Dripping My Way Through the Forest

For anyone interested in water, a rain-gauge is not only an essential tool and toy, but a great topic for cocktail party chit-chat. Did you know, for example, that one can actually overlook 30 to 60 inches of "rain"?

I live on a high ridge dividing a hotter, dryer inland plain from the more temperate, wetter Pacific Ocean climate some five miles to the west. The non-drought average rainfall on top of my cloud-scraping ridge is about 60 inches per year.

Shortly after moving here, I noticed that a foggy summer evening produced the sound of steady rain beneath the tallest trees—even though a meadow 20 feet away remained bone-dry. I soon learned that in my Mediterranean coastal zone, summer "rain," consisting of droplets of condensed fog, is a frequent occurrence

In this climate, with its summer fogs and winter rains, moist air condenses on the leaves of plants and forms droplets like the hot-weather "sweat" on a bottle of cold soda. The collective needles of the Douglas fir trees near my house offer an immense surface area for this condensation.

I set up a rain-gauge beneath the tallest (125 -foot) Douglas fir tree, and over six years I've discovered that this single tree gathers one or more inches of "rain" each summer night during heavy fogs, and half-again to twice the year-round "rain" of the adjacent open meadow. The month of August usually produces six inches of summer fog drip, or an amazing 163,000 gallons per acre of tree foliage!

To utilize nature's original "drip irrigation" and take direct advantage of this free rain, I plant beneath the dripline of the Douglas firs near my patio The difficulty is finding plants that are somewhat drought-tolerant, shade-loving and deer-resistant. So far my list includes most of the varieties of Daphne (Daphne spp.); wild ginger (Asarum caudatum); native Western ferns; foxgloves (Digitalis spp.); huckleberry (Vaccinium ovatum); Forget-me-nots (Myosotis scorpioides); salal from Northern CA, OR and WA (Gaultheria shallon); the native thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus); Euryops pectinatus (gets leggy, must have late evening light); and various ornamental grasses. Soon to be infiltrated by Rhododendrons spp., Azaleas spp., and bear berries (Mahonia spp.)

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Mulch 'Mators

The perfect tomato is the Holy Grail of many gardeners. Especially in the coastal, marine-influenced climate where I live. I’ve watched neighbors plant tomatoes where the summer fogs are frequent and nurture, worry, persist and try every way they read in the books and magazine articles to eke out a handful of tomatoes. Probably at a real cost of $10 per tomato, or more. Whereas just 2 miles east, over the high hump of the land that captures so much summer fog, tomatoes thrive. So, I buy them at the farmer’s markets and save lots of money and elbow grease.

Back in the ‘30s a man named John Weaver had the patience to excavate entire root systems. He dug a trench along side of the base of each plant and proceeded to excavate, scrape, and dust his way through soil – much like an archeologist at work - to reveal in exquisite detail the full extent of a plants root system. He (or someone else – the book makes no comment as to who did the drawings that resemble etchings) mapped mostly economic vegetable crops. Weaver must have been the Saint of Patience. I often wondered if he had a wife (no search found any clue) who could understand his work and have the same patience he must have had.

In Weaver’s experience, a tomato seed planted in ideal outdoor soil, with no transplanting involved, can grow a taproot to the depth of 22 inches at a rate of one inch per day. The tomato is yet another vegetable that prefers to grow a taproot, which is often damaged during transplanting. Young seedlings transplanted several times into increasingly large pots before their final move into the garden will probably end up with a root system more fibrous than that of tomato plants planted by seed in the garden which are allowed to grow a conventional taproot. However, transplanting tomato-plant stems deep into the soil will produce many adventitious roots along the length of its stem (See Weaver’s illustration.), creating a great root system early in the life of the plant, more advantageous than seed grown in the garden.

The illustration is drawn on a one-square foot grid (Taken from my book Roots Demystified, change your gardening habits to help roots thrive.) and shows how massive the root system is for one plant. At seven feet wide it changes one’s perspective of how much mulch is required to keep all the roots happy. In cool climates you might experiment with paper from an office or home shedder to help reflect light into the canopy of the plant. Turn all those shredded unsolicited checks from your credit company into wonderful tomatoes!

I don’t know of anyone planting tomatoes by direct seeding in the ground. Do you?

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A Gardener's Repast - sometimes

I've often observed that many garden fanatics don't have place to sit and relax and enjoy the view and soak up the fragrances and sunlight. I gardened for seven years as a fanatic vegetable and fruit gardener before I put in some places to sit.

They are large rounds of a tree with half of the back chained sawed off. After 25 years they still allow visitor to sit and enjoy two views of the garden. Now I’ve added two proper seats - Adirondack chairs - for visitors as I still don't sit in my garden that much. But when I have guests over we all relax in various chairs and benches. I like to let plants wander around my garden. If two people sit in these chairs, they must be careful to avoid the foxglove for one season - as it will soon go to seed.

Then there’s chairs as art. The overgrown-white chairs pictured here are from the eccentric garden of Maxine and Jeff. Mostly found objects fill their whimsical garden and the white chairs are for look only. The bench, however, is one of several that allow them to rest and enjoy the garden with friends. (Notice the seats to the right-for "show" only.)

As with all my posts, click on an image to get a larger view.

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Roots Grow Up!

Surprisingly, many of a tree’s feeding (not “structural” roots) roots grow up, not down. In a paper published in The Landscape Below Ground (International Society of Arboriculture, 1994. pg. 3), Professor Thomas O. Perry states “Most tree roots range in diameter [from that of] of a lead pencil to the size of a hair. These smaller roots…grow upward into the surface inches of soil and the litter layer.”

The significance of the importance of the most aerobic layers of the soil and duff can be seen in a simple study using potted tree seedlings. You can see the dramatic difference in the illustration of growth between the three soil depths. The seedlings in the pot on the left are growing in soil collected from the top two inches. The middle pot has soil only from the 2-4 inch depth of a forest floor. The pot on the right is trying to grow in subsoil.

