To conserve water and meet California's new water-use restrictions, one place to start is literally in one's own backyard. More than half of all household water use is typically used outdoors on landscape, according to University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources experts.
For homeowners, there are six key things to do to conserve landscape water, says Karrie Reid, UC ANR Cooperative 
- Tune up your irrigation system right away. When water is efficiently and accurately applied, less water is needed to keep plants healthy. Spray heads can get knocked out of alignment and end up spraying the sidewalk, street or driveway and running to the gutter. Check all spray heads to ensure they are hitting the target and twist those that aren't back into place. Some heads have adjustable angles of spray, which can be fixed with a tool available at a hardware store. Look for cocked heads, which spray water up into the air, and sprays blocked by grass or those that have sunk below grade. Make sure all spray heads are made by the same manufacturer and are from the same line so they deliver water at the same rate, otherwise they'll leave dry spots. Low-volume spray heads or rotators deliver water more efficiently.
- To check the watering depth, use a soil probe.
Water the whole root zone. On allowed watering days, irrigate until the water reaches 12 inches deep forgrass, 12 to 18 inches for shrub and perennials, and 12 to 24 inches for trees. This provides a greater reservoir of water for the plants to draw from, and many will be able to get by on weekly, twice-monthly or monthly irrigation if they are conditioned to send their roots deep. To check the watering depth, use a soil probe or push a long screwdriver into the ground. The depth it reaches easily indicates how deeply the water has infiltrated.
To check the watering depth, use a soil probe. - Avoid wasting water to runoff. If water runs off before the watering cycle finishes, split the cycle time. Set the timer to water in two, three or even four cycles at least an hour apart to allow the water to soak in. To ensure water isn't flowing below the root zone, check the watering depth after each cycle.
An irrigation scheduling worksheet created by Loren Oki, UC ANR Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis, and Darren Haver, UC ANR Cooperative Extension advisor in Orange County, helps fine tune irrigation timing. The worksheet is available for free online at the Center for Urban Horticulture website http://www.ccuh.ucdavis.edu.
- Switch to inline drip tubing for beds. Drip irrigation applies water where it is needed with less loss to the air. Be sure to lay tubing so water reaches plants' entire root zone.
- MULCH, MULCH, MULCH. Adding 3 or 4 inches of organic material such as wood chips, shredded bark or bark nuggets will improve soil health while retaining water and lowering stress on your plants. Place mulch away from the street curb to prevent heavy rains from washing it into the storm drains
- Inline drip tubing applies water where it is needed.
Inline drip tubing applies water where it is needed. - Replace water-needy plants with low water users in the fall. All plants use a lot of water to get established when they are planted in the spring and summer, and for about a year after. Trees may need extra water for several years until their roots have grown well into the surrounding soil. By waiting until temperatures cool in the fall to plant, it will be easier to abide by the water restrictions. It's also important to use hydrozoning, which means placing plants with the same water needs on the same valve. Otherwise, irrigating to the thirstiest plants on that station will give other plants more water than they need.
WUCOLS IV provides an assessment of irrigation water needs for over 3,500 taxa. Photo by Ellen Zagory.
To find low-water use plants that are suitable for a specific location, check UCANR's online Water Use Classification of Landscape Species athttp://ucanr.edu/sites/WUCOLS. Click the Plant Search Database tab, enter the name of the city, then select the desired type of plants (shrubs, perennials, trees, etc.) and the preferred water category (low, moderate, high). The application will generate a list of plants suitable to grow in a location that fit the specified criteria.
Article originally posted here on Monday, April 20, 2015 at 8:35 AM
- Author: Nadia Zane
Making changes to our water management strategy is essential to the well-being of humans and non-humans alike. Part 1 of this series, “Making the Aesthetic Shift”, addressed envisioning water-wise landscapes by visiting WEL gardens in the Sacramento region. This article will focus on making the physical transition from traditional landscapes to those that conserve water and wildlife.
Many people begin this transition by removing turf, one of the biggest water hogs in the landscape. Removing lawn may seem like a huge undertaking, and it can be if you have a large area or an invasive species such as Bermuda grass. The key is to have a plan, which can be done in stages to mitigate cost and time constraints.
There are several methods of lawn removal; which you choose depends greatly on your resources, the conditions of your site, your grass species, the tolerance of your neighbors, and more. Here are a few of the most commonly chosen methods:
1. Sheet mulching: Part of creating a drought-tolerant garden is building soil health to increase drainage and reduce water run-off or puddling; sheet mulching is one of the best ways to accomplish this. It consists of la
More details can be found here.
