A (mostly) native garden by a stream

Posted on May 15, 2013 by mike

Some gardens don’t have it simple. This one gets drainage from above, plus it’s subject to flooding along its lower portion. If that wasn’t enough, the soil is non-draining clay. The solution? Pick plants adapted to the site, of course.

The garden had been in for about a year when these pictures were taken, and it’s progressing well.

streambank garden

The lower portions take advantage of native shrubs and grasses that grow in wet or boggy conditions: button bush, sedges, rushes, red twig dogwood…

The drainage passes under a low bridge made from pressure-treated wood and is filtered by a small meadow planted with native tufted hair grass and sedges. So, even if there is some sediment flowing off the slope or the driveway, the intent is that it will enrich the meadow instead of silting up the stream.

simple footbridge over meadow

Further up the slope, redbuds, toyon, deer grass, California fuchsia take over, blending with coffeeberry and other plants and taking advantage of increased drainage provided by the slope. There are a few Mediterranean plants for variety: Powis Castle wormwood, rock rose, snow in summer. For fast cover, there are some patches of Myoporum – the closest thing there is to an instant ground cover.

Some plants are somewhat short lived, and will die out to leave place for other plants to spread as the garden grows – so it won’t look bare in its early years, but won’t become as crowded as it would if all the plants were to compete with each other.

Adirondack chairs with a viewTwo chairs look out over the stream toward the neighbor’s lawn, a study in contrasting garden design approaches. This side has nectar for butterflies and hummingbirds, plants that will thrive if the stream floods, color and interest that changes with the seasons. The other is constantly lush, simple and green.

Chairs looking over garden

 

As the river birches grow, the upper area will become a shady haven looking out over the sunnier lower garden. Other plants will grow with time, blocking views of a culvert and making the stream banks look more wild. There will be a bonus for wildlife, too, as flowers bloom and fruits ripen.

As their roots grow downward, they should reach underground water from the stream, reducing or eliminating the need to provide supplemental irrigation. The plants farther up the slope, when established, will require little water.

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New gates for an old Streng

Posted on May 15, 2013 by mike

The gates and fences were the first things added in the transformation of this Streng home’s surroundings. They’re simple, modern and a bit edgy – and they’ll be a great backdrop to the new hardscape and plantings.

left gate at Streng home

 

This left gate leads to a small courtyard, and is reached by travelling across a series of concrete steps interspersed with crushed rock. The corrugated metal adds some sparkle and light to this shady space.

garden gate, Streng home

 

This will be the main gate, leading to the utility area and back yard. It’s also the first to get a fancy new handle – the finishing touch that adds a layer of elegance. Nestled between the carport and large shrubs, the gate’s reflective metal bounces light into the dark space.

The rest of the project is coming along well: concrete pads, low walls, decorative fencing, living spaces are going in now, with a minimalist, modern planting palette soon to follow.

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Stabilizing and firming gravel paths

Posted on April 21, 2013 by mike

Gravel paths are great. They crunch when you walk on them. Water and air pass through them. Since gravel is flexible, tree roots under paths won’t cause any damage as they grow. Great, until you need to roll something over them or walk repeatedly through the same area.

If you want to use the area for parking or vehicular access, they’re really not so great.

Luckily, there are products on the market that transform your shifting, foot-sinking, wheel-rutted gravel path into a firm yet highly pervious surface. All you need is the cellular containment material, your gravel and some geotextile fabric.

EZ Roll gravel paver roll

Here’s the EZ Roll, fresh off the pallet, direct from NDS. It really is a roll, although at 360 pounds or so, it’s not too easy unless you have two people helping. If this were a driveway, the roll could have been dropped right onto the prepared surface: easy. Since we’re using it to make wheelbarrow-friendly (and firmer) paths, we’ll be cutting it up as needed.

Ione gold gravel

 

Here’s the gravel, a few yards of Ione Gold, 3/8″ crushed rock. We’ll have to transport it all by wheelbarrow, but once the cellular containment is down, this will be much easier than before.

geotextile fabricOnce the path’s been dug out to accommodate the gravel, we put down a sheet of geotextile fabric to keep the soil and gravel separate. This material allows air and water to pass, so everything stays permeable.

