Gardens need planning. And its not just for beauty. Healthy plants need certain water requirements and light. Planting too close to the house can cause foundation issues. Not planning for that barbecue might leave visitors trampling the salvia on the way to a bench five people must share! Here are some tips and sometimes tales of woe in the adventure of gardening.
Imagine having this much water. And knowing you made it happen. The Cascata Delle Marmore Falls in Italy are manmade, built to solve problems of another manmade water flow. Moving water is a long held skill of humans, though the Romans were immensly expert in moving large amounts long distances. For the arid American West, […]
The path I want to create will be bold where excitement is key and understated where I want calm. How you say? Its all in the matrix. Bold is red breeze and creamy white steps. Under-stated is stone dropped in grass. I went with red breeze on the central axis over the bridge to guide […]
The Going Native journey is not a statement. It’s not political, not artistic, not religious. It’s a journey by steps towards the best habitat I can create. It’s the new age ideal, ‘we are everything, and everything is us’, brought back to the physical. It’s finding pure balance in the nature I create. But it’s […]
Today life seems evermore a rushing river. You start days in a rush to get a mornings work in before the hunger and the lull of siesta calls. Our days end with ever louder traffic. Unbeknownst to us, they raise the speed limit and our quiet corner of the world is gone. Rush hour keeps […]
This is a nice tutorial on how to create a gravel path that stays in place. The big deal is the tamping and a good tamper! A natural low profile path The path found by Pam Penick on an Austin Garden Tour in 2008 has the lines I’m looking for. Here flagstone is upended to […]
A look to 2007 and the beginnings of a journey to the garden border. This place was much more bare than I remember it. This was 12 years already. Today, plants and weeds too overflow everywhere… an urban lot on the precipice of maximum habitation. Though within some bounds. Nothing is more centering to the […]
The garden plan looks great on paper. But as I look around there’s so much to be done. Where do you start? One of the challenges with my new plan is digging out the dry pond and the dirt will form a berm. This requires I understand the layout of the current sprinkler system. The […]
The Vision: A calming mixture of dry stream and waves of nature inviting grass. Creating better visual balance is key. When I envision a calm harmonizing place I think of the zen garden. The subdued palette, natural material and simple symbolism. I think of its interactive purpose in bringing you fully into the present moment. […]
Fence guys don’t know retaining walls. The tallest part of the wall needs redone. It may last a year or more so there’s time. Wood lasted nearly 40 years in the same site, so treated wood sounds like the obvious choice. The fence guys didn’t put in any drainage and that may be contributing to […]
Permaculture Practice Where to start is to read The Permaculture Design Course Handbook. It leads you through the 11 design principles whose goal is a community of plants and animals acting in coordination for mutual benefit. When thoughtfully placed near each other (relative location) each element provides at least three functions for other elements. Principles […]