Red Skies at Night

 

Sometimes working late is rewarded by a beautiful sunset.  

Garden maintenance

 Something I noticed while working for a large landscaping company is; the maintenance department is the most overlooked and under appreciated facet of this type of company.  Personally, I love doing maintenance.  I love knowing through my hard work a garden has grown into it's full potential, or even surpassed the original vision.  I also enjoy the relationship that grows between a client and their gardener, each become part of an extended family.

 Quality, professional garden maintenance comes at a price.  They are not a "mow and blow" service, they are skilled and educated in how a garden grows.  This skill can be obtained through college, of course, but in my humble opinion, until you actually work with the plants and your native soil, you don't really know.  A fresh gardener will wreck quite a few plants before being enlightened/skilled.  It takes time to learn properties and characteristics of soil, and how to recognize pests and diseases.  Then it takes more time to know how to deal with them.  Whether they are college educated or life educated, both understand the delicate balance of soil, plants and gardens.  I also believe they have a passion for what they do.

If you're lucky enough to maintain a garden for at least a year, through the 4 seasons, you start to truly know this garden.  You get to know problem areas, disease issues, critter problems, clients likes and dislikes and how the plants grow.  The garden becomes yours in a way.  Tending to a garden on a regular basis you have the opportunity to implement change the proper way, over time because its a process, nothing in the garden changes quickly.  A garden becomes a place of learning.  You get to see how plants grow in different sun lights or watering schedules and its possible to try different pruning techniques.  With regular maintenance a gardener can prune little by little as needed, not a heavy handed,"once a year" butchering.  We don't do this disfiguring way often, but it occasionally comes up and while it might be necessary, it always makes me uncomfortable.

There can be a lot of flexibility in the scheduling of maintenance.  If a garden consists mainly of shrubs, and doesn't have a lawn, or a lot of annuals and perennials,  maintenance visits can be as few as 3-4 times/year.  I personally prefer coming once a month.  Coming 12 times/year is perfect for us because our focus is on the plants and trees.  We only maintain one lawn, and I don't mean to boast, but it's damn close to perfect. Our other clients with lawn needs have an additional gardener who comes to care for their turf.  It's a lovely relationship for all involved.

A big plus about maintaining gardens on a schedule is it's money a business can count on faithfully.  Maintenance is a landscape gardening company's bread and butter.  It's also an on going free advertisement for the business, which depending on the service offered can be either good or bad.  You can run a business without advertizing.  Obtaining new clients through word of mouth is possible if people can hear about your quality of work from friends and neighbors, and see it as well.  The Garden Girls have every year, steadily increased their client list without any advertizing.  Our work speaks for itself. 
 
In closing, professionals who provide quality garden maintenance are "keepers of the gardens".   When a gardener is given the opportunity to bring a garden back from weedy mayhem, or to simply maintain it's beauty, it should never be taken for granted.  Maintenance clients, including their gardens, need to be respected and appreciated for entrusting us to care for their garden.  Plus, what their landscape continues to do for a gardener's company. 

Not everyone places value on the aesthetics outside of their home, but for those who do, there are gardeners like us.  

To prune or not to prune

The urge to prune roses has been strong lately.  So strong,  I'm blaming the beautiful, non-winter weather we're having this year.  It's a perfect 60 degrees outside, so I'm in my garden about a month more than normal.  December is normally rainy, cold and my garden down time.  My garden and I both experience a nice dormant, quiet month or two which emerges into an appreciation and regrowth in January.

This year however, I'm almost tired of my garden.  I'm quite sure if it could talk it would say its sick of me touching, spraying and snipping at it too.  I think this is part of the problem, I have nothing left to prune except for the roses and the pennisetum!  but I must wait until January for the roses and later for the grass.  Yea, right.  It almost seems like an impossible task, waiting.

