Landscape Design Is Worthless

It's time I let you in on my dirty little secret: I am completely worthless. The pretty pictures I make have absolutely no value short of fish-wrap, and anyone who would pay good money for them is a fool.

That is, unless they actually intend to install the landscape I design. Then, the work I do is priceless—the ticket to a welcoming home and a life inspired.

So what's the catalyst that transforms worthless into priceless?

The landscape contractor.

Here in California, landscape contractors are licensed by the State to be proficient in… well, you can read it for yourself. Basically, if you've ever played in a park, strolled through a plaza or enjoyed a public garden, you've touched a landscape contractor's work. It's very different from a gardener's, or a designer's.

The landscape contractor knows how to do all sorts of things I don't: how to build a fence, pour concrete, size an irrigation system, amend the soil. Their experience and expertise can make my best ideas even better. What's more, the landscape contractor is able to manage people to do those things for him or her, most often on time and on budget. Now that's talent. And without it, none of my brilliant ideas will ever see the light of day.

It's obvious I hold landscape contractors in pretty high regard. But it's astonishing how many people think differently: they see landscape contractors as a commodity, a necessary evil to be dealt with as quickly and cheaply as possible. To these people, the landscape contractor adds no value, brings no expertise beyond a few extra hands to do what the homeowner can't or won't. Why, to these people, the landscape contractor needn't even be a contractor: that pesky license just makes them more expensive. To these people, there's no difference between the licensed professional and the guy signaling you in the hardware store parking lot. At least, no difference worth the cost difference.

Let's be honest: there are plenty of licensed contractors whose work isn't as good as it should be. I've had a licensed contractor line "my" dry creek with concrete (thereby creating a very large and expensive bathtub). I've watched their crews install fence post footings below grade and with concave tops, ensuring premature rotting and failure. I've cleared their piles of mulch off of the new plantings. The license isn't a guarantee of quality. But it's a first step toward ensuring that the person entrusted with your landscaping has good intentions, education, and the integrity to right any wrongs.

There are plenty of other reasons to work with a licensed contractor: They're required to carry workers' compensation insurance for their crews, which shields the homeowner from a world of pain should an accident occur on their property. They're required to pay taxes, which support our state's economy as well as important public programs. And they're accountable to the government, giving the property owner some recourse should a dispute turn into something uglier.

Unfortunately, there is a huge labor pool out there hungry for work, any work, and a huge number of employers willing to exploit those workers for an unfair advantage in the marketplace. This has been termed "the underground economy," and it's estimated to cost California billions of dollars. Maybe the average backyard is barely a drop in this bucket… and maybe tens of thousands of yards statewide add up to something more.

I can't control my clientele. It's their choice, whom to hire. But if the results are less than we hoped for, they're not the only ones disappointed. I know what their yard could have been (even if they don't). I know the price they paid just to save a few dollars. Hey, no one likes to spend more than we have to. But going with the lowest bidder, shunning the licensed contractor simply because they cost more than the gardener, that's just plain lazy.

The responsible thing to do, I counsel my clients, is to research as many comparable contractors as needed to find one that has the right credentials and fits your style. A great place to start is with the California Landscape Contractors Association. Talk with two, three, ten if you need to. After all, you'll be in close contact with these folks for many months. Look them up on the CSLB website to confirm that their license and insurance are current (and unless they're truly a one-person show, they must have insurance for their employees). Talk with their most recent references, not just their favorites—you want to get the same crew who did quality work for their last client. And if you just can't get the contractor you want within the budget you have, turn back to your designer: we can help you "value-engineer" your new landscape design without compromising its vision.

It's true, even my best ideas and most articulate plans are worthless without someone to midwife them into reality. So if you're going to the trouble and expense of hiring me, for heaven's sake don't pull up short and cheap out on the installation. Do it once and do it right. Hire a licensed, skilled, wonderful landscape contractor. You'll have the rest of your life to absolutely love the landscape we—all of us—created.

Do-It-Yourself Landscaping

Occasionally I use this space to answer private questions in public. And occasionally I run out of new material. So today I'm addressing the second with a redux of the first, originally asked a couple of years ago but even more relevant in This Economy. Got a landscape design question of your own? Ask away!

