Greener Gardens Starts at UCLA Extension

‘Greener Gardens: Sustainable Garden Practice’ started April 1 at UCLA Extension.   It is still possible to register for this class and attend the second session next Monday.   I teach this class with co-instructor David King.  People who take this class will get the benefit of the breadth of experience that each of us brings to sustainability in the garden.  This class fulfills an elective for the certificate programs in both Horticulture and Global Sustainability.

We’ll be covering sustainable design, soils,  swales and earthworks,  appropriate use of greywater and rainwater harvesting, along with the basics of native and drought-tolerant planting. All aspects of sustainable backyard food will be addressed.

Following is a quote from the UCLA Extension website:

“Sustainability is today’s buzzword and many people seek to create a lifestyle with a more favorable impact on the environment. From home and school gardens, to commercial sites, our gardens present the perfect place to start. Designed for horticulture students, gardening professionals, educators, and home gardeners, this course focuses on turning your green thumb into a “greener” garden. Topics include composting, irrigation, water harvesting, water wise plants, eating and growing local produce, recycling, and moving away from a consumptive, non-sustainable lifestyle when choosing materials and tools. … “

I’m pleased to teaching this class for the fourth year with David.  He is the founder of the Seed Library of Los Angeles and the Gardenmaster of The Learning Garden.    His expertise includes sustainable food gardens.   He teaches for both Extension and for the Master Gardeners, as well as frequently lecturing and writing about gardening. He blogs at The Beautiful Food Garden.

Here’s a link to UCLA Extension page for the class, which is still open:

https://www.uclaextension.edu/r/Course.aspx?cn=X+498.10&dc=BIOLGY

 

Two Native Plant Seminars at LA EXPO February 9, 2013

                                                                         Mike Evans

I’m pleased to be once again bringing the “good news”  and the “how to” of natives to Landscape Architects, Designers and LEED Professionals at the LA EXPO , in two seminars with Mike Evans.  Mike is both passionate and practical speaker, and has over 30 years of experience of success with California native plants. I will be focusing on color, with input from Mike, and Mike will be focusing on success using a plant community approach, with my input.  We plan robust discussion to help professionals counter obstacles to using natives in the landscape.

California’s Most Colorful Plants: Designing for Color Throughout the Year

Saturday February 9th – 8:30-10:00 a.m, CEU Accreditation: LA CES, 1.5; LEED, 1.5; APLD, 1.5

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Spring in California is a riot of color, sending photographers to the wildflower meadows and inspiring numerous native garden tours. Surprisingly, some natives bloom almost year-round. Other California plants bloom at different times of the year, whether in January or July. Features such as colorful leaves, berries and stems provide additional interest in Fall and Winter. Creating continuous bloom also helps pollinators thrive, enhancing habitat. This course provides a tour through the most colorful plants in the California native palette with plant descriptions and bloom times, as well as numerous examples of color in the landscape and the most striking color combinations. A descriptive plant list will be made available.

Success with Native Plant Design Using a Plant Community Approach

Saturday February 9th – 10:00 a.m-12:00  p.m., CEU Accreditation: LA CES, 1.5; LEED, 1.5; APLD, 1.5

COURSE DESCRIPTION:  Success with California’s native plants depends on more than choosing the showiest native plants and putting them together in the landscape. Choosing a palette of plants based on natural communities and associations of plants is an ecologically sound basis for design, and leads to the most successful, longest-lasting and easiest to maintain landscapes. This course will focus on communities including Chaparral, Riparian/Alluvial Fan, Coastal Sage Scrub, Oak Woodlands, Meadow and Desert and how to match these associations to the micro-climates and soils on your site, as well as to features such as planted bio-swales. The best-looking and most reliable selections from these communities will be discussed. A descriptive plant list and plant community list will be made available.

 

Plant Sale Saturday November 10, Eaton Canyon

Beautiful plants available at the Plant Sale include this Baja Fairy Duster
©2012 Orchid Black

Looking for a few good plants? There’s a Plant Sale  Saturday, November 10 at Eaton Canyon, hosted by the San Gabriel Mountains Chapter of CNPS.  The sale runs from 9 am to 2 pm at the Eaton Canyon Nature Center, 1750 Altadena Drive, Pasadena.  There will be native plant experts there to answer questions about the plants and what plants will work in your garden.  For more information or to download the plant list, visit the CNPS-SGM site.  Please note:  Cash and Checks only.

‘Bountiful’ Seaside Daisy at the Plant Sale
Image Shelly Magier

‘Torrey Pines’ Monkeyflower at the Plant Sale
Image Shelly Magier

‘Tecate Gold’ Chuparosa, Justicia californica at the Plant Sale

 

At Home With Natives, October 13 at Saddleback College

I will be speaking at the At Home with Natives 2012: Solutions for Nature Friendly Landscaping  Symposium tomorrow, Saturday, October 13,
at Saddleback College, Health Sciences Building, Room 145.

Here’s what they wrote about my talk: Green Native Gardens and Water!

“Must all our rainwater run down the storm drains? Sustainable native garden designs must respect and treat water as the rare life giving element it is. Let’s see ways to keep this valuable resource and even collect it for use:  swales and earthworks that are meant to keep water on site, appropriate rainwater harvesting, and practical irrigation.”

I get to share the stage and a panel later in the day with the following wonderful people: Joshua Link and Aron Nussbaum, Bob Allen, Ron Vanderhoff, Barbara Eisenstein, Barbara Eisenstein, Dan Songster

For more information, look on the Orange County CNPS website.