Perhaps this is a good time for soul searching and possibly personal change.  A little known fact about me (except anyone who knows me or my neighbors). . . I hate doing anything productive inside my house.  I should say, we don't live in squalor, but our closets haven't been organized in years and there is always laundry to be done.  While it sounds like a great garden distraction, it also sounds like drudgery.  I would rather glare at my roses for taunting me, flip off my grass for looking like crap and contemplate what plant to move and where to put it, then to set foot in my house and clean! 

So, I will keep my hands busy outside, my eyes from gazing in any rose's direction and wait. 

Echeveria Elegans

This Echeveria is absolutley lovely and always obedient.  It is perfect by itself or with a darker, contrasting plant/succulent.  It held up well in during the freeze and it is still one of my personal favorites. 

The Garden Girls

 

Robin and Barb

Maintenance, landscape fabric & a sod cutter

This morning I'm off to do maintenance on a garden we installed in August of this year.

I am very excited to see how the plants have grown, but I am also interested in seeing;
1. if the cloth fabric we placed is actually doing it's job
2. if the succulents made it through the unseasonably cold spell we've had the last couple of weeks. 

There is a lot of debate over the use of landscape fabric.  It's a medium that we don't use all that often, but I do believe there is a place for it in the garden.  I know it's not a cure all and it will break down after a certain amount of time, but I do appreciate how it keeps gravel and ornamental rocks from getting swallowed up by the soil.  Plus, when placed underneath a path, it helps suppress weeds and keeps the stones neater, especially when it rains.

This particular garden had an old lawn that we removed first, and anyone who has ever removed an old lawn knows how much time it takes to get all the little pieces out that could possibly re sprout.  If you don't know, it takes forever.  We normally, with pick axes, work underneath the lawn and basically cut and roll it off, but this lawn was old and it wasn't that easy.  We rented a sod cutter, but LOL!! , that was hilarious and impossible without a 200lb. person to operate the machine.   Not to mention getting it off and on the truck.  I mean, we're strong, but I have a lot of respect for this machine, a sod cutter is a beast!

Like I said in my post on maintenance;  gardens are a place of learning and provide you a way to continuously perfect your craft.  

Raspberry madness

One of our clients, who is always amazing, decided to plant some raspberries.  Ugh!  The bed she planted the berry starts in is not a big bed, I'd say its more long and narrow.  One big problem with putting raspberries in this bed is there are a ton of plants already planted in it.  Its commonly referred to as "the messy bed", and that's before the raspberries went in.  

Months later, the raspberries have officially gotten out of control.  The obvious solution is to dig in root barrier. This isn't a cure all, but it will slow them down.  The final bummer to this story is the size of the dramatic upheaval that's needed to install the root barrier.

Below is a picture of the mess that ensued. 

 

The moral to this story is, make your gardener happy and trust their knowledge.  I realize we don't pay taxes on your property, and you can plant whatever you want, wherever you want.   However, it will cost you more in the long run when your other plants are dying, and you have to pay your gardeners to fix the problem.  |Let your gardeners plant invasive plants for you.  

We know; how things grow, where the best spot to plant it is, and how to contain it, OR if it shouldn't be planted at all.  

It's cold outside and my hands are soft and happy

We are considered a Mediterranean zone so the temp is warm enough to grow tropical plants and it rarely freezes.  This is the time of year when I'm grateful to live in such a temperate climate.  The kind of climate where I could wear shorts 12 months out of the year, or at least into November if I wanted to.  When the temperature goes under 60 degrees everyone's complaining about how cold it is, and if it actually freezes for one night out of the year, we're all in a panic over our poor succulents.  

Being born and raised in sunny California, I'm not comfortable when it's cold.  I honestly don't know how people deal with snow year after year.  I know I can't drive in it and I certainly can't garden in it, so it's hard for me to see why people flock to it, unless its a weekend in Tahoe. 
On the flip side, being too hot makes me cranky too.

Right now, it's a cool 39 degrees and I'm sitting at the computer wearing a fleece, a hoodie, I have a beanie on my head, plus wool socks and slippers too. Everyone else in the house has succumbed to the cold and they're already in bed sleeping.  Not me, I'm still stoking the fire, bundled up and typing.  It's f'ing cold outside, and because I'm anti-heater, it's just as cold inside my house.  Even my dogs are under down comforters, none of us are used to this drop in temp.  