Does-It-Himself Greg in San Carlos took a break from remodeling his home to write:

"Here's the problem: I'm a cheap bastard. More specifically, I like a nice yard with blooming vines, healthy hydrangeas and lush, jungle-green ferns. And if there's any way I can plant them and care for them myself, I will. "After our remodel we're going to need to do some substantial landscaping to the front and back. Me being me, I'm thinking I can do it myself. With that in mind, I have dug up and saved hydrangeas and ferns and roses that had been in the line of fire, and I even had the crew dig up and replant a very mature camilia (so far, so good). The crew also cleared out a rotting hot tub and old deck so that we will have much more room in the backyard, where I'd like to put in a small lawn and use plants that thrive under two large Monterey pines. "So my question is, what the hell do I do now? Am I in way over my head? Which aspects of he project should I pay the pros to do, and which could I realistically do myself?"

Greg, your, um, frugality means you need to work extra hard to define two things: (1) your budget, and (2) your priorities. On the first count, you've got to do your homework and figure out exactly how cheap you really are. How much can you spend without losing sleep over it? Remember that remodels have a funny way of costing a bit more than expected; do you want to sock any money away in a special "landscaping" bank account before it's all spent? Don't worry right now how the money will be used—just be honest, pick a finite number, and make it inviolable. (Hint: involve your wife in this exercise.)

On the second count, take stock of what will really bring joy to you and your family. How much lawn will you and your kids really use? Will you need a spot to grill steaks? A shady place to sit and relax while the kids romp? I'm guessing you're the gardener—how much time will you really have each week to keep the yard looking its best? What yard chores will you enjoy, or dread? Is it important to you that your yard look "mature" soon, or can you wait a few years for things to fill in? Make a list of every quality you'll want. Dream out loud. (Hint: involve your wife in this exercise.) Then rank them from highest priority ("absolutely must have") to lowest ("icing on the cake"). This will tell you where your finite number, see above, should be spent.

But let's back up a step or two, Greg. I get that you're, um, economical. My dad was, um, thrifty too: he'd drive across town to fill up at the gas station that was 2 cents cheaper than the others. But what did he actually save? Nothing. Worst of all, he didn't take any real joy in the process or pride in the outcome. So back to you: what's your aversion to hiring a pro to come up with something that's beautiful, within your budget, and facilitates the life you want to live?

Of course you could do it yourself. You could glean tips from garden design books and blogs, copy planting plans from magazines, learn how to design and install irrigation and lighting systems, rent a pickup and a Ditch Witch and a Rototiller, lay your own sod and install your own shrubs. It's not quite rocket science, even the irrigation part, and if you're really a cheapskate, you can do all of this. You'll save a bunch of money. But you'll also be out a bunch of time — time with your wife who adores you, your sons who revere you, your friends who enjoy you, your avocations which enrich you, and probably even your work — which presumably affords you the possibility of not having to spend all your free time on this.

So that's where I would draw the line: What aspects of the project would you truly enjoy? If you aspire to design green spaces, if you love learning about plants and experimenting with what you've learned, then take that on. If you love getting your hands dirty and putting small parts together to create complex yet rational systems, then take on the irrigation/lighting installation. If you love getting your hands really dirty while getting a fair amount of exercise, then take on the soil work and planting. Take on what you'll love… and hire a pro for the rest of it. The money you spend will come back to you in well-designed spaces that enhance your precious time with your family; in well-selected and well-installed plants that thrive under those pines; and in well-designed systems that perform efficiently every day.

I feel like we're just getting started, so tell you what: in a couple of posts, I'll write about how you can keep your costs down when you do choose to hire a pro. Just remember: my advice is worth exactly what you pay for it.

Two Roses for the Price of One

So your rose bush is blooming magnificently. Bright, big flowers… glossy green leaves… gosh, it's doing so well it's actually blooming in two colors this year!

Uh… not actually.

In fact, if your rose bush is blooming in two colors, I'll wager that one of them is a deep maroon, a little smaller than the other, a little lower on the bush. Probably a little something like this:

If so, you don't have one rose flowering in two colors: you have two roses.

