January 19th, 2012
read this book and you'll want to make some changes
I love borrowing books from my local library so I’m always searching their catalog for things I’m interested in. My “food forest” search lead me to The New American Landscape – Leading Voices on the Future of Sustainable Gardening. What I most love about this book is it’s format. Because it is a gathering of experts in the fields of ecology, horticulture, soil biology, landscape design, permaculture, bio-instensive farming, etc… it really hits home for me on so many levels. This multi-angle attach synthesizes from the soil (managing soil health) to the roof (green roofs) and everywhere in between what can be done to shape our own yards into ecologically contributing spaces. I highly recommend this book for sustainable landscape beginners and experienced gardeners alike.
January 19th, 2012
My client and friend actually blurted “it’s freakin’ fecund!” when I was at her house taking photos of her garden. I think her description is very spot on given the fact that when these photos were taken the garden was in for just 5 months! I used mainly 1 gallon plants or flats with a sprinkling of 5 gallon plants. It’s astonishing how happy her plants are and how quickly they’ve taken hold. In fact, I offered her a few vegetable plants to stick in the ground right after I planted mine. Wouldn’t you know it….hers are twice the size of mine and insect free. I think this is due to the fact that there’s a good amount of diversity in this garden and we added a really nice organic soil conditioner called Tri-C Humate Plus. The garden is largely native and all the new plantings are low water (except the vegetables which actually don’t get any supplemental water). This is another Santa Monica Sustainable Landscape Grant garden of mine so this client received $5,000 towards the installation. Not bad considering this was just a lawn and basketball court. I’m really proud of this garden for many reasons. First of all, it’s a total transformation of a backyard that was definitely not picturesque, inviting or sustainable. This backyard will support some native insects and birds, offer gorgeous views from inside the house and lure the homeowners out to enjoy the beauty. It’s also a low maintenance garden since the natives only need occasional attention usually in the form of pruning back. In addition to the plantings we removed an old patio and replaced it with a beautiful permeable patio of Belgard pavers. We also added an outdoor kitchen and a metal fire bowl by John T. Unger.
January 19th, 2012
Symphtum uplandicum
As I learn more about food forestry I’m constantly in awe of the usefulness of some plants. Comfrey is one that really amazes me because it can do so much for the garden and for us. Comfrey (Symphytum officinale) is highly medicinal aiding in wound healing and anti-inflammation. For the food forest is provides much soil building mulch. Comfrey is considered a bio-accumulator because it pulls potassium, calcium and magnesium up through its tap root into its leaves. These leaves later decompose in the soil and give back those nutrients that would’ve been hard for other plants to access. Comfrey also fights compaction with it fat taproot. Comfrey provides excellent shelter for beneficial insects and spiders. I’m sure there’s even more Comfrey can do, clearly no garden should be without this workhorse of a plant.
November 29th, 2011
Sheri sprays her special blend
I decided to treat my garden to an early Thanksgiving feast. I had Sheri Powell-Wolff of Compostina out to spray her special blend of compost tea. She arrived all smiles with her big tank of garden goodness in tow which she affectionately calls “Brewce”. She quickly covered my parkway of edibles, roses and aussie natives and then moved on to my fruit trees and California natives. I could practically see the plants reaching out to get sprayed with the sticky goodness. I even inadvertently got in the way of the spray and I can attest to it’s coverage ability. This is important because it forms a thin layer on foliage and provides a plethora of protective qualities to the plant. There’s a definite science to making compost tea whereby the compost “starter” needs to be aerated and the fungi and bacteria populations are amped up by adding different ingredients like humic acid for fungal growth or molasses for bacteria. Compost tea applications can do wonders for soil remediation addressing issues such as compaction, low soil biology, lowering weed populations, and improving water and nutrient holding capacity. I can’t wait to see how my garden shows it’s gratitude for this very special treat.
