Category — Water-saving gardens

Forget the movie. This is the secret.

For some reason, discussions of soil type are often missing from water conservation discussions. That’s a pity, because it really makes a difference.

I started out by trying to grow in containers that were filled with my local clay soil. When I got nothing but wizened and dying plants, I realized that didn’t work. So over the years, I’ve evolved a dirt system that does; I use it, with variations, for pretty much all the containers that I water year-round.

Basic soil: I don’t recommend just dumping some dirt into a container. I do use small amounts of local soil in the containers I plant: this adds some local mycorrhizae, minerals, and other things that plants like (mycorrhizae are kind of like yogurt culture; a little will spread. If you want to know more about mycorrhizae, click the link).

The rest of the soil is your basic potting soil. If I’m feeling lazy and rich, I buy the kinds that have amendments already added. If I’m feeling thrifty and self-sufficient, I get the basic kind and add amendments. The important thing to remember is that soil with lots of humus holds water. Soil with clay holds water, too, but it has no air in it and will turn into an impenetrable block if it dries. Sandy soil will let water run through before plant roots get a chance to drink it. A dose of compost helps everything; it’s a kind of soil-builder and amendment in one.

The usual amendments: Because commercial potting soils tend to lack minerals, I add a handful of azomite (a kind of super-rich-in-minerals rock dust from ancient sea beds) to each large container. Lately, I’ve become enamored of calcium, so now I throw in a small handful of dolomite or oyster shell lime. Acid-loving plants need either a commerical amendment or lots of used tea-leaves. (That’s black tea; others aren’t usually acidic enough.)

In containers where I’m growing plants for flowers and fruit, I put in fertilizers that encourage bloom, usually a pre-mixed organic fertilizer with mycorrhizae, which definitely up the fluffy lushness of my container plants. I sometimes vary these fertilizers depending on what I’m planting, but honestly I often just wind up using the same phosphorus-intensive fertilizer for everything. (Phosphorus is the middle number on fertilizers, and it makes roots and fruit – which also means flowers.)  For heavy feeders, like roses, foxgloves, and lilies, I may add some extra nitrogen fertilizer, such as alfalfa meal, but a lot of my plants get their nitrogen from the humus and foliar feeds alone.

The unusual amendments:  Besides the more-or-less ordinary amendments, I also add earthworms to every pot I own. Earthworms are little fertilizer-factories, taking minerals in and excreting them in a rich, nutritious form the plants can take up easily. They also aerate the soil – important in containers, where dirt tends to pack down hard. I rarely transplant my large containers, and I think the reason is that by adding some fresh soil on top every year, and keeping earthworms in it, the soil gets refreshed without the work of a big upheaval.

The big water-saving secret: The final soil secret is water-conserving polymers, such as TerraSorb. These come in the form of little crystals; you can hardly believe you paid so much for a tub of them, until you try the experiment: put a tablespoon of the crystals in a big mixing bowl and pour on the recommended amount of water. Then watch them swell and fill the bowl.  (The picture at the top of the post shows them lying on a plate.)

This is what the crystals do when they’re mixed in with your soil, gradually releasing water they’ve saved up. You mix them in the soil dry;  when you water, they swell up. It’s sort of an interior version of bottom-watering, keeping soil moisture levels even, and it’s especially good for water-hungry plants. I tend not to use the crystals for plants that like good drainage. On the other hand, if I have plants that like their feet in water, I create a layer entirely made of the crystals on the bottom, and then cover it with crystal-enriched soil.

Eventually the crystals disintegrate into a potassium-based substance that acts as a fertilizer. You can renew them by injecting them into the soil with something resembling a caulk gun (a pro gardener told me about this; I haven’t seen them. But you might be able to improv with a caulk gun). Or you can just dabble little holes with your hands and sprinkle more on top when you renew the soil; that’s the method I use.

Another version of this is mats, made of essentially the same material, that you put on the bottom of smaller pots and planters. I tried this in a seed flat once, but wasn’t as successful as I’d imagined.

Important point: This last water-saving secret won’t work unless you have the good, humusy soil. So all of you who thought you’d make a shortcut and just get the crystals: it won’t work. Sorry. The plants need the whole package.

Next post: keep water from evaporating with mulch – and a bonus idea.

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.)

Water-saving containers? I can hear some of you thinking. Are you kidding? Containers dry up quicker than anything.

Well, it’s true. Some of them do. But if you get, or make, the right kinds, your containers can save you water and also save your plants from that phenomenon some container gardeners know very well: death from neglect.