See, most roses sold and planted in California are hybrids — genetic crosses between two different varieties. Not at all Frankenflowers, they're bred this way to give us distinct joy: brighter flowers, glossier leaves, repeat flowering, greater resistance to disease. You can't have it all, though, and what makes them beautiful upstairs makes them weak downstairs.

Enter that miracle of modern ancient technology, grafting. By splicing that gorgeous body onto robust roots that can handle frost, rot, nematodes, fungus, drought, etc., humans figured out that we can have it all.

The only problem, and it's really just a minor one, is that those roots are — by definition — more robust than the body. And just like the body, their prime directive is to grow. Which means you get robust growth… just from the rootstock, not the body.

So those smaller, maroon flowers are "suckers" growing from the rootstock, most likely a variety named "Dr. Huey" (named after a prominent early-1900s rosarian) that is used for almost all California-grown hybrid tea roses because it can handle poor soils, shade, cold, and disease (although it has shown some susceptibility to nematodes in Florida).

Unfortunately, although "Dr. Huey" is beautiful in its own right, if left unchecked its vigor will sap the plant's energy from the more desirable body, the one you presumably bought the plant for in the first place. To prevent this fate, prune the suckers back as close to the primary cane as possible. This directs all that vigor back into the body of the bush… so it can bloom magnificently after all.

Learning from the Big Guys, Pt. 2

Some of the knowledge we lose living in urban and suburban areas is how plants naturally grow. As in, how BIG. As a result, we put big shrubs in the garden where little shrubs should go (I tend to make this mistake with Viburnum); and place trees too close to structures or crowd them together.

In this example at a Peninsula elementary school, two redwoods and one Atlas cedar have been triangulated about 8 - 12 feet on center. Now, this would make a nice grove of small ornamental trees such as cherry or crabapple. Or a compact windbreak of columnar specimens such as cottonwood or 'Fastigiata' hornbeam. But come on! These are long-lived forest giants, wanting to spread 50 feet or more. Even if they were to grow this close together in nature, they would probably be successive generations, never really competing with each other for light, water, nutrients and space.

As this trio matures, they will create a maintenance headache for the Arborist who has to keep their limbs pruned clear of each other (with probably unattractive results). Even so, they probably will struggle along together, limp into midlife, and never achieve the cool grove I bet their planters intended.

The lesson here: work with, not against, Mother Nature. She always wins.

Q&A: Planter Boxes on Concrete

Raymond in Sonoma County, who believes the return of circa-1998 wealth is more likely than romantic evenings in his hot tub, writes:

"I have a 10' x 10' concrete slab that was designed for a hot tub, but in these troubling economic times, we've decided to simplify and use the space for a vegetable garden. My question: Can I build a planter box directly over the concrete? And if so, how deep would it need to be to be successful? I'd rather not remove the slab; who knows, someday we may be back to ordering groceries from WebVan and toasting the new economy in the 'tub."

Raymond, your champagne dreams are as refreshing as a spring breeze. And who knows? Perhaps your windfall will come from cornering the market in microgreens or breeding the Next Big Thing in broccoli — in your new vegetable garden!

I absolutely think you can build a planter box on top of the pad, and here are a few things I would do to ensure success:

To keep all the plants within reach, make your planters no more than 30" wide (i.e. front to back) if you'll be accessing them from only one side, or 60" wide if you'll be able to access them from opposite sides.

Leave yourself at least 24" between planters for comfortable navigation.

Orient your planters along the east-west axis if possible (obviously this depends on the orientation of your slab).

Make the slab a heat sink by leaving the southern edge exposed; it will radiate warmth throughout the night, which should improve yields.

Although most of your veggies need only 6"-12" of root space (tomatoes and root crops will appreciate more), you'll garden more comfortably if the planters are 20"-30" tall. If you attach a trellis (to the northernmost planter edge), make sure its top doesn't exceed your reach.

