Tag Archives: Gardening

Rain Gardens on the Treasure Coast

We have a local environmental blogger here on the Treasure Coast who posted  about Rain Gardens and inspired this.

I have been designing Rain Gardens for about 10 years. It is a great idea for the environment, but aesthetically it is difficult to cope with the fact that unless carefully planned it looks like a big drainage ditch in your front yard. Not a good look.

I decided to put some Rain Gardens around our house after discovering that the areas right around the house were not irrigated and the house had no gutters so the rain collected on the ground around the house and was not really concentrated by gutters into 4 or 5 spots.

The lack of gutters on the roof is relatively common here, this is new to me. I am not quite sure why – maybe Hurricanes blow them off. Anyway, we bought the house without gutters and I always, always hated dealing with getting the gutters cleaned, etc. on our house in Atlanta. I was happy not to have gutters.

Then it rained, like seven inches. Wow, there were pits in the areas under the valleys of the roof where the water came off the roof. Luckily the yard was so gruesome there was no question about redoing the driveway and landscaping. And we live on a Sugar Sand Dune, highly pervious no water stands anywhere. A big ditch was not really necessary.

My father taught Geology at Emory University. He passed on and I inherited his love of rocks, but in a more decorative way. I love stone, boulders and natural materials incorporated into the garden. I brought his rocks to Florida and planned to use them in my gardens. In Florida, I have added seashells and cap rocks in an effort to be more sustainable by using locally available material.

My Rain Gardens are in my front yard in a planter:

Rocks for Splashing

Rocks for Splashing

The valley of the roof drains onto these rocks, the rocks break the speed of water and then it splashes on down the Egg Rock, waters my plants and drains back into the sand. This planter is not irrigated, a bit of a sin in South Florida – it is maintained for the most part by rain. I occasionally water the Plumeria in  winter. The plants are placed out from under the edge of the roof  so they get watered and not beaten by a big rainstorm.

Rain Garden Planter

Rain Garden Planter

This is the whole garden. A Bridal Veil Plumeria is centered on the house flanked by Lemon Blanchiata Bromeliads then FlapJack plants. A Pencil Cactus anchors the corner. The plant selection is mostly succulents or low water tolerant plants. I had to have the Plumeria for aesthetic reasons and suffer through the watering.

Rockcentric Rain Garden

Rockcentric Rain Garden

This is my other Rain Garden. Again the water comes off the corner valley and lands on the large sized Egg Rock and flows over the Black Mexican Pebbles and drains to the driveway. The driveway is made from pervious shell and drains onto a turf area with a french drain beneath it.

The Rocks are from my father’s collection and one piece of coral rock from Jensen Beach. Plants are newly planted -a Tibouchina and a Leafless Bird of Paradise. I am watering these plants to establish them.

Spider Lilies – Hymenocallis latifolia

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There was this clump of what I thought was overcrowded Amaryllis in a planter in my front yard that the landscaper dug up for me. The bulbs were so crammed in I couldn’t dig them out. So after Jon gave me a bucket full of bulbs, I separated them and spaced them out at 2′ on center in the front of a long bed in my backyard sometime last summer. There are probably at least 50 of these now.

I have been waiting for two years to see what kind of Amaryllis I had found in my front yard; come to find out it is not an Amaryllis at all! This spring I kept going out to check because I was waiting for a gigantic mass of color from the Amaryllis. Then June came around and I decided maybe the bulbs hadn’t been in the ground long enough. When I spotted this flower in my backyard, I recognized the genus from having Peruvian Daffodils in Atlanta. They were not quite cold hardy there, but similar to this with a creamy yellow color. Not quite sure what I had blooming, research was started on the plant, I found that this is a Florida native hardy in Zone 10 and 11. The advice was given to plant a single bulb 3 or even 5 feet apart so the clump would grow together. The next bit of advice I encountered was that the Dreaded Lubber Grasshoppers loved to eat them:

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The Lubber was dispatched shortly after the picture was taken – 5 of his friends had been in the Lilies before and had eaten the first flowers..I may be having a Spider Lily sale soon as I planted at least twice as many as I should have.