The top two inches is so vital to a tree’s health, whether it’s native or ornamental. This is also the favorite two inches for all the plants in a humid climate with periodic rains. Take away that top two inches by planting it to lawn, raking the duff up for “a cleaner look” or allowing so much foot traffic that the roots are exposed, and you have a disaster in the making. This is perhaps the most important illustration in Roots Demystified because it so graphically reveals where tree and shrub roots prefer to grow and feed.

The photo is of a cross-section of three feet of soil beneath a vineyard. Most of the roots are in the top foot or so of the soil. Below that level it gets increasingly more like clay subsoil. (If you click on the image to enlarge it, you will see a few roots below the first foot and even a few that found the lens of gravel.)

The aerobic-loving soil life – where you find the most soluble nutrients - needs to breathe. The deeper you go, the less aerobic you get, and the number of “good guys” (beneficial soil flora) will rapidly diminish. Studies done with agricultural plants provide a lot of useful information. One example is alfalfa, it can grow roots much deeper than peach trees can, yet both get most of their moisture (along with nutrients) in the top one to two feet of the soil.

But trees still need “dirt”. Perry puts it quite succinctly when he says that trees on soils as little as five inches thick produce only poor tree and shrub growth. (one can then imagine how far the roots must grow laterally in the shallow soils to gather sufficient moisture and nutrients.) You can get fair growth with a ten-inch depth, good growth at 16 inches and excellent growth with 20-30 inches of topsoil. Most remarkably, according to Perry, the tree vigor is likely to gradually decrease with soil deeper than 30 inches. (The Landscape Below Ground, International Society of Arboriculture, 1994. pg. 9)

A PRACTICAL TIP FOR GARDENERS
As I’ve often said: mulch, mulch, mulch. Replicate the duff that forms in a natural forest. Establish as many permanent pathways as possible. Try to let the pathways “breathe”—allowing the air to flow into the roots and the carbon monoxide to be expelled. You can use chipped bark, chipped tree trimmings, gravel or whatever local material suits you.


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Bee Kind to My Foxglove

I love foxgloves even though they are not native plants. Each deep-throated foxglove flower stimulates my spirit. The color cascading from each blossom engages my eyes. This photo of a special creamy-white foxglove is the first one with this color to show up in the 25 years I’ve lived here.

While considered an exotic “invader” I like to have it in my garden as a form of controlled chaos. Each year I let the tall flower stalks go to seed and spread their fine, brown seeds where ever they may. This means leaving the flower stalks to mature to an earthy brown. No dead-heading here. No place in my garden for Martha Stewart. These sentinels of future generations remain for weeks until the tiny up-turned cups of the remaining flower parts fill with mature seed and begin to spill with each gust of wind. Sometime I scatter a few seeds myself. (The tallest flower stalks seem to be those growing from seed they have cast asunder, not the seed I plant.)

All this makes for a very kinetic garden as the years go by. One year I had a glorious stand of foxgloves at the end of the main path into my garden. More than two dozen plants reaching four- to six-feet in the air. Each a different shade from hot rose to pale pink to creamy white. The next year they popped up in the soil surrounding the small swale that drains water away from water-sensitive plants on the adjacent berm. This year they have appeared in the soil and mulch left behind after grinding a dead tree stump into oblivion. How they got there, some 20 feet from last years stand, I’ll never know.

The seed needs to fall where there isn’t too much competition. Yet it will grow above some of the grasses. But in the end, it really prefers open soil, my mulched areas or I’ll find clusters of plants will thrive at the edge where mowing meets the more rangy parts of the garden. For the first year the dark-green leaves flourish as they gather the photosynthetic momentum for the flower stalk to thrust skyward. The handful of leaves at the tip of the plant are a pleasure to look at, with a subtle display of the Fibonacci pattern. (The Fibonacci series is the mathematical form portrayed in the cross section of a nautilus shell or the pattern of seeds on a sunflower head.)

Our eyes see delightful beauty in our gardens. Yet, some of the splendor in garden flower remains unseen. Each foxglove blossom has a different set of splotches all the way into its throat, like little runway guides leading to the sweet nectar. These are intriguing enough. But there’s more. Pollinating bumble bees (as seen in the above photo) see something beyond our vision. Bumble bees have a pair of six-sided, compound eyes and three simple eyes. Even with such complex eyes, their sight is accurate for only about three feet. A special light guides bumble bees on their lusty journeys for pure nectar. Bumble bees see ultraviolet light. A pattern of ultraviolet coloration lures a bumble bee into the foxglove flower’s throat. These patterns unseen by our eyes act like the signals of an airport’s landing strip. And the ultraviolet splotches of color don’t match the random splotches we see in the sunshine.

The earth’s protective atmosphere shields us from much of the sun’s ultraviolet light (radiation). Enough ultraviolet radiation filters through to aid bumble bees in their daily journeys. Even on a cloudy day, the bumble bees see the ultraviolet spectrum by cloud-penetrating ultraviolet light. What assists bumble bees on their quest for pollen and nectar can cause us to sunburn—part of the two-sided tapestry of life.

In each blossom the pollen is in the roof of the flower so the upper body of the bumble bee is brushed with the pollen as the bumble bee goes deeper into the blossom to seek out the sweet nectar. After flying to another flower, the pollens are mixed and seed formation begins. The pollination process leads to a plant with a mixture of colors. Yet an isolated stand with creamy flowers will remain shades of cream until a seedling of a rose-colored blossom pops up nearby. Then things get interesting as different blends of color appear.

Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) is the source of digitalis—a heart medication. According to the American Heart Association: “Digitalis is a drug that strengthens the contraction of the heart muscle, slows the heart rate and helps eliminate fluid from body tissues. It's often used to treat congestive heart failure and is also used to treat certain arrhythmias. Digitalis has been described in medical literature for over 200 years.” The extract is taken from the leaves. (Two synthetic mimics of digitalis are Digitoxin and Digoxin.) India supplies most of the cultivated digitalis. Others sources are wild crafted (gathered from wild, un-cultivated areas) in Europe, from Germany, Switzerland, Hungary and Italy. Digitalis is toxic at very low levels.

