Category — Water-saving gardens

There’s something about clary. A luminescence in the way the sun catches the flowers. An appeal to the deeply-vein-carved fuzzy leaves.  And it’s an obliging plant; it’ll put on a show under almost any circumstances.

If you grow clary sage in native clay dirt, it will hang in and produce tough little plants that need no extra watering to survive. But the richer the soil, the more the water, the bigger and lusher they get; I’ve seen them at least three times the size of more poorly-fed ones, and fairly pulsing with green and silver.

If you have a limited water supply, and can’t or don’t want to amend your soil, it’s good to know the plants that will survive under those conditions. Clary sage is one of them. It’ll even grow in semi-shade, though it much prefers sun. The only places it won’t do well are full shade and boggy undrained sites.

Part of what gives the flower that luminescence, I think, comes from the different colors and textures involved. This closeup shows bracts and bi-colored flower

and this really close shot shows how the pink-purple of the bracts contrasts with the violet-purple (and white) of the flowers in a way that somehow blends to a light-filled haze when you back off from the plant.

Clary sage’s name supposedly originates from “clear eye”, which comes from using the seeds to take irritating stuff out of the eyes. Like chia seeds, clary seeds are covered with a mucilaginous coating that puffs up into a gel when moistened; this probably allowed the offending item to attach itself and get removed. Or  maybe the mucilage is soothing in itself, I don’t know. Culpepper (a 17th century English herbalist who made it his mission to get herbal knowledge out of the hands of the leeches and into the heads of the common folk) claims that making the mucilage into a kind of compress relieved swellings and tumors, and drew out splinters and thorns.  The leaves also have anti-inflammatory properties and, judging by the fact that he recommends them for “hot inflammations” (probably infections) they may be antiseptic as well.

I haven’t used clary for any of the purposes Culpepper recommends, but I’ve used clary medicinally in an informal way for years. One winter I had a bad case of flu. I wanted soup, but I didn’t want to go out and shop, so I had to figure out something with what I had. What I had was potatoes and clary sage plants, the only substantial green leaves still out there. I picked a couple, thinking that their hairiness wouldn’t make them much of a treat.

But I was wrong. The leaves cooked up tender and sweet, and flavored the potatoes beautifully; all I added was salt. And I swear I felt better after I ate that soup. I always eat it when I’m sick, and I always feel better after. Clary sage leaves are available all year round in my climate, although they taste better before the plant flowers.

Probably clary sage’s most famous medicinal use is in aromatherapy, where it’s recommended for creating relaxed euphoria. Many years ago I put that knowledge to good use; I was splitting up with a boyfriend I’d been living with, and as I made trips back and forth for my stuff, I sometimes had to work around the woman who was now living with him. I had planted clary sage in the garden, and it was in flower. I ran in to sniff some on one occasion, and, well, it worked. It was a friend to me in a time of sorrow, or at least severe humiliation.

Tastes differ, however, and so do senses of smell. While some people find clary sage’s scent resinous and musky, to others it smells like dirty socks and old sweat. These people are not likely to be soothed by the smell of clary sage. What’s your own response?

I don’t have a greenhouse, but Peter Henderson had several. So I’m going to him for information on how to save water in a greenhouse.

Those of you who look askance at this old information: think about how much energy modern greenhouse systems often take. Should we turn up our noses at simple solutions if they work, and cost us less in water, time, energy, and money?

Henderson, one of the up-and-coming plantsmen of the 19th century, had an avid interest in solutions that saved all of those things. Managing a thriving nursery business in New Jersey, he felt he was growing in a climate most garden books don’t address, one that was hot and arid. Really, he was comparing his climate to Britain, where English-language gardening books came from. In 1874, U.S.-oriented garden books were still a novelty, though they’d been around since the 1840s (Henderson himself was one of the first in the field). Britain was the standard of reference for the English-speaking gardener.