Here's a quick sketch of one possible layout on your slab, two boxes at 48"L x 36"W x 24"D plus one at 120"L x 30"W x 30"D:



To prevent rot of both the boxes and the plants, improve drainage by doing the following:

Raise the boxes off of the pad by attaching cleats (e.g. ripped 2x4s) to their bases. Depending on how long you expect your economic recovery to take, you could use redwood (probably a 5-year lifespan) or a composite lumber (forever lifespan).

Make the bottom of the boxes permeable, i.e. leave gaps between boards. Again, to increase lifespan I would consider a composite lumber for the bottoms, and I would line the inside of the box with weed fabric — spun polypropylene — to keep soil from draining away as well. If you want to get really fancy, try building the bottoms at a 1%-2% slope toward one corner, so all the water drains to that point.

Fill the bottom of the box with a layer of drain rock, topped with weed fabric, topped with potting soil. Try to leave a planting depth of at least 8"; if you're building the raised boxes pictured, that would be about 6"-12" of rock.

Because you're creating such good drainage, your potting soil may dry out; try coconut coir as a sustainable alternative to peat moss.

I would use untreated redwood for the boxes. Your trellis could be of either redwood or copper pipe; and you may also want to consider building "cages" framed with wood, copper, or plastic pipe to protect your investment from critters.

Good luck, and happy growing. Please send photos of whatever you create! And when you are rolling in cash again, I accept your invitation for a soak in that hot tub.

Planting The Seed

"In 1994, Congress transformed the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday into a national day of community service to further commemorate a man who lived his life in service to others. Never has it been more important to come together in shared purpose to tackle the common challenges we face."
—USAService.org

Actually, Jan. 17-19 is a three-day weekend of service, and this handy event finder will show you plenty of opportunities in your backyard... everything from blood drives and food sharing to habitat restoration, tree planting, and parks beautification. Many of these are perfect opportunities to introduce children to the values of volunteerism and service; you'll find me and mine planting trees in Castro Valley.

Making a difference in your neighborhood, community and world is as simple as making some time to volunteer. Even if it's just an hour, won't you join me in lending a hand?

Right on Cue

In case you missed it, autumn is officially here. Some tree species seem to get the memo sooner than others; Callery pear, Liquidambar, Chinese pistachio and one of my favorites, American ash (the aptly named 'Autumn Purple' cultivar is pictured here) are already showing their true colors.

Among shrubs, you'll start seeing autumn colors soon on heavenly bamboo and viburnums; and some grasses such as 'Haense Herms' switchgrass are equally brilliant.

I'm not saying these are necessarily the best plants for fall color, just some of the earliest. If you like autumn to be a season in your garden, not just a page in your calendar, they're worth a look.

What are some of your fall favorites?

Geez, It's Hot.

Geez, it's hot. It's been hot all week, even in San Francisco, even with overcast skies and a westerly breeze that normally chills things to a level that Kenmore should aspire to. Nope, it's been hot, 80 degrees at 5pm in The City, the same at 10pm down on the peninsula.

There's a sort of ritual among old-timers here: when it gets hot like this, open the doors and windows all night to flood the house with cool air, then shut 'em up tight and draw the blinds all day to keep the heat out. It's a pretty good system, and we used it quite effectively in the 1936 bungalow we lived in until recently. The attic trapped and isolated the hottest air, and the crawl space was a permanent reservoir of coolness. The system takes a bit of getting used to, but it works.

Then a couple of years ago we moved into a brand-new house, built to the latest standards and undoubtedly more energy efficient than last century's technology.

Except it's not.

This house is terribly inefficient. Instead of a full attic, the bedrooms have high peaked ceilings that conduct heat in from the roof and hold it in the room all night (compounded by the fact that the bedrooms are upstairs to begin with). Big skylights provide tons of light... and also transmit tons of heat, without opening to vent any of it out. The crawl space is minimal, so even the ground floor heats up relatively quickly and cools down slowly.

Why would someone build a house this way? Because they also plumbed it for air conditioning. I suppose the thinking was, "as long as we've offered a solution, there's not a problem." Heaven forbid they should have spent more time or money building a smarter house; just throw natural resources at it instead.