I feel the cold the most in my hands, especially when I'm out gardening.  There have been mornings when I've been working on the other side of the Caldecott Tunnel I thought my hands would shatter if they were touched too snappily.  This kind of cold is debilitating and inhibits my drive to work. 

I now wear gloves daily and I feel like I'm missing something when I don't.  Even with the gloves, gardening in the winter months makes my skin split in the most painful areas and more importantly, the hardest to heal places.  My cuticles used to be split and painful.  I found a product for this problem a month ago, and it's simply wonderful.  It's O'Keefe's Working Hands.  These old dog paws are now soft, with nice cuticles.  I've tried many products for weathered hands, and this is the first one I'm satisfied enough to mention it by name and picture in a post.  It's awesome. 

Stay warm.  Keep your hands lubricated and always stay positive... 

Neighborhood beautification? Or leave well enough alone?

My kids and I access a "secret staircase" on a regular basis.  It's close to our house and it allows us a short cut to get to school, to parks, shopping and in general, out of the neighborhood.   It starts at the bottom of a culdesac and ends at the street below, saving us a good 5 minutes walking anywhere.   The path is overgrown with blackberries, ivy, cactus, agave, weeds, acacia sprouts, oleander and it wouldn't be Oakland without a ton of trash.  My kids and I have talked about cleaning it up many times.  It's a perfect sized project to do with my kids, and what a great lesson for them about being prideful of where they live.  A neighborhood beautification project, I thought, could be a way to meet more neighbors and clean up a traveled path.   This is the entrance to the stairwell and path It's interesting because what I thought, and what is actually true are on opposite ends of the spectrum.  A couple of problems have come up; 1. the community at the top of the stairs, don't want people cleaning up their personal dump space and aren't interested in the path becoming more known,  and 2. the people at the bottom, don't like the fact that some of the dangerous shrubbery would be cleaned up thus not safe guarding their homes anymore.  I get it, kind of.   I'm hearing what both parties are saying.  I am also hearing the people who actually use the path, well, their opinions and safety don't matter.  If the city doesn't care, why should they.  The pokers from the bramble/cactus snag one of us, or one of the dogs every time we use the path.  The litter is hazardous waste; dirty diapers, condoms, liquor bottles, baggies...  you get the picture.  It's just one more place that my kids have to stick to the path,  no exploring!,  Do not pick up anything and absolutely don't eat the berries that sit too low on the vine.  Honestly, I barely want them looking down because it's just more examples of Oakland not having enough money, people not caring and urban decay.  As we approach the path I say something like, "Keep your eye out for people and pokers and lets just get through it". This is the view from the top of the path At the top of the path, there is a motion light and camera mounted on a pole.  This is helpful but only for the top of the path.  Once you walk about 15 feet below the camera, it's line of sight is hindered by one of the many Acacia trees.  The same holds true for the light.  Once you're 10-15 feet below the staircase, at night, it's pitch black.   The camera and light. When I decide to take the dogs for a walk after dark, I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.   I've weighed my options though and find that the path is safer than venturing out to the main street, I think.  Regardless, I pull my pit bull close, hold my breath, put some pep in my step and run until I pop out on the street below.  Sure, my imagination is always active but you never know what could be laying in wait in the overgrowth for some dummy, like myself, walking after dark. This view is from the bottom of the stairs, below the camera, looking down the path.    I know the path is acceptable.  It provides us a nice thoroughfare, and from this angle, it looks innocuous, but it could be so much nicer.  You can see at the bottom where the path gets a bit tighter because of the bramble and cactus, plus all the encroaching acacia.   Maybe, I should just leave it alone, I certainly don't want to be labeled as a "problem" in my neighborhood.   At the same time, I wish people could see the bigger picture.  The part that pisses me off most is the "dumping people" have children too, and they still don't see how cleaning this up would be beneficial to them.  Perhaps the solution is to create a plan.  A plan that would be acceptable to the people concerned  about their security.  I'm not really worried about the dumping people, they can be responsible for their own trash, or not as the case may be.   That's my rant for the day.