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Taproot Myths Revealed

This is a photograph of a young tan-oak seedling, sometimes called tanbark trees as their bark was stripped off and used to tan animal hides. These trees used to be classified as a species of Quercus (oak), now reclassified by botanists with time on their hands as Lithocarpus densiflorus. Don’t ask me why. This seedling has a stem with a few leaves five inches above ground and seven inches of a taproot, all I could dig out. (Click on the photo to see a much larger image.)

In my book, Roots Demystified, change your gardening habits to help roots thrive, I talk about how few trees actually grow with taproots. Oaks are an exception, for awhile.

Some Californian and western oak trees (including the tanbark oak), begin growing with a taproot, which then naturally atrophies. The loss of the taproot can begin as early as the first or second season. When the young seedling of a blue oak is a mere three inches high the taproot can already extend 40 inches into the soil. After a number of years, the taproot withers, to be replaced by heart roots (which angle down from the base of the tree) and many laterals, with vertical sinker roots. In Spruce (Picea spp.), Hemlock (Tsuga spp.) and Cedar (Cedrus spp.) trees, at less than eight years, the lateral and oblique roots take over the role of support and the taproot declines. (From: “Natural Root Forms of Western Conifers”, S. Eis; From: Proceedings of the Root Form of Planted Trees Symposium, page 24, 1978.) After the taproot atrophies, the new root system grows more horizontal and oblique roots and resembles a fibrous root system.

In my photograph the roots are about as long as the stem and leaves. However, much of the tiny taproot was left in the ground judging by the thickness of the bottom of this seedling as it was dug with a spading fork. The seedling sprouted in deep shade which probably accounts for the extended length of the stem.

Any oak planted from any container or balled-and-burlapped stock has effectively had its taproot destroyed and forms a fibrous (heart roots) root system.

I think the sturdiest oaks are grown like nature, from seed placed where you want a specimen for your grandchildren to climb on.


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Scatological Blossoms

Scat on my gravel driveway makes me happy.

Scat (the politically-correct way to refer to animal feces – which also masks the street language version) usually means the bobcat or mountain lion (cougar) is back. These animals seem to like pooping on my driveway to mark their territory.

The wonderful result is the deer vanish. They smell the marked territory.

I have not seen any deer for the past week. Today I found a fresh pile of scat on the edge of the driveway.

The beauty of it is that I get more splendor in my garden.

When I first moved here 23 years ago I planted the rockrose ‘Sunset’(Cistus ‘Sunset’) and enjoyed its hot-pink blossoms. The shrub had to be taken out when the stump next to it was ground up into a pile of wood chips. Then three years ago I planted another one. The deer proceeded to eat every flower bud and kept the plant as a half-sphere of foliage. The foliage is nice, but the flowers are spectacular. This week the plant is covered with its crape paper hot-pink petals. Other plants are blooming unlike years before when the deer ate the blossoms and foliage

When I first moved here I put some of those road reflectors that mark highway lanes down the middle of our gravel driveway. (To prove we weren’t entirely country hicks. Of course the two “lanes” would apply only to motorcycles.) The next morning there was a fresh pile of bobcat scat on top of one of the reflectors. A message saying “Hey I was here first. What right do you have to invade my territory?” Just marking its territory, and scaring off the deer.

This winter I found a perfectly intact, fresh deer skeleton with three points. No bobcat could take down such a large buck. It meant the mountain lion was back.

I walk past the scat on my road each day as I take my speedy, aerobic walk. I wear a red shirt and a purple hat so I don’t look like lunch to a mountain lion. Hope it continues to work.

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Gophers & Robins - who would have guessed?

Gophers love roots and moles love worms.

Robins also love worms. They all came together one year just about this time.

I was watching from my second-story window as a gopher bumped up against the concrete slab that is part of my patio. The gopher was pushing its mound of soil (a throw) against the concrete. A robin landed on top of the throw and ate worms as they appeared from below.

It was the vibration that sent the worms topside to an ugly death. This is not just a single weird occurrence. There are worm “hunters” in Florida that gather worms for fishing bait by “thumping”. They have a wide, long board which they insert into the soil. With a wooden mallet they strike the top of the board that’s sticking above the soil. A gradual, rhythmic “thumping” causes a vibration that in turn causes worms to come crawling out of the ground. This time to lure unsuspecting fish.

That gopher was the thumper for the robin.

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This Tree Needs Caterpillars

Caterpillars are pests aren't they? Not always.

It turns out the native coast live oak (Quercas agrifolia) that grows around my house co-evolved with a tiny caterpillar, appropriately named the oak-leaf caterpillar. Without the caterpillar, the oak tree might die during years of stress.

A nursery in Los Altos, CA has a gorgeous coastal live oak about 75 feet in diameter. During the drought of the early ‘70s a lot of trees were very stressed. A neighbor near the nursery sprayed their oak, “to get rid of the messy droppings and fallen leaves”. The nursery carefully watched their tree lose many leaves and be riddled with leaves partially eaten by the oak-leaf caterpillar.

Guess which tree died?

The neighbor’s. Because it had 100% of it’s green leaves to transpire moisture. Even an organic spray, such as Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki, would have lead the tree to an early death. At the nursery, the tree survived as much of it’s leaf area was consumed by the caterpillar, offering less area for transpiration.

Judging by the moths at my screened windows and the partially-eaten leaves, the first round of oak-leaf caterpillars is here. There are two to three groups of moths each season depending on how dry the year is.

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Grevilleas & Hummers

This is a photo of my Grevillea spp. in bloom. Alas, I lost the species name. However, that hasn’t stopped the humming birds from frequenting these remarkable flowers all year round. This plant along with most Grevilleas blooms throughout the year. During Spring the amount of bloom dramatically increases. They are all deer-resistant and drought resistant (hardy). I have never watered this plant when I planted it in the fall some 12 years ago. These plants are from the Mediterranean climate zone in Australia. They come in every shade of red, orange, yellow, pink, and nearly white. I don’t know of any with blue flowers. I find the unusual form of the flower to be quite fascinating.

