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!

Saving Bees with a Bee Feeding Guild

A honeybee on an ornamental crabapple.

When the subject of bees comes up with my friends many of them are worried. Often they talk about becoming beekeepers as a way to help. While I try not to discourage beekeeping in general, in these cases I encourage them to think of other ways to help the bees first. I always recommend that they cut back on or quit using pesticides, ask them to read books about bees and beekeeping, and I ask them to grow more plants for bees.

While any plant with a flower is an improvement, not all of them are great for helping the bees. This is a list I put together to provide lots of bee food on a quarter acre lot. I focused very heavily on late summer blooms because that is when the bees in my area struggle the most to find food. I highlighted those plants, so if you are limited on space you can focus on those first.

This is only one set of plants I could have used, so feel free to study and come up with your own bee guild (community) that meets the needs of where you live. And remember to plant in groups so that clusters of the same plants are at lease three feet across. The bees will find them easier that way.

Oh, this plan leaves enough space for a veggie garden and some grass. The clover is on the list to make the grass more bee friendly!

Enjoy yourselves, manana!

Common Name	Scientific Name	Start of flowering	End of flowering	Width
Trees
Bigtooth Maple	Acer gandidentatum	April	May	25'
Peach	Prunus persica	April	April	18'
Apple	Malus domestica	April	May	25'
Black Locust	Robinia pseudoacacia	May	June	30'
Linden 'Green Spire'	Tilia cordata	June	July	30'
Shubs and Perennials
Fragrant Sumac 'Lowgrow'	Rhus aromatica	April	May	6'
Dandelion	Taraxacum officinale	April	May	6"
Blackberry	Rubus spp.	May	June	As pruned
Chives	Allium schoenoprasum	May	June	10"
Woodland Sage	Salvia nemorosa	May	July	18"
Lavender	Lavandula angustifolia	June	July	3'
Red-Flowering Thyme	Thymus praecox	June	July	Creeping
Catmint	Nepeta x faassenii	June	August	18"
Melissa, Lemon Balm	Melissa officinalis	June	August	18"
Fireweed	Epilobium angustifolium	June	September	3'
Oregano	Origanum vulgare	June	September	2'
Purple Coneflower	Echinacea purpurea	June	September	2'
Milkweed	Asclepias spp.	July	August	2.5'
Peppermint	Mentha piperita	July	August	3'
Russian Sage	Perovskia atriplicifolia	July	September	4'
Bluebeard	Caryopteris x clandonensis	July	September	4'
Blanket Flower	Gaillardia aristata	June	October	10"
Anise hyssop	Agstache foeniculum	July	October	3'
Garlic chives	Allium tuberosa	September	September	12"
Stonecrop	Sedum spectabile	September	September	12"
Aster	Aster spp.	September	October	2'
Goldenrod	Solidago spp.	September	October	4'
Lawn Addition
Dutch White Clover	Trifolium repens	May	August	Creeping

Color in a Drought

This was taken at foreclosed home in Draper UT in September of
2013. The yard was planted with many drought resistant plants
several years before being abandoned. Not every spot was as colorful
as this one, but only the lawn looked worse than the neighbors.

The idea that waterwise plantings in Utah have to be gravel and cactus is absurd. While there are a few spots with little other choice, most of the Wasatch Front is open to a huge array of colors and plants. The planting above combines introduced 'Blue Mist' spirea with native rabbit brush. Both plants do well in Utah with little care.

If you want to cut down on your landscape water, the best way is to chose the right perennials and shrubs. But remember, don't over water them!

If live in Utah County and need help, give me a call.

Manana!

The Secret to Dark Brown Soil

Photo courtesy of JC Shannon

The soil in this photo is dark brown and rich looking. That means it is good soil. Getting the soil to look like this was fairly easy. Before this patch became a flower bed, it was covered by large junipers that dropped needles on it for decades. I left all those needles in the bed to improve it for the flowers.

After I initially shaped and otherwise prepared the bed, I have never tilled it. But twice a year during planting I mulch it with a layer of compost.

That's it. That is the simple secret of creating good garden soil. Mulch the top and don't till.

Manana!

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!

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.

Green Buying

It just might be time to get a new mower....

Every once-in-a-while I check out the environmental blogs and articles on the web. Invariably I click away in disgust. Most of the chatter seems to be about great environmental products that are so green that you can’t live without them. When I start reading the green resume of the products I am often surprised at what constitutes ‘green’ to the bloggers. 



And then I look at the price. Even if I like the product and have a need for something like it, I don’t get the green product because I can’t afford it.

While more of us are becoming familiar with ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ I think we would be well advised to also remember an older phrase ‘use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without’ as well.

Neither of these phrases covers what to do when you finally need to buy something, but here are some tips to help: 



• Ask: do I really need it?

• Check to see if you already have something that will work for you, but you just hadn’t realized it. 


• Look for hand-me-downs, items from thrift stores, or second hand shops. 


• Don’t buy fad items. Look for colors, and designs that looked good 30 years ago and will still look good in five years.

• Decide what you will do with the product after you are done with it. My running shoes are a good example. I can only use them for running for a year or two. Then they get rotated into my work shoes. When I get done with them at work, there is little left to dispose of.

We all need a certain amount of 'things' in this world, but by thinking and planning ahead we can cut our 'things' down to a manageable level that all of us can live with.

Nitrogen from Plants

Nitrogen fixing plants are a great way to build up nitrogen in the soil without using chemicals. But you can’t expect to just plant them and leave them.

The plant wants to use the nitrogen for its own purposes, namely leaf and seed production. So if you want to get the nitrogen benefit for your soil and other plants you will need to trim them back before seed is set.

Most annuals can be taken down to two or three inches, with some leaves showing. Perennials can usually be cut down to the ground. Many shrubs can be coppiced every few years, while the remaining shrubs and trees can be selectively pruned or even hedged.

Even some trees can be coppiced, but you must choose the tree wisely. And you must commit to caring for the tree as it recovers. Coppicing can cause trees to grow back with structural weaknesses that may create safety problems later on.

Whatever you plant and however you decide to maintain it, you should spend the time to research it before hand. Then, pay careful attention to how it grows for you and record what happens in a journal so you can refer back to it latter.

Good luck and let me know what happens!