OK, so compared to Britain, New Jersey is certainly hot, but arid? Anyone who’s sweated softly through the hot steam that is summer air in New Jersey, and seen the basement dehumidier tank fill in half a day, will wonder at that idea. I think he meant that it rains less than it does in Britain. The state of New Jersey’s climate is useful information when considering Henderson’s greenhouse methods, because you know they work in very humid and hot environments.

“A point indispensable in our hot and arid climate is, that all plants in the green-house should stand on close benches, overlaid with sand or ashes, or some such material. This keeps plants moist and prevents the plants from suffering, if any omission occurs in watering. We know that the practice in many places is entirely different from this, the plants being stood on benches of open slat-work. No plant can be kept healthy in such a place, unless with at least double the labor of watering necessary with those standing on sand. This, like many other of our mistakes, is copied from a mode pursued in England, where a colder, moister, and less sunny climate may make it a necessary practice.”

Interestingly, most greenhouses still use the open slatwork benches, or something akin to them. Maybe the U.S. is still in allegiance to England, at least as far as gardening is concerned. Or maybe there are climates where Henderson’s method just doesn’t work. But it sure seems worth a try in places where greenhouse plants suffer from heat and dryness in summer.

For keeping the plants cool, Henderson recommended a then-new ventilation system which opened greenhouse sashes, a single crank-lever serving them all. I’m not sure if Henderson used this method, but old-time greenhouse keepers often painted whitewash on the windows in summer for shade. (Whitewash is a combination of powdered lime and water, and was used as a cheap-and-easy paint on farms for ages.) Whitewash is easily scraped off when cold weather comes again; it’s basically just sprayed-on lime powder, and whatever scrapings are left will actually be good for your plants.

What are your own low-tech greenhouse secrets? When I have a greenhouse, I don’t want it to be a water and energy hog. So I’m collecting information.

When Rev. Wilks noticed a different kind of corn poppy in his garden, he decided to save the seed. Unlike most pure-flaming-red corn poppies, this one had a thin white edge.

Year after year, he planted from these seeds, saving more seed from the ones that showed the most unusual colorings and characteristics.

This old way of selecting seed takes time, but it led to the wonderful Shirley poppies, named after Rev. Wilks’s parish in Surrey. (Rev. Wilks also helped create the Shirley foxglove strain, still one of the finest today.)

Since 1880, when Wilks started out,  Shirley poppies have undergone even more transformations.

Originally, they started out as a flower that capitalized on the disturbed ground that farmers created when they sowed grain; that’s why they’re called corn poppies. (In Europe, corn is any grain; what we call corn in the U.S. is called maize in most of the rest of the world.)

The wild Papaver rhoeas is still a symbol for war veterans; in World War I, they filled the fields in southern France, where so many people died.

The poem In Flanders Field says: “In Flanders fields the poppies blow/Between the crosses, row on row.” Probably in earlier times these flowers had associations with death and resurrection, since they die back every year, then come back so spectacularly from the tiny hard seeds in late spring.

After Wilks created the strain of Shirley poppies, artist Sir Cedric Morris selected his own strain, ‘Mother of Pearl’, from his Shirley poppy seed.

I grew ‘Mother of Pearl’ which has mostly pastel tints, but also reverts to the original red form.

I could use the rainy season to water and grow them, without doing any watering of my own. Papaver rhoeas is a Mediterranean plant, like most spring bulbs and herbs that are popular in the western world.

‘Mother of Pearl’ grew almost chest-high, and lasted a few weeks.

Unfortunately, I can no longer find ‘Mother of Pearl’.

But that’s all right. ‘Falling in Love’, a new introduction to poppy culture, is also quite beautiful, and shares some of ‘Mother of Pearl’s’  pastel traits – as well as their tendency to revert to pure red. All of the pictures in this post are of different versions of ‘Falling in Love’.

All Papaver rhoeas cultivars are excellent low-water plants. They germinate well in cool, rainy weather; I plant them in fall or early winter, and they oblige in late spring and early summer, a few weeks of luminescent bloom. Sometimes, if it’s hot and dry, I give them a little water to encourage them to last longer.