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Floating Butterflies

A common summer visitor to my garden drifts into my garden meadow. It is the tiger swallow tail butterfly. The swallow tail darts about with bursts of flight. Sups from the sweet nectar of the South African red-hot poker. Flies off to careen by the wild huckleberry shrubs north of my house, they’re not in bloom. Swirls around the other sides of my home where there is no nectar. Returns to lick within the trumpet-shaped flowers of this colorful exotic plant. Another swallow tail butterfly joins in the flirtation with plants, the breeze, and the first butterfly. Up, fluttering. Dips. Floats. Surveys the huckleberries again. Around the house. Past the red-poker to sail past the leaves of an apple tree past bloom. Coasts back for a treat from the glorious torch. They circle the house. Flirt with each other and an apple tree, and the drifts into my garden meadow with its pale-green leaves. Flutters around my house. Drinks from the trumpet-throated poker blossoms. Darts off to another pasture of floral nectar.

Where is the pattern? The repetition of the nectar-driven flight around my house? Broken by erratic flight. There’s really no design to be found. I amuse myself by looking for a pattern within the fanciful chaos of nature’s gossamer treats—a butterfly on the wing on a warm spring afternoon.

The tiger swallow tail butterfly is the most common butterfly around my home, expect, perhaps, the white cabbage butterfly. The photo above shows the butterfly as collected in my youth—over 40 years ago. I was a regular ecological disaster looking back from 2008. But collecting butterflies was just one of the myriad exploits of a young “naturalist” in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Besides, we had no idea what the future would bring (or not bring as the case may be). Now catching a butterfly for mounting as a specimen would be a heinous crime.

In my early years there were dozens of butterflies and moths. A friend here in Sonoma county had a collection of over 70 varieties. Now, I spot only 10-15 or so varieties each summer. The swallow tail eats the leaves of the prolific wild anise (Pimpinella anisum). But there not much habitat left for the delights of other butterflies. Other losses of butterflies could be the increasing vineyards and their use of pesticides and fungicides. Other reasons remain a mystery.

Plants Don't Bleed to Death

Most trees don’t commit suicide by bleeding to death.

The same is true for shrubs, vines, and other perennials.

If you’ve ever had maple syrup on pancakes, you’ve eaten a bleeding sugar maple tree (Acer saccharum). Not only do the trees not die, they are tapped again the next season and for as long as 100 years. Same goes for true rubber. Slices in the bark of the rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis ) allowed the latex sap to dribble into containers. Same tree every year for many years..

The photo on the lower left is a droplet of sap coming from a pruned Kiwi vine. I pruned the second-story vines late this year. (Rain, book to finish, coordinating an assistant, blah, blah, blah…) The end to the remaining vines dribbled like a leaky hose. For days. Now, some four weeks later, the leaves are beginning to show at the bud just behind the cut.

Why, you might ask, Kiwi’s on the second floor of my house that requires two people to lift and position the ladder? I transplanted two vines from a friend’s fence only to find out they were both females. (I have gotten as much as 25 fruits with no male Kiwi around. Figure that one out!) My foremost reason was to provide an arching canopy along the length of the south-facing wall. (I have friends with a multitude of fruit I can share.) The idea was to have a well-shaded house for our hot Indian summer days. I certainly wasn’t planning on a crop two floors off the ground. So, I prune them for shade by cutting most of the vine back to main vine and some laterals. By the end of the summer some of the vines have arched gracefully ten feet, or more, over the patio below. The cloak of the leaves is both beautiful and functional.

You can see my house in early fall in the third photo with a bit of the wall in the sun.

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Lavender, Part 2

It’s lavender time in my garden.

The first parade of the season of royal-blue lavender blossoms has begun. Spanish lavender (Lavandula stoechas) leads the way with a burst of sapphire-blue flowers.

(Actually there is a species of lavender that has blossoms in a prayer-like fashion during most of the year. It’s the French lavender (L. dentata). In the Spring it begins to bloom more abundantly, but with a more subtle smokey-purple. Far from the drama of Spanish lavender during the warm-hot weather of spring.)

The amazing color of Spanish lavender comes not from the flowers them self, but rather from the bracts on top of the flower’s head that look like bunny ears. Or, flames of a royal-blue color. The true blossoms that hold the nectar so eagerly sought after by honey bees and bumble bees are found in four lines of deep blue, ever so tiny, on each of the four sides of the head. The later are the most frequent pollenizers in my garden.

Spanish lavenders cross pollinate in my garden to produce some amazing new plants

The photo on the left is a typical display of Spanish lavender as it is commonly expected. The photo on the right is a chance seedling that appeared along my pathway. The nearest Spanish plants were 12 feet way on the other side of the driveway. I don’t know of any crossing between Spanish lavender and other Lavandula species. (The true flowers are the little white spots below the bracts.)

This plant has a moon-like, pale-yellow bracts and is not found anywhere in the trade. What a joy it was when it first appeared 12 years ago. A special variety just for me. (And anyone who wants to take cuttings.)

L. stoechas “Viridis” has also begun to bloom prolifically and is my favorite species for grilling. This plant has none of the characteristics of what people think of a lavender. The foliage is decidedly yellow-green, rather than the darker green foliage English lavender (L. angustifolia). The bracts are yellow to the point of being somewhat chartreuse. This is my favorite foliage to grill with. The bracts and flower heads have no scent. Ah, but the foliage has is a rustic, resinous herbal, and seemingly wild flavor that is transformed in the process of grilling to a delightful seasoning with a hint of rosemary. (See my recipe on the blog for March 28th.)

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Simple Drip Emitter Tubing

It’s irrigation season on my friend Chester’s garlic farm. The garlic has been growing all winter but now needs irrigation until July or so. That's him to the left, 85 and still growing and eatin' garlic.

About 18-years ago, I helped put in a simple drip irrigation system for each of his 4-foot by 10-foot planter boxes. I insisted on in-line emitter tubing.

In-line emitters are still probably the least well-known drip irrigation technology, but afford the best mix of efficiency, ease of installation, and resistance to clogging. The tubing is 1/2-inch in diameter with an emitter pre-installed inside the tubing at regular intervals.

