The Dry Garden: Gravel is so much more than a way to cover up dirt
David Fross's garden at Native Sons Nursery in Arroyo Grande, CA
WHEN the son of friends began using his mother’s cellphone to photograph the ground at a Sunday lunch in the garden, we grown-ups laughed. “Look at Leon.” But when Leon’s mother began looking at her son’s photographs, then showed them to me, Leon had the last laugh. There, frame after frame, were abstract compositions of mesmerizing beauty. Were Leon’s downward-looking portraits to have a title, it might have been: “Dappled Sunlight on Gravel and Fallen Leaves.”
Gravel is so much more than a way to cover up dirt. As Leon noticed, its ability to catch light makes the garden floor a dancing field of shadows. Gravel also transforms the way heat, coolness and water are retained. Then, as powerfully as anything, gravel brings music to the garden. There is nothing at once so pleasant and intriguing as the sound …
The Dry Garden: armed for conservation
If there’s one thing harder to get than a good garden hose, it’s a good nozzle to fit on it. Now that we’re in a drought, good nozzles we need. After testing 10, two leaked from the start and one exploded. The Dramm Revolver (above, in purple) performed best. Shopping for them offered an experience that felt more like going to a gun show than a garden center. For the full LA Times story, click on the image, which is by LA Times photographer Kirk McKoy.
The Dry Garden: Watering native plants in summer, or not
WHILE most Southern Californian gardens require more water in summer, native gardens need less. In fact, they take so much less that if you haven’t watered a native plant to death, then you probably haven’t tried native gardening. It’s a rite of passage, closely followed by the second rite of withholding all summer water — and killing the plant that way.
This is not to suggest that native plants are hard to grow. They’re just easy to kill. The key to reaping their beauty and benefits without watering them to death is understanding summer dormancy.
For the rest of the story in this week’s Los Angeles Times column The Dry Garden, click here.…
The Dry Garden: Rethinking the parkway
THERE may be a drought and tough watering restrictions, but there has never been a better time to tackle the knottiest problem in Los Angeles landscaping: How to plant parkways? For the full column, go to the LA Times…
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