Killing the Field

A puddle in the middle of the lawn?

I looked at landscapes at Utah public schools last year, and I am frustrated by what I saw. Many schools were clearly over watered, but this school took the cake. It had water sitting in puddles of fetid water in front of the school.

While it seems that poor management like this is in bad character, especially during a drought year, it is even worse when you know that this level of over watering can require mowing up to three times a week. All this time and money from the mowing could easily be shifted elsewhere.

While it seem easy to blame the custodian, the problem is systemic through the school systems and American society in general. I encourage you to become educated about good gardening and plant care and to respectfully and appropriately approach responsible leaders in the community when you see such horrible miss use of public resources.

Manana!

Gardening for Bees class!

A honey bee on the Agastache plant right outside my front
door.

I will be holding a "Gardening for Bees" class on September 28 at 10:00. This will be a 4 hour class, so we will do two hours in the morning, take lunch, and resume class at 1:30 for the remaining two hours. The location is in Orem Utah.

The cost will be $50 payable to Utah Sustainable Gardening for registrations received before September 21. After that the cost will go up to $65. Seating is limited so, registration will be on a first come first serve basis.

Topics being covered are:

Best trees and garden plants for bees

Weed control

Pesticides and bees

Designing basics for flower beds

For more information contact Alex Grover at utahsustainablegardening@gmail.com

I look forward to hearing more from you!

Mowing Your Lawn for Drought

A lawn repair at Lehi city hall. Repairing turf is very water
costly and should be avoided durring water restrictions
and hot periods.

With the ongoing drought in Utah I thought a little advice on preventing mowing from damaging Kentucky bluegrass is in order.

Most folks understand that drought causes stress on turf grass and many other plants. What they don't realize is that their weekly ritual of mowing and trimming can be just as damaging to their lawns. When these stresses hit a lawn it needs more water to help it recover from the damage.

So what to do to reduce lawn stress and damage? Try these tips:

• Set the mower height to 3" or more. This gives your grass more sun energy to heal and to send roots down deep to find deep water.
• Drought stressed bluegrass will grow more slowly, so it does not need to be mowed as frequently. As long as you take off one third or less of the grass leaf when mowing, it won't hurt to mow every two weeks. Mowing even less frequently may be possible.
• Keep your blade sharp. A dull blade shreds the grass and requires more water for the grass to recover. If the blade is checked every time the mower is used it never becomes a problem.
• Get a mulch mower and use the mulching feature. The small grass clippings will break down and add carbon to the soil. The carbon will help slow down evaporation so water can go to the lawn instead. Mulch mowing does not create a thatch problem, it actually helps solve it.

If this list looks familier, it should. These are the same recommendations that everyone should be familier with for creating a healthy strong lawn in normal years.

It is also never too late to look at reducing or eliminating turf!

Tips for a Green Lawn During a Drought

Lehi City hall during the 2013 drought.  In a bad year,
governments need to take the lead in conserving water!

I am not a fan of huge lawns, but that doesn't matter because they are already here and most people like them. What I hate most about lawns is the way people water them. Too often as I walk down the street I see water running over sidewalks and down gutters. This is bad enough on a normal year in the desert, but in a drought it is criminal!

Below are a few tips to get the most out of your lawn without using extra water.

• Switch from impact heads (old fashioned rainbird sprinklers) and spray nozzles to rotor heads and mini rotor nozzles. Rotors are found in nearly every hardware store, but for the minis you will need to go to a professional sprinkler shop. These shops are always glad to help you, but you may have to wait for the help.
• Fix any broken lines, heads, and nozzles. If you have leaks you are letting money run down the gutter.
• Adjust your sprinklers so that all of the water hits the lawn rather than the sidewalk or house.
• Water slow and deep, the rotors and mini rotors are made to do this. 
• On sandy soils water will move through quickly, so watering deep will take less time than on clay. On clay and loam soils you should be able to water only once a week if you can get the water deep enough.
• Get a screwdriver with an 8" blade to test how deep your water is going. Eight inches is about how far down the feeder roots for bluegrass go, so that is how far you are trying to water.
• Be willing to accept some brown spots on the lawn. Brown during a drought year is a sign of civic leadership!

Good luck, and remember, you can always plant something that uses less water than turf grass.

Drought Loving Flowers

Roses are often thought as being wimpy,
but I find them on many foreclosures. The
white ones with pink blush seem to be
common survivors.

When you live in semi-arid (read that as what most people call a desert) place it makes sense to use plants that don't need a lot of water. I have taken classes and read books on the subject, but the best information I have found on the drought resistant plants is from foreclosed homes.