These internal emitters seldom clog because they utilize what is known as a "tortuous path,” which forms a continuous vortex, a kind of horizontal tornado that keeps any sediment, sand or silt in suspension until it passes out of the emitter. (See the illustration above or in my books Drip Irrigation for Every Landscape and All  Climates or in Roots Demystified - Change Your Gardening Habits to Help Roots Thrive. Click on the illustration for a bigger image) In-line emitters even work with well water high in soluble iron-oxide or other minerals. In-line emitter tubing moistens the soil the entire length of the line, but slightly below the surface where the bulbous-shaped wet spots come together to form one nearly continuous moist zone.

The emitters come pre-installed in the tubing, which is most commonly sold in pre-spaced, 12-inch intervals—but also comes in intervals of 24- and 36-inches. The emitters inside the hose are rated to dispense either ½ or 1 gallon-per-hour (gph) and the hose is available in both non-compensating and pressure-compensating versions.

We used ½ gph pressure-compensating emitters on 12-inch spaces along the tubing. We placed three equally-spaced lines running down the length of every box. (See upper-left photo. Taken before the straw is added.) Each box has the three lines connected to the water supply and the other ends connected to a drain-down manifold to flush the system at the beginning of each irrigation season. That’s what Chester is doing in the right-hand photo above. The garlic has grown considerably during the rainy winter months.

The benefits of pressure-compensated in-line emitters are: it's easy to install, simple to snake around your existing plantings, it is easy to put together a simple array of tubing which can be readily removed from the vegetable beds for seasonal cultivation, suffers less clogging than porous tubing and most punched-in emitters Chester stopped using the filter several years back and still only a handful of plugged emitters. Even with iron-based irrigation water only a few emitters in the thousands of feet of tubing have clogged over the past 18 years, and not cracked or leaking. Warranty says 10 years, but this tubing is always under six inches of mulch, works at the greatest range of pressures (9-25 psi), provides consistent rates of irrigation without regard to slope or length, has no external parts to snap off (a premier advantage over all punched-in emitters), and the compression fittings don't leak and seal better than the hose clamps used with porous hose.

The regular interval of the emitter makes it easy to irrigate the entire root system of all vegetables—in this case, garlic—and ornamentals by simply running parallel line of tubing throughout these raised beds or any garden. This will insure the greatest yields when compared to any other irrigation method—even sprinklers.

The drawbacks are few: it requires extra planning for plants placed very far apart and at very odd intervals, it can't turn a sharp radius, and it’s not carried by very many retail outlets.

You can get by mail from Harmony Farm Supply & Nursery, Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply, and DripWorks (one word). Google them for what’s sold on their web site. You may have to order from one of their printed catalogs.

Let me know if you’ve tried in-line emitter tubing. How did it work for your garden?

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Labels: Chester Aaron, drip irrigation, emitters, gardening, garlic, in-line emitter tubing, irrigation, raised beds

Deer Fencing With a View, building one.

The old way to keep deer at bay was ugly.

Deer fence barriers have usually been made with woven wire mesh up to six feet and several horizontal strands of wire above that, creating a prison-perimeter that looks like Stalag 13 and that's not acceptable for most suburban or rural yards.

It's spring and the fawns will soon be looking to stake out new territory. Testing every fence.

I learned of a special fence that had a 20-year track record of keeping deer out. Because no part of the fence is taller than four feet, the home owner's view remains mostly unobstructed; the double placement avoids the looming ugliness of the tall eight-foot agricultural version while being, in my area, just as effective. There have been at least five replications of this type of fence after I built this model. They all work.

The fence are both only four-feet high. The two four-foot high fences are built five feet apart. (See the photo in the upper right above.) Since deer can’t talk, I’m left to guess why this seemingly uncomplicated design is so effective. The most common theory is that the deer can’t see enough room between the two fences to land and then rebound over the inner fence. For whatever reason, this configuration seems to work on both flat and sloped sites. The fences must be in the open"meadow" as a neighbor built one in the forest and it didn't work. (I was the first to take the bold leap to build one on a gradual slope.)

Both four-foot fences can be made with 2"X4" inch wire-mesh fencing attached to six-foot metal stakes pounded two feet into the ground. Or, for a more aesthetic look, the most visible areas of fencing can be made of wooden boards, pickets, or grape stakes. Because it requires additional posts and hardware, the cost of the double fence will be somewhat higher than that of an eight-foot barrier, but the unencumbered view is often worth the expense And working at four feet or less is much easier for the weekend fence builder.

I staggered the top of these grape stakes by six inches and left a gap as wide as a grape stake to give the fence a lighter feel. The inner wire fence was planted with honeysuckle, that rapidly obscured the wire and continued to be effective.

With two fences, two gates must be built at each opening. One attractive solution is to incorporate two four-foot gates into a five-foot-square eight-foot-tall arbor, which can also serve as support for climbing roses planted inside the inner fence. (I learned from the client that five feet was bit to tight to easily pass through with a wheelbarrow —it worked but is a tight, knuckle-scrapping width. So, all future designs will have a six-foot wide arbor.)

I decided to have the grape stakes on the gates reflect the curve of the arbor. I used cardboard to sketch the curve, flip it, and use it as a template for the stake. (See the illustration on the lower left.) The finished arbor, as seen above is attractive. However I felt I was taking a chance as the deer might use the hole to jump through. Luckily, after over 20 years no grazing ungulates have traversed the gate.

The client planted deer-resistant English Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) grown from seed on the outside of the fence. Because the plants were grown from seed, there is a wonderful array of blossom colors—from typical lavender blue to royal blue to pastel blue and even almost pure white.

The combination of the lavender on the outside (the fourth photo) combined with the inner fence covered with honeysuckle and the fence nearly invisible. A pleasant, and fragrant, way to deter these beautiful, yet destructive-eating machines.

For the plantings outside the fence, it's important to realize that deer, their habits, and their appetites are always changing. However, in my garden, lavender has been untouched for 25 years. What deer eat and what will fence them out, varies throughout the country. Try each new strategy in moderation until you find out if it works. The answers to deer browsing will always remain as diverse as our local environments.