The Sustainable Garden: Perennial Thoughts

I perennially have thoughts about flowers. In terms of sustainability I am not sure the native ones are always best. Many of the natives are simply weeds with attractive flowers or characteristics we like. I have a deep respect for Black Eyed Susan from a previous experience – as in being nearly overrun by them. I used to live in their native habitat and had bought some “improved” Goldstrum Variety and they bolted back to their native selves and then ran amok on a well drained sunny hill. A recipe for landscape disaster. As beautiful as they were in full bloom, it took a long time to get rid of the Black Eyed Susans. I could not cope with their joyful abundance anymore. So easy on the natives and seek those that do well in your climate without too much water and too much abundance. Easier to take care of and maintain.

In South Florida irrigation is a big deal. We have a rainy season and a dry season. While there are many native plants this is a tropical climate and some of them can go wild. I have found some escaped houseplants in my yard going wild. Mother in Laws tongues is an invasive species. Many plants commonly grown here will not survive without irrigation. I chose not to irrigate my entire yard to save water and to save my sanity. The areas in lawn and vegetables are irrigated; areas with lower water perennials are drip irrigated and I have some unirrigated low maintenance areas that I still want to plant with beautiful perennials. I am just looking at things a bit differently. So, I am paying close attention to who I am inviting to live in my garden.

Beach Sunflower

The Beach Sunflower from Wikipedia

I am about to plant some Beach Sunflower in an unirrigated portion of my garden, I live on a sand hill and these are native to our area – I believe if I planted them in an irrigated area I would be overrun in short order. So, it is time for some more garden experimentation. The Beach Sunflower is going to look great with the existing Blue Agave, Red Martin Bromeliad and Painted Fingernail Bromeliad. Eventually providing shade is a native Gumbo Limbo tree; if that doesn’t get you in the mood for a Margarita nothing will. All these plants are extremely drought tolerant and will survive without regular irrigation. The Gumbo Limbo and Beach Sunflower are native, the Blue Agave is from Mexico, and the Martin and Painted Fingernail Bromeliads are Neoregelia type Bromeliads that originated in South America.

Painted Fingernail Bromeliad

Painted Fingernail Bromeliad

 

Martin Bromeliad

Martin Bromeliad

Blue Agave

Blue Agave

It seems strange to me that Bromeliads, in my mind a rainforest plant, would thrive in the sun with little supplemental water, but they do. The Painted Fingernail Bromeliad is a passalong plant around here and I have seen large masses of it planted around mailboxes on the side of the road. A great example of a not native plant working in a sustainable way. The result of my selection of plant material is an evergreen perennial bed that blooms or provides year round color while being very drought tolerant and using very little fertilizer or maintenance.

Sustainability is about more than native plants – it is about selecting the right plants.

 

 

 

The Sustainable Garden: Lawn Thoughts

 

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The View Over my Septic Tank

Lawn thoughts:

I am as guilty as many on lack of sustainability. In regards to the lawn it is guilt by association. My husband feels that his masculinity is at stake if there is not a perfect sweep of golfable, manicured lawn in front of our house. From a design standpoint, there are few things that set off flowering plants of any kind better than lawn. I think it goes back to England, where beautiful green turf is a natural component. The English have an abundance of rain and a more natural habitat for lawn. They even play tennis on it!

While I am clearly a WASP American mutt; most of my DNA originated in the British Isles. Perhaps I have a genetic predisposition to turf grass? My suspicion is this is more nurture than nature. Neither of my parents cared what the lawn was as long as it was cut. Clover, Bermuda,  fine.. whatever. I would be surprised if my father knew what type of grass grew in our area. My mother referred to it as Southern Groundcover; which is really clipped Red Clover with a little rabbit tobacco. I attended a Landscape Architecture program 30 years ago when a sweeping lawn was a requirement. To my knowledge over use of chemicals and pesticides was a small concern. Silent Spring had been published but the lawn as a design element was more important.