Mixing the tiny seed with dry organic flower fertilizer distributes seed better; I put about a teaspoon of seeds in a handful of fertilizer. Otherwise, I tend to get clumps of short, stunted flowers, and lots of space in between.

Shirley poppies have come so far that the original color combination Rev. Wilks noticed has been reversed.

When my ‘Falling in Love’ poppies finish, I’ll be sure to collect the seed.

I’ll be curious to see what comes of my own seed selection.

If you’ve read the last three posts, you know the basics: we can make container gardens water-thrifty (even more water-thrifty than plants in the ground) by using bottom-watering, good water-retaining soil, and mulch or groundcover-mulch. But how does all that work out in the garden?

More sun, less water saving. This may seem obvious, but containers allow you to make this fact into an art. Since I’ve spent a long time gardening in places that are mostly in semi-shade, I’ve learned to make microadjustments in where I place my containers. They need enough sun so they don’t grow leggy or refuse to flower, but if I tweak them I can find the exact spot where they get enough sun to thrive, but not enough to suck up inordinate amounts of water. Only your own experience will tell what this is in your climate.

Look at your containers as little landscapes. If you think of each container as a little landscape, you’ll get the most out of it. So consider: do all these plants have the same water requirements? If they don’t, somebody’s going to be unhappy. Put that plant in a another container. Do you have groundcovers and tall and medium plants in the same container? That’s how you get the most use out of your container space. Tall lilies grow through ground-covering rosettes of digitalis or campanula which, in their own turn, put up the flowering spikes. Earlier plants die out as later ones come in. And so on.

Plants grouped together save water. Because they transpire moisture, plants in a group will keep a little more humid than their isolated friends, even if they’re not in the same pot. That’s lucky, because containers grouped together look great and create an inviting atmosphere.

Look at groups of containers as a moveable landscape. Massing containers gives the effect of a large planting, especially if the containers are all at the same height. But with containers, you have an added advantage: if there’s only one big show, and it’s over, you can move the containers out of the way and put some more eventful plant in its place, all without hurting anything.  That’s what I did with the tulips pictured at the top of this post, which put on a glorious spring show and then die, never wanting water until next year. After the foliage goes brown, I move them someplace inconspicuous. They sit around the back until they sprout up the following year.

Look at groups of containers as a permanent landscape. Other parts of my garden have container setups I’m not interested in moving around; I’m not a total masochist, after all. In this semi-shady area under madrones, I collect plants that like semi-shade and aren’t too water-demanding: foxgloves, campanula, lilies, alpine strawberries, California figwort, violets, rehmannia, forget-me-nots, and a few other odds and ends. These containers have succession, in a mild way: violets and early bulbs give way to campanulas and foxgloves; clipping back the stems of campanulas and foxgloves gives me bloom for most of the summer. Cyclamen pitches in in fall, and I read shade-gardening blogs such as the wonderful Northern Shade for more ideas about how to make this spot interesting in fall. The point is that if you want a more-or-less permanent container garden, you have to plan groupings with the same care you’d use when you plant in the ground.

From most angles, the bench covers these low pots, leaving only plants visible. You can get the effect by scrolling so you can see only the top half of the picture.

Share the knowledge. OK, now it’s time for you to speak up. What tactics do you use to create a beautiful container garden? And is there anything you do that helps save water?

Next post: when water plants save water. (Yes, you read that right.)

JUNE: A MONTH TO HONOR WATER

In a way, my whole blog is about low-water gardening; that’s the reason I got involved with tulips, and I already loved natives and Mediterranean herbs. During June, my posts will all be about conserving water in the garden. This gives me scope to cover everything from containers to cityscapes, soil to site to sprays, and of course portraits of more of those stellar plants that spread their glories with little or no watering. (Hint: the “Wild Plants” category will give you quite a few more; so will the “Bulbs” category.)

Bottom-watering is one of the best tricks I know for saving water in container gardens. But you can make containers even more water-efficient by working from the top down with that old water-saving standby, mulch. Like bottom-watering, mulch keeps moisture levels in the soil more even, protecting plants from the shocks they get when water supplies fluctuate.

