From the monthly archives:

November 2008

Of Gophers and Merlot

by Lorraine on November 26, 2008

This morning as I was making my way out to the kitchen for coffee, I happened to glance out into the backyard when I noticed a fresh mound of dirt.   Humm, I’m thinking as I’m looking at it.   Is that what I think it is?   And of course, it was.   A gopher had dug a tunnel and where was it?   Right next to three new plants that I had just put in the previous week.

One of my concerns about putting in my garden last year, was protecting it from the marauding, toothy gophers which seem to be plentiful around here.   Those little “I want to munch every plant in sight”, guys along with the rabbits, could have been a big problem for me.   After spending the amount of money that I did on plants, I wasn’t going to take a chance and have any gophers ruin my new Native plant garden.

So I bought several rolls of chicken wire and began to learn a new skill (which I’m sure will be very beneficial to me sometime in the future and look good on my resume) and made “gopher” cages.   Ah,ha….I know what you’re thinking.   No, not to catch them, but to create a cage of sort around the root ball of a plant, thereby making it off limits to the furry little predators.

I spent many hours, cutting, rolling and shaping over 200 of these devices, seeing them in my dreams, saying I’d never do it again.   Although having a full glass of Merlot certainly helped to pass the time and I still did a good job, even if I was feeling a little giddy.

A few weeks ago I picked up some new plants to fill in a couple of areas and at the time, I bought three Salvias, (Allen Chickering) to place in a space that separates my driveway from my neighbors’.   Then I realized that they would be too big for it and decided to plant them in the backyard as I have plenty of room back there.

It’s very bare other that a few fruit trees and some half dead grass and in general, isn’t very appealing.   Eventually I do want to create another garden using Native plants of course but for the time being, only in my dreams.   But the gophers certainly seem to like it and I don’t know why, cuz there’s nothing much to eat there………until now.

I really didn’t want to have to make more of those “d….” cages again, I was so burned out with doing that from last year and I just didn’t want to have to re-experience that phase of my live, again.  So I decided that I’d just go a head and plant them without any protection from the possibility of being munched upon.   And being me, I naively assumed that they would be okay.   A week passed, no problem and then a bit of rain, the soil is now  softer and then “wallah”, new, fresh territory.

To be continued…..

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July in the Garden

by Lorraine on November 25, 2008

I’m going to start to post more often and speed through the Summer so that I can finally get caught up to November and December.   Actually, I spent the day in the garden, planting some new items, trying to be ahead of a pending rainstorm.  

I had a flashback to this time last year, when Deena and I were working frantically to complete the garden while it was raining and knowing that Christmas was just around the corner.   We were both leaving town and we were determined to get the garden completely done.   Now onto the Summer post:

It seems as though time is really flying (no kidding) and now we are essentially in the middle of Summer.   It’s much cooler now (thank goodness) and the garden is starting to go through a transition for the Summer.   Many native plants will go into a state of dormancy as they adjust to the hotter temperatures and less rain and it begins to look different.

Of course I will continue to run the water lines about every other week for an hour each time.   Some of the emitters release one gallon of water per hour and the other ones about two gallons.   If I feel that any of the plants are not getting enough water through the drip system, I will apply extra water around the plant but not directly on the root ball.   The idea is, to force the plant’s roots out and away from the root ball and develop into a healthy and stable plant.

I had someone say to me recently, that when it comes to starting a Native plant garden, it’s all about the “Two’s”.   If you still have your plants two days after planting them, you’ve cleared the first hurdle.   Then if they are still doing okay after two weeks have passed, great!   Then as you move along on the time-line, if they are starting to grow and look pretty good after two months, you’re doing very well.

Penstemon spectabulis & Torch Plant

Penstemon spectabulis & Torch Plant

And the after the garden as experienced two full seasons or two years, one may consider their garden to be “established”.   But this doesn’t mean that you can now ignore it.   A garden will evolve and change as one learns what works and what doesn’t, just like in our own lives.

In closing this post, I have a little confession to make.  All of the plants are native to California except for the Torch Plant.   I have five in the garden and I just loved their colors but they are from south Africa.   Okay, okay, I cheated a bit.

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