EZ Roll and clippers

 

When the roll arrived, it looked like we might need a Sawzall or other more complicated piece of equipment to cut it. Nope. All we needed was a sharp pair of clippers. If they’re not sharp, the clipper blade won’t make a clean cut through the bonded filter fabric. I used kind of a shark approach, where I stuck the clippers into the material from below, cutting the plastic and the filter fabric, then sliding the blade along the fabric, then repeating the plunging shark motion when I arrived at the plastic again.

A thin layer of gravel goes over the weed barrier fabric, just to create a level surface. If this had been a vehicular area, things would be more complicated, with a thick layer of compacted aggregate going down under the cellular containment sheet.

cellular containment mat detail stakes for cellular containmentThe EZ Roll gets staked down to keep it from sliding. This is probably more important for vehicular areas, but it does make installation easier.

EZ roll over geotextileOnce the lower gravel bed is level, the cellular containment gets rolled into position and staked down. After that, all that needs to be done is adding a layer of gravel. We put about 1/4″ to 1/2″ of gravel over the top so that the grid won’t show unless there’s some major scruffing going on. In that case, a quick wipe of the foot re-covers the cells.

Gravel and EZ RollAs you can see at the top left of the photo, the grid is completely hidden. The geotextile fabric in this photo is bonded to the EZ Roll, so the top gravel is well separated from the soil, keeping them from mixing and making the gravel muddy over time.

 Thanks to NDS for supplying the sample EZ Roll Gravel Pavers. I don’t know why they call it pavers when it’s a big roll instead of separate units, but then I’m not the head of their marketing department, either.

If EZ roll isn’t available in your area, or you just like choices, Invisible Structures makes a similar product, GravelPave2.

 

 

 

 

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Ming iris

Posted on April 12, 2013 by mike

The idea was to contrast the deep blue ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ with the yellow ‘Ming’. So far, our plants aren’t exactly cooperating. The two are flowering, but on alternate days.

Ming bearded irisThe plants are still small, with the flowers about a foot above the ground. In time, they should spread into low clumps covered with flowers – and by then hopefully Midsummer Night’s Dream will also be a low clump, so we’ll get a deep blue-violet and bright yellow value contrast with a bit of complimentary contrast thrown in for extra zing.

 

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Midsummer Night’s Dream in April

Posted on April 9, 2013 by mike

Our new irises that we purchased last fall have started to bloom. The first is ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’, with an intense deep blue-violet flower held about 12″ above the ground. It’s supposed to eventually get to 17″ tall, so maybe the first year things are a bit closer to the ground.

bearded iris

We purchased the plants bare root last fall from an iris specialist. They went in the ground, and basically sat there until the end of winter. Once they felt a bit of sun and warmth on their leaves, they made up for lost time, extending leaves skyward and flower stalks soon after that.

Bearded iris, although not native to California, do very well here and require little if any supplemental water. They go dormant after flowering, so it’s good to have some other vegetation that takes their place after the big show is over around mid-May.

Another thing they like is good drainage, so most of our plants are sitting happily on mounds. The new additions are in the meadow area, where there’s a patch of sand left over from a previous owner’s project, nature and purpose unknown.

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A Sausage Vine for Sacramento

Posted on April 7, 2013 by mike

We’re always looking for ways to divide spaces in interesting ways. Narrow supports planted with vines can work well, except vines typically don’t cooperate. They thin out from the base, putting all their leaves up high where they screen nothing – especially if they’re planted in shade.

Holboellia vine

We recently went on a tour of Monrovia Nursery’s growing grounds, where we saw up and coming plant varieties. At a vine talk, Gilbert Resendez, a managing director and master horticulturalist, placed a plant on the table. Deep green leaves, nodding bell-shaped flowers, and fragrant.

“It grows in shade, takes cold and it’s evergreen,” he started. Could it be true? An interesting alternative to the ubiquitous star jasmine is coming to a nursery nearby?

