Backyard desert garden design concept and Turf Removal Program!

Summer in the Valley has been reaching temperatures near and over 100 degrees easily for several weeks in a row.

I haven't blogged for a while because I'm a one man army weeding, pruning our crazy fast growing creeping fig.  I had two Bonsai teachers tell me that bonsai can take full sun no problem but they are wrong.  Not in my yard.  My backyard gets FULL sun, and like most normal people, I'm not around to water my trees three times a day.  All of the nurseries I visited are covered around the borders with tall shade trees.  Most of the plants are under 50% shade cloth or planted in the ground.

In FULL sun?  Bonsais burn like vampires in the sunlight.  My shimpaku juniper has been watered every day and the tips are super brown from burning.  The fig bonsai trunks are like burnt toast.  Even some of the cacti are getting a little yellow on top.  I recently got into collecting some aloes and so far none of them can take full sun.  I had to move things around so that they wouldn't burn.

Southern California has a turf removal program where the city will pay you $1 or more per square foot of turf removal to save water.  Info and application is here:

http://www.socalwatersmart.com/qualifyingproducts/turfremoval 

This is important because you can get up to $3,000 worth of rebate for removing your turf!

So here were my plans so far for the backyard desert garden design.  Funny how my first idea was to build a Japanese garden.

Ignore the random looking plant list.  That will change all over the place since building this design will take me a long period of time.  There are five main areas.  The left side is our north wall, the top is our east wall.  I'm using Japanese garden aesthetics and keeping the design as simple as possible.

1 - There are three planting islands that I plan to top with decomposed granite.  Four scoops of it altogether should cover both large islands for a total of about $200 for materials.  Those areas are colored yellow above.
2 - The terracotta colored area will be acid stained concrete slab.
3 - The gray area will have a simple pergola with a flat corrugated polycarbonate 50% gray roof to protect some bonsai and more fragile succulents
4 - The blue area represents decorative gravel approximately 35' x 35'.  probably 3/8" sized in a cool neutral to represent water, 2" deep, which is 7 tons of material.  For crushed sm. pea gravel, the cost is $540 from a local supplier including delivery.
5 - The dark brown area represents a border that will be mulched and planted with traditional landscape plants and trees; juniper, pine, bougainvillea, camelia shrubs, and the likes.

Here's what our yard currently looks like.  It's a mix between Japanese and desert garden.  I would say 25% Japanese, and 75% desert garden.

To the north east corner is our mature avocado tree.  The rest of the yard is in FULL sun.  You can't see it but I have a tiny silk floss tree in the middle towards the east wall.  Close to the south wall is a beautiful palo verde.

This is a close-up of the Palo Verde flower.  This tree can take the heat like no other.  Super nice!  :)  I bought one for the front yard and one for the backyard.

We chose the sample on the top left.  Looks pretty dull and boring dry, but nice when it's wet.  Our second choice which is also really nice is the top right sample that looks like yellow corn kernels.  The reason for the cool grey color is that it's a bit darker so it will reflect less sunlight into our house, and it will be a nice contrast to the yellow planting islands that will be covered in decomposed granite which is pretty yellow.  Either way, they both would look great.

Wet gravel looks more saturated in colors.  The cool grey one has a more subdued beauty that you would have to get close to appreciate.  It's nice to use these kinds of materials to "invite" people to come out and take their time to enjoy the details.

I'm not exactly sure what I'm planting specifically, but I am gathering some nice material.  Some of it has been donated by good friends I made along the way of this xeriscaping journey.  This is a sneak peak of what I got so far.

Nothing crazy or rare; just a nice big piece of apple cactus and common jade.  I'm a firm believer in growing what you have success with.  People often plant jade as a low maintenance shrub and neglect it.  It's no wonder it turns into an ugly plant that grew randomly.  There are several kinds of jade that are very nice such as sunset jade, and Portulacaria afra (small leaf jade or elephant bush).  They make excellent succulent bonsai subjects.  Why not put use them in a landscape and train them like Niwaki?  Niwaki are basically like Bonsai, but planted in the ground instead of in a pot.  Unlike the front yard project, I think the backyard will take me several years to complete.

