Nathan Smith’s Garden Notes

Warming weather and longer days have spurred our citrus trees into active growth. Now is a great time to feed your citrus. Unlike most of the ornamental landscape plants I tend to use, citrus are heavy feeders and need regular applications of fertilizer for best appearance and production. I fed my trees back in February and the winter rains helped wash the organic fertilizers in. Worm castings and composts are great if you have them, but for a more concentrated fertilizer Gro-power  is one of my favorites I’ve also used EB Stone. It’s important to think about building soil fertility and going organic especially when it comes to edibles.

Those who have worked with me are aware that I’m a big fan of drip irrigation and mulch but when it comes to fruit trees they present some challenges. The rains are tapering off and without overhead water to wash the nutrients down fertilizer applications may not be terribly effective, especially if applied on top of a thick layer of mulch. To effectively feed your trees it’s important to rake back the mulch, apply the fertilizer and wash it in with a garden hose, preferably a couple different times, and of course, put the mulch back in place.

The tender new shoots of citrus are especially appealing to aphids, so while you’re out there with a garden hose take some time to spray the new growth to remove aphids if you have them. I tend not spray for the aphids just a few passes on a semi regular basis with a garden hose seems to be enough to keep them under control, and at the same time I can hose the soil surface to wash nutrients down into the root zone.

I was up in the San Francisco Bay area last week for a meeting of APLD (Association of Professional Landscape Designers) and to visit friends. UC Botanical Garden Horticulturist Meghan Ray and husband Eric Anderson kindly hosted me a day and took me to see the recent installation by green wall guru Patrick Blanc at the Drew School in San Francisco. It’s a remarkable installation and features a palette of mostly California native plants. I especially liked the diagonal sweeps of blue fescues and monkeyflowers.  There were a few plants I was surprised to see, including Fremontodendron in the upper reaches of the wall.

I like how this very small space packs in a lot of utility, with an outdoor shower, a couple different seating areas, a vegetable garden. The other thing that makes this space work, that makes any garden space really work, is the feeling of enclosure and privacy. The aesthetic is clean with wood and concrete, not a lot of fuss or detail, a low maintenance landscape. The grasses are attractive though they are unfortunately an invasive exotic and not something I would have specified. The outdoor shower drains passively into the garden. The breaks in the paving allow for drainage and water percolation into the soil. The house is relatively compact with a modern clean aesthetic which has now been carried into the outdoors, it all just really works for me. The design went through several iterations and required substantial effort, but the payoff is worthy. The plantings were not what I had planned but the effect is still nice.

I think the link between the physical and the mental, in terms of personal space, is forgotten and its impact underestimated. We take time to organize our mental space, to rest the brain, to put things in order, to prioritize. We seek moments of rest or relaxation in the form of sleep, or entertaining, dreaming and imagining. We are aware of, and acutely uncomfortable, in times of mental disorder. Call it “stress”. Disordered and unattractive physical environments contribute to stress. Ordering our physical environments is a way of managing those feelings. In doing “chores” around the house, we simultaneously order our physical and mental spaces. I find it relaxing, especially in the garden. Working in the garden, I’m free with my creativity. I feel calmed and ordered; I feel wonder and amazement. I notice change and motion. I see more deeply. Gardens can be spaces that are beautiful and harmonious; evoking the magnificence and biological diversity of our natural areas. As a culture, I sometimes fear we underestimate the importance of beauty in our surroundings. It’s worth spending a little time and effort to make your personal space attractive and inspiring.

My clients wanted a garden on the beach, literally. Right on the beach.  As you might imagine there are some unique challenges to gardening right at the beach. The site is rather windy and the soils somewhat saline. With a little preparation and careful plant selection we were able to proceed without undue complexity.

Access to the site was challenging and all the materials had to be hand carried from the street above down several flights of stairs, including more than five cubic yards of gravel and seven cubic yards of compost.

Here is a view of the garden from the beach. It is a unique property

The flagstone pathway is also a rainwater management system, with several subterranean gravel basins that capture, filter and slow all the rainwater from the property before it reaches the lagoon.

The plantings are a mixture of mostly drought tolerant material including a few California natives. The big masses of red/orange are Anigozanthos 'Tequila Sunrise'. These plantings were installed in the fall of 2010 and are now being watered once a week.

This Lotus 'Amazon Sunset' is a great plant for cascading over the edges of containers the red orange is enhanced by the late afternoon light.

More often than not a picture is enhanced by a frame. This property had a great view to the east, but the lack of foreground depth made the perimeter fence feel close, and the chain link fence interrupted the view.

By removing the lawn and introducing some compelling plant material in the foreground not only did we made the garden feel larger we made the view a good deal more interesting.

Calling this lawn may be an overstatement, but it is a fairly typical landscape arrangement, boring foundation plants close to the house then lawn to the property line. With sufficient water and fertilizer this lawn could be made green so the neighbors could enjoy looking at it and the homeowner could enjoy the sound of leaf blower and lawnmower once a week.

This is the same property a year after planting. Hummingbirds and butterflies frequent the garden, the space feels more intimate and private. Never needs to be fertilized and probably gets watered once every two weeks.

Better?

I am an ocean lover, and for me there’s something deeply compelling about looking out over the ocean. Apparently I’m not the only one because the words “ocean view” seem to catapult a property’s real estate value into the stratosphere, despite the fact that said view is but a sliver glimpsed through a tangle of power lines or buildings. A thoughtfully crafted garden view is far more compelling and immediate than some distant sliver of ocean, not to mention considerably less expensive!

Somehow a whole year has slipped by, and I while have been less than diligent with the blogging I like to think I have been more than diligent in taking care of my clients and garden design work. Finally with the coming of winter and the rains it feels like there’s time to slow down and catch up a bit, and to do a little writing and work in my own garden.

While updating the website is  still on my list of things to do I have created an online album of some of my recent work. You can see pictures at: http://picasaweb.google.com/NathanLandscapeDesign

Take advantage of these cool winter days and rains to get new plants established in your gardens. Now is also a good time to renew mulch and or get after the weeds before they go to seed. If you haven’t already you might think about some of planting some of the winter vegetables such as kale, lettuce, chard, broccoli and cilantro. The kale and chard are especially beautiful in the garden in addition to being tasty and nutritious.

Happy holidays!

Chard in my home garden with just a corner of purple kale showing