Oakland is a great place to garden.

 A couple of things I noticed this morning in my garden; 

The cold mornings always make the blues and greens of the succulents more vibrant, and if I didn't have to cut back my diascia once or twice a year, it would never stop blooming. 

The climate in Oakland is absolutely perfect for a gardener!

Deodar Cedar

Just one more post about the effects of the high winds a week ago.  

Every single job site we drove up to last week was a disaster.  Some worse than others, but all required twice the amount of time to clean up/maintain than usual. 

The messy job sites set us back, especially the ones with Deodar cypress trees.  This tree could be as far away as 3 houses down, but the debris from it had made into the garden we're working on.  For such a lovely tree,  even if it is maintained, it will drops limbs, cones and needles everywhere!  This lovely tree needs a lot of room and in my humble opinion, it's not a suitable tree for a city, anything less than a half of an acre is a bad idea.  If one person has one in their garden, so do the neighbors on each side and even across the street.   There are many trees out there to choose from, and there are certainly some that are smaller and more conducive to a neighborhood. 

The Deodar Cypress is graceful, blue/silver needled and fast growing. It's name, Deodar, derives from Sanskrit that translates to "timber of the gods."  It has graceful pendulous branches. Pyramidal form when young, wide-spreading and flat-topped in old age.  
Most cypress trees have an exceptionally long lifespan, living hundreds of years. These relatives of redwood trees can grow to be quite large, reaching heights of 50 feet or more. Some of the oldest cypress trees have be known to reach heights of more than 250 feet. While these trees are quite sturdy, careful consideration is required when choosing a good spot to plant a cypress tree.  The cypress you plant today could possibly still be standing long after you're gone.
 
Aside from it's massive size, another issue we've found with this tree in a small garden is how much water it takes up leaving little for anything planted below it.  Finding plants that will thrive under this cypress is tricky.  Characteristics we look for in an under planting are usually arid/acidic tolerant.  

If you inherit a deodar cypress naturally, like it came with the house or through a neighbor, all you can do is love it and appreciate it.  It is a truly majestic, specimen tree.

It looks so sweet and small in this picture.  :)

80 year old deodar's lining a street in San Jose

Deodar in it's native country of the Himalayas

 

Cercis occidentalis

It's a beautiful day to be planting a Cercis occidentalis, Forest Pansy.  This is a such a delicate and lovely tree.  We are planting this tree today in a Hayward garden, replacing a Mimosa tree that was messy, too large for the space and the biggest reason; it had fallen over.  We are also planting many other flowers and native shrubs to the landscape too.  It's going to be a fun day! 

Best Day Ever

Don't hate me, but I'm off the the wholesale nursery!  Yep, me, a truck and freedom to buy whatever is needed. 

My head is spinning!

Big Winds

The news for today and last night is, high winds.  In elevations above 900 feet, the winds were gusting up to 68 mph.  These winds caused the death of 2 people, one was electrocuted by a downed power line and the other was killed by a falling tree branch.  

You could hear limbs cracking and sirens going off all night.  Winds so strong they cleared old palm tree fronds off the incredibly tall palm trees around the corner from my house and made a huge mess of the streets.  All the people driving their Prius's were definitely irritated.   Their cars sit so low to the ground, it seemed to me it was impossible to navigate through the littered street. 

I know this hardly compares to the people who lost their lives on Thursday night, but a third, not so tragic tragedy;  the winds whipped my tree Dahlia into a pained horizontal position, instead of the stately upright one it had grown into. 
 I was out in the winds trying to secure it, but me, a tall post, and a sledgehammer in the high winds was almost comical.  The post is actually visible in the pic.  LOL  I didn't think it would stay in place, but it did.  However, it was a quick fix that clearly didn't solve my problem.

