Friday, July 28, 2017

Tiny House Living? The Tiny Apartment Came First :)

The Tiny Apartment Patio




So, you've finally found an apartment that has it all: close to where you need to be, has a pool, lawns with 'gasp' actual grass under the trees (something hard to find today in the Desert Southwest), a private patio, all the features you need inside and you can actually afford the rent without having to get a second job.  There's only one catch: it isn't very big. I'm talking about the patio.  For a gardener who can't really afford to own their own house, that's a big deal.  We were glad to find one that even had a patio at our price range. Even found an apartment in the complex that had the coveted North facing patio (sun exposure and shade is critical here - especially in the furnace of the summertime).  But, it's not much bigger than a large shower.  What to do?

After shuffling the stuff around a bit, this is what we've come up with for now. 

Welcome to my new personal garden!

The chairs are the bungee cord suspended 'low-g' style which are much more comfortable than the old vinyl weave lawn chairs. The only problem is, the foot rests are so long that, while two chairs will fit, only one person can have the foot rest up at a time. The red one is Joani's as it's a little smaller and shorter than the brown one so it fits her short legs better.  One great thing about this patio is that the patio above forms a roof so we can fold up the chairs and leave them out there without them being fully exposed to the elements.

The cart is an all metal, power coated one from Ikea. The shelves are vented so water flows through. It was the sturdiest yet most portable cart I've seen in a while that I could actually afford. It's narrow enough that it doesn't take up too much width which is the biggest limiting factor on this patio. It holds this asparagus fern quite well with storage below. The other plant holder/storage units are actually milk crates - stacked two high with the tops facing outwards to the side to form shelves. I wired them together so that they can't fall over or come apart if they get jostled about.

Ikea cart and real milk crates get the job done.

Each plant has its accompanying 'hardscape' element. The asparagus fern has an all metal, candle holding lantern also from Ikea which I like because the plastic ones fall apart in this heat and dry air. The society garlic has a tall, narrow terra cotta pot that I found at a thrift store. It doesn't have any drainage, so I fill it with water to create an evaporation pool which is handy for raising the humidity around plants.  The aloe has a ceramic dragon with a secret compartment inside which I got from Z-Castle, a cool little store that has the stuff you find at Renaissance fairs - even real swords that you can use for practice dueling - only year round.

The plants were carefully chosen for their ability to tolerate shade as well as a few hours of intense sunlight; heat and occasionally dry soil.  I rescued the society garlic from the clearance shelf at a Lowes.  It is planted in a shallow yet very wide terra cotta pot so that there is room for broadcast seed planting other herbs around it.  It had cilantro in it this Spring. Currently, it has a few flowers from a wildflower mix.  There is another pot below the asparagus fern with more wildflowers. They didn't seem to be doing well with the amount of sun they were getting, so I'm using the shelf as even more shade for them. Eventually, the society garlic may overtake the pot unless I pull the new bulbs out and transplant them elsewhere.  The asparagus fern was on sale at a Home Depot.  The aloe is from a KMart also on sale.

Yes, I do prefer planting stuff by seed but sometimes, you want something perennial with some size to it and that's often best achieved (without having to wait for years for seedlings to grow) by getting a potted plant.  I usually don't do that unless I can get them at less than full price though.  By seed is always the way to go for getting annual plants as they grow much faster.  I'll be replacing the wildflowers with herbs seeded herbs this fall.  I'm using the wildflowers as  living mulch for now.

Ceramic Dragon lurks behind the aloe.
I've yet to see any of the wildflowers attempt to bloom. Perhaps they are getting enough light to grow but not enough to stimulate blooming.  For now, the society garlic adds a touch of pink to the green pallet.  But there is variety in texture with the spotted and toothed aloe and the cloud of tiny almost spike like leaves of the asparagus fern.  By the by, if you have ever wondered why they call it asparagus fern, its because the edible asparagus plant we have in the kitchen is just a young sprout that grows into a plant that looks a lot like this if you don't pick it. 

In this picture above, you can see the evaporation pool formed by the terra cotta pot better. There is another, short and shallow drainless pot below the metal cart full of water for another evaporation pool.  I got the idea for evaporation pools from the observation that there is a wider variety of plants in the desert near open water like wetlands and ephemeral streams - partly due to the somewhat higher humidity in those places.  These evaporation pool pots are deep enough that they don't need filled every day, I usually just add a bit to them when I water the other plants.

