Locals are going “xeric” as they plant and nurture gorgeous gardens full of native plants.
For some people, the idea of a “dry” garden conjures images of rocks, sand and cacti, striking fear and loathing in the hearts of rose lovers everywhere. Although some of the most visually stunning gardens in the East Bay are populated with desert plants, we are hardly limited to that aesthetic to save water.
Our ample winter rains notwithstanding, there is a lot of concern these days about the water supply, and well there should be. The state of California Department of Health Services projects that between 2000 and 2050 the state’s population will increase by nearly 25 million. That’s a lot more Californians drinking, flushing, bathing in and otherwise sucking up water. Currently, 60 percent of our water is used to irrigate lawns, both residential and commercial, and even some of that is diverted for urban use.
There is one way we can help: convert all or part of our gardens to a drought-tolerant landscape.
Cool and Coastal
The East Bay is in what Sunset Magazine’s Western Garden Book describes as a “coastal Mediterranean” climate. This means that we can grow a wide variety of plants native to our area as well as those native to other similar climates. “We’re on the cool spectrum of the Mediterranean climate,” explains Dr. Paul Licht, director of the U.C. Botanical Garden in Berkeley’s Strawberry Canyon about the climate on his side of the Caldecott tunnel.
At the botanical garden’s entrance visitors are greeted by a graceful display of native and imported drought-tolerant plantings: Airy paloverde trees, green and variegated agaves; masses of flowing grasses; tightly clumped families of gray, pale green and pink-tipped blooming succulents; hardy rosemary-looking ground covers.
“We mix all kinds of plants in this front entrance to give people a new take on ‘xeric’ or dry or water-wise,” explained Anthony Garza, the garden’s supervisor of horticulture and grounds, who designed the entrance with what he calls “arid or semi-arid exotica.”
Garza explains that gardeners are shifting away from the classic blooming English garden, which relies heavily on flowers, to gardens that use flowers to add color to year-round plants rich with foliage and texture.
Licht explains the tremendous visual resource the botanical garden provides for people planning a garden. “We have something blooming [here] every day of the year, but a lot of it is grown for foliage,” he says.
The botanical garden distributes Waterwise Gardening Tour, a free, four-color book available both at the garden and local nurseries. East Bay Municipal Utility District also sells an informative volume entitled Plants and Landscape for Summer-Dry Climates available online, at the botanical garden and at local independent bookstores.
Whether you plan to go it alone or hire a landscaper, choosing the right plants can be daunting. “Get a notebook, go to all the nurseries and write down all the plants that make you giggle, remind you of your childhood, that have fragrances that send you to heaven, things like that,” says Richard Ward, owner of Oakland’s The Dry Garden. “Go to garden tours—they’re tax-deductible—with a cell phone and take pictures noting . . . combinations, colors, leaves.”
Ward co-sponsors the Late Show Gardens, an autumnal counterpoint to San Francisco’s Garden Show in March. This year the event will be held at COPIA winery in Napa and features garden designers and speakers from around the world focused on climate change, water availability, pollution and recycling.
Getting Dry
Elevation, drainage, topography and soil conditions are important considerations when planting a drought-tolerant garden.
Landscape designer Corinne Louise, who specializes in ecological design with native plants, does an initial review of her clients’ property to find out what areas are moist, shady, hot, sunny or subject to intense wind. “That gives me information about what kind of plantings make sense,” she explains. “[I look for] what needs to be removed, [what are the] fire considerations?” That last point is especially important for many hill-dwellers, as some plants and trees act as accelerants in a fire. One more plus for dry landscaping: A San Diego newspaper recently published photographs showing how an agave border saved one home during the fires there last fall.
Because of specific site conditions, not every garden is made to be drought-tolerant throughout. “It’s a good practice to group your water-needy things together, then you can have your drought-tolerant plants in the other part of your garden,” says John Ballantine, native-plant manager at Berkeley Horticultural Nursery. Garza offers another suggestion. “If you want something that looks lush, grow your most water-demanding plants in pots that you can individually irrigate and water.”