And here’s the bonus: mulch will keep your weeding chores to a minimum, too.

The broadest definition of mulch is something that provides a barrier between the soil and air, so moisture stays in longer. That means pebbles can be a mulch. So can cardboard. So can plastic. Some commercial self-watering containers come with a plastic cover that acts as a mulch for the container.

You can also mulch containers in more traditional ways - you just have to think tinier. Instead of big wood chips, use shavings. Instead of hay, use grass clippings, or alfalfa meal, if you’ve got roses or other more nitrogen-hungry potted plants. The woods mulches my plants for free with oak leaves and pine needles; I only brush these away if they’re getting in the way of plant growth. Otherwise, those leaves and needles are providing nutrients and moisture-protection for my plants. (The photo at the top of the page shows some of this natural leaf mulch.)

I’ll confess that I mostly use the most traditional mulch of all: tight planting. If you plant your containers like little landscapes, with groundcovers, tall plants, and seasonal appearances, you’ll find that the plants themselves cover the ground thoroughly.

Before you get to the point of self-mulching plants, you’ll still want to mulch for maximum water savings. The easiest time to mulch is when you’ve just finished planting, when there’s the most visible space between the plants where you can stuff as much mulch as possible. And do stuff. Mulch isn’t effective unless it’s at least two or three inches deep, packed down. That means it has to be even higher and fluffier than that going on.

Of course, that may be difficult to achieve in the confines of a container. Don’t worry about it; if you’ve already got your bottom-watering system going, you’re miles ahead of other container gardeners. Just put on as much mulch as you can, and, when there’s a chance, slip in a little more. If you have tender plants, you can lay on  a complete new coat of rottable mulch at the end of the season; some of it will rot and enrich your soil before you plant again, the rest of it will act as a packed-down mulch base for next season.

Less-traditional mulches, such as plastic and rocks, are a little trickier. Rocks obviously need to go on after planting, but plastic goes on after you’ve got soil prepared and before plants go in. Then you cut an X in the plastic, and slip the plant in (you can also plant seeds this way, but I usually start mine in a seed plug flat before I put them in the bigger containers).

If you live in a hot climate, be careful about the color of plastic mulch you use. Dark plastics heat soils, which is why some people use them, but if you have very hot summers they may heat the soils enough to kill plants, especially in a  small container. Look into more reflective plastic mulches, or consider using traditional mulches that rot. While rotting mulches need to be replaced, they also act as part of your fertilizing system. Plastic mulches need replacement, too - good ones last about two years, in my experience - and they tend to shred and chip and leave little bits of plastic about if you don’t catch them in time.

The same principle applies to rocks: dark rocks attract heat, white rocks reflect it. While rocks allow a bit more moisture to escape, that’s still a consideration when you’re mulching with them. One of the prettiest (and nicely reflective) mulches of this type that I’ve seen is Conscious Gardener’s recycled glass mulch.

Whichever kind of mulch you use, take a look at the top of your container, and think of the best way you can keep moisture from escaping.

Bonus idea: Another way to conserve water from the top is to use foliar sprays made to conserve moisture (they’re sometimes used to provide “shine” for tropical houseplants). The sprays coat the leaves, slowing transpiration (plant breathing, in which moisture is “exhaled”). The coating also makes the leaves slightly shiny, reflecting the sun. I have used these sprays and I think they made a difference, but I wasn’t very scientific about how I used them. I think basically my system works so well without it that I don’t bother, but it might be helpful in some cases.

Next post: putting it all together for a beautiful container garden

JUNE: A MONTH TO HONOR WATER

In a way, my whole blog is about low-water gardening; that’s the reason I got involved with tulips, and I already loved natives and Mediterranean herbs. During June, my posts will all be about conserving water in the garden. This gives me scope to cover everything from containers to cityscapes, soil to site to sprays, and of course portraits of more of those stellar plants that spread their glories with little or no watering. (Hint: the “Wild Plants” category will give you quite a few more; so will the “Bulbs” category.)