It became clear over the years that Americans still love their lawns (myself included). Lawns are the biggest user of water and chemicals in our landscapes. Perhaps it is time to moderate our usage of lawn by using the most drought tolerant turf in your area. There are many types of drought tolerant, warm season grasses that thrive throughout our country.

In the desert, I do agree that lawns should not be used. However, substituting Bermuda for Fescue in many areas is the right thing to do. Yes, it turns brown in the winter, but it requires less mowing, less water and less chemicals. And you can have a smaller lawn and select a type that can go dormant with drought and still survive. For example, Bahia grass versus St. Augustine. The Bahia can turn brown in times of drought and come back with rain. Once St. Augustine is brown, it is history.

Lawn Chemicals:

Atrazine is one of the most commonly used herbicides in the world. Banned by the European Union about 10 years ago. It is in groundwater almost everywhere. We have got to stop using this stuff. The only more common herbicide is RoundUp. And nobody really knows how long that stays around in the environment.

Non toxic weedkillers and pesticides work, use these instead. I have used nothing toxic on my husbands golf hole in the front yard and it is the only lawn in our neighborhood without Dollar Weed in it. I have a Dollar Weed phobia, if I see one leaf I mix a batch of vinegar weedkiller and apply with a paintbrush. The Dollar Weed is satisfyingly dead.

So, use the lawn, just cut back on the size and chemical

The damn thing is it looks great. And it lives over the septic tank. Nothing toxic has been applied.

The Dreaded Lubber Grasshopper

 

Lubber on a Cross Tie

Lubber on a Cross Tie

 

Here is another joy of living on the peninsula known as Florida. The Lubber Grasshoppers. The first one of these I saw was another one of those “What the hell is that?” moments. Grasshoppers, in my experience were about maybe 3″ long. These things are biblical plague sized and seemingly armored with orange and yellow warpaint as well. Scary looking and they can eat an astonishing number of holes in your favorite plants to boot.

Eventually, even if you hate to, you will squish these things. I was walking my spotted hound, Charles, the other night and one of my neighbors was throwing things in the shrubbery whilst loudly apologizing to God. I knew what she was doing immediately. Squashing Lubbers, the crunch gives it away. Another neighbor’s theory is that karma gets you instantly when you squish one of the grasshoppers because of the smell they exude when crushed.

My curiosity aroused, I checked into this. It seems Lubbers have a gland that exudes a toxin that is poisonous to most things that might eat them. One bird, a Loggerhead Shrike, bites their heads off, (the poison is in the middle) impales them on something thorny or a fence, lets the poison dry out and then eats the grasshopper. This explained the decapitated grasshopper I found in my Pygmy Date Palm. Unfortunately, the bird never came back to finish his or her lunch.

To the misfortune of my Heliconias the Lubbers have found them apparently Heliconia leaves are a gourmet treat. When I first read about these bugs it was recommended to drown them in a bucket of soapy water. I tried that, but it seemed unnecessarily cruel and I ended up with a bucket of dead, soapy grasshoppers that I had to figure out what to do with. Ugh. A better solution is an old pair of tongs, crunch and throw them in the bushes. Maybe a Shrike will find them.

 

American Rustic

Extreme Low Maintenance Container Soap Aloe and Sedum

Extreme Low Maintenance Container
Soap Aloe and Sedum

Is there a new style of gardening emerging in America?

I think so.

Based on what we have learned over the past forty years, our style and outlook on gardening are changing.

During the 1970’s, Oehme van Sweden, Landscape Architects in Washington, D.C. pioneered ‘The New American Garden’. Their gardens featured perennial grasses in large sweeps and largely ignored lawns. These guys were the original purveyors of the Miscanthus craze that continues to this day. I had Miscanthus strictus in my yard for about three years, as a striking accent plant it worked until it got big and flopped over; this grass once flopped was 10 feet around and not very striking. Unlike my southern mother, I am not a plant staker. Plants have to stand on their own in my garden or they asked to leave. Unceremoniously.

