gardening with nature

I love the rhythm of tall grasses, bending in the meadow.

Gardeners could take a lot of tips from the way nature has arranged this meadow.  There’s not a clunky note in there, unless you count the power lines.

I’m a bit ashamed to say that I can’t identify this flower, which I spent so much time photographing. So I’m going to quickly move to emphasizing what a beautiful job this natural planting does, of providing interest close up

at a short distance

and in the broad sweep.

Pink and pink-purple colors are repeated in this late-summer landscape. Perennial sweet pea*, Lathyrus latifolius,  glows against the green and gold of the grasses. It grows in my area, too. But here in the higher altitudes, it takes on a delicate character absent where I live. It probably dies back in the snow, and doesn’t have the chance to become the tangle of lianas that wild sweet peas become in the foothills. (I once saw a puppy play tug-of-war with the lathyrus in our area: the lathyrus won.**)

The same situation applies to this Sierra thistle, Cirsium californicum, which provides a nice feeding place for bees but doesn’t seem to be taking over the meadow, the way thistles in my own area would.

These fetching little vetches, lower than my ankle,  are making a tiny landscape of their own, interwtined with the grasses. At least I think they’re vetches; I haven’t been able to properly identify them.  (It might be meadow hosackia, Lotus torreyi,  but the typical coloring of meadow hosackia is lighter.) In this plant, the typical pea-family flowers start yellow, then deepen into  tinges of red as they age.

Wetland meadows are probably not the first thing you think about when you hear “high Sierras”. And there’s a reason for that: most of the Sierras are seasonally dry; the vegetation runs from chapparal to sagebrush to red fir communities - and when you get to the timberline, the vegetation runs to rock and very small plants.

Most of the Sierra wetlands I’ve seen have been little pockets, tucked in among the dry clay and granite landscapes that are our usual summer fair. I’ve seen little fens on the side of a long, dusty road;  tiny oases by the side of a lake; and this more unusual wetland meadow, where, as you can see, dry sagebrushy land is not far off.

There’s an important lesson in this for gardeners as well as naturalists: take advantage of your microclimates and - I just made this up - microtopography. Gardeners can get ideas from landscapes like these. If you have a wet spot in your garden, what about making your own little pocket meadow, using wild plants from your own area?

*  Perennial sweet peas (or at least L. latifolia) aren’t actually sweet; they don’t have fragrance.

**Granted, it was a very small puppy. But still.

Some of you may already be thinking, well, that’s obvious: through transpiration, plants give off oxygen, and they take in our carbon dioxide waste.

That’s true, and very important, but that wasn’t what I meant. What I’m talking about is the circulation of air in the garden.

For someone like me, who wants to cram as many kinds of plants as possible in a small place - somehow being artistic about it - the idea of air circulation came gradually. But if you see certain plants dying or just being morose all the time, you start to wonder.

Finally I read (probably in Graham Stuart Thomas, purveyor of articulate, observant, and good-humored rose information) - finally I read that roses need air circulation. They need air flowing all around them to thrive. So if you cram them in with plants of a similar height, after a while, they start looking cheesey.

They need more air.

When I thought about it, I realized that our wild roses grow with maximum air circulation. They form huge mounds, but those mounds of roses are dotted throughout a meadow - air circulation in between the bushes, and air circulation through the meadow (you only find California wild roses in clear areas, or areas that have once been cleared).

When I found out that my lilies weren’t doing well because I had too many tall plants mashed in with them, I changed my planting habits - and got more flowers and healthier plants. Lilies like their roots cool, so covering their ground with low plants is a good tactic. And this, too, is how I’ve seen lilies grow in the wild: most often in low ground cover or thick duff (the wilderness equivalent of mulch).

Mediterranean plants, such as herbs, like a lot of circulation, too. That makes sense when you consider they are basically chapparal plants, dotted over a stony landscape, often on slopes, where air circulation is even better.

Knowing how plants grow in the wild gives us useful clues about how they’ll do in our gardens - and incidentally, helps us know our plants better. If you have plants which are mysteriously languishing, you might consider giving them a little air.

Lilium regale, front view

I’ll admit it.

I’ve bought lilies in the bag, on impulse. Just going by their looks, in the shallowest sort of relationship. But I’m also an eternal seeker after something more, something…it’s elusive, but I know it when I see it.

I tend to look among heirloom and species bulbs for that elusive something. Older bulbs were bred for gardeners, not the cut-flower trade. What that means for us is that heirloom bulbs are easier to grow into flower and  tend to last better in the garden.