I built this fence nearly 20 years ago and no deer have crossed it. Once a mighty buck got trapped between the two fences. Luckily, he jumped out the way he came, away from the prized roses, strawberry plants, fruit trees and countless other delectables. If you don’t move to fast you can often slowly walk an animal back to where it breached the perimeter to see how it got in.

I rent my home and the layout of the house to the road and the garden would make it very difficult to construct a double four-foot fence. And the cost would be prohibitive. So I’ve settled upon planting deer-resistant exotics.

I wonder if this double fence will work in cold-weather areas where winters are snowy and harsh and deer become desperate. For one thing, snow drifts might make it easy for the deer to simply walk up to and over the four foot height. If you know of such a fence in your area, please let me know. For much of the west, it’s a solution worth experimenting with.

Electrical fencing, which provides a safe but deterring shock, is a common solution the snow parts of the country. A popular electric fence for parts of New England is a low-profile, five-foot-tall electric fence made of high-tensile wire.

Please post a comment - I want to know what you think.


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Greyt Detergents for Grey Water Systems

It’s time to turn the illegal valve to use my grey water.

Soap is soap, and most laundry detergents appear to be just the same old detergent. This is fine, unless you have a grey water system designed to irrigate your favorite petunias or roses with the used water from your washing machine. Plain soap, which is made from stuff like animal fat and lye (wood ash), doesn't stop minerals in the wash water from depositing a dirty "smog" on your favorite pure-white undies. So, over forty years ago, Procter & Gamble invented Tide as the first heavy-duty synthetic laundry detergent.

Detergents, fabricated from a variety of chemicals in addition to soap, are engineered to enhance the soap's cleaning capability and avoid graying those undies. But, alas for grey water users, chemicals in detergents are selected with only their clothes-washing capabilities in mind, and with no thought for a thirsty root's sensitivities.

To choose the best detergent for a grey water system, you'll have to read product labels. First, look for the most important element to avoid: sodium. Unfortunately, the amount of sodium in most detergents is impossible to ascertain, and they won't tell you on the 800-consumer phone line because "It's proprietary." As a rule, popular liquid concentrates have much less sodium than powdered detergents, which use cheap sodium-based compounds to bulk up the product.

Next, look for the words boron, borate or Boroteam. Boron rarely kills plants, but it will cause an ugly leaf-margin burn, and can be a real problem with alkaline soils in desert areas. Worse still, once boron is added to soil, it is not easily leached out. So skip all detergents with boron.

Phosphates chemically inactivate calcium, magnesium, iron and manganese without making a precipitate (depositing a grimy "smog" on cloth). These are the chemicals blamed in the 1970s for "ruining" lakes and rivers (it's since been learned that laundry phosphates weren't always the significant culprit). Actually, phosphates are a great ingredient for a grey water system because roots utilize them like a fertilizer. Since a grey water system is managed for the improved growth of the plants, buy a high-phosphate detergent—if you can find one (many states have banned in as an ingredient). Because you'll be monitoring your grey water system, you can make sure phosphates aren't leaching off your property to turn rivers or lakes green.

Finally, watch out for chlorine, which in its concentrated form is a very caustic, toxic and deadly chemical. The amounts of chlorine in detergents are actually quite low, but the prudent gardener will avoid this chemical altogether. (However, I have used chlorine bleach on occasion in the laundry and to remove stains in the bathtub, and have yet to see any visible consequences in my landscape.)

A quick survey of any supermarket will soon reveal a plethora of detergents either useless for grey water or, at best, ambiguously labeled. What's a lawless grey-water user to do? (It's still illegal in most places to use grey water.) I shop for a more “Earth-friendly” detergent but get the full scoop on boron, sodium, and chlorine.

For the latest on grey water developments, see the web site of the Guru of Grey Water, Art Ludwig: http://www.oasisdesign.net/greywater/

Please post a comment - I want to know what you think. Are you an illegal grey water user?

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Living With the Roots of an Oak Tree

I laugh (and cry) at the little orange fences they put around oaks during construction. They are nearly worthless. While it keeps vehicles for hitting and scaring the bark, it in no way protects the feeding roots.




As a maintenance gardener I’ve had to dig up a few oaks. And just below the ground the roots have a covering much like bark. Bark absorbs very few nutrients. In a study of 25-year-old apple tree in the UK found that the first four feet from the trunk accounted for less than 10% of all the water and nutrients absorbed.

The wobbly-orange fences are, at best placed at the edge of the foliage. A good start as it may help to keep water off the trunk’s base. But this is a far cry from protecting the majority of the root system’s feeding roots.

In the photograph to the left, the construction company dutifully surrounded the oak’s dripline. But all the machinery and the house itself cover what used to be the leaf litter, duff, and organic mater (humus) that once both fed and protected the young feeding roots.

The tiny root hairs, that live for just a day or so, tend to grow up into the fertile strata of the humus and duff zone. They, like all plants, want to be the first to capture liberated nutrients as they become avaiable. As one researcher put it—“roots grow up not down”. While a bit overstated, they fact is the youngest rootlets and their root hairs reside well beyond the canopy of the tree, where all the construction is taking place. (Learn more in my book Roots Demystified,)

(See my Blog of March 31st to see diagrams of the extent of a roots wanderings.)

At one-half to thee times, or more of the width of the dripline roots gather nutrients and moisture far from the trunk or even the canopy.

The photo (on the above right) of the chairs face south along the Big Sur coastline are a good attempt to protect to crown of the young California live oak from moisture in the summer. The gravel does allow rain in the winter to percolate down along with oxygen and harmful gases escape. The compacted gravel is a bit hard on the feeding roots, but the tree seemed health. Perhaps this is one solution to living among oak woodlands.

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Plants Really Drink and Eat Near Our Toes.

I consider those ever-popular metal tree root deep-feeders as virtually useless and mostly harmful.

Spring has been warmer than past years up here “on the mountain”. Friends are thinking about watering. I hope they think carefully. (My plants and trees receive no summer irrigation. But that’s another blog altogether.)

