L!nkFest -- Quick News You Can Use

• Sunset Magazine's editor picks the top plants for summer color such as the 'sunray' sunflower, Sedum telephium, and even Cabernet Sauvignon grapes!  The tawny flower plumes of Calamagrostis x acutiflora (feather reed grass) match the amber hues of the California hills.
• Better Homes & Gardens names the best perennials for shade, including Japanese forestgrass, lilyturf, and a great plant with an unfortunate name: lungwort. 
• Ideal Home Garden has tips for growing roses, and Old Farmer's Almanac sings the praises of old roses...tough and gorgeous. 
• Open thread: ideas for downsizing garden maintenance

Via Magazine online names 'Best Gardens in the West'

There are some great ideas here that could easily fit into your summer vacation plans.  In fact, one of the 'Best' ideas is our local treasure, Filoli Gardens, which can be an easy local visit. 

If your vacation plans include traveling in the western U.S. this summer, here are some stimulating VIA articles that might generate some stops along the way.

• Gardens of Delight 17 top botanical gardens let you escape civilization and return to paradise.
• The West’s Best Cactus In spring, these stickery characters still stick but also delight with their other-worldly blossoms.
• Filoli Gardens A historic Georgian mansion stands amid 16 acres of breathtaking formal gardens.
• Silverton: Oregon’s Garden City Surprise! A Frank Lloyd Wright house set in an 80-acre arboretum.
• Top Five California Gardens One of VIA’s editors weighed in with her five favorite gardens. It appears that she likes roses. A lot.
• Bloomin' Great Gardens In springtime, 11 gardens and preserves get pretty and popular.
• A Botanical Wonder in Las Vegas Three miles from the sinful Strip, Springs Preserve, a 180-acre Eden, has sprung out of the desert, complete with an amphitheater, interactive museums, and eight acres of gardens.

Lovely home featuring GardenScapes

Absolutely lovely home on sale now featuring garden staged by GardenScapes:
http://www.812irwin.com/gallery.html

Plant Ideas for Spring!

Eddie’s White Wonder Dogwood
Dogwoods are one of my favorite trees. This variety has beautiful white flowers that grow to more than four inches in diameter in the spring. Composed of four to six large, rounded and overlapping bracts, these blooms create a striking display in the spring. Dark green summer foliage is handsome throughout the summer months, and turns to rich red in the fall. Small red fruits decorate its branches in winter. A hybrid of the Pacific Northwest native dogwood, Cornus Nuttallii, and Cornus Florida, it grows taller and has larger flowers than those of the Cornus floida. It is also easier to grow, more resistant to anthracnose, and generally more adaptable than its other parent, Pacific Dogwood. Eddie’s White Wonder Dogwood grows to a height of about 25 feet with a spread of about 20 feet.

Ceanothus: A great low growing ground cover.

If you’re looking for a native, drought tolerant ground cover, that grows to about 6 inches tall, Ceanothus thyrsiflorus var. repens ‘Louis Edmunds’ is just the ticket. This beauty has a long name but it’s short in height for a Ceanothus. It has a beautiful light blue flower, dark green foliage and a habit for spreading.
Managing foraging deer can be a real challenge. Fortunately, this Ceanothus variety is not a favorite of deer. Because it’s low to the ground with tougher leaves, they typically avoid it and look for more tasty flowers or shrubs.

Lomandra: Up and Coming Plant

If you have one of those hard to fill spots, consider Lomandra, sometimes called Mat rush. They are a native of Australia, can take the sun or shade and are very tough. There are many varieties of Lomandra, but only about handful are usually available.
Lomandra varieties vary in size, leaf color, leaf blade width. They are mounding plants with strap like leaves of green or blue-green. Varieties range in size from 1 foot tall to 3 feet tall. Some of the many nice attributes is the ability to do well near the seacoast and to grow well in sun or shade. Drought tolerant? You bet.
Lomandra ‘Breeze’, ‘Nyalla’, ‘Seascape’, ”Tropic Bell’, ‘Little Con’ are all varieties usually available locally.

IRRIGATION: The cheapest water is the water you don’t use

Thanks to the weather effects of La Nina, we have had one of the driest winters since the Gold Rush. We have a good reserve of water from last year’s bumper winter, but it is probably worth considering the possibility that this is not an anomaly.

Texas might prepare us for what is in store. The summer of 2011 was a record breaker in Texas, with the longest stretch of record high daily temperatures and the least amount of rain in weather history. Everything’s big in Texas, including their droughts. Some communities passed water restrictions. Based on articles I have been reading, the biggest lesson they’ve learned is the value of a good irrigation system.

Experts estimate half of residential outdoor water usage is wasted due to evaporation, wind and improperly scheduled irrigation routines. Here are a few tips that will save you money in the long run:

• Water in the early morning, before 9 a.m., to reduce evaporation and scorching of leaves from the sun.
• Water on calm days to prevent wind drift and evaporation.
• For planting beds - water less frequently but for longer duration to establish deep root systems
• Grass - shallow root systems means it can be watered more frequently for less time.
• Aerate your lawn once a year in the early spring or fall to improve water penetration.
• Make it a habit to adjust your sprinklers and check for leaks at least monthly
• Take the time to check coverage on your landscaping and make adjustments.
• Consider drip or trickle irrigation when appropriate.

Drip or trickle irrigation systems are highly efficient because they deliver water slowly and directly to the roots under the soil surface. This promotes deeper roots, which improve a plant's drought resiliency.

For the techno-savvy consumers, you might consider a Weather-Based control irrigation system that uses real-time local climate data to schedule irrigation. Once installed, these controllers do the thinking for you. Add-on devices include Smart Water Application Technologies (SWAT) that includes performance measures of irrigation adequacy and irrigation excess, which measure how well the system meets plant water needs know as WaterSense controllers.

New Lawn From Seed is EZ!

One of the many benefits of owning a dog is that I am spending more time in our yard. The downside is I am confronted with weeds, especially in our grass. Replacing a lawn with new sod is costly, so I have been testing grass seed options to fix areas I have treated with weed killer.

As a result of my testing, Scott Turf Builder Ez Seed is my new favorite grass seed. Within a week new grass is growing and it mixes nicely with existing grass. There are three varieties - fescue, bermuda and combination. They also have a dog spot repair. It requires very little effort beyond just making sure the soil is loose and pouring some of the mixture onto the soil. You can add a layer of soil on top but that is not absolutely necessary. It is available at most nurseries, including Home Depot, OSH and seasonally at Costco.

Look for our advertisement in local media!