While a huge back yard would be nice, it would also be too expensive for us at this current time.  For that matter, it would also demand more of my time, cutting back on how much time I have to work on other's landscapes.  So, this little patio of potted plants makes a nice little private oasis for sitting outside reading and relaxing.  I like walking our dog, Tigger, on the grass lawn under the pine trees in the common area and feel lucky to have that rather than a pile of crushed rocks, but this little patio gets me away from the occasional chaotic play of the neighbor kids.  While those kids can be a bit annoying at times when I want quiet contemplation, I am glad to be living somewhere where the kids feel safe enough to play outside for hours at a time.

Do you have a tiny garden space? What are you doing with it?  If you have any questions or have neat ideas that you've come up with, feel free to contact me here.



Tuesday, May 16, 2017

The sun: both an ally and an enemy, especially here in the Desert Southwest. 






We've been talking about the importance of afternoon shade and morning sun quite a bit on this blog. That's because here in the Desert Southwest (and everywhere that has very low humidity, high temperatures and salty soils and water), sunlight has a profound impact on plant health.  Not enough sunlight is a problem everywhere and only a short list of commonly grown plants tolerate low light levels on a daily basis.  But here, excessive sunlight is an even bigger problem.  Our humidity (usually below 20% unless it is trying to rain somewhere nearby) makes the negative effects of the sun, especially drying things out and damaging plant tissue (people aren't the only things that can sunburn) even more intense.

We've recently moved to a new place. this apartment was carefully chosen with the sun in mind.  We chose an apartment that doesn't have an outside wall that faces the West and that has its South facing wall shaded by large trees and other buildings.  Here, it is the long hot afternoons in the summer that make growing so many plants a real challenge.  We managed to find one that had its patio facing the North and with shade from overhead sun thanks to the patio above it.  The only direct sunlight it receives is in the morning from the East. 



Here it is at 7 AM in the middle of May. The sliding glass door opens into the master bedroom.  It's just big enough for a couple of folding lawn chairs and a few potted plants.

You can see in the photo that the sun shines very nicely into the patio in the morning from the East, but from the West, the design of the building makes it so we have full shade in the afternoon from the West and South.


This is the current layout for the left corner of the patio.  The great thing about using crates and carts is that we can move things around easily if we find this set up no longer works as the alignment between the sun and earth changes over time. In this position, each of these pots gets bathed in direct morning light for about 2 hours each morning and has diffuse light all day.  The metal cart has holes in the shelves so that excess water can drip out of the pots and eventually to the ground.  The plastic crates double as both plant stands and storage for gardening supplies. 

Currently in the garden, we have from left to right: garlic, a mix of annual shade loving wildflowers, a pot that is half radishes and half carrots, oregano (still sprouting). On the cart on the top shelf we have: aloe vera, cilantro and on the bottom: chives which are looking a bit poorly because they sort of survived being outside over the winter.  Most of the chives have already been harvested from the pot, but I am leaving some of them in there to see if they'll snap out of it and maybe bloom for me later on. 





Then, in the middle of the patio, we have this lovely young asparagus fern.  I didn't grow this one from seed, but I carefully chose it for its healthy vigor and signs that it is ready to start spreading.  It came in a tiny little pot that was too small for it, so I transplanted it to this larger terracotta pot.  Someday, I'll transplant it again to a pot about twice this size in diameter. The pot that the radishes are in might be the type I'll use. It's the first time I've used a pot of that type and I really like how wide, yet short it is, giving more room for the plants while being less top heavy than most pots I've used are.  I just love asparagus ferns! They look so delicate, yet they are quite hardy and can handle our weather very well. Most plants in my current potted garden are practical being either edible or useful in herbal remedies, but this one is purely ornamental. One might say that it is still beneficial though as having its bright cheery shade of light green year round has a pleasant effect on one's mood.  Mental health is just as important as physical health as one affects the other.




The wildflower mix has Siberian wallflower (Cherianthus allonii) a biennial that will be just leaves this year and will bloom next year; Shasta daisy (Chrysanthemum maxium) one of my favorites; Garland flower (Clarkia elegans) a native flower discovered by Lewis and Clark on their famous expidition across the then, mostly unsettled Louisiana Purchase; Lanceleaf ticksseed (Coreopsis lanceloata) one of the most beautiful and delicate looking yet toughest desert flowers I've seen, grows wild all over the Mojave Desert; Larkspur (Delphinum consolida); Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus) a perennial that will attract bees and hummingbirds; Echinacea purpurea the plant famous for being a natural antibiotic; Baby's Breath (Gypsophila elegans) a must for floral bouquets; Candytuft (Iberis umbellata) a member of the mustard family that I've seen growing among tickseed plants in the desert; Perennial flax (Linum perenne) which will hopefully persist for me; Forget-me-not (Myosotis aplestris); Baby blueeyes (Nemophila maculata) which will work with the Forget-me-nots to add a splash of blue to the mix; and Common poppy (Papaver rhoeas) another deceptively delicate desert flower.   I look forward to seeing which of these grow well in my patio.  I may need to transplant them to a bigger pot or a group of small pots if all of these species sprout. ;)






