now flourishing
Today's topic, smart gardening, isn't easy to draw, so we'll start with a selection of modern delights from my garden. These are widely known plants as well as an attractive new addition discovered at the UCSC Arboretum.
Top 10 Smart Garden Care Tips
This approach is inspired by lists of other ways to save time or money in the garden that you may have seen. While these are always attractive goals, our focus is on using your time and money effectively and efficiently, getting satisfaction from your efforts, and achieving good results.
Let's face it, successful gardening takes time and money.
The following guidelines, which may be familiar to many gardeners, have been mentioned earlier in this column and can serve as a useful checklist. There are at least 10 suggestions, but they are not numbered.
Grow your own plants
When you start planning to plant plants in your garden, garden centers and nurseries recommend buying large plants. Such purchases act as a quick and easy addition to the landscape, but you are paying for the time of others who grew these plants. Growing your own plants keeps costs down, lets you experience growing plants, and brings joy to your garden.
There are three alternative ways to grow your own plants: planting seeds, buying seedlings by the six-pack or tray, and picking young plants by the gallon (or smaller).
propagate your own plants
Grow your landscape over time by filling the beds with plants. While plant selections can fit different styles or themes, garden designers often choose to group favorite plants and repeat popular plants in planned areas of the garden. Such a design has subtle effects, offering recognition and comfort to the viewer. (Collecting plants, on the other hand, can be stressful.) Some gardeners create distractions or repeats by buying and planting multiple plants, but wise gardeners let nature do its work over time, taking advantage of natural plant reproduction.
Again, there are several categories that are suitable for breeding. Bulbs, including daffodils, dahlias, lilies, etc., can be planted and divided every three to four years. Some succulents, such as agaves, produce shoots that can be separated from the parent plant and transplanted. Additionally, there are many herbaceous perennials that can be collected and divided to increase their presence in the garden.
The next level of propagation involves growing new plants from leaves, stems, or root cuttings. This approach is surprisingly simple, given the cultivation and growing conditions, and takes more time than dividing the plants, and provides a particularly pleasant experience.
After all, all plants reproduce by producing seeds in some form. If left alone, they drop seeds to grow alongside the mother plant, and the gardener can carefully collect and transport the seedlings to support a colony of plants. This approach works well with annuals such as sweet peas, but takes longer with perennials and woody plants.
Choose compatible plants
The plant kingdom has a wide variety of genera and species that you can include in your garden. In addition, breeders are creating an ever-increasing range of attractive new varieties, particularly within the more popular genera. Many gardeners enjoy adding new species of plants to their collections, while adventurous gardeners enjoy growing exotic plants such as tropical plants that require a greenhouse or gentle care in an outdoor garden. While this type of specialty gardening can be rewarding, it can have an unusual cost and time commitment.
Smart gardening (as described here) involves choosing plants that are well suited to the garden's environment, including soil quality, moisture levels, sun exposure, wind conditions and weather. Choosing compatible plants for gardening in the Monterey Bay area begins with all plants that live in the Mediterranean (or dry summer) climate zone of the world. This choice should be made with consideration of the microclimate of the plant's intended location as well as the space required to accommodate the mature plant.
Ideally, plants compatible with gardens in the Monterey Bay area will be those that grow in this region of California. Plants in this category will show a clean approach to plant selection, more likely to succeed in the garden and be accepted by local wildlife.
Using compatible plants ultimately saves the gardener time and leads to success.
protect your plants
All plants, even well-selected compatible plants, will be subject to various threats, including disease, insects and predators, and weeds. Wise gardeners know how to reduce the risk of plant damage, injury or death from natural disasters. Responding to these hazards involves preparation, recovery, and mitigation.
Preparation involves maintaining plant health, as plants are naturally resistant or resistant to disease and insects. Plant health can be maintained by placing the plant in the right conditions, keeping it in good condition (a well-regulated irrigation system is the "gold standard") and pruning the plants to allow good air circulation and exposure to sunlight indoors. . The most common mistakes are underwatering and overwatering, so the wise gardener waters plants only when they show signs of distress. This approach also has the added benefit of saving water.
In addition to proper cultivation, protecting your plants from predatory insects includes (preferably) seasonal use of organic sprays to limit insect development on fruit trees, regular use of snail and slug baits such as organic baits, and regular morning collection of baits.
Protection of plants from predators depends on the group of animals. plant cages are the best protection against eating rabbits. fences protect against deer feeding; and trapping is the most popular defense against a growing gopher population.
Protecting your plants from weeds combines preparation and recovery. Weed prevention methods include mulching and dense planting, which deprives weed seeds of the sunlight they need to grow. Savvy gardeners buy bulk mulch from local tree care companies that are happy to share wood chips to avoid landfill fees. The tree service pays for the delivery of the wood chips, so you can transport them yourself. If you have a woodworking service, the service will issue wood chips on demand.
Weed control is all about getting weeds out as quickly as possible, and more importantly, before they sprout. Since annual and perennial weeds have different weeding times, learn more about the weeds in your yard. Control young weeds in driveways by spraying them with horticultural vinegar, but not near desirable plants.
Eliminating plant damage by pests includes spraying with organic matter. Here is a link to a helpful website: https://tinyurl.com/yffyr5zd.
Learn the botanical names of your plants
All forms of smart gardening can be supported by researching how to grow plants in your garden from printed or online information. The first book you will include in your garden library is Sunset's Western Garden Book, which contains brief information on a wide variety of garden plants. There are many resources online for general information about gardening and growing specific plants. An important key to obtaining information about a plant of interest to us is its botanical name. Botanical names are important for ornamental plants, but common names are more commonly used for edible plants. A savvy gardener will keep an easily accessible list of the botanical names of every plant in their garden, ideally with a photo of the plant for identification.
Best wishes for smart gardening and an enjoyable experience.
Tom Carvin is a past president of the Friends of the Santa Cruz Arboretum and the Iris Society of Monterey Bay, a past president and life member of the Monterey Bay Area Cactus and Succulent Society, and a UCLA Life Master Gardener (certified 1999-2009). . ) He is now a board member of the Santa Cruz Hostel Association and is active in the Pacific Horticultural Society. To see photos of his garden: https://www.facebook.com/ongardeningcom-566511763375123/. Visit ongardening.com for gardening information and an archive of On Gardening columns. Email your comments or questions to gardening@karwin.com.