Theodore Payne Foundation nursery

We went to the Theodore Payne Foundation on Saturday and it was very nice.  Theodore Payne was an English horticulturist from London who fell in love with California natives around the mid 1890's and dedicated his life to preserving them.  His nursery started out in Downtown Los Angeles and moved around several times before its current location in Sun Valley.  The staff was very helpful to answer questions and show me where to find plants.  They even offered me a planting guide and asked me where I live and how I plan to use the plants.  The nursery was very clean and organized.  The plants were separated by plant communities such as riparian (streamside) or desert, and very well labelled which makes life a lot easier.  There was a nice little clearance section with a couple of gems left.

A couple of years ago I fell in love with the Japanese dry garden and really wanted to build one in our backyard.  However with the Southern California heat, the water bill would be ridiculous.  My plan B for the backyard was creating a garden with California natives mixed with my collection of succulents, cacti, and other desert plant material.  Our backyard is still in the very beginning stages of development so I bought a few California natives to begin building a foundation to work with.

On the left side of the photo is the Desert Willow (Chilopsis linearis) planted into the ground on nursery grounds.

This is the desert willow flower.  It's pink on the outside and dark magenta on the inside.  The bell shaped flowers are fragrant and apparently blooms from April through August!

I bought a 1 gallon parajo (paradise) manzanita, scarlet monkey flowers (mimulus cardinalis), 1 gallon desert willow (Chilopsis linearis), 1 gallon Howard McMinn Manzanita, 1 gallon Coast Live Oak to add to my bonsai growing collection, a small packet of California poppy seeds, and a nice brown rectangular pot.  The Mimulus Cardinalis is a herbaceous perennial, which means that it will die down to the ground during dormancy but parts of it will survive underground and it will grow back when growing season returns.

I wanted to get the Big berry Glauca Manzanita (Arctostaphylos glauca) because they look spectacular in the ground, but they were out of stock.  You can make jam with the berries.  I will have to come back for that guy.

One of these days when I have the time and money, I will have to build one of these potting stations.  Seems like a nice shady place you can sit down and relax during an afternoon after working on some plants.

This nursery has some serious native gardening courses.  They have a book store, potting station, and also sell pots, gravel, and soil.  It is a very well rounded nursery with a hiking trail and example gardens of the plants grown in the ground.

I was inspecting some native drought tolerant grasses that you don't have to mow, and a ferocactus that was not for sale, but first things first; establish a foundation to create some shade and a general plan for how the garden will be used.  The drought tolerant grass goes dormant in the summer and comes back when the temperatures cool down.

A few good reasons why we should build native gardens are to save water because they establish after one or two years and are fully drought tolerant.  The plants support local bees, butterflies, and birds.  They are easier to care for because you don't have to fertilize, amend soil, or use fungicide or any other chemicals.  Lastly, they are quite beautiful plants and we have a huge variety to suit our tastes.

If you live in the near area, I highly recommend you visit this nursery.  They also have an uphill hiking trail behind the nursery which gives hikers a lovely view of native flowers. We didn't get to walk the trail, but we will visit again and take more photos in the future!

For more info please visit their webpage link below:

Theodore Payne Foundation

Grigsby Cactus Gardens review

Grigsby Cactus Gardens is located in Vista, California.  This is my favorite place to buy desert plants.  The prices are very affordable and you can get stuff that you will never find at Home Depot. The staff is friendly and helpful.

They plant stuff into the ground at this nursery!

Cyphostemma Juttae (Desert Grape)

No you can't eat these grapes!

There is a "cash and carry" section where you can buy big established specimens (in a pot) for a very good price.

This is one scaly plant.

Golden barrel with cleistocactus in the back.

Two dragon's blood trees.  These are one of my favorite trees and are probably really old.

This looks like a shrub at first but it's actually large clumps of Euphorbia Resinifera.

Bottled palm (beaucarnea recurvata) planted in the ground.  These caudiciforms (fat plants) have an awesome trunk that retains a lot of water.

This is a growing area.  There are a lot of growing areas actually, so you can't always buy everything that you see.  I'm not certain what they are saving it for.  Nevertheless, your selection is still very large.

Desert bonsai materials are very attractive for those of us who want to water less.

Then there are small plants you just can't resist because they are so unique!

We call this the brain cactus.

These spines look like stars.

How can you say no to a cactus with a red cap?

 This one is a show stopper with it's dense and compact spines and bright red color.

This one has nice leaves.

My wife said one of these totem poles looks like kermit the frog.

This mamillaria has a perfect crown of flowers!