The vine, Cathedral Gem Sausage Vine, with an equally awkward Latin name of Holboellia coriacea, was found growing on or near a cathedral in England by Dan Hinkley, a guy whose job should be made into a movie someday. He travels all over the world looking for new plants to introduce to the nursery trade. I imagine Indiana Jones, botanist. No tombs to raid, but extensive hiking in remote corners of the world with all their associated adventures.

The plant owes its name to its fruits, shaped like sausages. We haven’t yet seen the fruit, so we don’t know if they’ll be more salami, frankfurters, merguez, Polish… Hopefully they will be interesting and add to the plant’s character.

On our next trip to Los Angeles, we stopped by Monrovia’s Azusa headquarters and picked up a test plant. Although it takes cold and shade, it does not like poor drainage. We weren’t too sure about its performance in Sacramento’s hot summers, either.

Holboellia vine 1530

To alleviate the soil drainage issue, we planted in a low mound, directing water away from the root ball. We’d tried another vine in this location previously, but it proved to be too shady – something that shouldn’t be a problem with the Holboellia. It’s already twining its way up the wire, and hopefully will fill in to create a green gateway to the house, along with an existing evergreen clematis.

The concept here is fragrance in late winter and early spring. The new vine is fragrant, but so are the evergreen clematis and a daphne odora growing nearby. People arriving at the door will pass through a perfumed space announcing that spring is just around the corner.

You can read more about the plant on Monrovia Nursery’s web site.

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A String of Strengs

Posted on March 10, 2013 by mike

The Streng Brothers were quite busy in the Sacramento area in the 50′s. They built homes for contemporary living, designed by Carter Sparks, that remain just as contemporary today as when they were built. That is, assuming that they were not infested by out-of-character remodels.

Although we’ve designed landscapes for Streng (and other mid-century modern) homes in the past, we’ve never had a streak of them as in the past few months.They’re fun projects, reinforcing the minimalistic, contemporary aesthetic of the homes themselves.

We don’t believe in replicating the original landscapes, however. For one thing, we now have plants like ornamental grasses that look great in these settings but weren’t generally available in the fifties. For another, resource conservation is even more critical than it was then. The houses were designed to maximize natural light, but water conservation wasn’t really on the radar – so by using bold, avant-garde looking plants we can generally accent the homes while reducing maintenance and saving water.

C Streng

Bigger patios, more outdoor living spaces, outdoor rooms and especially more space all around the existing pool combine to simplify and update this Streng landscape. The new landscape adds additional screen walls, moves the existing pool equipment, re-aligns the driveway and adds more space for herbs and vegetables.

 

DavisStreng

In Davis, this landscape received a much more minimalist treatment. Plants grow out of crushed rock set on weed barrier fabric, accented with low walls. The pool and spa are new, too – aligned to optimize views from the house. We kept the driveway concrete, only adding a bit to facilitate access. A grove of windmill palms remained in place, dressed up with a mass planting of ornamental grasses. There’s a new vegetable garden, tucked behind a low wall that echoes a seat wall across the pool.

Streng front elevation Streng front plan

 

This design adds a wood and concrete privacy screen that also creates a nook for a sculpture. The plants flow in drifts across the landscape, blending at the right edge with the neighbor’s native California plants.

We’re still doing preliminary design for a fourth Streng home, and will post something here once we’ve firmed up the concept.

 

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The Big Photo Day

Posted on January 31, 2013 by mike

When we designed and built our garden, it was to test new ideas, build things that contractors told us wouldn’t work and create more living spaces for ourselves, birds and insects. The cats benefitted, too. We think of it as a mad landscape architect’s lab, still unfinished around the edges but with the main elements in place.

Now, it seems that a crazy, wild around the edges garden is worth talking about. A major local magazine is doing a story on our crazy, unconventional, untrimmed garden.

Cat on photo bags

I claim these items as my territory!

A photographer arrived, with sacks full of Alien Bees, camera bodies and lenses. The cat wasted no time asserting her territory, camping on one of the equipment bags and making sure her claws were sharp.

