Designing with Plants - Plants that should not be forgotten in Planting Schemes

It's quite common these days to discover that certain plant species that you planned to include in a design, while appearing in the design gardening books, are difficult to find in the garden nurseries. They used to be sold by the garden centers, but then become increasingly rare and even entirely unavailable. In general, the reason for this of course is that these species lose some of their popularity and therefore the demand for them declines. It may be tempting to think that because a garden center sales person pulls a face at the mention of a certain plant, and says "I'm afraid there's not much call for that these days", and then adds, "Well I suppose we could find it for you if you insist", that the species concerned is basically inferior. Unfortunately many excellent plants have either fallen by the way side or are in danger of doing so, and as a result we actually have less genuinely appropriate varieties to choose from. I'll present here some examples from my own 20 years plus experience gardening in Israel.

There are a number of reasons that certain garden species, whether they be flowering, foliage plants or trees, fall out of favour. A common one is that the plant is incorrectly used by gardeners, professional or otherwise. For example, the fabulous shrub Duranta erecta was heavily planted as a sheared hedge, a growing form unsuited to it, and particularly to the variegated variety. The plant became so discredited that no one wanted you to plant it for them. Yet as an isolated specimen in a shrub grouping it can be superb.

Another reason for plants becoming unpopular is that many gardeners, particularly home, amateur ones, are unaware of some simple actions that if not undertaken, mean that the plant becomes ugly and unsightly. Take the Ice plant (Lampranthus roseus) for instance. As a low growing ground cover, its spring flower display is not only spectacular, but in my view is virtually unique in the gardening world. Yet the plant tends to look ragged and untidy for large parts of the year, unless the simple expedient of clipping back the plant, BEFORE all the flowers have withered, is carried out. (For fuller discussion on how to grow ice plants click on Articles at
www.dryclimategardening.com )

Finally, some plants simply go out of fashion. This is the most unnecessary and dare I say, most stupid reason of all. Fashion is the killer of good planting schemes. The great gardens of the world are generally immune to it, as are top garden designers. (At least as far as plants are concerned – hard landscaping being another matter)
I first became aware of this when visiting the magnificent Waddesdon Manor in England some years ago. There, growing proudly in a conservatory to protect it from the cold, was the most despised garden plant in my country – Plumgago auriculata. Another example is the Natal Plum (Carissa macrocarpa), arguably one of the most beautiful and suitable bushes for a dry climate. Fortunately, there were just enough designers in Israel demanding it, to prevent it disappearing altogether. It has started to become fashionable again!

For more information on the gardening issues raised here, go to www.dryclimategardening.com


About the author - Jonathan Ya'akobi
I've been gardening in a professional capacity since 1984.
I am the former head gardener of the Jerusalem Botanical Garden, but now concentrate on building gardens for private home owners.
I also teach horticulture to students on training courses.
I'd love to share my knowledge and experience with you.
So you're welcome to visit me on www.dryclimategardening.com

How to Grow a Fabulous Landscaping Hedge

Last week in my article "Landscaping hedges for a dry climate", I outlined the design reasons for growing a finely trimmed hedge. In many garden situations, an informal screen of shrubs is the best design solution, but in circumstances where the hedge has been decided upon as the desired option, it's important to recognize that maintaining it is no easy matter. So here are the principles behind successfully growing a hedge in your garden.

1. Pruning hedge bushes: When the plants that are to make up the hedge are young, it's vital to give them a light prune now and again, in order to develop dense, compact growth. If say the designated height of the mature hedge is to be 2 meters, then DON'T wait for the bushes to reach that height before trimming them, rather they should arrive at their final height in stages.

2. Trimming an established hedge: Remember some crucial points about hedge trimming. Trim the sides first before dealing with the top of the hedge. The hedge should taper inwards, meaning that the top should be narrower than the bottom, in order to prevent the higher parts of the hedge shading out the lower ones. Trim slowly in one direction only at a time. It's virtually impossible to trim straight if you clip the sides and the top in one continuous movement.

3. Watering and feeding: Remember that growing a hedge is highly intensive horticulture. Do not neglect the usual gardening tasks such as watering and feeding. On the contrary, the hedge will require more care than shrubs that are grown as informal screens. The plants should be composted at least once a year, and the application of an additional organic or slow release chemical fertilizer should be considered. Take care not to damage the roots when hoeing in the compost!

4. Mulching: The spreading of a suitable organic mulch, like wood chippings, is always a good bet for improving the growing conditions for the hedge bushes.

5. Pest and Diseases: This is more about choosing relatively pest resistant species for the hedge, than anything else. Avoid planting vulnerable plants, in order to keep your pest control regime down to a minimum.