Lilium regale, back view

 Species lilies can be trickier, as most are very particular about where they live, but some are forgiving, and others can be patiently cultivated in woodland settings. The best places to find these bulbs are the gardens and catalogues of people who are as nuts about bulbs as I am. The breeders, the preservers, the people who see something in the wild and have the patience to cultivate it from seed.

You can find good species and heirloom lilies in bigger catalogues, such as the venerable Scheepers/ Van Engelen  listings (Scheepers sells small amounts for home gardeners; Van Engelen sells larger, discounted quantities for professionals, and people like me who just don’t know when to stop).  In lilies, breeding seems to make older varieties obsolete sooner than in bulbs such as daffodils and tulips, so you don’t see many hybrid lilies that are more than about 30 years old in the mainstream catalogues.  But Scheepers has several species varieties, including the incredibly wonderful Lilium regale and Lilium regale album, trumpets that will exhale scent on your midsummer garden and, if you’re lucky, establish themselves in a glorious perennial clump.

‘Mrs R.O. Backhouse’, heirloom lily supreme. “Backhouse” is pronounced like the wine god, Bachhus.

Brent and Becky’s Bulbs  offers an enormous selection of hybrid lilies, but also includes some old favorites, such as ‘Golden Splendor’ ,  a Jan de Graaf hybrid which has itself been used extensively in breeding due to its beauty and good character. (Or at least they did have ‘Golden Splendor’; I just looked at their newly-issued fall catalogue and can’t find it. Never mind, they have tons of other wonderful heirloom bulbs). Brent and Becky’s has the largest lily selection I’ve seen in a regular bulb catalogue, including an excellent species lily section, with over a dozen offerings. You can always count on their bulbs to be good quality, unmarred and bursting with life. I often think Brent and Becky are doing a darn good job keeping lilies alive in US gardens, even though they are supposed to be daffodil specialists.

For heirlooms, there’s always Old House Gardens, a repository of many fine heirloom and species varieties. Of course, as always in the botanical world, there’s considerable arguing over which is which. For instance, ‘Citronella’, a Jan de Graaf hybrid, is often listed as a species lily in other, less knowledgeable catalogues, with ‘Citronella’ acting as the name of the species selection. Citronella is actually a cross between Lilium davidii var. unicolor and Lilium amabile var. luteum.

The lovely ‘Citronella’. Not fragrant, but I let it in my garden anyway.

‘Black Beauty’ (from 1957) is another lily that looks as if it should be a species - but it isn’t, although it’s often sold as one by less-knowledgeable vendors. ‘Black Beauty’ is a hybrid of Lilium speciosum and Lilium henryi, made by Leslie Woodriff.

One of my personal favorites, ‘African Queen‘(1958)  is also listed. I got my own ‘African Queen’ bulbs there. I also tried their version of Lilium formosanum (a species lily from Taiwan).

Elegant, fragrant ‘African Queen’

While the prices at Old House Gardens aren’t as cheap as some places, you get value for the money . The lavishly floriferous quality, and the huge, honking size of their bulbs - prove that Scott Kunst and company are dyed-in-the-wool bulbomaniacs. If the mouthwatering descriptions of  about twenty lilies hasn’t already proved that.

The Lily Garden  is a site (and catalogue) offered by someone who suffers the most serious condition of plant mania: a breeder. And not just any breeder, but Judith Freeman, whose ‘Silk Road’ is only the latest of her lilies to make the big time. Her ‘Tiger Babies’  lilies, a delicious confection of fragrant peach tigerlily lookalikes, has been on my list of desired ones for some time. Maybe you think I’m getting off the subject, talking about newer lilies. But ‘Tiger Babies‘, while relatively new,  have now been around for thirty years, as Freeman’s site informs us (and she should know).

If many of Freeman’s progeny have become classics in the lily world, that’s not be so surprising: Freeman did her apprenticeship under Jan de Graaf in Oregon, and was once married to Ed McRae, another famous lily breeder. That makes her a sort of royalty in the lily-breeding world.  She’s still at it, and offers us the benefit of her labors, as well as cultural instructions (wouldn’t you rather get these from someone who’s actually been out in the field growing lilies for a long time?), lists of lily bloom times, plus some species offerings at reasonable prices. She even includes lilies that are easy from seed, a useful list for some of us who have fruitlessly tried with lily seeds over and over.