Succulents = Love

 

This is a garden that I helped to plant and design.  I think, aside from the cat shit you can't see, it's one of my favorite gardens.  It is small, maintains itself, requires minimal water and it's simply lovely.  Succulents have been of interest to me for over a decade and I still am not bored with them.  They continue to create cultivars to keep my curiosity piqued, plus they are so easy to grow.  They make me smile.  

 This house has recently been sold, so I won't be maintaining this beauty anymore.  I also won't be seeing a lovely friend on a weekly basis either.  

Citrus Leaf Miners, ugh!

So, within the past month or two, there has been a new pest on our job sites;  Citrus Leaf Miners.  Every site we maintain, where there are Citrus trees, there are CLM.  We never thought it would be so prevalent, but they're everywhere.  CLM is a very small, light colored moth that arrived in southern California from Mexico in 2000.  This is what UCD has to say about them.  

Adult citrus leafminers are tiny moths about 2 mm long (less than 0.12 inch) with a wingspan of about 4 mm (or about 0.25 inch). They have silvery and white iridescent fore wings with brown and white markings and a distinct black spot on each wing tip. Moths are most active from dusk to early morning and spend the day resting on the undersides of leaves, but are rarely observed. Soon after emerging from the pupal case, the female emits a sex pheromone that attracts males. Females lay eggs singly on the underside of leaves. Newly emerged leaflets (flush), particularly along the mid vein, are the preferred ovi-position site.
Eggs hatch about 4-5 days after being laid and newly hatched larvae begin feeding immediately in shallow, meandering mines in the leaves. As a larva increases in size, the mine becomes more visible and larval excrement forms a thin, central frass trail within the mine. Larvae molt 4 times over a 1 to 3 week period. Mature larvae pupate within the mine, rolling the edge of the leaf and protecting the pupa with silk. The entire life cycle of the insect takes 2 to 7 weeks to complete, depending on temperature and weather conditions. The activities of citrus leafminer vary somewhat with location in the state because of differences in climatic conditions and flushing of citrus trees. In general, citrus leafminer is active from mid-summer through fall and early winter.

What I have noticed is they give the citrus tree leaves an almost metallic look.  The small tunnels that the moths create, look like scribbles all over the leaves.  The citrus leafminer damages citrus by mining the underside of young citrus leaves; the fruit is rarely mined. Leaf mining results in leaf deformation, partial leaf chlorosis, necrosis, and some leaf drop, which ultimately results in a reduction in the tree’s photosynthetic capacity. Additionally, the mines provide an entry point for a number of plant pathogens including citrus canker.  Citrus leafminers are attracted to new growth on trees. To help reduce the effect of infestation, do not prune live branches more than once or twice a year.  Do not prune leaves that have been damaged because undamaged areas of the leaves continue to produce food for the tree. Citrus Miners are not able to mine leaves once they are hardened. Do not apply nitrogen fertilizer at times of the year when leafminer populations are high, as flush growth will be severely damaged.

Most people say they do not cause any problem with fruit production, especially on mature trees, and to leave them alone.  I find this hard to do.  I have read and plan to implement this treatment;  

A combination of Neem oil and Spinosad.   Since you are only supposed to use Spinosad no more than 6 times per year.  My plan is to alternate spraying, at 1 week intervals, for 3 sprayings of each in the Spring and then again in the Fall.  I will spray in the evenings because although Spinosad is considered "organic", it is not completely safe for bees, or praying mantis.  It was discovered by as doctor vacationing in the Carribean, who toured an old rum factory and took samples of the rum soaked dirt underneath.  What he found was fermented bacteria that will over stimulate certain pests causing their death. 

I will keep you updated with the outcome. 

Once a year. . .

It's fitting that my first post is of my tree Dahlia.

It started as a 1.5 foot piece of Dahlia stalk.  I took the piece of it home because we were in the midst of a huge garden clean up, we had way too much debris, and I brought some home to my green waste can.  The Dahlia wouldn't fit into my green bin, so I stuck it in the ground.

I thought, eh, it might make it or it might not.
Look at it now.....