Unfortunately, I see this kind of short-term thinking all the time in garden-making as well. Gratuitous lawns are the classic case — fast, cheap, attractive, so what if it takes 100 gallons of water a day? Same with trees that have no business growing >100 yards from a river, yet get plunked down in the middle of town: don't change your planting scheme to include water-wise plants — just increase the irrigation! Then there's hardscaping: impermeable asphalt driveways are replaced with impermeable concrete driveways. Existing concrete paths and pads are broken up and carted off, with new concrete masonry units carted in to make new patios and retaining walls. Dining patios get sited in full sun, demanding that a shade pergola be built, rather than in the shade of existing trees.

A few decades ago pioneering landscape architect Ian McHarg wrote his seminal work "Design With Nature". He challenged land planners to analyze, understand, and work with natural systems rather than bulldozing through them. His advice still holds today — no matter what the scale of the project.

What are you doing to design with nature, or to overcome the problems created by those who didn't?

Baby, It's Hot Outside

Even as East Bay MUD proposes its first water-rationing measure in two decades, this week temperatures are expected to soar toward the century mark.

For your garden, this means get a head start (i.e., now) on keeping your plants hydrated. If you're irrigating with a spray system, see whether your controller can be programmed to repeat cycles — so that rather than watering once for ten minutes, which may deliver more water than the soil can absorb at once — your system waters each zone once for five minutes, then repeats the cycle for another five — so Zone A is absorbing while Zone B is receiving. If you're not sure how much water your plants should be getting, get to know your local Master Gardener; you can also extrapolate some good information from publications developed for commercial growers.

If you're irrigating with a low-flow (drip) system, you will want to increase the length of each cycle and/or add a "syringe" cycle in the middle of the day, effectively giving the plants a drink when their transpiration rates are highest.

You'll also want to make sure all that precious water stays in the soil, where the plants can actually get it, rather than evaporating into thin air. The most effective way to do this is with a generous layer of mulch. Most often we think of mulch as fir bark, which is ground to various consistencies (or shredded into "gorilla hair").

However, there's more than one way to mulch: compost is wonderful, adding nutrients to the soil even as it holds water in; and even pea gravel is effective (although pricey and doesn't decompose like organic matter). Some municipalities even give away free compost to residents. The key with mulch is to apply it generously (I prefer a depth of least 3 inches) and regularly. Remember, organic matter like bark and compost break down over time; so plan to reapply an inch or so at least a couple of times a year.

There are plenty of other considerations in creating "water-wise" gardens. The California Water Service has some good resources, including a list of drought-resistant plants; if you've got good tips for getting your garden through the heat, please let me know!

Pardon the Interruption

Where the hell have I been for the last two months?! Let's just say this has been one of the busiest autumns I've ever had, and unfortunately doing the work to my usual exacting standards has taken precedence over musing about it. But I've still had a lot on my mind. For starters:

I'm proud to announce Verdance now offers design modeling as one of our premium services. In the last two years I've transitioned from hand-drawn plans to the enhanced precision and visualization of CAD and SketchUp-rendered designs. Now, I'm also able to replicate our designs to scale, whether to show the look and feel of an entire site or create a prototype of a specific feature. Of course I offer this service to my clientele; and I'm available as well to consult for other landscape designers and architects in bringing their design ideas to life.

Back in the virtual world, my series on Christmas trees, real or fake or organic or toxic, is due for a new chapter; the G Living Network was kind enough to do the heavy lifting for me.

After ordering about 1,000 narcissus and tulip species from Brent and Becky's, I've been hurriedly preparing my front yard to receive them and ultimately have concluded I'll have to plant them in shallow graves and unearth them for a proper replanting next fall. That's efficient.

The time for getting native plants into the ground has come and is going... and have I gotten my own vernal pool (aka billabong) prepared? Nooooo..... but I will at least have some "in process" photos here soon.

I've certainly missed having the time to write here; of course there's also some wondering whether anyone is reading (or not reading) what I do write. If there's anything you'd like to hear me wax on about in the coming months, I hope you'll let me know.

"If you can't control it, don't plant it."