Telos Rare Bulbs is a site that specializes in species (which I always think of as the ultimate in an heirloom plant). They don’t have a large selection of lilies on their page of native bulbs from the Western USA - but they have two native lilies I have never seen offered in bulb form and have not been able to grow from seed. They have a lot of other native bulbs, too - both to the Western US, and to South America and South Africa. You’ll find a lot of selections here that you won’t see anywhere else.

Some of these catalogues offer spring-planted bulbs, and some fall-planted lily bulbs. Some offer both. Which is best? I suspect that has to do with where you live. For those who live in extreme climates or just want to get their bulbs in for that instant satisfaction, spring-planted bulbs seem to work well. But while I have spring-planted lily bulbs and had it turn out well (it was one of those shallow relationships I was talking about, with Nerone lily), I find that more often, my spring-planted lilies are stunted and tortured-looking. A fall and winter of establishing their roots and getting some good nutrition really works for them. Perhaps for some of you in other climates, it works differently?

And perhaps, as a contribution to the public weal, you can contribute other good lily sources? I’d  especially like to hear from people in other countries (although I’m always anxious to fuel my passion with more lily sources for my own use). When I was searching around for lily sites, I found myself becoming somewhat morose that I wasn’t living in Australia or New Zealand. They have some good-looking lily sites.

Emerging lily…

Why do I grow tulips in the woods?

I started growing tulips, and other spring bulbs, because I was living in a low-water situation. Ten people on a 2 ½ gpm well. For those of you not familiar with wells, that’s not a lot of water for ten people, especially if they have gardens. Several times a summer, the tank would run dry, leading to tight-lipped (sometimes not so tight) comments about whoever had let the hose run or the faucet leak. A snippy irascible atmosphere settled over the land. For half a day or more, we lived dirty, with dry faucets and hoses.

I was the last person to arrive, so I knew that any garden I had would have to be very low-water.

At first I planted natives and herbs, favorite friends of mine for a long time. Natives, of course, are bred for my rainfall  and climate. Mediterranean plants come from the same kind of climate,  where it doesn’t rain in summer. So they are also excellent allies in low-water gardens.

Herbs are great, but I began hankering after flowers. As usual, I turned to my stacks of catalogues and books to research. And what I found - one of the great “duh” revelations of my life - was that most of the popular spring bulbs were either Mediterranean, or California natives. Which meant they didn’t need any extra water from me.

What are the bulbs that fall in these categories?

Well, of couse, tulips

and narcissus (a daffodil is a narcissus, but not all narcissi are daffodils)

hyacinths

calochortus of various species, some of which are sold in major bulb catalogues, some of which can be found only in specialty catalogues, or grown from seed.

crocus (both the species and larger, showier kinds)

and a number of others, including alliums, ornithogalum, tritelia, and scilla.

There are some bulbs whose genus includes both bulbs that like moisture and bulbs that can handle a lot of drought (fritillaries, iris, and lilies are some), but you can’t go wrong with the ones I’ve pictured above. They love drainage and hate summer water, and if you grow them in pots, the way I do, you can move them out of the way when the foliage starts to wither.

There really are 1001+ ways to save water with spring bulbs, if you count all their different species, varieties, and cultivars. If you plan carefully, you can have a feast of beautiful, low- to no-water flowers for months, and get them back the next year.

And now is a great time to buy bulbs. (If you don’t know where to buy them, check out my Spring Bulb Shopping series for some of the places I think are the best.) Some catalogues are still offering discounts for early orders, and the selection is the fullest it will ever be.

Low-water gardens can be beautiful, floriferous and yes, even lush. Bulbs will lighten your mood, enchant children and neighbors, and put tiny bits of glorious other dimensions into your life. Get bulbs. You’ll be glad you did.

A lot of you already know the secret to good, water-conserving soil: compost.

But there may be a few of you who don’t know that you can cheat.

Oh, you can’t cheat if you want that black, crumbly stuff all gardeners crave; it takes time to make that rich, humusy-smelling substance. Compost like this is the grade A+ soil amendment. It provides nutrients, enzymes, attraction for earthworms, aeration - and it holds water like a charm.

Any organic matter can help your soil do that, though, even if it’s not in the absolute top-notch way completely composted organic matter does. And  a lot of the time, you can scavenge the materials to do it. Which means it’s saving you money, too. (Priced out a load of delivered compost lately?)

If you live in a more rural area, scavenging’s easier, but cities have their own rich supplies.

First, there are the chopped branches and leaves often offered at both city and rural dumps or other sites. After crews clear away branches for power lines, or finish schwoomping up leaves, all that stuff has to go somewhere. In many places, they grind it up in civic grinders and offer it for free. Some places even deliver it.