2. Soil solarization: If you have an area receiving at least 8 hours of direct sun everyday, then you can try laying sheets of clear (not black) plastic directly on the grass. This works best for the control of soil-born diseases, but can be effective in killing certain weeds (roots and seeds) as well.
More details can be found here:
4. Sod-cutters and rototillers: If you have a cool-season grass such as fescue, physical removal will work well. If you have a pernicious, invasive warm-season grass like Bermuda, a sod-cutter (or rototiller) will be a huge mistake, as any chopped-up bit of root can sprout into a new plant. Weed seeds will also be turned up, so multiple rototillings may be necessary. It can also be tricky if you have tree or shrub roots near the surface, as often happens when they are growing in or near a lawn (shallow watering of lawns encourages trees to grow roots near the surface).
5. Chemical removal: Master Gardeners always advocate the least toxic method first, or more positively, the most beneficial method for your garden ecology. Some herbicides linger a long time in the soil, disrupting the microbiome and leaching into aquifers. There are cases, however, when using herbicides such as glyphosate or vinegar might be the most practical option, especially if you will be converting to a native meadow where invasive weeds can easily take over your native grasses. Always read labels and follow directions carefully.
General information on chemical and mechanical removal can be found here.
Don't forget about converting your irrigation as well. If you are sheet mulching, you can convert to drip irrigation before or after, though doing it before will require less digging and disturbance of the top mulch layer. Adjusting or installing new spray heads can be done afterwards so that they are at the appropriate height. Be sure to mark their location before mulching!
If you have a gardening related question you can contact the UC Master Gardeners at 209-953-6112. More information can be found on our website.
- Author: Nadia Zane
On March 17, 2015, the California State Water Resources Board voted to extend and expand the water use restrictions put in place last year in response to the drought. For those who escaped restrictions last year, this means limiting your irrigation to two days a week; for those who already have restrictions, they will remain the same unless your water provider indicates otherwise.
This shift in thinking can be applied directly at home, especially in the garden where traditional landscapes account for over 50% of residential water use. A major obstacle can be visualizing what this might look like; here in San Joaquin County we suffer from a dearth of water-wise plants in nurseries, public places, and our neighbors' yards. This can lead to the assumption that it's only possible to save water in the landscape by planting succulents, fake turf, or paving over everything. None of these options benefits wildlife, which suffer when their food and habitat are removed.
I am happy to report that the new paradigm is all about colors, layers, and textures in a palate that is firmly Mediterranean. Before choosing succulents or concrete, try visiting a Water Efficient Landscape, also known as “WEL” gardens. There are several in the Sacramento region to help you dislodge the flat, green lawn aesthetic firmly entrenched in our minds. A WEL garden demonstrates the myriad possiblities of plants that address our need to conserve water and wildlife; plants are marked with tags, and some WEL gardens have a website with a plant species list.
Some wonderful WEL gardens to visit include:
• UC Davis Arboretum
Located along the Putah Creek canal on the UC Davis campus, the arboretum is considered the main source for horticultural wisdom in the Central Valley. Their plants are suitable to our hot, dry climate, and many have low maintenance requirements. Their collection of 22,000 plant species are divided into 17 collections by place of origin, mostly parts of California and other places with a similar climate. Admission is free; it is open to the public year-round.
publicgarden.ucdavis.edu
• Elk Grove Rain Garden Plaza
9385 Laguna Springs Dr, Elk Grove, CA 95758
A rain garden is a shallow depression in the landscape designed to catch and filter storm water runoff to enhance plant growth, enrich the soil, and recharge the local water table.
The Elk Grove Rain Garden features plants for our region that can take seasonal flooding, and reduced water in the summer. It is also a public gathering place, with artwork by local schoolchildren, and a covered sitting area for picnics. It is open to the public year-round. No admission fee.
San Joaquin County:
Robert J. Cabral Ag Center
2101 E Earhart Ave
Stockton, CA 95206
Sacramento County:
Fair Oaks Horticulture Center
11549 Fair Oaks Boulevard
Fair Oaks, CA 95628
Master Gardener demonstration gardens utilize both edibles and water-wise ornamentals. Monthly workshops are held at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center where you can learn about specific topics and ask a Master Gardener about plants you see in the garden. A list of water-wise species at the Fair Oaks garden is available here.
