Ideas for Every Month of the Year
Or Simple Ways to Enjoy Your Dry Garden
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January
Cutting up in the garden... Our winters in Oakland are relatively mild and wet. While it's not the best time to cut and divide succulents (they prefer to be dormant and dry when it's chilly), it is the perfect time to pot up some California native plant cuttings. One of the easiest plants to grow from cuttings is Yerba Buena, or Satureja douglasii. It's wonderfully minty to the touch, and will happily cascade over the tops of fallen leaves making it a perfect ground cover for under native oaks. Taking cuttings of Yerba Buena couldn't be simpler. Shear a ±6" length of stem and take off about 2" of leaves from the cut side of the stem. If you have rooting hormone, dip the bare cut portion into water, then the hormone, poke a hole into a well draining soil mix and insert the cutting, pressing the soil in around it. We like to shave about 1/2" off the tops of the cuttings after placing them in the soil to encourage root growth. If you don't have rooting hormone, this tough plant will take root even without it this time of year. Place your finished pots in a shady protected area and the winter rains will do the rest. Collecting rainwater (see our May idea below) will get you through any dry spells. We love this plant for our shady back yard under a large Coast Live Oak, but you can also try cuttings and divisions this month of other natives such as Fragaria, Erigeron, Monardella, and Oenothera! |
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February
Spread the love with succulent cuttings! When our succulents acquire reddish winter stress and become somewhat etiolated in the low light, it's time to refresh your garden and behead a few rosettes to create a lovely arrangement for your Valentine! Here's our formula for inexpensive, creative gifts for February 14th: 1. Find a shallow bowl or platter in your kitchen or local thrift store. We found our handcrafted bamboo dishes at Ikea in the vase section for $5.99 each! Natural materials are warm and pleasing. 2. Add decomposed granite, sand, or small pebbles, leaving some space at the top to enjoy the texture or finish of the bowl. 3. Cut succulent rosettes of various sizes from your dry garden with 1/4" long stems. The remaining stem can be cut back to just above the ground or to the nearest branch to encourage new rosettes to form. Succulents with red tipped leaves are especially appropriate. One larger rosette (Echeveria or Echeveria relative) as a focal point will anchor the arrangement. Push the cut rosettes slightly into the gravel. 4. Nestle found "heart" rocks into the mix. Have fun searching for these on hiking trails or at the beach. We found lots at Sunset Beach south of Aptos! 5. Finish the composition with sprigs of sedum tucked among the rocks and under the rosettes. Your gift will last indoors unwatered for 4-6 weeks compared to cut flowers that last about a week. The succulents will form roots in the bowl and can be planted in your Valentine's outdoor dry garden in the Spring! |
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March
Create a wabi sabi influenced arrangement... With spring beginning this month, gardeners prune dead leaves and branches and look forward to colorful flowers. Before you cut and toss out your older agave leaves, consider preserving their fading beauty. The combination of budding succulents with a decayed but still strong fibrous leaf subtly echoes the changing season. Echeveria ciliata x nodulosa in our display on top is one of the first to form buds in our garden. It will continue to flower on its own in the agave leaf with only decomposed granite or pebbles to anchor it. If one or two succulent species or hybrids are used, it appears as though they naturally volunteered in the crevices of the leaf. Easy Plant Preservation Technique: 1. Mix 50% white wood glue with 50% water and brush on old agave leaf or bark. Let dry thoroughly overnight. 2. Spray with clear satin or gloss acrylic to seal the glue and bring out the natural color of the plant material. 3. Lightly sand sawn cut edges. Special thanks to Brian Kemble, Hayden Foell, and The Ruth Bancroft Garden for continued inspiration. |
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April
Renew Your "Octopus's Garden in the Shade"... We have a narrow planting area on the side of our home like many families in the Oakland Hills. The upside of this is that the proximity of the house and the fence protect the plants somewhat from winter frosts. The downside is that it is shaded except for about 2 hours of the day. This month is a good time to renew shaded succulent beds after the cold wet days of winter! Here's how we do it: 1. Improve drainage! The pounding rains of March flattened our undersea themed shady bed. We brought in red lava boulders to raise the plants from the soggy soil mix and add drama. Jagged rocks allow for creating natural crevices for planting. We dug up all succulents and mixed in more pumice underneath before replanting. This gave us the chance to take off outer rotting leaves and relocate plants. Finally, we top dressed with red lava in 3/4", 3/16", and sand to improve the overall visual texture and retain water in the dry months to come. 2. Choose the correct plants! Many plants like Aeonium arboreum and various Kalanchoe sp. that look like good undersea bed candidates in sunlight become leggy and awkward in deep shade. We recommend choosing haworthia, gasteria, euphorbia, cold hardy terrestrial bromeliads, and succulent species and hybrids which have a relatively tight form. Vary plant size for interest, and group similar succulents to avoid a spotty look. Click on a picture to see some plants that we have used successfully in the shade. 3. Add interest with natural materials! For our undersea bed, we try to keep our "accessories" limited to seashells, rusted steel and aged brass. Adding too many materials or colors can sometimes take away from the plants. Follow these guidelines and your plants should stay "warm below the storm, in their little hideaway beneath the waves". Thanks, Ringo! |
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May
Catch me in a can!