I transplanted this aloe to a larger pot after the wide shot picture was taken as I noticed that it was already starting to get too big for that little pot. I love aloe but it can be tricky to avoid overwatering it without having it dry out with our low humidity.  Hopefully, the soil mix which is high in perlite will help it drain enough to prevent waterlogging.



I'll keep you posted on how this experiment in taking the concept of morning sun and afternoon shade to this extreme turns out.  It's going well so far, but as in all gardening, time will tell. 


Friday, March 31, 2017

Strong Winds Need Not Uproot Your Trees!

Tomato cage protecting Catclaw Acacia from being broken by wind but letting it move.

Horrible Winds Ravage Las Vegas! Trees ripped from the ground! 

To watch the news the last couple of days, you'd think this has never happened before. It happens every year. Strong winds whipping through mountain valleys, especially in the Spring is quite common and normal phenomena.  It's what we do to prepare for them, or the lack thereof, that makes the difference between a Spring breeze and a disaster.

There are four things we can do (applies anywhere really) here in the Desert Southwest to keep our trees and the things around them, from becoming a statistic, and possible headline in the news - in a bad way.  Wouldn't it be great if they did a story about a tree that weathered the storm brilliantly and talked to someone who knew about why that was so?



1) Remove all stakes from recently planted trees. Let the tree grow strong by being blown about by the wind. Movement stimulates the plant (all plants) to grow thicker cell walls and to lay down more lignin cells in their trunks and stems. There are ways to make cages that let the trunk move quite a bit, but keep the root ball from rotating or pivoting in the hole. I've successfully used tomato cages that were anchored down on small trees and there are larger ones for larger trees.

If you remove the stakes from a tree and it falls over, it was planted wrong to start with. Dig the tree the rest of the way up, re-dig the hole right and plant the tree right. Before re-planting the tree in the same spot, check to see if it was a good spot to begin with - see #4 below.


2) Water the entire root zone! Do not just put a couple emitters at the base of the trunk. Roots will not grow in dry soil, so you have to apply water at least as far as from the trunk out to the drip line or furthest extent of the tree's branch canopy. If the tree has been butchered and many of the branches have been removed or shortened (probably because it was planted too close to a building, walkway, etc. in the first place), then you need to extend the irrigation out to where the drip line should be for that species of tree or shrub. You can look this up in many books and websites that give details about different plant species. Sunset magazine, your area's university extension service (ours in Las Vegas is University of Nevada), the USDA's NRCS, and some nurseries have excellent information about this.


3) Feed your plants. Leave dead leaves and the smallest branches (twigs) around the bases of the plants so they can decompose and return nutrients and organic matter to the soil in the root zone. Or, if you can't bring yourself to do that, get a leaf vacuum (many are blowers that can be converted with a kit that you buy separately or that comes with them) that sucks the leaves and twigs up, grinds them up and puts them in a bag. Then, spread this ground up mulch (free mulch!) around the tree. Purchased tree bark isn't as good as it doesn't decompose very well especially in the desert, but it's better than rocks. You can also use commercial fertilizer (but please use it with mulch, not instead of it)- read up from the above mentioned sources, especially the university extension services and the NRCS about what different needs different species have. For example, palms need very little nitrogen, but need a lot of potassium and micronutrients.


4) Plant trees smart. Avoid planting them where they will be in the way once they are full grown. The less you 'have' to prune them, the better off they'll be. The above sources talk about the expected height and width of the plant once mature. Sunset is good about adjusting these figures for the desert southwest as many species tend to grow less here, but maybe not as much less as one may think. Plant them also where they will have as much shelter from the prevailing winds as possible. In Las Vegas, the winds swirl a bit, but tend to come from the Southwest in Summer and North in Winter. If there isn't any or much shelter from wind yet, plant several trees - spaced far enough apart so they won't tangle with each other much once full grown - in a windbreak (NRCS has excellent info about this) so that they will create wind protection for other plants in future.

Good sources for further information:

https://www.unce.unr.edu/

http://forestry.nv.gov/ndf-state-forest-nurseries/planting-information-resources/