For more information on the gardening issues raised here, go to www.dryclimategardening.com


About the author - Jonathan Ya'akobi
I've been gardening in a professional capacity since 1984.
I am the former head gardener of the Jerusalem Botanical Garden, but now concentrate on building gardens for private home owners.
I also teach horticulture to students on training courses.
I'd love to share my knowledge and experience with you.
So you're welcome to visit me on www.dryclimategardening.com

Landscaping Hedges for a Dry Climate Garden

The main reason people plant hedges is to give them privacy from their neighbours or to screen out the adjoining street or some feature in the vicinity. The purely functional purposes of a hedge can be achieved by growing large evergreen shrubs which require relatively modest maintenance through the year. These are often referred to as informal screens. A "hedge" in the sense that I'm using here though, refers to a line of shrubs that are trimmed regularly into the architectural form of a wall – a green wall in fact. Growing a finely sheared hedge is one of the most labour intensive and difficult tasks in gardening, and should be employed therefore when there is a specific design reason for doing so. Here are some of the design questions that a hedge, as opposed to a screen of bushes, can answer.

• A hedge gives a sense of order to the garden. It does not necessarily have to mean extreme formality, and can fit into a relaxed if well defined design. Of course a hedge is not a "natural" element in the garden, but then neither is a wall or a seat.

• A sheared hedge forms an ideal backdrop to focal points such as a mass of flowers, a water feature, or a sculpture. In good design, the "support" elements are as important in creating the composition as the "star" features.

• It is the preferred solution in small gardens where free growing shrubs are liable to take up too much width.

Here are some tips for choosing the right species for your hedge.

• The plant should be evergreen and not deciduous. Remember that some plants are not naturally deciduous, but drop their leaves in response to low temperatures. Make sure your chosen plant will remain green during the winter as well.

• It's best to choose species with a relatively fine leaf texture. Course or large leaved shrubs tend to look worn and ragged after shearing.


• Dark to medium green is the best foliage colour. Variagated or purple coloured leaves contradict one of the main ideas of the hedge, namely to serve as a quiet background to focal points of interest. Coloured leaved plants should be used sparingly in the garden.

• Beware of plants that are overly rampant in their growth habit. It might double or treble the amount of shearings through the year. This last point can also have implications for your relationship with your neighbours, because one of the definite drawbacks of growing a hedge, is the noise caused by the mechanical hedge trimmer.

About the author - Jonathan Ya'akobi
I've been gardening in a professional capacity since 1984.
I am the former head gardener of the Jerusalem Botanical Garden, but now concentrate on building gardens for private home owners.
I also teach horticulture to students on training courses.
I'd love to share my knowledge and experience with you.
So you're welcome to visit me on www.dryclimategardening.com

Flowers in a Dry Climate Garden: The Five Points you MUST Know

So many garden owners in dry climates are fearful of planting flowers because they either think that the flowers won't survive long hot summers, and if they do, it's at the price of consuming large and unacceptable quantities of water. They're right of course on both counts, but mistaken in believing that growing herbaceous flowering plants should not be undertaken in a dry, arid climate. Here are five tips for cultivating flowering bedding plants while keeping WITHIN your annual water consumption budget.

1 Reduce the amount of flowers in the garden. I know this is pretty obvious, but try relying more on flowering shrubs that over the year, consume a fraction of the quantity of water required by herbaceous flowers. There are some superb shrub species that flower profusely in dry climates, such as Hibiscus, Plumbago, Solanum rantonnetii, Polygala, and the wonderful Hamelia patens. Don't forget also the splendid colours that the leaves of some bushes can provide.

2 The irrigation system MUST have a separate tap for bedding plants. This is the key to saving water, because drought resistant shrubs and trees require a completely different watering regime than flowers. If the different plant groups are receiving water from the same line, then they have to be watered according to the needs of the most dependent and thirsty, namely the flowers. For example in a Mediterranean climate typified by say 450 mm of annual rainfall, many shrubs and tress can be watered once a month and consume annually about 100-200mm of irrigation water. (100-200 liters per square meter) Whereas the flowers may need watering every 2 -3 days, consuming annually some 1000 mm!

3 Annual flowers (i.e. plants that complete their life cycle in one season) are best used in containers. This enables you to totally separate the flowers from the woody plants, and in addition, gives you the opportunity to concentrate colour in a few designated spots. This creates a far bolder and more effective design than a few flowers scattered around the bushes or at the foot of trees. A design feature can also be made of the pots themselves.

4 While the distinction between annuals and perennials (i.e. plants that complete their life cycle over a year or more) is usually pretty clear, the need to distinguish between various types of perennials is not. There are bedding plants which while technically perennial, are best treated as annuals, while there are herbaceous perennials that really can "hold" the flower bed together virtually 12 months of the year and can contribute to the bed for many years after. Some examples that come to mind are Agapanthus, Hemerocallis, some species of sage, and Chrysanthemum, Achilea, Cuphea, Osteospermum, and the grass-like Dietes.

5 In nature, annuals grow during the wet season. Try to focus the annual displays in the season most suited to them, and rely more on short-lived perennials during the dry seasons.