By choosing bottom-watered containers made out of the right materials, I water my container plants twice a week in the really blistering-hot spells; most of the summer, I water once a week.

Bottom watering. Plants actually love bottom-watering. It gives them a steady supply, without the stresses and strains they go through when water dries up, then they get it again, then it dries up…and so on. A consistent supply of water seems to make them very happy, and that’s not just my observation. Self-watering container promos are full of testimonials: “How I grew 50 pounds of tomatoes in one box!”

You can bottom water by using self-watering containers with built-in tanks, like the one in the photo at the top of this post. (The hole is where the hose goes in.) You can also make a self-watering container by inserting a tank into an ordinary plant pot, or by putting that ordinary plant pot into a bulb bowl.

Containers with built-in tanks. These are expensive, but they last for years (none of mine have worn out yet, and I’ve had some for about a decade) and save you water. I have gotten good ones through Gardener’s Supply and Park’s Seeds; other catalogues also carry them. Earth Boxes are a tall rectangular version of this;  others are flatter wider rectangles, squares, and more-or-less traditional round pots. Some of the fancier versions have molded designs and bright-colored resin finishes like glazed ceramic. They come in sizes from smallish hanging planters and pots to honking huge porch planters.

Containers with tank inserts. Here you have two options: buy them (I get mine from Gardener’s Supply) or make them yourself. The basic principle is that there needs to be an insert that keeps the roots out of the tank, but allows the water to wick up into the soil. Here’s a video on making your own self-watering containers from videojug.  If you don’t have high-speed, or you’d like to look at another variant of this, try this site for a writing-and-photos version. The homemade versions may not be glamorous, but you can’t beat the price. And you can do what I do with my cheap pots: hide them behind the nicer ones.

A watering tube poking out of a pot with a reservoir insert

Containers in bulb bowls. Of course you don’t have to use bulb bowls; you can use basins or old turkey roasters or plastic buckets or whatever you have handy that strikes your fancy. But bulb bowls are cheap, and they look presentable. I mean plastic bulb bowls, of course; terra cotta ones suck up water way too fast. I leave the plugs in, so they hold water, set the pot in the bowl, and voila, instant reservoir. If you live in country that’s mosquito-prone, you may not want to provide so many lovely brooding areas for the whiny flyers. But in my dry-summer climate, this is a workable, cheap approach to bottom-watering.

Ollas. While filling in the research for this post, I ran across an article about an ancient method of bottom-watering, used in meso-America. Porous ollas (terra cotta water holders) are buried in the ground with only a fill-hole showing. When filled, they gradually seep water into the ground. Apparently, you can use smaller ollas in big containers, though I haven’t tried this yet myself. This site shows a clever, inexpensive modern adaptation of the ancient olla method that even allows you to “automate” watering (no electricity or running water needed).

Using the right materials.  I’m a big fan of terra cotta – aesthetically speaking. But for those of us who live in dry climates, and for anyone who wants to conserve water, terra cotta is a bad choice. It acts as a wick, sending moisture from the soil the outside air (the same principle that makes it such a good watering tool when it’s buried, as the ollas are). It’s easy to kill a plant in a terra cotta pot in a single extra-hot day. So I use mostly nonporous pots made out of resin and plastic; I have a couple of glazed ceramic pots, too, but they are pretty pricey and very heavy so mostly I stick to synthetics. They’re making synthetics less awful-looking these days, and the plants cover most of them up.  I do have a few terra cotta pots that I use for plants that like a true xeriscape, and I hide some of my less glamorous ones with them.

I do have ecological concerns about plastic, but when I put that against the gas cost of shipping heavy terra cotta, and the fact that the heavy-duty resins last for over a decade (and counting), it seems to me that the artificial materials still come up as the best choice, unless you have local people who turn out large pots. If you make homemade self-watering containers, consider using some type of heavy-duty container as your base. Thinner plastics may start out cheaper, but after a few years they start chipping apart, especially if you leave them in sun. This is the voice of experience speaking.

Next post: Water-conserving potting soils

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.)

One of the reasons I coveted this plant was the memory of some friends here, years ago, who had a beautiful garden. Papaver orientale was one of their volunteer plants; it came up and gave a fine bright display every late spring without any care or watering whatever.

Since I’m easily infatuated by plants that give joy with little or no work from me, I took note. Papaver orientale was a plant to covet; reading catalogues, I found the lovely salmon-pink Victoria Louise, and knew she was it.

