little spooky.
And now I'm worried. So far my garden has been blessed, everything is working amazingly well. But I have to move that rose; it's just not in the right place. And I wonder, will the other gardener in my yard approve?
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Garden Rant: HGTV
I can't take it anymore. I swear if HGTV takes one more old garden and rips out everything to replace it with products from their sponsors, I will boycott every single one of their sponsors. That is, I would, if I didn't already, which I do.
I just saw the show where they go to a lovely midcentury Eichler home fronted by a band of old junipers. I don't know if the junipers were original but they could have been. It's what Garrett Eckbo would've put in. In any case, they were old, mature specimens, flowing along and together in a way that actually made me think of planting some, even though I hate junipers. They certainly needed some tending and some pruning, a little water and fertilizer might have helped too. But they didn't deserve to be murdered.
But murdered they were, chopped down, ripped out and dug up until every last vestige was gone; replaced by cheap fountain grass that will grow like a weed until the owners long for the slow-growing mature landscape they lost to the vandals of HGTV. And then the fountain grass will seed and spread obliterating native vegetation wherever it can.
Of course that was a good show. It was just junipers after all. Often they choose to chop, cut and dig out mature trees. And sometimes they just pave the whole thing and put out a few pots of annuals.
Wait until they discover the joys of plastic plants like the L.A. Times did a few weeks ago in their gardening section.
I just saw the show where they go to a lovely midcentury Eichler home fronted by a band of old junipers. I don't know if the junipers were original but they could have been. It's what Garrett Eckbo would've put in. In any case, they were old, mature specimens, flowing along and together in a way that actually made me think of planting some, even though I hate junipers. They certainly needed some tending and some pruning, a little water and fertilizer might have helped too. But they didn't deserve to be murdered.
But murdered they were, chopped down, ripped out and dug up until every last vestige was gone; replaced by cheap fountain grass that will grow like a weed until the owners long for the slow-growing mature landscape they lost to the vandals of HGTV. And then the fountain grass will seed and spread obliterating native vegetation wherever it can.
Of course that was a good show. It was just junipers after all. Often they choose to chop, cut and dig out mature trees. And sometimes they just pave the whole thing and put out a few pots of annuals.
Wait until they discover the joys of plastic plants like the L.A. Times did a few weeks ago in their gardening section.
The Romance of Garden Follies
All these years I thought garden 'follies' were those odd projects left behind by previous owners: outdoor bar-b-ques of haphazard brick work, cracked and dry fish ponds, aviaries with torn screens, odd out-of-the-way patios stranded somewhere in the yard. The kind of thing that makes you wonder what were they thinking!
I have been corrected. Garden Follies were popular on the grand estates in Europe back in the 18th and 19th centuries. More romantic caves, meandering streams, sunny copses and romantic 'ruins' than the crackpot do-it-yourself schemes found throughout American suburbia, the English, French and Italian follies were build on vast estates and featured everything from Roman ruins to New World swamps and even peasant villages, all decidedly decrepid or romantically so, depending on your point of view.
However I have decided I was right in the first place and if not right then, I am right now. We should consider those old brick bar-b-ques, delapidated gazeboes and crack slabs of concrete, brick and stone as American follies and truly romantic in the sense of lost worlds, the fleeting nature of time and individuals long gone (more or less).
Which leads naturally to the question of what to do with them. Destroy, demolish, and remove are logical suggestions but expensive and troublesome as well. I think we can take a cue from the Europeans and decorate them. An old bar-b-que festooned with pots and plants, trailing petunias or impatiens (depending on the light) or a leaking fish pond filled with bog plants can be beautiful if done right and, done right or wrong, it's cheap and, if not cheerful, with the right approach, can at least be romantic and wistful.
I tried it with an old spa built into my patio. My plans were to turn it into a pond with a fountain and perhaps some koi. After a few hundred dollars in pond sealers, goop and waterproofing, I gave up, torn it out and turned it in a lovely mid-century planter. But it could have been fabulous - and romantic if it had worked.