This photo shows you how much pumice you need to use for desert plants soil mix.  Lots!  I would guess 60-70% pumice, with 30-40% cactus mix.  Their webpage is very simple but you can buy plants online and they will be happy to ship it to you.  I love this nursery for acquiring great plant material.  :)

http://cactus-mall.com/grigsby/

Rainforest Flora Inc. nursery review

My wife and I went to an awesome nursery that specializes in Tillandsia and Bromeliads in Torrance, CA. last weekend.

A common name for Tillandsia is "air plants" because they do not need to be embedded in soil. They absorb moisture and nutrients through their leaves and can have beautiful blooms.  You can wire them to a ball wire form and eventually they will grow around it.

My favorite ones are reddish with purple flowers.

This nursery has very beautiful displays and two huge rock boulders that a lot of their airplants are attached to.

They also have a very nice koi pond, and waterfall features.

The arrangement of these plants on deadwood creates a great color and texture contrast that is very pleasing to look at.

This topiary ball consists of Spanish Moss hanging from the top with Tillandsias on the bottom.  These plants can be glued and or wired onto the wire forms or deadwood without harming the plant.

They also carry some exotic tropical plants and a few succulents.

There is a large area where they farm these plants.  The plants that are on sale are clearly labelled with the plant name and description of their flowers and characteristics.

This is an awesome topiary ball with a color gradation due to sun exposure.  The plants that get more sun turn more reddish.

This is one of the island boulders standing in the giant koi pond in the middle of their greenhouse.

Being in this nursery makes you feel like you're in a tropical location of the world, and not California.  However, Tillandsias are drought resistant.  You can place them in a terrarium and mist them once a week.  They prefer 70% bright light.  Not scorching afternoon direct sunlight, and not shade either.  I think this is a very agreeable condition for California gardens.

Eileen took a great close up shot of one of the flowers.  I couldn't help but buy a few to add to a our collection that started when my aunt gave me a cluster last year along with some Spanish Moss.  They are all in good health and are about to bloom soon.  The staff was friendly and helpful.  They sell deadwood, and small glass globes to house the plants.   I only wish that they would stock more of a variety of terrariums for display and arrangements.  I would definitely revisit this nursery and recommend that you do too if you are in the area.  If you are not in the area, you can visit their website which is also really nice to learn more and buy some plants.

http://www.rainforestflora.com/

Vertical Succulent Frame - Hanging it up! pt 3

This project was started in October of 2011.  The vertical succulent frames are finally ready to hang. Below are some photos of how I arranged our frames in our courtyard. The stark white frame color contrasts well against the warm grey color of the wall.

Below the frames, I placed a plant bench that I made and placed a few of our potted succulents for display. Enjoy!!

The frame I talked about in my two previous posts now hangs on the left. The one on the right is one my wife designed.

I drilled a piece of cement board to the back of the frame on the left. The frame on the right holds the cement board in a "rabbit" groove I created with a router. See my previous vertical succulent frame posts for details.

A wider view...

Vertical Succulent Frame #1

Vertical Succulent Frame #2

Between the frames on the table, we have an awesome wooden fish planter. Inside I am trying to recreate an aquatic theme in the arrangement. The plant in the red pot inside the fish is called Faucaria Tigrina or "Tiger's Jaws." Behind it are "Sticks on Fire." Next to it is a large seashell arrangement given to my wife as a birthday gift. Inside the seashell, the tall red plant is called, stapelia.

In the largest pot on the left, we have sempervivum tectorums.

This plant came to me from my aunt. It is called Ledebouria socialis.  I repotted it into this bonsai tray and covered the soil with crushed red volcanic rock.

This round orange pot holds a single Echeveria Afterglow. The soil topping is California gold gravel with Ogon succulent ground cover.  I placed a round stone in the pot on the right side to create a subtle contrast.

Our courtyard is a cozy hang-out now! For the floor, I'm considering using a warm earth-toned concrete paint to finish it off in the future.

Thanks for reading and for sticking with these updates! :)

For more information on how to make your own:

DIY Tutorial: Succulent Frame for Vertical Display!

http://xeriscapeninjas.blogspot.com/2011/10/succulent-frame-for-verticle-display.html

Vertical Succulent Frame DIY Tutorial part 2

http://xeriscapeninjas.blogspot.com/2011/10/vertical-succulent-frame-diy-tutorial.html

 Our second vertical succulent frame design

http://xeriscapeninjas.blogspot.com/2012/02/succulent-frame-for-vertical-gardening.html