A few cautions: First, you’d want to be sure you weren’t taking leaves from trees heavily sprayed with pesticides.

And, since it has a lot of woody matter in it, this sort of organic matter is better as mulch. (A friend of mine actually used it for a sort of soft playground surface for her kids.)

Wood takes a while to break down. Some people claim that this changes the acid balance of the soil, or takes up more nitrogen than it offers. I tend to believe the people who say they don’t see much effect from that, and that the value of the organic matter far outweighs any deficits. I feel the same about pine, fir, and cedar needles, other materials that need to stay as a mulch on top until they rot entirely.

If you gather your own leaves, you can pick and choose. In open areas, just go for a spot where there are a bunch of fallen leaves, and start gathering.

Underneath the leaves you will find a darker, moister layer of falling-apart leaves. This is called leaf-mold, and used to be taken into gardens not only for its organic matter, but for its enzymes and mycorrhizal activity, the things that make soil come alive.

Be thoughtful to the trees who are so kindly providing this rich substance: they can spare some of it, but they need it to thrive, too, as does the rest of the plant and fungal community around them. When I gather leaves, I move from spot to spot, and I don’t go all the way down to the soil.

Of course, there are always the leaves from our own gardens, left when the season’s done. All my tulip foliage (after it’s really brown) and dead leaves go into the compost.

And there are the leaves from trees which fall on our own gardens, rotting quietly through the winter, contributing rich, water-saving organic material without any work on our part.

In the city, you might find people who want you to take their leaves - after all, many people pay gardeners to blow or rake or burn their leaves away. Another source of leaves is restaurants. If you can establish a good relationship with a restaurant, and prove yourself reliable in taking away their compost and bringing back buckets, you will have a rich source of leaves. Restaurants that serve a lot of salads or soups are more likely to have leafage, but any place will have some.

Other sources? Horse stables will have plenty of horse manure, which is basically grass or alfalfa held together by other matter, and not at all obnoxious to handle, especially when dry (it’s lighter and easier to haul when it’s dry, too). If you’re willing to shovel it out, the stable owners will often let you have it for free. I’ve also gathered dried horse manure from the fields. Cow manure, too: I’ve found that when cows graze, or are fed alfalfa, their manure is not as hot, especially after it’s been baking in the sun for awhile. You still have to be more careful of it than horse manure, though.

Sometimes feed stores or farms have spoiled hay, hay that’s been out in the rain, and is sold for a pittance. Grass clippings work, but they are so high in nitrogen that they need to be put in a bin so they can burn their heat out. (My grandfather once had me put my arm into one of his triple grass-composting bins. I was shocked at how hot it burned. He proudly showed me the thermometer reading.) You also want to be sure about the provenance of your grass clippings: for some reason, at least in the US, we put our most deadly poisons down where we like our little children to play. Conventional lawn care involves a lot of toxins.

I’m sure there are many more clever places to scavenge organic matter (stuff that isn’t quite, yet, compost).

Wherever you get it, there are a few things you can do with organic matter when you bring it home to the garden.

Of course you can put it in a compost pile and compost it properly, but that isn’t cheating. I’m here to provide you with the easy, cheating ways.

One is to use your organic material as mulch, and let it gradually rot, improving your soil. The barrier of mulch on top is a great way to keep water from evaporating. And the microbial activity of the mulch breaking down feeds your soil, as the mulch gradually turns into lovely, fluffy, composty soil. Soil that holds water just right.

Another method (especially good for soggy stuff like restaurant leavings) is to tuck your organic matter under mulch.

This is the Ruth Stout method, politely called “sheet composting”. (When she first started composting this way, she didn’t hide the garbage under the compost, and concerned friends started wondering if she’d got a screw loose.)

Of course you can’t use the Ruth Stout method unless you have some mulch to begin with. If you used municipal wood chippings, for instance, the mushier vegetable leavings would start to condition your soil immediately for better water retention, while the wood chippings made a barrier, keeping moisture in.

The most labor-intensive method of dealing with compost is, of course, the one that gets the quickest results: tilling it in.  Tilling in requires muscle power and/or machinery, plus being picky about your compostables, so you don’t end of with chunky, hard-to-work soil.

If you have reasonably decent soil, you can also use the compost to build a new bed, using the cardboard method described in the last post.

Whichever method you use,  your soil will hold more water, and get better at holding water (and delivering nutrients) with each passing year.