November 7th, 2011
berms surround meadow of Festuca idahoensis
Mix of Phormium 'firebird' and Anigozanthos 'Big Red'
This last summer I helped another lucky Santa Monica resident take advantage of Santa Monica’s Sustainable Landscape Grant program. Her front yard consisted of a pine tree, an olive tree, a few shrubs and a whole lot of grass. Really it was the perfect project because she was excited to remove all of the grass and really loved the structural look of succulents. Removing the grass was especially important because she had been cited for watering overspray and her water bills were high. Because her house is very close to Santa Monica College she needed a design solution that would help block a lot of the trash that would blow into her yard. To this end, we came up with the idea of decomposed granite berms to showcase the lovely Agave medio picta ‘Alba’, Agave attenuata, Euphorbia tirucalli and various other smaller succulents. The berms allow the homeowner a sense of enclosure without really blocking her off from the world. In additon, we created a meadow effect using Festuca idahoensis ‘Siskiyou Blue’. This particular variety is a little tougher to find than the regular Festuca glauca (Blue Fescue Grass) but well worth it because it grows larger and has more movement and interest. Now this local water “bad girl” is not only the proud owner of a sustainable garden she is paying drastically less on water each month. An important figure to remember is a 1,000 square foot lawn will require about 600 gallons/week. Since the old lawn and adjacent plantings were about 1,500 square feet, this means about 900 gallons a week was required to keep it alive. The new garden will take about a third of the water at the outset and less as the garden becomes established. Now that’s exciting!
October 12th, 2011
Wow, now that's a flower!
For me WTF means What’s That Flower?! I often find myself thinking that when I walk around the “hood”. Well, I nearly gasped when I saw this one on Cliffwood. It was peering over a fence almost like alien loudspeaker saying “hey, check me out!”. It’s a Dutchman’s Pipe (Aristolochia tomentosa) vine and the bloom is seriously bigger than a human head. Anytime you see “tomentosa” in a botanical name you know there are hairs involved somewhere. With this plants the hairs are actually in the flowers and help prevent insects from escaping when they come to pay a visit. Eventually the insects do escape no worse for the wear and covered with pollen. This monster of a bloom uses a rotten meat like smell to attract insects. Thank goodness the wind was blowing in my favor the day I happened upon this vine!
September 23rd, 2011
greening up a block wall with woolys
This summer I had the pleasure of designing another sustainable landscape grant garden in Santa Monica. This was a particularly fun project for many reasons. First of all my client was fun and really new what she wanted and finally I was able to design with a lot of succulents. The garden turned out great and I’ll be posting photos of it soon. Here on the left you can see a solution we came up with for her tiny side yard. We removed old concrete, installed decomposed granite and some older pavers she had, installed a cool soothing over-flow fountain and a wall of wooly pockets. All of those spider plants were already hanging out in the garden so we just used them to dress up the wall. I can now say that I’m sold on wooly pockets – they are so well made and easy to use. The plants love being in them because they provide such a nice environment.
September 18th, 2011
Whirligig by David Lease
Last weekend my husband and I attended an reception for a former employee of his who now does beautiful macro photography of my favorite artwork – Flowers. David Leaser’s images are arresting in their vibrancy and symmetry and some are just plain sexy! The reception was at the Huntington Library in San Marino, one of my favorite places to immerse myself in all things botanical. At the exhibit we were able to see many blooms under microscopes and I was again reminded why I got into landscape design in the first place. Flowers are really tiny works of art with astounding color palettes, textures, balance, unity….all those things they talk about in art theory. The work of David Leaser reminded me of that and he also reminded me that we all have to follow our bliss. He does this artistic work part-time and works for IBM full time.
September 7th, 2011
Parisian Playground
When I was with my husband and daughter in France this summer we walked through the Jardin des Tuileries and came across this great playground. I’m used to seeing playgrounds atop black rubberized islands without much greenery in sight and structures so safely designed they wind up being uninspiring. This gorgeous getaway smartly uses its real estate by placing a habitat garden under the structure. I also love the natural feel of the knotted rope and vertical poles. How great for the kids to be running in and around a garden when headed to the slide or the very cool platform springs you see my daughter trying out
boing boing
July 29th, 2011
an artful farmer's market display
I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a friends wedding in France and on the way we stopped in Beaune, a gorgeous town in the Burgundy region. This is just an ordinary scene in countless towns across France but for me it was one that made me pause. I found this arrangement of vegetables as lovely as any flower stall, more so because I could almost taste the amazing cuisine they would become. I think seeing this made me sensitive for the rest of my trip to the creative and thoughtful ways the French seem to display everything from cashmere scarves to macaroons. Imagine how less appetizing all of these vegetables would look if they were in cardboard boxes or worse yet, plastic! The wood and basketry seem to just confirm that these vegetables are earth’s natural creations. I made a mental note right then and there that if I could ever get my big school garden project off the ground we would present our bounty in a manner such as this.
Satori Garden Design is my landscape design company and the “outcropping” of my long term passion for plants, art and design. I live in sunny Santa Monica, California with my husband and three kids. - Arleen Ferrara