I have been corrected. Garden Follies were popular on the grand estates in Europe back in the 18th and 19th centuries. More romantic caves, meandering streams, sunny copses and romantic 'ruins' than the crackpot do-it-yourself schemes found throughout American suburbia, the English, French and Italian follies were build on vast estates and featured everything from Roman ruins to New World swamps and even peasant villages, all decidedly decrepid or romantically so, depending on your point of view.
However I have decided I was right in the first place and if not right then, I am right now. We should consider those old brick bar-b-ques, delapidated gazeboes and crack slabs of concrete, brick and stone as American follies and truly romantic in the sense of lost worlds, the fleeting nature of time and individuals long gone (more or less).
Which leads naturally to the question of what to do with them. Destroy, demolish, and remove are logical suggestions but expensive and troublesome as well. I think we can take a cue from the Europeans and decorate them. An old bar-b-que festooned with pots and plants, trailing petunias or impatiens (depending on the light) or a leaking fish pond filled with bog plants can be beautiful if done right and, done right or wrong, it's cheap and, if not cheerful, with the right approach, can at least be romantic and wistful.
I tried it with an old spa built into my patio. My plans were to turn it into a pond with a fountain and perhaps some koi. After a few hundred dollars in pond sealers, goop and waterproofing, I gave up, torn it out and turned it in a lovely mid-century planter. But it could have been fabulous - and romantic if it had worked.
Zoning Out
Zone 21 according to Sunset, Zone 9b according to the USDA or maybe Zone 8-10 depending on who you ask. That's where I garden, somewhere in there. So plants won't freeze unless, of course, they do. And my plants should get enough winter chill to set fruits or buds, unless of course they don't,which they don't.
Sigh. I know I should give up searching the 'experts' for advice on which plants I can grow. They obviously haven't a clue. Which would be okay except there is so much advice from them. And so authoritative! Do this; don't do that! That won't grow there; this will! Do it now, do it then; it's too late to do it, it's too early to do it. Stop! You're wrong! I can almost see them shaking their heads, throwing up their hands in despair, and turning their backs on me and walking away.
Good riddance. Leave me alone. I do much better without all you experts and my garden does much better too. My pothos is fine even though it doesn't grow here. So is my peace lily even though it should be dead according to you experts. Oh, and the lilacs you all say will grow here? My neighbors say no. They won't bloom much if at all. So I'm not going to get my hopes up and try. And the laelia anceps you all say will do fine? Well I watched that die a miserable death. My neighbors were right again. In fact the neighbors seem to have it right. No only do they tell me what's possible, they also tell me what isn't, or isn't likely. I learned what to plant from walking around the neighborhood and extrapolating from there.
So far, so good. But really I would like to try another laelia, and according to the experts, it should flourish here. Really truly.
Sigh. I know I should give up searching the 'experts' for advice on which plants I can grow. They obviously haven't a clue. Which would be okay except there is so much advice from them. And so authoritative! Do this; don't do that! That won't grow there; this will! Do it now, do it then; it's too late to do it, it's too early to do it. Stop! You're wrong! I can almost see them shaking their heads, throwing up their hands in despair, and turning their backs on me and walking away.
Good riddance. Leave me alone. I do much better without all you experts and my garden does much better too. My pothos is fine even though it doesn't grow here. So is my peace lily even though it should be dead according to you experts. Oh, and the lilacs you all say will grow here? My neighbors say no. They won't bloom much if at all. So I'm not going to get my hopes up and try. And the laelia anceps you all say will do fine? Well I watched that die a miserable death. My neighbors were right again. In fact the neighbors seem to have it right. No only do they tell me what's possible, they also tell me what isn't, or isn't likely. I learned what to plant from walking around the neighborhood and extrapolating from there.
So far, so good. But really I would like to try another laelia, and according to the experts, it should flourish here. Really truly.
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