Foreclosed homes usually don't have sprinkler systems running, so anything surviving there is bound to be tough and adapted to the area. Sometimes a plant will get help from a neighbor overwatering or runoff from the roof. But that's ok, when it is dry you take all the help you can get!

Here are some of the tough plants I have found, tell me what you think:

Apricots are the most drought hardy of the common fruit
trees. This one has gone at least two and a half years
without human irrigation.

Hollyhocks reseed freely and I find scraggly survivors every-
where. This one is flowering better than most seedlings,
likely because of the soil storing extra water from the
downspout. 

Lavender thrives on the dry, even after a
couple of years.

Utah water restrictions and what to do about them

This is a water feature at Lehi city hall. This photo was taken after water
restrictions went in place. Seems like a bad time to be using water strictly
for show.

It shouldn't be a surprise to Utahns that they live in the second driest state in the US. But every drought year, the cities and residents panic and flail as water restrictions are implemented.

Most of this hassle could have been avoided with a little planning. Specifically by designing gardens that are drought resistant. Here are some planning tips:

1. Catch and use runoff water. Quite often extra water can be stored in the ground. This includes snow and rain that hits the roof,  runoff from hardscapes, and water running on sloped ground.
2. Choose the right plants for the right part of the landscape. Make sure you pay attention to needs for sun and shade. And remember, if you caught enough runoff, you might have enough to plant some thirsty plants and keep them happy.
3. You may still need an irrigation system, but it will need to be designed it to limit the water thrown into the air and to be used occasionally rather than every day or even every week.
4. Go ahead and plant a well designed vegetable garden and orchard. If you water correctly and use the produce, you will still have an overall water use reduction in the environment.

I know this is new to many people, but just because it is new to you doesn't mean it is untested. In fact, everything I am talking about I started using in designs over ten years ago. 

This is Salvia nemorosa, a very drought
resistant plant. This one has been growing
for two years with just rain and snow.

To help you get started, here is a list of terms and phrases that you can search online and at your local library:

• Waterwise
• Permaculture
• Drip irrigation
• Swale
• Utah Native Plants
• Xeriscape™

If you need some extra help feel free to contact me at utahsustainablegardening@gmail.com. 

Water Conservation or Moneyscaping?

This an "improved" water conserving landscape.

On a study day at one of the local water conservation garden I found this great example of how you can save water in your yard. Or is it?

The above photo has this great concrete patio with a matching bench/amphitheater, a built in BBQ (off camera)

This is the "standard" water wasting yard.

It is clear that the first picture requires less water, but only because it does not have the same amount of turf. The tree and shrub selections are not that much better than those of the standard landscape. The concrete pad is not intended to gather water for any of the plants, so really, its only function for water conservation is to reduce the amount of grass.

What bothers me most is that the water conserving garden is obviously designed and a huge amount of money was spent to install it, while the normal landscape is a mockery of what a home owner might put in themselves.

People are not going to be inspired to save water if it feels like it is beyond them financially. They are not going to save water if they feel the only way to do it is to hire a designer. (Although if they do, I would like to be at the top of their list!) 

And people are not going to save water if their efforts are going to be treated as if they are stupid. This display needs to be redone with respect to the real needs instead of it being a landscape architect's resume building dream.

Time for us all to get back to the real world!

Free Life Giving Water!

Free life giving water!

A few weeks ago I found a bleeding heart plant in full bloom. That is not unusual, but where I found it was. It was on the north side of a foreclosed house with no artificial irrigation. In the wetter areas of the country this is still not unusual, but in a valley of the second driest state in the nation?

Given the basics of climate the plant shouldn't be there. But when I took a closer look at where it was planted, there was a rain gutter drain right next to it. The melting water from the snow covered roof drained into the soil under the bleeding heart and was stored until the plant needed it.

I don't think you can store enough water for thirsty plant for a whole year from the roof. But you can make a big difference early on. And cut your total water bill.

All it takes is just a little planning ahead!

Permaculture or just lazy?

These fruit tree trimmings are going to a
friend's house to be used for heating.

I know people who drop their garbage where ever they are. It doesn't matter if it is on the road, in the yard, or in their homes, they just drop it. Oddly enough, I have friends who leave garbage in their trees. Sick branches ooze plant puss, dead limbs block light and fresh air, and rubbing branches cause open wounds begging for disease and insects to come and partake.

All in all, it is as disgusting as six months of leftovers sitting on the floor.