Good drainage is key to keeping your plants happy, as overly rich and damp soils can kill native and drought-tolerant plants. Most experts recommend amending native soil with gritty components to improve drainage. But as anyone who has taken a spade to hard clay knows, this can be challenging. “Almost all of the East Bay is alluvial clay,” says Hap Hollibaugh, co-owner of Cactus Jungle in Berkeley. “We tell people you can build it up, replace it or amend it directly. We mix our own cactus and succulent blend and we sell it in bags and bulk.”
Clay, as it turns out, is very rich in nutrients but requires the addition of calcium to unlock them. Hollibaugh and co-owner Peter Lipson use oyster shell in their blend, along with lava and pumice to improve drainage and aerate the soil. “We also provide information cards for our customers on growing the plants and amending the soil,” adds Lipson.
Poking Around
As part of a home renovation project, Berkeley resident Ruth Threadgold decided to install a cactus and succulent garden by herself. It became a thorny subject. “My arms were filled with tiny little spines because my gloves weren’t long enough—but I just love cacti so much I had to have them,” Threadgold said.
Hap Hollibaugh suggests a more cathartic approach. “For the big spiny guys, as long as they are in clay pots they’re very easy—you take it home in a pot, prepare the potting hole, put the clay pot in the ground so that you have something safe to handle and then smash the clay pot with a hammer. The clay pot has no relevance to the value of the plant. And then of course the great thing about the clay shards is that you can turn it into a drainage field or mulch on the surface. You’ll want to wear eye protection.”
For those with toddlers or pets, a wide variety of more user-friendly xeric plants are available at even the strictly dry nurseries. Berkeley Hort’s John Ballantine explains that the biggest group of water-saving natives are those that tend to come from chaparral ecosystems. “The two most well-known California natives are arctostaphylos (commonly known as Manzanita) and ceanothus, a fragrant blooming plant that is known for its beautiful blue blossoms and for attracting native butterflies and insects.”
For those who can’t live without a lawn, fescues and some of the native carexes are tough and hardy through periods of dryness. “They tend to be able to go for longer periods between mowings and maybe get sheared two or three times a year,” Ballentine explains. “It’s a much looser, less manicured look but you don’t have all the water use.
“We have to begin moving past the idea that we can have our one-eighth-of-an-acre green lawn and water every three days,” adds Hollibaugh. “My front yard got watered once last year, and that was just to wash down some new organics and nutrients into the soil.”
Birds, Bees and Bay
A major benefit of native and drought-tolerant plants is that they have adapted to our environment, inviting native bee pollinators and eliminating the need for pesticides and chemical fertilizers. (One theory about the much-reported collapse of European honeybee colonies is that pesticide overuse has contributed to destruction of their habitat.) Chemical fertilizers that run off impermeable surfaces and down to the Bay upset the chemical balance of the water and create the growth of algae. That algae destroys fresh-water and brackish wetlands. “We’re in the middle of the Pacific flyway,” says Corinne Louise, who lectures at the Audubon Society and at Piedmont Adult School. “This is the migratory path for both land birds and water birds, not to mention butterflies that migrate.”
If environmental concerns weren’t enough motivation to go native and Mediterranean, East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) offers financial incentives through its Landscape Rebate Program. “We offer up to $1,000 for those who remove [all or part of their] high water–use lawns,” says Susan Handjian, EBMUD water conservation representative. The program reimburses residents for the costs of new materials including drought-tolerant plantings, mulch and drip-irrigation systems.
“One of our biggest problems is urban runoff,” Handjian adds. With population growth comes an increase in pavement, patios, driveways and paths. Those paving materials, especially ones joined at the seams with mortar, prevent water from percolating through to the underlying soil. This causes any water on their surface to drain down to the Bay. If you choose to remove a portion of lawn and replace it with a patio or walkway made from a permeable paver, such as decomposed granite or bricks set in sand, EBMUD can rebate the costs of those materials as well. In order to qualify for these programs however, you must get preapproval. “We want to influence people in their choices—that’s why we insist on preapproving their plans,” Handjian adds.
EBMUD also offers a clever solution—and another rebate—for those who may be away from home during a rainstorm and cannot turn off automatic watering systems. Residential customers can buy one of their “Watersmart” irrigation controllers that self-adjusts based on the weather and climatic conditions.