I’ve recently found that this casual use of oriental poppy wasn’t original with my friends. In 1874, The Journal of Horticulture, Cottage gardener, and Country Gentlemen said, ‘The double varieties of Papaver orientale, of which there are many colors, are very ornamental, and are useful for sowing in rough corners, where they often make a display without trouble.’

It’s interesting to know there were double versions of this poppy back then; I haven’t seen any modern ones.

But perhaps they are in the phenomenal list of Papaver orientale provided at Plantaholic. Until I read the Plantaholic site, I hadn’t realized there were quite so very many oriental poppy varieties; they have 150 types, and breeders are working all the time, making sturdier stems, longer flowering, and a list of other desirable traits.

To me, the most desirable traits of Papaver orientale are their toughness (a zone range from 3 to 9 helps testify to that), their beauty, and their willingness to bloom freely without extra water from me.  An extra bonus is some of their medicinal qualities; studies   show that Papaver orientale can act as a central nervous system depressant and stimulant; that it’s a sudorific (that means it makes you sweat) and good for heart tumors. (Just a reminder: Papaver orientale is not the poppy that opium comes from. That’s another species, Papaver somniferum.)

Papaver orientale is easy to grow with little or no water because it’s another Mediterranean plant; the Mediterranean has the same rainy winters and dry summers my area does. In its wild form, Papaver orientale is native to northwestern Iran, northeastern Turkey, and the Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.

According to Digging Dog nursery, the variety ‘Victoria Louise’ goes back to 17th century Armenia. I wasn’t quite sure, though, if they were referring to this cultivar or Papaver orientale in general. It seems to me that there would be much earlier records on Papaver orientale than that, since the Emirates and the Ottoman Empire (which once encompassed all these countries) were plant-mad cultures. Our own garden records are often so eurocentric that they disregard the work of other cultures altogether, so it’s hard to know.

In any case, this western Asian plant has made itself so at home in North America that, in some places, it has naturalized. (I’ve never seen this, but it was on the government botany site, so it must be right, right? Has our government ever lied to us?)

If you get seeds, I would follow nature’s advice and plant them in fall. I was lucky enough to get my plant from a local grower (that means I’m more likely to get a plant that does well in my area); I have such a small garden, I often get only specimens of each plant. It seems silly to buy seeds if I want only one.

Papaver orientale is a tough plant; its zone range testifies to that: zones 3 to 9. It does need some winter chill to do well, so it might have a hard time in climates that get any warmer.

Each flower gave a little extra show; after the petals drop, the puffy almost-furry flower center looks like a flower in itself (a scabiosa on steroids, maybe).

One of the things that helps Papaver orientale be so water-thrifty is its fleshy taproot, which acts both as storage for moisture and a deep-level moisture extractor. I have been known to water poppies if we have a warm spring spell, just so they last longer, but it’s not necessary for plant survival.

The One Stop Poppy Shoppe (more on this below) says that Victoria Louise goes well with rose-red, violet-blue, and soft blue. I also found that it went very nicely in a container with silver-green wormwood (Artemesia absinthium), another plant that needs very little water to thrive (and can survive with none). Both plants also need good drainage, a very common requirement for plants who sail through dry summers without water.

Easy, flashily beautiful, and water-saving: Victoria Louise is a good candidate for a water-saving garden, in containers and out of them.

Poppy bonuses:

One Stop Poppy Shoppe  This link will get you to their multitudinous oriental poppy seed selection, but they have  many species and varieties. Fun to browse.

Sylvia’s black-and-white oriental poppy

Houses on hilly sites have extra challenges for the gardener (not to mention the builder), but they also make it easy to achieve privacy by putting in masses of plants which obscure the view upward. I particularly liked this crazy-quilt of plants on a corner house, using wild fennel, madia, and what looks like a cycad. (Any identifications or corrections welcome.) There were also nasturtiums and other plants with varying textures, colors, and shapes.

This house combined a water-hungry lawn with drought-tolerant native ceanothus, so it might be called a kind of halfway-house xeriscaping. (Ceanothus comes in a bajillion varieties and tends to hybridize in the wild, so I’m unsure if this is wild or a cultivar.)

A  water-wise variation on the double-hedge theme was this  salvia with what looks like a bronze yucca behind it. I liked the contrast of shapes and colors with the house behind. A small rise adds extra privacy.

Another house protected its privacy with a courtyard entrance, but flanked it with water-saving plants that make it attractive to passers-by.