We did all kinds of silly poses. Some with “petit syrah” in fancy glasses (no drinking on the job here; the stuff was really pomegranate juice). We played roshambo. We told fish stories. We looked at birds, we sat by a fire, at a table, strolled around the garden. The shutter clicked. There’s probably at least 1 gigabyte of outtakes just of our mugs. Hopefully there will be a jewel of a photo in there somewhere. We won’t know until the magazine comes out.

We were supposed to look comfortable and relaxed, sipping “wine” and conversing casually, as though there were no guy standing about ten feet away snapping away with a 5D. We were not supposed to look cold, like it was 72° F instead of 60°.  Our tiny fire gave off more of an atmospheric smoky effect than actual heat.

That’s acting, I suppose. It seems like they’re always filming hot steamy tropical scenes in cold weather, so here we were in a similar situation. A taste of Hollywood, right in our own backyard.

As for the garden, it got shot to doll rags, as Louie L’Amour might have said. Afternoon shots, wide angle shots, telephoto shots, evening shots, almost-night shots filled in with remote strobes set high upon light stands.

hanging lanterns over deck

The deck at dusk

 

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Native plant, yes. Hardy plant, sort of

Posted on January 24, 2013 by mike

Just because a plant is native doesn’t mean it’s completely hardy. I suppose if all our native plants were from our exact location, things would be fine. However, like the wicked witch, they had houses dropped on them and are no more. Not even ruby slippers remain. 

Salvia Spathacea after frostFooled by warmer weather, this hummingbird sage (Salvia spathacea) decided to initiate flowering. Then the temperature dropped, and dropped some more. In all, this frost cycle lasted over a week, a frozen white garden greeted us each morning.

At first, it seemed that the plant was hardy enough to shrug off the low temps. It remained upright, looking like things would be go for flowering later in spring. Then it began to droop, eventually lying down atop the foliage.

Luckily it seems that the main plant is hardy enough to survive, but plants have a way of looking fine for quite a while after the frost, then showing that they’ve truly gone to the great garden in the sky.

hummingbird sage

Hummingbird sage on a frosty morning, before damage showed

Purists would insist that unless it’s from your area, a plant is not truly native. It may be native somewhere in the state, but since there are no local populations, it probably won’t support the same species of insects that it would in the wild – their populations are far away, too far to colonize your garden.

Hummingbird sage is from milder, more coastal regions, like most native plants offered for sale in the Central Valley. If were were really limit things, we’d have valley oak, interior live oak, coffeeberry, toyon, annual wildflowers, native bulbs like brodaiea.  There would be some sedges, native grasses and perennials like viola pedunculata to round things out. If we were insisting on authenticity, we’d add poison oak. The bulbs and perennials might be impossible to find, or would require propagating from seed obtained from a reputable source.

viola pedunculata

Johnny jump-up (viola pedunculata)

California dutchman's pipe vine

California dutchman’s pipe vine

California Dutchman’s pipe vine (Aristolochia californica) is native here, but our plant is not covered with caterpillars in spring – so perhaps we’re a bit too far from a riparian area for it to count. If it doesn’t count, perhaps wild grapes would not, either. If we consider this more a moist area, we could add willows.

If we wanted to use the water for a large pond, we’d add cattails and tules (Schoenoplectus acutus). Even so, it would only benefit those animals able to reach it, mostly birds. Perhaps a pacific chorus frog or two would move in, but it’s unlikely that a western pond turtle would cross miles of suburban wasteland just to settle into a backyard pond.

Even without a restored native habitat – something impossible to achieve without all its associated wildlife – this garden is a better place for small creatures to live, work and play. The hummingbird sage still gives nectar to hummingbirds, and doesn’t require much water. Penstemons, asters, goldenrod and yarrow feed the bees. Even non-native plants provide seeds and nectar.

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Water conservation mural, Fair Oaks Horticultural Center

Posted on January 23, 2013 by mike

Years ago, we created a series of water conservation panels for the Fair Oaks Horticultural Center – Water Efficient Garden. It’s still standing!

6774 FO Signs MR

It was a lot of fun coming up with the illustrations and doing the layout for the panels. Annette created a green character to add animation, while the text and diagrams show how to conserve water in the garden.

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