Capturing rainwater is certainly not a new concept. Americans in desert areas have been doing it for centuries. As rains diminish and we head into our California semi-arid season, here's an idea for a small homemade rain storage system.
Catch me in a can!
Capturing rainwater is certainly not a new concept. Americans in desert areas have been doing it for centuries. As rains diminish and we head into our California semi-arid season, here's an idea for a small homemade rain storage system.
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Why do it?
1. It helps keep our plants healthy! We're hardly environmental purists, but rainwater is slightly acidic and contains both macro and micronutrients that plants love. City water, however, is quite alkaline and contains minerals and chemicals harsher to plants. Succulents fall prey to the worst pests, mealy bugs and mites, primarily when they are stressed. 2. Rainwater is fast and free! We can quickly store more than 160 gallons of non-potable rainwater in one storm from our single rain chain! We choose to water only new plants in the garden and container plants this way. Ground water is usually sufficient for our established plants until late in the dry season when we hand water only plants that need it by hose. 3. Our "system" is simple and inexpensive! Larger and more efficient systems are available, but this inexpensive one fits our needs. The most productive gutter is in our front yard, but we prefer to store our rainwater out of view on the side of the house. Buckets allow us to fill larger containers that don't need to be moved.
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June
Grow river grow! Rain usually stops here in Northern California when June heats up, and our succulents respond with lots of offsetting babies. Why not unify your dry garden bed by planting a "river" of the same species of low succulent or drought tolerant ground cover? Our suggestions: 1. Choose plants for your river based on your light! Good offsetting options for shade include Echeveria elegans, Echeveria agavoides, and Echeveria 'Afterglow', among others. Cut off the babies, let them callous and form roots for one to two weeks in air without water, then plant and fill in to shape your river. Consider Senecio serpens, Mammilaria sp. and Sedum sp. for full sun. 2. Cut those flowers! OK, we all love flowers, but if you cut the flowers as they form on your river succulents, you will get lots of babies fast. 3. Shear the tops of senecios and sedum! The more you cut, the lusher your river will grow back. Pot up cuttings to allow them to root before replanting. Swap that dry creek for a live creek, and watch your garden flow! |
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July
Beat the heat with some of our favorite garden tools! July is hot in California, but if you're a dry gardener, it's also a month when there's plenty to do. Agaves go into bloom and have to be removed, weeds pop up between the rocks, and prickly pears need to be trimmed. Here are seven of our go-to small hand tools from left to right: 1. Double-edged straight Japanese hand saw. With it's wide lightweight blade, this saw cuts wood straight without a miter box. Use it to cut bamboo or make cuts that need little to no sanding afterwards! Look for it at Hida Tool & Hardware in Berkeley or Soko Hardware in San Francisco's Japantown. 2. Japanese curved pruning saw. This is hands-down our favorite tool for pruning dead leaves and branches in tight dangerous places! It's super sharp and cuts fibrous agave leaves and other succulents fast. It can be found at Hida and Soko or online if you live outside the San Francisco Bay Area. 3. Loppers. Get sturdy ones that can cut through tough branches at least 1 1/2" thick. This tool is as essential as your favorite hand pruners. 4. Short handled light-weight shovel. When we take this to garden installations, laborers laugh at its girly cuteness. Half an hour later, we can't pry it away from them! This tool is like a big spade or scoop with the strength of a shovel. Use it for digging, distributing top dressing, or just about anything. 5. Hula ho. The least favorite summer dry garden job has got to be weeding on your hands and knees. You can significantly reduce the number of deep knee bends with this invaluable tool that decapitates weeds under the soil surface with an open blade that leaves your top dressing or mulch pretty much in place. 6. Big cheap aluminum tongs. Grab opuntia pads or anything else in the dry garden that could ruin your day. Ikea has long ones that work fine. 7. The cheapest steak knives around. At about $5 for a dozen at Ikea, these can cut and dig through a lot. The first ones we purchased 10 years ago still work great. They are in every corner of our work areas! From the sublime to the ridiculously cheap, these small tools can make your summer gardening easier! |
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August
Raise your plants! Create a tiered container garden with terra cotta chimney pipes and boulders to keep watering focused on plants that need it. With California native plants and a huge coast live oak sharing space with drought tolerant non-natives in our backyard, it's important to limit watering to only the plants that require summer water. One way we do this is by hand watering only when necessary. Another trick is to raise succulents in containers off the ground on clay pipes and boulders. What we do: 1. We use clay chimney and/or drainage pipes of various diameters that we find at salvage depots, rock yards, or construction material outlets. Then we place round terra cotta bowl pots for the plants in varying depths on top. Mexican and Vietnamese made pots are usually reasonably priced. We also use red lava boulders around and below the pipes to create a natural base. 2. We place the tallest pipes and pots at the back of the tier and gradually taper down in size ending with planted crevices in the boulders. 3. We choose plants with low water needs and different textures for the bowls including succulents, bromeliads, and cascading California natives. 4. Finally, we add natural objects like planted seashells for a fun mix! |