The roots of many plants, it turns out, don't really get most of their water and nutrients from the deep regions of the soil. Rather, most plants, tree and shrubs gather all the moisture and nutrients they require from the top 12- to 36-inches, depending on the plant. The first foot is the most critical. Here is where the soils are most aerobic and this facilitates the exchange of nutrients from the minerals into soluble form that plants can absorb. Feeding root hairs actually grow up toward those first moisture-laden nutrients. (The lettuces pictured here can send roots as deep as four feet--if you don't have gophers! This is why boxes with wire bottoms should be 24-inches high instead of 12 inches. To give the roots "room to move". Yet the lettuces still get much of their "food" from the top 12 inches. So careful irrigation is a must.)

The roots of many plants, it turns out, don't really get most of their water and nutrients from the deep regions of the soil. Rather, most tree and shrubs gather all the moisture and nutrients they require from the top 12- to 36-inches, depending on the plant. The first foot is the most critical. Here is where the soils are most aerobic and this facilitates the exchange of nutrients from the minerals into soluble form that plants can absorb. Feeding root hairs actually grow up toward those first moisture-laden nutrients. (I describe this in more detail in my newest book - Roots Demystified, Change Your Gardening Habits to Help  Roots Thrive.)

An old adage advises gardeners to water trees deeply; this often means infrequent, but lengthy irrigation. Increasingly, drip irrigation has been used as a tool for deep, occasional irrigation. Infrequent, deep irrigation tend to produce two points in the total irrigation cycle where the soil life and root hairs are damaged enough to reduce plant growth—during both the drying stage and when the soil is too wet. Dry soil kills off the tender root hairs as they can’t survive too much air. When the ground is flooded, root hairs die and noxious gases can’t escape nor pure air enter—or as pure as it may or may not be.

The metal probe of a typical deep root feeder is 18- to 24-inches long. This means that the application of the water begins below almost the entire zone of maximum water and nutrient uptake.

Good pore space makes for healthier plants. An ideal mineral/humus/pore structure balance results in a crumbly soil that allows water to percolate down, harmful gases to vent out, and refreshing air to permeate the soil. Soil breathes 24/7 at a lumbering, beneficial rate we cannot see. A soil with a healthy structure allows for easy and deep root growth and will produce the best-looking lawn, garden and tree growth.

Root feeders flood the pore space of the deeper soils, which quickly becomes flooded and anaerobic. Sometimes the deep soil saturates and the irrigation water backs up toward the surface so that more shallow soils actually get waterlogged. It's a bit backwards to send the water through a 24-inch deep probe just to apply the water 6- to 12-inches deep!

I recommend you just toss your root feeder—actually, recycle the scrap metal parts. (China could use them.) A good sprinkler can do a better job. And a drip irrigation system will promote the best growth possible—better than any other method of watering.

One garden’s “deep” soil is another garden’s “shallow” soil. Another hidden assumption about tree roots concerns the depth of your garden's soil. There are places where glacially-deposited topsoil extends for dozens of feet, but these are more the exception than the rule. If you have such a deep, loamy soil, then rejoice, but remember that the majority of moisture and nutrient absorption by trees still happens in the top two feet of the soil. Typically, most suburban yards have a very shallow layer of topsoil, if there's any left at all after construction. If, for example, there is a continuous layer of rich-orange clay some 12 inches under the ground, then the 12-inch layer of topsoil is, for all practical purposes, the only place your plant’s roots will be feeding.


Most heavy clays, whatever the color—and dark blue or pale white-gray are the worst—are relatively worthless to feeding tree roots. While clayey soil has plenty of nutrients, their availability is locked up in its tight, anaerobic structure and strong chemical bonds. Tree roots can, over many years and decades, grow somewhat into clay soils, but the number and extent of roots in the looser topsoil in far greater and more important to tree nutrition.

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Anti Deadhead

Martha Stewart would never like my garden.

Any act of gardening which is different than what nature would do has a negative impact, however slight. Most gardening acts are de-evolutionary—they set things back. As an example, destructive cultivation using the wrong technique can set soil back considerably. This doesn't mean we can't compensate, such as using more compost to compensate for compacted clay.

I grow a non-native lavender cultivar called 'Provence' (my garden must have deer-resistant plants) which has tall-stemmed blossoms. After their fragrant bloom is spent, the flower parts fairly quickly fall from the stalks. Most gardeners would cut back the blossom stems, called dead-heading, as soon as the color begins to wither.

As an example of trying to be more “natural”, I thought it would be interesting to see what would happen if the plants weren't pruned. So, years ago I left the slender woody stems through the winter as an experiment in low-maintenance gardening via avoidance. To my pleasant surprise, one of the first places to be garlanded with spider webs on a dewy spring morning were on the remaining naked, dead 'Provence' stalks.

Now, I leave a few of the spent 'Provence' blooms so as to insure plenty of spider web roosts. Sure, the spiders have mostly found other places from which to sling their orbs. But the more opportunities there are for these hungry predators, the better. Amigo Bob, a locally-famous organic farming consultant, calls spiders the “wolves of the landscape”.

I'm still waiting for the spiders to return in all their glory like that one special day.

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Mounded Plantings, Irrigation-Free

I’ve started the annual ritual of mulching the perimeter of my irrigation-free planted mound. I lay down 5 or so sheets of newspaper and then several inches of compost made of rice hulls and manure.


I've always wondered why the former Xeriscape Council only advocated a savings of up to 75% on the water used for outdoor irrigation. Why only 75%? Why not shoot for 100%? After seven years of trial and error, I came up with a mound-and-plant system some eight years ago which has required no additional irrigation beyond the day of planting, even during the most protracted California drought in over 100 years.

To begin such a planting scheme, I stockpiled chunky wood chips (not sawdust, which settles down too much and doesn't drain well) from local tree-trimming services. This is critical that the wood chips are mixed with the fresh green, fresh leaves, and small branches. The leafy green parts are critical to compensate for the carbon in the woodier chips.