The term Xeriscaping was coined in the early 1980’s by a guy in Colorado. Since then the idea has caught on and is utilized in the United States and around the world. Permaculture is an Australian idea that expands and encourages permanent culture of the earth in the most sustainable ways. Basically the idea of Xeriscape is grouping plants by their watering and maintenance needs and only watering when necessary instead of just dousing everything. In permaculture the further away from the house you get, the less intensive the maintenance of the landscape. Intensively planted vegetable gardens near the house that fade away into the forest zone by zone. Of course, this is an oversimplification of both concepts.

While I appreciate the validity of both schools of thought, the difficulty begins with the fact that all this has to be figured out, zoned, designed and then implemented. I have yet to meet anyone who paid me to do a Master Landscape Plan for their house that did not change their mind about something.  Usually a significant something. Rare is the person who can make a plan, zone everything for water and maintenance and stick with the program. I certainly can’t. The older I get , the more I enjoy hardscape.

People seem to enjoy taking small bites of sustainability. A Rain Garden in a low spot in the yard. Using pervious gravel or mulch for pathways. Planting native plant material. Cutting out toxic pesticides and herbicides.

I have read of eco lawns becoming popular in the Western United States. This intrigued me until I saw what it was. More of the Wildflower Meadow romanticism that has been floating around for 30 years. I think Old fields look great weeds and all. However, I don’t want one in front of my house. I suspect the majority of gardeners like to have some lawn. I have a lawn, purposely sited over the septic tank. It does so well, we are afraid to fertilize it. It might overrun the house late at night.

Now there is talk of what is the Modern Garden. I am not sure Modern is the right word. Modern coming after New. It is all the same. Soon it will be the updated Modern Garden. All I (we?) really want is something we can plant and enjoy that is not too much work or a waste of resources! It seems like such a simple idea ? Here are some ideas to reach this goal:

Plant reliable, drought tolerant, non invasive perennials. In small doses.

Focus on natives with a soft lens. Some are great. Some are weeds. Do some research; plant the good ones.

Quit using Glyphosphate and anything with Atrazine in it. It is already in our groundwater and nobody knows how long it takes for the earth to metabolize it. Stop adding it. Non toxic weed killers and pesticides work. If you have a few bugs or weeds – get over it.

Support your local gardening community by planting seasonal containers, they are different everywhere. A pop of color near your favorite walkway is a pick me up every time you pass by. I like succulents for the summer.  My size limit is a 15″ wide container, if it is smaller, it takes too much maintenance, (watering). Buy a big pot, go to the local nursery, buy some flowers and hope for good advice. Embrace local..add some tropicals in the summer. Floridian growers need support too.

Use the most drought tolerant turfgrass possible. If it turns brown in winter, so be it. If there are a few weeds in it, so be it. The Golden Bear does not live at my house, I think he is retired..

I think people get overexcited about irrigation. I have never had separate zones because I am really frugal with water. The lawn has to need it badly before the water comes on, if I have a new  tree it gets a gator bag (this is a bag that can be filled with water, the water slowly leaks out onto the tree providing a few days worth of water). Irrigation does not abdicate anyone of the responsibility of paying attention. It will not establish anything but turf unless everything is wastefully watered.

I think the New Modern American Gardening Style is Rustic. The Rustic Style includes: Being mindful of water and its use, ceasing the use of toxic chemicals, a little brown and a few weeds are OK. Always have a nice container planting where it will be enjoyed. Add hardscape where you would like to hang out and relax, it is really less maintenance.

I think it was the Landscape Architect Dan Franklin, who said: “You should be able to take care of your garden in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee in the morning or a glass of wine in the evening” I am striving for that.