That's the advice from Backyard Invasion, a new exhibit at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, featuring images of invasive and endangered Pennsylvania plants.

Pittsburgh is a little out of my way this week, but here are some key points that are worth sharing no matter where you garden:

Non-native plants — also known as “exotic” plants — can be classified as “invasive” when they exhibit rapid and aggressive growth. Around here, that would be the Cytisus scoparius (Scotch broom) and Cortaderia sellowiana (pampas grass) that blanket our hillsides each spring and fall, respectively. (I find it particularly ironic that the Scotch broom is in full flower all around the Cow Palace just when the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show is on.)

When they take over a garden, park, or planting area, invasive plants endanger the surrounding ecosystem. Obviously, if a weedy species such as pampas grass is consuming a site's water and nutrients, and producing shade, other plants can't thrive there. But it's not just the plants that are forced out: along with them go propagators such as birds, bees, and butterflies; mycorrhizal fungi, lichens, and other symbiotic microbes; and macro- and micro-nutrients that otherwise would support a diversity of flora. And, nature being nature, there's a whole chain of parasites, predators, relatives and beneficiaries that follow all of these out of the ecosystem.

The invasive plants are likely to encroach upon regions previously occupied by native plants, many of which are rare, if not at risk for extinction. One reason may be because, while native plants have evolved very particularly to the conditions of their locale—e.g. serpentine soils—invasives will grow damn near anywhere. The second fold of this problem is that, because of their specific adaptations, natives have very few places to naturally relocate once displaced. If you're growing native plants in your garden, weed often and thoroughly: your native micro-habitat is vulnerable to the invading hordes.

Able to adapt quickly to new environments and produce seeds in short cycles, invasive plants can be extremely hard to eliminate. Any removal effort is certain to cost money as well as time. Again, a strong case for early detection and treatment (and why it's not so easy to just dispatch throngs of highway workers to machete the Cortaderia and Cytisus into submission).

Because they create such high-maintenance headaches, it's a lot easier to just look the other way when invasive weeds start sprouting. But if they're left unchecked, entropy dictates we will become a planet of weeds. To learn more about the invasives threatening California, check out Encycloweedia, as useful as it is cleverly named. And make sure you, or your garden designer, really knows what's going into your garden—before that cute little "Tree of Heaven" becomes the noxious weed from hell.

Guilty Conscience 3000, Environment 0

Timothy Gardner at Reuters reports:

It's red mangrove trees versus greenhouse gases at the Super Bowl in Miami Sunday.

The National Football League is hoping to tackle the game's heat-trapping gas emissions by planting 3,000 mangroves and other trees native to Florida, but the plan could be more of an incomplete pass than a touchdown when it comes to global warming, experts said.

"It's probably a nice thing to do, but planting trees is not a quantitative solution to the real problem," said Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University.

The NFL began planting the trees in August and will finish in May. This year's Super Bowl features the Chicago Bears against the Indianapolis Colts.

The NFL claims the trees planted in Miami, and at the last two Super Bowls, make the games "carbon neutral" because the trees will eventually absorb carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas, emitted at the events.

Power for the game and fuel for generators at the adjacent NFL Experience Super Bowl theme park, along with its more than 1,200 vehicles, will emit about 500 tons of CO2 on Super Bowl Sunday, according to the U.S. Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Attempts by U.S. companies and organizations to offset carbon are taking root as evidence mounts that heat-trapping emissions from industry and the burning of coal, oil, and gas cause global warming that could lead to deadly flooding, storms, and heat waves.

A draft of a U.N. report to be released Friday says there is an at least 90 percent chance that human actions are to blame for most of the warming in the past 50 years.

Contenders for the 2008 U.S. presidential race from both major political parties want to enact U.S. laws to limit heat-trapping emissions. That could place value on offset projects by creating a market where industry might invest in green projects in exchange for the right to pollute.

The NFL should be commended for voluntarily bringing benefits of tree planting to communities, but there are less risky ways to offset greenhouse emissions, said Philip Duffy, a climate scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
"If you plant a tree (CO2 reductions are) only temporary for the life of the tree," he said. "If you don't emit in the first place, then that permanently reduces CO2."

