5 things to help your landscape survive the summer

 

School is out and summer hot weather has arrived.  with such extreme conditions in summer, what can you do to help your landscape survive and come out healthy in the fall?  Here are 5 things to help your home garden through the summer:

1.       Check your sprinkler system to make sure your programming is compliant and run a sprinkler test to make sure you don’t have any broken heads or lines.  My sprinklers usually run around 3am and I am definitely not out there checking for geysers shooting up from a broken head.  But this can be a common occurrence from lawn mower damage or just system aging.  So choose a day, tell your kids to put on their swimsuits, and have an old-fashioned sprinkler run for the kids while you check to make sure the heads are all operating and facing the right direction. 

2.       Water deeply and infrequently.  Why?  Watering in this fashion encourages plants to develop deep, long roots which can access moisture away from the surface of the soil where it is less likely to have evaporated.  You want to wet your garden or lawn to a depth of 6”.  This usually means adding about 1” of water per week.  How can you measure to see how long you should water to add 1”?  Set out a few straight sided tuna-type cans in an area and turn on your sprinklers for 10 minutes.  Measure the height of the water in the cans and take an average.  Then divide 10 by your average reading.  This will tell you how many minutes it will take you to get 1” of water out of your sprinklers. 

3.       Irrigate when the water is least likely to evaporate before soaking in. Get the most from your system by sticking to the cool early morning hours between 3am and 9am.  Watering at night can promote disease because of the prolonged wet conditions.

4.       Mulch any bare soil in your garden.  Mulching helps reduce moisture evaporation from soil as well as reduces temperature fluctuation for plants. It also reduces the possibility for soil to develop that hard-packed top layer that seems to thwart attempts at getting any shovel into it.  And ultimately, mulches decompose to add organic matter into your garden soil.  So count that as a double incentive to add mulch to your garden.  You can choose from a variety of mulches- hardwood mulch, pine straw, leaves or even sawdust (not from treated lumber, please!)   

5.       Install drip irrigation in appropriate areas.  No, lawns will never be the best place for drip irrigation. But what about some garden beds where you can convert some of the sprinkler heads into drip or micro-sprinklers?  These allow you to place water right where your plants need it and virtually eliminate water evaporation. There are lots of online guides on how to make this conversion.

Don't Miss Inside Austin Gardens Tour 2011- May 14th

Today, the Austin Garden Bloggers were treated to a pre-tour showing of 4 of the gardens on the Inside Austin Gardens Tour, presented by the Travis County Master Gardeners.  Every time I do one of these tours, I am amazed with how inspiring looking at other gardens can be.  Even if they are not my style (that is, if I know what my style is) there are always things I take away to incorporate into my gardening, even if just a thought.  Each garden was so different, yet they had all not only defied what the "normal" is in their neighborhood, but had also inspired a few neighbors on their street to take a step in creating more waterwise gardening approaches.

Here are some thoughts that I took away from the gardens:
NEVER TAKE YOUR GARDEN TOO SERIOUSLY

Rebecca Matthews did a beautiful job of exuding fun in her garden.  From the knitted covers for trees and rocks to the chandelier to the fountains.  I am most definitely going to use her letter wall as inspiration for a letter wall for each of my kids.  Her watering can fountain was amazing and squeezed into the walkway going into her backyard.  Surprises around every corner.
Sue Nazar has a big concrete fish that I adore.  It is so understated that you can walk right by and not notice, like I did, but when you see it, it is just perfect in that spot and you can't take your eyes off it.

YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY PLANTS
  I have to hit myself everytime I go to a nursery and just keep repeating this phrase.  Because I see something I like and I buy...one.  One little plant.  That then sits where it is placed and just looks lonely.  I walk through Sue Nazar's garden and just love how crowded and lush it appears.  And weeding?  Good luck weeds if you can find space to come up in all that foliage.


YOU NEVER KNOW WHERE YOU MIGHT FIND YOUR NEXT GARDEN PIECE


Link Davidson, the Master Gardener who designed Wendy Brennan's garden, is the master of this approach.  I told Link I want to be his sidekick on the next Big Trash Pickup Day just to watch him in action.  From the air conditioning screens creating a beautiful open wall to the cut sidewalk pieces to the bright red hydraulic press (that is the perfect color, Link!), amazing!



DON'T BE AFRAID OF COLOR
I saw this idea in more than one garden, but Sue Nazar's little cottage in the backyard was a perfect example. She had a beautiful red pot just downhill that showed off well in the same red.



FIND WAYS TO ROLL WITH THE CLIMATE YOU HAVE BEEN DEALT

When we visited Sheryl Williams' garden, we all stood in the front yard and talked and talked and talked about her front yard. Sheryl removed all of her lawn and installed an area of Texas Sedge.  This picture does not do justice to the beauty of the sedges and the movement of their seed heads back and forth.  Drought tolerant, striking, and deer resistant.  The triple crown for me.


SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT THAT YOU CANNOT CONTROL EVERYTHING
Sue Nazar found this out the hard way when the Vitex that she had cut and decked over decided it didn't want to be vanquished from her garden.  So it just found a way through the deck boards.  Sue has accepted its presence with frequent cuttings and it just keeps growing happily.

Thank you to all of the garden owners for sharing their gardens with us. I encourage you to take the tour this Saturday, May 14th.  Gardens open from 9am-4pm and you can purchase a $10 ticket that admits you to all of the gardens on the tour- amazing price.  Tickets can be bought at each garden location.  More info at Inside Austin Gardens Tour

Here we go...up and up!

  Macho Mocha...you can't get a much better name for a plant than that.  It just rolls off the tongue and makes me feel like I'm listening to the guy in the Old Spice commercials with that deep voice.  This 'Macho Mocha' Mangave has been moved around my garden quite a bit- probably four times before it found it's latest home in the full full full sun bed- did I mention it gets lots of sun?  Anyway, frost damage from Old Man Winter led to a little leaf trimming from me.  It promptly responded by sending up a spike.  Here it is just starting out.









And it just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Here's the top of it as it was growing.

A gorgeous plant whether it is blooming or not.  I personally love the purple "freckles" on it. 



Finally, at about 11 feet tall, it started to bloom.  Nothing like the yuccas with their white petals.  Everything is about fine details with this plant, from it's purple speckles on the leaves to the filaments that come out on the bloom spike.