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September
Prune, prune, prune...mulch, mulch...water! 1. Prune! The high priority now in our test garden is pruning leafy plants like California natives, Mediterranean perennials, and Australian proteas. We prune rather heavily not only to encourage fall flowering, but also to improve overall health with increased air circulation through the branches. We usually cut soft stems and spent flower stalks back to old wood. Pruning our leafy plants also gives us a chance to assess which succulents in our garden did well. We divide and replant the strong ones, and pull out and note the ones that didn't thrive. 2. Mulch! To conserve water during the hot fall months and protect roots from both the blazing sun and winter frosts to come, we work in mulch around the base of our plants. For Australian plants, we use nitrolized redwood sawdust for acidity. For succulents and California natives, we use a coconut coir based potting soil. 3. Water! September is usually a HOT month in Northern California. Watering once every week or two continues to be important until later in the month when daylight hours are shorter and plants need to start hardening off. We should start reducing water to allow plants to slowly go into dormancy so that they can survive any frosts that may occur during our increasingly unpredictable winters. Our Banksia marginata after September pruning! |
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October
To Keep the Runoff...in Your Yard... We Have a Plan...That's not too Hard...Berm-a-Slope! If you have a steep area on your property that needs soil retention before the winter rains, here's a simple drought tolerant fix: 1. Create a dry stacked retaining wall and berm that is angled for succulent plantings. We constructed ours in one day with lightweight red lava boulders varying in size for a natural look. 2. Backfill between the boulders as you lay them, and add enough soil at the upslope side of the top to create a level area for a pathway or patio. Use small stone aggregate or pumice mixed with potting soil for drainage that will be good for plants and also slow runoff. 3. Allow enough room at the top of your backfill for 1-2" of sand if you want to lay flagstone or other paving material. Place the flagstone and fill in between the gaps with the backfill mix, sand or aggregate. We used gold decomposed granite path fines to contrast with the boulders. 4. Plant with succulents and drought tolerant species between the boulders. 5. Top dress the plantings with aggregate or decomposed granite to hold in the plants and hide the soil mix. Thanks to Route 66 and Burma Shave! |
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As we head into the Holidays, decorating with dry loving plants becomes a favorite pastime. We were first smitten by the beauty of the jelly palm seed sheaths while studying plants at The Ruth Bancroft Garden. Over the years we developed ways to use them as "boat" bases for live plant arrangements and happily share our steps for creating them here:
1. Harvest the seed sheath in the late summer or early fall before the rains begin. Use a fine toothed pruning saw. Sand the sheath tip and edges well. Sand the front and back body lightly taking care not to sand off the natural color. 2. Create short feet for the boat from a solid hardwood dowel. We whittle the tip of the dowel first, then cut a ±1.5" length, then whittle the next foot until all are cut. Use (3) feet per boat, attaching the front feet first so you can test the location of the back foot to make sure the boat is level. Sand a depression in the sheath bottom for each foot, and anchor them with wood glue or epoxy. 3. Finish the boat and feet with oil based varathane or varnish. The sheath should be as waterproof as possible, so the strongest finish would be 3 light coats of marine varnish. 4. Prepare any natural dried plant materials. Drill seeds and small items, and glue in bamboo pics for easy insertion into the arrangement. Bundle dried flowers and branches with small rubber bands or twine. 5. Insert the dried material into the bottom layers of coconut coir. Cut wedges of coir from sheet material or basket liners that are about the width of the sheath. Sew bundles in tightly with heavy duty matching thread and a sturdy large needle. Create pockets for live plants with stitches of thread across the coir. 6. Sew the live plants into coir pockets. Add bits of coir as necessary to cover roots and carefully sew into pockets to hold into position. 7. Attach removable arrangement to sheath boat. (3) Bands of threads wrap around the top and bottom of the boat and secure the arrangement for transport. 8. Water once per week gently with a spray bottle. Direct the sprayed water into the center of each live plant. Show in bright indirect daylight. |
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December
A final riff on sewing with succulents... Got a crack in a wall, space at the bottom of a fence, tree stump hole, or any other crevice that you would like to fill and beautify? "Sandbag" it with a homemade succulent pouch: 1. On cut pieces of burlap, place a soil mix of 50-75% horticultural pumice and 50-25% potting soil. 2. Fold and sew the burlap into a shape that fits your crevice with a heavy duty needle and matching thread, leaving gaps in between stitches for planting. 3. Stuff into your opening and plant with a combination of succulent rosettes like Graptopetalum sp. and Echeveria agavoides cuttings, sedum, aeonium, and CA native rooted ground cover cuttings like Yerba Buena (Satureja douglasii). The drought tolerant plants will eventually grow and fill in to hide the burlap and continue to root into the crevice (see bottom photo taken a year later). This technique can be used to make any biodegradable planting container with a minimal investment. We fixed a hole where the rain came in....but our minds are still wandering :) |
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