Jack Groh, the NFL's environmental coordinator, said the carbon absorbing potential of the mangroves will blossom as the trees reproduce and grow into forests. But he acknowledged that it could be hard to ensure that trees planted by children at schools -- another of the NFL's programs -- will last into the future. He said the NFL was constantly trying to learn how to make its climate-neutral program better.

Even the mangroves could succumb to fire, disease, or be cut down, any of which would release any CO2 sequestered by the trees back into the atmosphere, said Duffy.

Tree projects can give people a feel-good illusion that they are slowing global warming, the amount of carbon in fossil fuel resources is 25 times greater than could be ever sequestered in trees, said Caldeira. Offsets that reduce the amount of fossil fuels being burned, such as solar and wind farms, and perhaps nuclear energy, can be less risky, he said.

Alex Rau, a principal based in San Francisco at Climate Wedge, which advises a carbon fund for Cheyne Capital, prefers clean energy projects over tree projects. "If your objectives are entirely on the carbon ... then it is not so wise a project at the moment," he said.

3000 mangrove trees.
500 tons of CO2.
Discuss amongst yourselves.

A Matter of Timing

Interesting phenomenon: as soon as we got a couple of sunny days last week, my phone started ringing off the hook with people who "want new landscaping in time for summer." This actually is typical of this season, as it gradually dawns on us that winter may actually end some day, and we may get to spend some time outside again.

But this year things are particularly bad: all the rain has kept contractors from working, which has backlogged their schedules, which means they won't be available for your job any time soon, and they'll cost twice as much when they are. Even the most ardent DIY-er will have a tough time working the soil (yes, that muck is in fact soil) or setting cement.

So what's an impatient homeowner to do?

1. Throw money at it. There's no problem that can't be solved when you multiply your budget 4x. Hey, the markets have been on a roll lately, right?

2. Call more contractors for bids. After all, there's gotta be one that's not booked up. (Make sure you don't ask why they're not busy like everyone else.)

3. Lower your design standards. So what if you really wanted a stone patio and redwood arbor? You'll get used to the gravel in time, and you can probably get a really good deal on a charming patio umbrella on craigslist.

4. Do it yer damn self. Because you're really good at things like this.

5. Start planning now for autumn. Contact a really good garden designer now and commission a unique landscape design to be installed in the fall. Your preliminary concepts should be done by June. You can start contacting contractors in July. Get final plans and bids by August. And break ground in September. Your plants (installed in October or November) will appreciate all the winter rains, as will your irrigation budget. (Watch, now that I've said that, we'll have a drought next winter.) Your wallet won't get raked over the coals by the laws of supply and demand. And in exchange for your patience and wisdom, you'll have an excellent new landscape, at an excellent price, less than a year from now.

Oops... sun's out! Gotta go...

happy birthday to me

The problem is, no one can agree on what flowers symbolize Scorpio. Traditionally I had always heard Chrysanthemum. But there's also Geranium and honeysuckle (whether true Geranium or Pelargonium, I have no idea). Orchid, Gardenia and Dahlia are also candidates, as are Anemone and heather.

It's also been noted that "Gerbera and the suggestively shaped Hippeastrum are Scorpio flowers. Also flowers that grow in dark or secret glades are ruled by this sign." (This source also goes on to rightly ask, "With a sexy Scorpio as your lover who needs flowers?")(Indeed.)

So anyhow, happy birthday to me. According to the American Paper and Forest Association, some 4 million trees will be planted today. Not a bad gift... but maybe you and I can nudge that number north a bit?

It's a Cool Season for Planting

Now's the time to plant "cool-season" annuals, such as pansies, snapdragons, stock and violas; and vegetables such as salad greens, spinach, broccoli, peas and carrots.
Because these plants don't develop large seeds (such as sunflowers) or fruits (such as tomatoes), they thrive on less sunlight and warmth than "warm-season" plants. Just remember, if you're starting your plants indoors, acclimate them to these cooler days gradually: put their pots outside for just a couple of hours the first day, then an additional hour a day until they're living outdoors full-time and ready to go into the ground.