Water availability will likely touch us more immediately than perhaps any other environmental issue and the key to maintaining the water supply can begin in our own backyards. Richard Ward considers it in the same context as a discussion about climate change. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s cyclical in nature or human induced . . . we’ve all got to look in the same direction.”
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Andrea Pflaumer is a frequent contributor to several Bay Area periodicals. Her profile on Berkeley poet Judith Goldhaber was recently published in the University of Toronto’s Women In Judaism annual journal.
Garden Variety
How to :
Start with a good design.
Prep the soil with the right organic amendments, materials that improve drainage and sufficient mulch.
Reduce water-hungry shrubs and grass; consider grasses that go dormant in dry spells.
Use native plants that demand less water and go dormant when summer heats up including wildflowers, bulbs and dry-climate plants.
Set up watering schedules that are effective and efficient: less frequent deep watering of lawn and shrub areas causes roots to go deeper and is more effective than regular light waterings.
Keep flower beds and shrub borders well mulched to reduce evaporation.
Source: “Xeriscaping—What is it?” by Diana Pederson;
www.suite101.com/article.cfm
enabling_garden/15755
Shows & Sales
Bay Friendly Landscaping and Gardening Conference, www.stopwaste.org
Bringing Back the Natives Tour, May 4, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. throughout Alameda and Contra Costa counties; free admission; For a preview and info: www.BringingBackTheNatives.net. Other select garden tours (including a bicycle jaunt to Walnut Creek) offered April 12, 13, 26, 27 and May 3, 18 and 25; $30; registration at www.BringingBackTheNatives.net is required before April 26.
Secret Gardens of the East Bay, Saturday, April 26: exclusive tour of 11 private gardens; and Sunday, April 27: self-guided tour of 11 gardens and public marketplaces. Benefit for Park Day School. For more info: www.secretgardentour.org. [Note: this is not necessarily a dry-garden or native-plant tour.]
The Late Show Gardens, COPIA Winery, 500 First St., Napa, (415) 451-1894; www.thelateshowgardens.org
U.C. Botanical Garden at Berkeley and Plant Deck (check Web site for tours and plant sales), 200 Centennial Drive, Berkeley, (510) 643-2755; www.botanicalgarden.berkeley.eduAnnual plant sale, Friday, April 25 for members, Saturday, April 26, general public, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Nurseries & experts
Berkeley Horticultural Nursery, 1310 McGee Ave., Berkeley, (510) 528-5038; www.berkeleyhort.com
Broadway Terrace Nursery, 4340 Clarewood Drive, Oakland, (510) 658-3729; www.broadwayterracenursery.com
Cactus Jungle, 1509 Fourth St., Berkeley, (510) 558-8650; www.cactusjungle.com
Corinne Louise Design, (510) 526-3593; www.thegardenisateacher.com
The Dry Garden, 6556 Shattuck Ave., Oakland, (510) 547-3564
East Bay Nursery, 2332 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley, (510) 845-6490; www.eastbaynursery.com
Four Dimensions Landscape Company, 2928 Poplar St., Oakland, (510) 893-1999; www.fourdimensionslandscape.com
Magic Gardens, 729 Heinz Ave., Berkeley, (510) 644-2351; www.magicgardens.com
Mariposa Gardening & Design, (510) 229-7320; www.mariposagardening.com
Mt. Diablo Nursery, 3295 Mt. Diablo Blvd., Lafayette, (925) 283-3830; www.mtdiablonursery.com
Orchard Nursery Lafayette, 4010 Mt. Diablo Blvd., Lafayette, (925) 284-4474; www.orchardnursery.com
Ploughshares Nursery, 2701 Main Street, Alameda, (510) 755.1102; www.ploughsharesnursery.com
Thornhill Nursery, 6250 Thornhill Drive, Oakland, (510) 339-1311; www.thornhillnursery.com
Westbrae Nursery, 1272 Gilman Street, Berkeley, (510) 526-5517; www.westbrae-nursery.com
Yabusaki’s Dwight Way Nursery, 1001 Dwight Way, Berkeley, (510) 845-6261; www.yabusakisdwightwaynursery.com
Bonus
EBMUD Landscape Rebate Program, (866) 403-2683; www.ebmud.com/
conserving_&_recycling/
residential/landscape_rebate/