The funny thing is, those branches could be doing something productive for tree owners if they just had the heart to cut them off. Large and medium limbs make good fuel for the stove or BBQ and are useable for building anything from fences to furniture. Smaller branches or larger pieces ground down make great mulch and all sizes of wood are game for making crafts.

Look around, turn your waste into a resource, and give the world a little more life.

How to Treat Trees

Trees don't heal...

My summer job of mowing foreclosed lawns has started up. It is not bad job; and I have lots of leeway to take on my more preferred work of designing and installing sustainable landscapes.

The mowing gives me a great chance to get out and see what the rest of the world is doing in their gardens, both the good and the bad. In the case of the poor tree in the photo above, it is definitely bad.

Most people don't think of anything of tying or wrapping something around a tree. They assume because the tree seems tough, it will take it without a problem. But as you see, that is not always the case. In fact, it is rarely true. Even a temporary string put around a tree can cause damage to a thin barked tree if there is any movement.

Lots of damage is done by things that are on the tree for more than a day or two. I can't count the number of times I have tried to pull tree variety tags off of a tree and found that the tree has already grown around the tag. I have no choice but to leave parts of the tags still stuck in the tree. I have had the same problem with professional grade tree ties. These two items are made to be used with trees for a limited period of time, but need to be removed when that time is up.

Now, I am sure there is someone out there that is worried that I am telling them to quit using their hammock between their two favorite trees. And I am not--as long as they have a system to prevent damage and the trees can handle the stress created. This also applies to tree houses.

I can't go into the details of each and every way to protect a tree because there are many systems that are marketed to prevent problems. But here are a list of things to pay attention to:

• If you are wrapping or tying something around the trunk or a limb, make sure it spreads the pressure across the widest area possible.
• Wraps and ties are for temporary use only, know when to take them off. The maximum time for any of them is one year, this includes ties for staking trees down. If you don't feel the tree is ready to take the tie off, call in a reliable tree professional to help.
• If you are going to drill into a tree or puncture its bark in any way, make sure you get something that has a long reputation for safe use with living trees.
• Be carful getting advice from your hardware store, lawn man, or nursery. Each of these is an expert in their own area, but rarely do they have the long term experience with old trees to give the best advice.
• The best place to start is with an ISA (International Society of Arboriculture) certified arborist. Unfortunately, not all of them are as reliable as they should be, so don't be afraid to ask several sources for help, even those outside of the ISA.

And lastly, remember that a good tree is likely to outlive you, so it deserves the same time, expertise, and money that you expect to give anything that is worth keeping for a long time.

A Walk in the Park

Brigham tea, otherwise known as Ephedra viridis. 

Brigham tea is known for its drought resistance as well 

as for its medicinal value. I like it for a nice evergreen 

splash in even the driest areas.

When time allows, I love to go to parks and gardens. The more diverse the plant material is the happier I am. This fall I went to a garden that specializes in drought resistant or 'waterwise' gardening.

When looking at plants that I am not as familiar with
I take a photo of the name tag so I don't forget the
name when I get home.

In an area that averages only fifteen inches of precipitation a year, I am always impressed by the color and vitality that can come to a garden with little or no additional water. Of course it takes a little planning and a lot of study to get it right.

On the upper left, out of the camera, is a plum tree that
requires more water than this poor, soaked rabbit brush.
When planting areas with different water needs it is
important to provide a buffer zone to protect each type
of plant.

I had read about Hummingbird flower in the past, but I
had never seen them blooming in person. 

I also think parks and gardens say something about the community they grow in. In the case of this garden, it is more of a library that the entire region can access.

I made sure I photographed the label. I don't want to
forget this one!

For a wonderful time with plants the Central Utah Gardens are at:

355 W. University Parkway

Orem UT

The garden is open through the growing season and is at its best, like most gardens, in the spring. Please take a little more time in the native plant area, it is phenomenal what beauty is growing just outside our well watered lawns!

The End of Landscaping

The concept of a garden seems to be increasingly lost in America. Instead, we prefer plenty of carpet-mown grass with kidney-bean shaped tree and shrub beds plunked in the middle. We lovingly call this 'landscaping' to try and connect ourselves with the great painters of the past.


Well, at least some people stay true to the idea that a garden should be a unique endevor. And some of those are bold enough to use them for food as well!


These photos are great for stimulating design changes in next year's garden:

These folks are getting serious about food.

This resident shares food with his neighbors, they never 

complain to the city.

This wins my prize for best use of a boulevard
strip!

This garden is near my house. I look
forward to seeing the changes as the
summer progresses.

A bit of the wild look.

Food and beauty. These folks have it together!