About the author - Jonathan Ya'akobi
I've been gardening in a professional capacity since 1984.
I am the former head gardener of the Jerusalem Botanical Garden, but now concentrate on building gardens for private home owners.
I also teach horticulture to students on training courses.
I'd love to share my knowledge and experience with you.
So you're welcome to visit me on www.dryclimategardening.com

Lawn care: Some tips for preventing pests and disease WITHOUT using pesticides

In last week's article about garden pests, entitled, - Are you at risk of holding an inflexible attitude? – I shared with you a professional mishap of my own, caused by my own inflexibility. I pointed out how my reluctance to use pesticides led me to ignore the need to apply a granular pesticide on recently laid turf, in order to prevent serious attack by moth caterpillars prevalent at this time of year in my country. I also emphasized that young lawns have been particularly vulnerable to lawn grubs, while my well cared for established lawns, remain virtually unaffected. So here are some lawn care tips for the middle of the summer, which can help you maintain a healthy green lawn, whilst keeping off the dreaded poisons as well!

• Many turf diseases, such as fungi, develop under humid and warm conditions. Avoid sprinkling the lawn in the early evening, as this means that the turf grass will be in almost 100% humidity till the morning. Watering should be timed for the early morning, - just before day break, in order to minimize these highly humid conditions. By the way – this shows that an automatic timer is a lot more than a just a luxury or convenience.

• Many damaging lawn insects also thrive in constantly moist conditions. One way of reducing their populations is to adopt an irrigation regime, whereby the interval between waterings is as spaced out as possible, quantities of water being increased accordingly. This also has the benefit of encouraging deeper root growth, which in turn makes the turf hardier to pests, disease and drought. Most perennial lawn varieties in use in dry climates, are of the deep rooting type, such as Zoysia and Kikuya grass.

• Applying fertilizer, particularly those that are nitrogen rich, also encourages various fungi. Avoid fertilizing therefore in the middle of the summer, and wait till the autumn. Personally, I use slow release fertilizers, just twice a year, in the spring and the autumn with excellent results.

• If you hire a gardener to mow your lawn, ask him or her to wipe the mower blades with some sterilizing agent, before working on your grass. Many pest and disease organisms are carried from garden to garden on tools and equipment.

Enjoy your garden, and try to keep off the pesticides as much as you can!

About the author - Jonathan Ya'akobi
I've been gardening in a professional capacity since 1984.
I am the former head gardener of the Jerusalem Botanical Garden, but now concentrate on building gardens for private home owners.
I also teach horticulture to students on training courses.
I'd love to share my knowledge and experience with you.
So you're welcome to visit me on www.dryclimategardening.com

Garden Pests – Are you at risk of holding an inflexible attitude?

There can be little doubt that that dealing with pests and disease in the garden is one of the most daunting tasks for the home, non–professional gardener. Actually, as I'll reveal to you in a moment, it's not that easy for me either, 23 years of professional experience notwithstanding. As in all aspects of life, one needs knowledge and experience, but above all, the attitude one holds towards a particular matter will determine the outcome, for good or for bad. The pest problem I'm going to share with you now, may not be absolutely specific to your garden in your particular area, but I'm sure you'll be able to draw conclusions from it.

I live and garden in central Israel, which has a typical east Mediterranean, semi arid climate. At this time of year, (the end of August) moth caterpillars mainly belonging to the genera Prodenia or Spodoptera, are busy chewing at plant leaves, but the principle damage is to lawns, especially those which are either in a weak state, or have recently been planted and therefore have yet to develop a strong root system. The last two years have seen particularly bad infestations.

Interestingly, all the established lawns I maintain remain virtually unaffected, proving to me at least, that pest control is 95% about providing optimal growing conditions for the garden plants. However, turf lawns that I've laid in the last month, have all started to brown-off, and there's no doubt that the culprits are moth caterpillars. I could have avoided this by the simple expedient of spreading a granular pesticide that protects the lawn for some two months. Enough time to see off the caterpillar season, and for the lawns to establish themselves. But I didn't. Why?

The reason can be traced to my general reluctance to use pesticides. This for the most part, is definitely the right attitude to hold. For it is almost universally accepted today, that pest and disease control is inseparable from sound horticultural practice, and that the garden should be attracting to it as much wild life as possible, in order to create a natural biological balance, while reliance on pesticides destroys that balance.
This is the correct policy in the general sense, but not necessarily in EVERY case. So try to avoid being dogmatic and inflexible, however much in the right you think you are!

For more information and discussion on gardening matters, go to
www.dryclimategardening.com
Next week I'll show you some simple ways of avoiding and dealing with garden pests, WITHOUT resorting to poisons!
About the author - Jonathan Ya'akobi
I've been gardening in a professional capacity since 1984.
I am the former head gardener of the Jerusalem Botanical Garden, but now concentrate on building gardens for private home owners.
I also teach horticulture to students on training courses.
I'd love to share my knowledge and experience with you.
So you're welcome to visit me on www.dryclimategardening.com