 

Easy Natives Talk at Arboretum, September 20, 2012

Front to Back: Penstemon ‘Margarita BOP’, Eriogonum ‘Dana Point’ and Verbena lilacina are all Easy Natives!  © 2011 Orchid Black

I’ll be giving my Easy Native Plants for the Garden talk at the Arboretum as a part of Lili Singer’s wonderful Thursday Garden Talks  series!  Here’s what Lili wrote about the talk:

“Discover a fabulous palette of easy-to-grow California species and cultivars—including beautiful free-flowering plants proven to perform in varied locales and conditions. Beautiful images and live plant materials will be shown.”

Scroll down to this post  for a list of plants that will be discussed.

Thursday, September 20, 9:30 a.m. to noon, Arboretum, 301 North Baldwin Avenue, Arcadia.  Directions here.  Fee: $20

Two weeks later, on October 4, there will be a field trip to three native gardens in the area, including one of my gardens, and two gardens by noted artist Andreas Hessing:
“Our first outing of the season takes us to three beautiful San Gabriel Valley home landscapes that concentrate on native plants, accentuate a sense of place, emphasize sustainable gardening practices and celebrate the pleasures of year-round outdoor living.   The designers will join us on site: Orchid Black in Sierra Madre and Andreas Hessing (www.scrubjaystudios.com ) in Monrovia and Altadena.  Preregistration required. “

 

Wild Suburbia’s Summer Color List

Barbara Eisenstein at Weeding Wild Suburbia has a timely post about Summer Color (that’s not brown) and she includes a downloadable list of plants which have summer and fall color.  Her photos of Goldenrod, Solidago californica, and Fragrant Evening Primrose, Oenothera cespitosa, are beautiful.  The Fragrant Evening Primrose is one of my favorite plants.  There are sometimes a few at the RSABG Fall sale, and they often look so bedraggled in their plastic pots that no one picks them up and I have bought the whole lot of 3 or 5.

I’d like to add to her list of summer and fall bloomers by mentioning some of the plants that almost always have some flowers, whatever the season, such as Island Bush Poppy, Dendromecon harfordii, Lilac Verbena, Verbena lilacina, Apricot Mallow, Sphaeralcea ambigua, Desert Marigold, Baileya multiradiata, and San Diego Sunflower, Bahiopsis laciniata (formerly Viguera laciniata).

Lilac Verbena and ‘Dana Point’ Buckwheat, ©2010 Orchid Black

 

When is “Fall?” The Myth of Fall Planting

Fall Foliage on Sycamore at Tree of Life Nursery in December  ©2011 Orchid Black

Native plant experts say that Fall planting is best.  Fall starts September 21.  So September 21 must be a good time to start planting natives, except that it isn’t.  The hot Santa Ana winds blow in from the desert, fanning the flames of wildfires and shortening everyone’s temper.  Many of our plants are semi-dormant now.  The sages, for example, have shed their largest leaves and rely on tiny half-sized leaves to get them through these hot times.

For folks from out-of-state, I liken these times, end of August to late October, to the frost period in whatever Eastern state they come from.  A bad time to plant—except in shade or on the coast.  Eastern folks understand this in a way that Californians don’t.  Seasonality is a part of their world.  Living in Southern California, where I have gone to the beach on Christmas Day (“Mom, it’s 95 degrees, lets open the presents when we get back from the beach!”), it’s sometimes hard to understand our seasons.

Meanwhile, the plant sales are geared to Fall planting.  Everyone is told to get their plants in the ground in Fall, before the Winter rains come, so your plants will have a chance to make some good roots before Summer.  Forget the years the rains never come and it’s hot in January.  Forget the year, I think it was ‘04-’05, it rained so much that every Buckwheat that went into the ground that Winter rotted, whether in sand in San Gabriel or in rocks in Sunland.  Those same experts will tell you that the “first year your plants sleep, the second year they creep and the third year they leap.”  I tell people this myself;  it’s often true.  Plants planted in Fall and Winter don’t move that much, because plants don’t grow that much in the cold.

Meanwhile, I’ve planted with trepidation in May and June and July, and have discovered that plants that go into the ground in May don’t just sleep, they creep and even leap, sometimes getting a year’s worth of growth in six months.  Fundamentally, plants like to grow when it’s warm, as long as it’s not too hot.  Too hot can happen at any time.  It was 90° in February of 2003 when we put 300 plants into the ground in Washington Park.  We lost a few plants,  more to uneven irrigation than any other cause.

So when is “Fall?”  It turns out, Fall is not now.  Fall happens in the native plant world approximately October 21, if we don’t have Santa Ana conditions that week.  So, to be safe, Fall doesn’t start until November 1.  This makes Fall a three-week season.  The 4th Thursday in November is Thanksgiving, and that week isn’t a full week.  Thanksgiving starts the Holiday Season, and the Holiday Season is not Fall, it is clearly Winter, if you look at the sale ads starring snowflakes and people with mittens.  December, being right in the middle of Holiday Season, is definitely Winter.

So “Fall,” in the Southern California native plant world is the first three weeks in November.  Sometime in October I get a call or  from a potential client who only wants me as a designer if I can assure them that their plants will go into the ground in November.  Forget the clients who got a design months ago, got their irrigation and hardscape in and are ready to plant.  The potential client needs someone who can plant in “Fall.”

I’ve sometimes wondered if I should suspend my ethics and my experience successfully planting throughout the year and simply auction off those three weeks in November to the highest bidder?  Do you think I should?

A link for you:  Las Pilitas Nursery’s “When to Plant California Native Plants…”

Next:  Pictures of  a successful summer planting.