The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

Green Fountain

My friend Jennifer planted her fountain and made this beautiful succulent sculpture.

It is magnificent. Think about it. Here’s a way to save on electricity and water. It’s a green fountain in more ways than one.

I saw something like this a couple of years ago at the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show. It was my favorite thing there.

Since then I was lucky enough to find my own fountain (for a small sum) to turn into living art.

My fountain scavanged off Craigslist next to my urn

I have tried to use it as a fountain but it leaks and splashes and the pumped get plugged up. Really the only ones that benefit from that fountain are the mosquitoes.

And we all know that they suck. Sorry, I couldn’t stop myself. 

So, this spring, guess what? 

Yep, I’ll be following in Jennifer’s footsteps and filling in the mosquito village with dirt and plants and maybe even an alligator head or two.

 

Why I Love Early Girls

O.K., I get it.

Heirloom tomatoes are da bomb. 

Some of this season's heirlooms

Every time I go into grocery stores—or to parties—I’m bombarded with these beautifully colored, interestingly shaped fruit.

The colors of the fruit can be pink, yellow, purple, or black. The fruit comes in so many different colors they look like fruity Easter eggs.

I try to be cool and hip, so I plant hip groovy heirlooms but they are hard to grow, so I end up being the dorky loser gardener. The plants get diseases, and pest infestations. And they don’t seem to produce much fruit. 

Heiloom tomato plant suffering from late season wilt.

Along with the difficult heirloom varieties I also grow the usual suspects like Better Boys, regular cherry tomatoes and my favorite: Early Girls. 

Early girls

Here are the reasons why I love Early Girls:

They are prolific.

They produce early and often.

They are resistant to diseases and pests.

You can’t beat their taste. 

While all my heirloom plants are dead, my Early Girls keep growing and producing.

This tomato is also well suited to dry land farming  or gardening techniques. This means that the tomatoes are not watered after they are planted, so they develop deep roots to seek out moisture. Because the plant receives little water the fruit becomes super flavorful.

Early Girls also do well in coastal gardens where the weather is cool and overcast during the growing season.

I love them. 

Think I’ll go pick some right now.

How to Get Paid For Putting In A Garden

The Urn is finally in place: Now All I Need is a Garden to Go With It.

I made the mistake (a couple of years ago) to take out a lawn and put in a drought tolerant garden instead.

Well, that wasn’t the mistake really. The mistake was not telling the Water District about it. You see, the Santa Clara Santa Valley Water District has a program whereby they pay you a rebate for every square foot of lawn you take out—as long as you replace it with something drought tolerant. Even if you document your lawn removal meticulously, the county doesn’t care. If they don’t get there and document your lawn before you remove it—they don’t pay you.

So this time I did it right.

I called the Water District and a nice man named Henry came out to record some information about the lawn I’m removing, and to show me how to save water with the lawn that I’m not.

I’m taking out 1,500 square feet of lawn, which means they’ll give me a rebate of $1,500 for my new garden. He told me if I wanted to remove 500 more feet of my other lawn I could have $500 more.

The rules are simple. You must replace at least 100 square feet of high water landscape with a low water landscape. This landscape must be made up of plants from the approved list on their website. www.valleywater.org/Programs/Landscaping.aspx.

What a Difference Eleven Months Makes.

In my last post, I published the latest photos of my drought-tolerant landscape. Then, I wanted to compare the photos I took when the yard was newly planted last November.

At my age, I normally look at photos and think “Hmmm, wasn’t that just last year—or last month?” When in reality, it was like 1983 and I had thick eyebrows, a tiny waist, and giant hair.

But in this case, I really was shocked to see that this yard was only planted at the end of last year, less than eleven months ago.

It just goes to show how fast natives grow.

Here are the comparison shots.

Hey, they’re from here. They know they’re way around the local dirt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BTW–natives make up about fifty percent of the plant material.

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Drought-Tolerant Update

I was having lunch with a friend the other day and she said that she hadn’t seen the finished product of my drought-tolerant garden. I told her that I had indeed finished it and had written a blog article about it. She said she had seen the beginning and middle but not the end. I insisted that I had written and posted it along with pictures. She said she had done a search for drought tolerant and only two posts came up. “Oh,” said I. My friend said “Maybe you don’t have the proper tags on your post to link it to similar posts.”

Dang, there’s that technical stuff again.

I can hear my kids now,
“Mom, don’t you know anything about computers?”
“Well son, child O’ mine, the answer to that question is very complicated. You see when I was your age we had these things called typewriters and well, I wasn’t even very good at those, let me put it this way¬–have you ever heard of white out? O.K., no, I don’t know anything about computers, that’s why I had you, so, shut up and fix my blog and make all my articles link to each other already.”

Enough of talking to my children in my mind.

Here are the latest pictures of my drought-tolerant landscape.

Notice the tags.

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My Drought-Tolerant Yard is Finally Finished.

Dude, it’s here.

That’s right, my husband finally coughed up enough money to finish the job. Recession-smession, I’m not sure he understands that his job is to make the money and it’s my job to spend it. Who knew that a bunch of ground-up bark would cost so much?

The planting is still a little sparse. I am going to see how it does through this season and then maybe add some more plants–drought tolerant of course.

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Drought Tolerant Garden Update

Here’s an update on the waterwise garden that I’m designing. I’m trying to keep the costs down, too, because the property is a rental.

I would like to encourage more landlords to remove more lawns and to create drought-tolerant landscapes. And I don’t mean filling the front yard with rocks. While this will save you money and water, you will lose the love of your neighbors.

They will think you are a cheap miser with no taste.

They will give you stink eye and talk behind your back.

How to Get Paid A Thousand Dollars

Have you ever lost a thousand dollars? I just did, and boy do I feel stupid.

I thought I was so smart and so green and so groovy. I decided to xeriscape my rental house. There was at least 2,000 square feet of lawn that I ripped out to replace with a low-water landscape. I’m so cool. At least I thought so—until a neighbor walked up to me and said, “Did you know that the county will give you a rebate for ripping out your lawn and installing drought-tolerant plantings?” 

Now I feel really smart, not only am I doing something really good for the environment—I’m going to get money back for doing my good deed.

My neighbor gave me a number for the county. I thought I was set. I dialed the phone. I talked to a nice gentleman who gently but very efficiently deflated my ego and my wallet by telling me that the county must be notified before the lawn is ripped out.

The inspector needs to examine the lawn and the irrigation system, and look at your water bill. The county will give you a rebate of a dollar a square foot up to $1,000. I had over 2,000 square feet of lawn, but the lawn, along with its irrigation system had already been ripped out. 

And that is how I lost $1,000. 

If you are planning to rip out your lawn to install a water-wise landscape, and you live in Santa Clara County, please call before you rip out your lawn. Be prepared to supply a copy of your water bill.

Cash-for-grass programs are available in many counties in California and in other states. If you live in an area that is prone to drought—or even an area that isn’t—check with your local water district to see if they provide a landscape rebate program.

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