I wish I knew this embers-of-orange plant’s identity; it’s a surreal kind of plant. It’s on one side of the garage door.

On the other side of the garage door, near the gateway to the courtyard, is this grapevine. I don’t know if they get any grapes off this vine, but it’s a refreshing change from the ornamentals you often see, and a hardy, low-care vine. While grapes take a fair amount of water if you want fruit (wild grapes grow near creeks and in damp hollows), the vine can get along without copious watering once it’s established, as I can personally testify.

I especially liked this tiny withy-bed of succulents, on the other side of the garage. It was maybe six inches by a foot and a half, a beautiful use of miniscule space.

There’s still plenty of evidence that a lot of people in LA neither know nor care where their water comes from, but I was happy to see a lot more water-saving plants than I have in the past.

This house is fortunate in its privacy: it can combine the double-hedge technique with the plants-on-a-hill technique. They’ve also got enough room to squeeze a tree in there, using three of the privacy techniques I saw on this walk.

OK, bougainvillea may be a cliché in frost-free areas, but I still love it. No matter how many times I see it, I still enjoy all its variations of red against this privacy fence, and the white wall beneath it.

This older-planting tree is probably left over from a time when the neighborhood was a collection of modest working-class houses. I liked the way grass had taken residence in one of its many knotholes. It was limbed up high, so it was hard to get close to the leaves to see what kind it was. The leaves are hard and shiny, almost like some kind of live oak, but not like any kind I know. Can anyone identify it?

This green-on-green combination is a refreshing privacy hedge in the LA glare, but definitely not xeriscaping. It could be worse: ivy, azaleas, and what looks like agapanthus aren’t huge water hogs.

None of the plants surrounding this shady staircase is unusual, but they’re combined in a way that creates a satisfying sense of protection. As you walk under the big tree that overhangs it all, you get a momentary sensation of being secluded in a woods, or maybe a back lot, before you’re back out on the bright sidewalk again.

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.)

I take a sort of peeping-Tom’s pleasure in seeing what other people do with their gardens.

City gardens fascinate me; I like to see how people create their own personal paradise in a tiny space. Here in California, our two major cities (San Francisco and Los Angeles) also have a tempting variety of semi-tropical and temperate plants to choose from. And since this was an upscale neighborhood, these private city gardens are probably maintained by professionals, which gives us some insight into what’s fashionable in the mainstream garden world.

On a visit to Los Angeles, I took a walk with this question in mind: how do people give themselves privacy on their tiny lots?  It’s one of those places where gardening meets architecture. But I’m always looking at water use, so I found myself also seeing who had the water-efficient gardens, as well as the private ones.

I noticed several examples of what I call the double-hedge technique; a low hedge, and a higher hedge behind it.

Roses behind rosemary: an interesting example of double-hedge technique

This house created the illusion of privacy by the shelter of a large old tree in front, circied by a low brick wall. A very friendly grey-and-white cat, with extra toes (which I find appealing) came up for some pets. An Irish setter/mutt-looking dog said hello as well, but he was sequestered behind the iron grillework of a gate.

Some people forgo the privacy notion and just have a straight-up entrance to their houses. But even these vary in character, from suburban-banal

to this minimalistic Zen approach.

Though this looks like xeriscaping, it isn’t quite, since equisetum (horsetail) is a water-hungry plant, living on the margins of streams and rivers, or in damp low boggy spots. The white-rock mulch, though, provides the double service of keeping moisture from evaporating out of the ground, and reflecting the heat of the sun.  I’m not sure what kind of upkeep this landscape demands, but watering would certainly be lessened by this, and care would be reduced to the bare minimum: horsetails don’t need pruning except for the occasional removal of a dead stem; they grow symmetrically all by themselves.

Here’s an example of true xeriscaping, using dark pebbles as a mulch. I liked this creative use of that strip between the sidewalk and the street, combining chamomile (probably a seasonal appearer) with more traditional dryland plants. While residents of rainier cities might have fewer concerns about water conservation, xeriscaping those strips might still be an excellent idea, since you can’t put in automatic watering systems without digging up the sidewalk, and hand-watering can be a chore. And a lot of times, people living in the houses don’t regularly see these strips, they just drive up to the house and enter through a door that is far from the sidewalk. Out of sight tends to be out of mind, so besides saving you water, xeriscaping your sidewalk-strip might save you time, dead plants, and the embarrassment of contributing an eyesore to the neighborhood.

Next post: more privacy and water-saving ideas

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.)