Next, I used a spading to just crack open the soil beneath the planned area of the mound, not heaving it. Then, I built an active compost pile and plant directly on top of trimmings. Because tree chips are so high in carbon, I layered or mixed them with some manure if required—if there were not enough leaves. I'd guesstimate that a good starting ratio for your own experiments would be one part manure to three or four parts chips. I would use other types of high-nitrogen materials if needed—wet kitchen scraps, fresh grass clippings, green-manure crops like buckwheat, vetch, bell beans, and clover—to help decompose the woody chips. The more nitrogen added, the faster the mound will decompose and the greater the nitrogen supply for the growing plants. I piled this mixture of high-carbon and high-nitrogen materials at least 50% higher than I wanted the final mound to be, and sometimes up to double the height. I watered each layer as I went and made sure all material was moist.

Next, I covered the mound with a soil cap at least eight inches thick—the thicker, the better. I used a mixture of 50% rotted turkey bedding and 50% native soil for the top layer. The soil cap insures good drainage, a neutral soil temperature, balanced nutrition, and good initial growth for the transplants. The plants are placed into the soil cap and watered in thoroughly. I used five sheets of overlapping newspapers covered by turkey-bedding mulch cover the soil cap and, like a "biodegradable herbicide," suppress all weed seedlings. It’s best for me to plant in the fall so the winter rains continue to keep the composting heap moist and to allow the roots to grow. Drought-resistant plants are essential. I used white, pink, and blue rosemary, grey and green santolinas, rhue, many types of lavender, native sages, euphorbia, daffodils, and society garlic (which the deer started eating a few years later).

Once the mound started rotting, the root-hairs of the plants followed the decomposition to take advantage of the newly available nutrients. Plants are "smarter" than we often acknowledge; their roots won't grow into areas that are too warm due to thermophilic (hot) decomposition over 110 F.

Eventually, my "research" mounds settled down, the shrubs rooted fully into the native soil—the new mound is a wonderful, curvilinear feature in my landscape. Mounded plantings, which seemed to me to be a heap of contradiction at first, have become one of my preferred techniques for quick no-till soil drainage, and they don't require any drip-irrigation hardware or precious water. In hotter climates a bit of drip irrigation will probably be needed. If you experiment with this, please let me know.

There's more about planting on mounds in my book Roots Demystified.

NOTE: I live in a moderate-summer climate with a moderating marine influence. If you attempt this mound-and-plant strategy in your own area, I suspect you'll have to make some changes in plant selection and the time of year you’ll be planting. For example, I once installed a test plot at Kit Anderson’s house near Burlington, VT, when she was editor of National Gardening Association magazine. I spent hours in the muggy August heat, along with members of the NGA staff, hauling in manure-rich straw, distributing Kit's garden clippings and leaves and planting a range of perennials which normally thrive in this northern latitude (within one-half mile of Lake Champlain). Many of the crew were skeptical that such a bizarre method would work, and it didn’t—growth in the late summer was not sufficient to allow many of the perennials to weather the winter in good form. I suspect that timing was the main problem, and that mounds in hot-summer areas need to be planted in early spring so the roots can be deep enough by fall to tolerate the frozen months. You'll have to experiment in your soil and climate. I suspect the mound should be started in the Spring were there is summer rain.

Please post a comment - I want to know how the mound system worked for you.

To see more detail of the illustration put you cursor over the image and double click.

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Cultivating an Eccentric Garden

I collect more than just plants. I gather lots of discards, a.ka. junk for my garden. I assemble various art pieces from the found objects. I especially like broken pottery.

I’m fascinated with tornados even though we don’t get them here. I’ve use cylinders of wire to both keep deer away from the newly-planted tree and as an armature for my own little eccentricities. (See the photo to the left of a cylinder around a newly-planted Strawberry Tree (Arbutus unedo).

Everyone has the seed of an eccentric garden deep inside waiting to bloom. Here are ten ways to cultivate your own:

10. Think differently. Disregard all gardening magazines, books, catalogs, and newspaper columns, and create a unique, personal style. Think about what moves you.

9. Get to know your yard. Take time to sit and walk in the space where the garden will grow; even wait through a year to gather seasonal inspiration.

8. Embellish personal eccentricities. Take pride in what makes you a bit odd. So-called peculiar traits or thoughts can be the springboard for creative thinking. If you hate pruning, for example, consider growing a “wilderness,” with hidden pathways and artistically tangled mixtures of foliage and blossom.

7. Go all out. If you enjoy a certain kind of plant or object, then go whole hog. Plant every possible variety of rose or grow hundreds of varieties of flowering plants with just shades of yellow. Collect not dozens of colorful bottles, but thousands. Display your entire collection of lobster traps among the perennials.

6. Combine unrelated thoughts to form a new idea. One eclectic gardener mixed an old toilet, potting soil, and sweet peas to create his own private horticultural joke.

5. Get inspired by “unrelated” things to synthesize new garden ideas. A childhood love of glassy-black Indian bird points (tiny arrowheads) led me to incorporate visible and hidden chunks of raw obsidian (each waiting to reveal the arrowhead inside) into my own garden.

4. Put aside normal social guidelines. Vegetables and perennials planted in the soil between a curb and a sidewalk violates the norm in many neighborhoods, but makes for a festive, unique patch you—and the neighbors—will enjoy.

3. Follow your passion. Inspired by Axel Erlandson, Richard Reames, of Aborsmith Studios in Williams, Oregon, has begun to grow a living house. About two years old, the walls are being formed by 77 Red Alder trees planted 11 inches apart in a 22 foot diameter circle—the trunks are expected to fuse together into one tree. Reames is planning to install windows and a door. Such commitment over time is best driven by resolute devotion.

2. Collect what you love, the garden will follow. Sculptor Marcia Donahue of Berkeley, California loves to collect old bowling balls. She’s massed dozens of them in her garden, tucking curious plants in and around them for a unique and striking effect.

1. Ignore all rules (even the previous nine).

Eccentric gardens open the eyes to unique vistas, free the spirit to soar to new places, and “grow” original thoughts. Nurture the soul as well as the soil with your own eccentric garden.

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