Choosing a group of smaller demonstration gardens to visit makes a nice day trip to research your future landscape. More WEL gardens in the Sacramento area are listed on EcoLandscape California's website.
If you have a gardening related question you can contact the UC Master Gardeners at 209-953-6112. More information can be found on our website.
- Author: Lee Miller
The objectives are to:
- Raise full awareness among civil society and decision makers about the profound importance of soil for human life;
- Educate the public about the crucial role soil plays in food security, carbon sequestration, climate change adaptation and mitigation, essential ecosystem services, poverty alleviation and sustainable development;
- Support effective policies and actions for the sustainable management and protection of soil resources;
- Promote investment in sustainable soil management activities to develop and maintain healthy soils for different land users and population groups;
- Strengthen initiatives in connection with the SDG process (Sustainable Development Goals) and Post-2015 agenda;
- Advocate for rapid capacity enhancement for soil information collection and monitoring at all levels (global, regional and national).
Everyone who tends a plot of land can effect a change and make a difference in the future of the planet depending on how we care for soil. Understanding that is a living space for lots of kinds of life is a good start. For more information on soil ecology, click here.
By sequestering more carbon in the world's soils we can also mitigate climate change. Plowing up prairie and other soils has resulted in a loss of perhaps 50-70 percent of the carbon which oxidizes into CO2, a greenhouse gas.
We need to work at restoring carbon to the soil, by less tilling and other ways yet to be discovered. One way we gardeners can help is to make compost and use it liberally to restore soil organic content. Treat your soil well; it is a living resource that supports much of life on earth and it might be the carbon sink that helps mitigate the amount of carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere.
- Author: Lee Miller
In January, I attended the 35th Eco-Farm Conference in Asilomar which is a gathering devoted to organic farming and gardening. One speaker, Deborah Madison, was the founding chef of Greens restaurant in San Francisco in 1979 and has written many influential vegetarian cookbooks. Her menus were driven by what was available fresh from local farms. Deborah talked about the importance of naming the vegetables and fruits one sells whether in co-ops or farmers markets. She cited the example of one farmer who didn't name one of his most popular vegetables for fear that other farmers would grow it and undercut his business. This was folly in Deborah's view, for people need to know the name of what they like and enjoy. How else are they to get what they want if they don't know the name?
Names can be fun too. One of my favorite plant names that I ran across years ago is ‘Drunken Woman Frizzy-Headed Lettuce. No one seems to know how ‘Drunken Woman' got into the name, but the lettuce is a savoy type, hence the frizzy-headed part. Then there is the tomato, ‘Charlie's Radiator Shop Mortgage Lifter', which is an open-pollenated, meaty variety that Charlie Byles of West Virginia bred in the Depression. He sold plants at a dollar each and paid off his shop mortgage of $6,000. It is still an heirloom favorite that is sold today by most seed catalogues with the shorter name of ‘Mortgage Lifter'. Names associated with a story supply fun to gardening.
Botanical names are scientific and come in two parts and hence are binomial. The binomial system of nomenclature was devised by Swedish botanist, Carl Linnaeus in the 1700s. The language is based on Latin and since few of us learn Latin these days, Latin names are difficult to decipher and pronounce which is a ‘turn-off' to a lot of people. However, it allows everyone to communicate in a common plant lingo. Latin is really not dead after all.
The genus is the first name part as in Echinacia and the second part is the species namepurpurea. Echinacea purpurea has a common name that most of us know as purple coneflower, a commonly planted border perennial. Most of us use common names, but common names vary by region, time and language and hence are not as reliable as botanical names, so if you want to be sure of your plant material it is good to know the Botanical name.
There are many guides to botanical names on line which explain the words origin and pronunciation. One is Botanaria located in Dave's Garden website. Another is at a Fine Gardening Magazine's website which not only provides phonetic spelling, but has an auditory button which delivers a voice correctly pronouncing the name. Botanical names can really help you with plant descriptions. Micro means small, phylla means leaf, and hence microphylla is a small leafed plant. Albus means white, so you can bet that blooms or some part of the plant is white. Learning these descriptors helps with plant knowledge over time.
There are over 20,000 named Dahlias, 7500 tomatoes, over 6500 rose varieties. There are about 1,000 new cultivars of daylilies registered annually with the American Hemerocallis Society, which means that there are about 73,000 now. One has to wonder how people come up with new names. Examples from the daylily clan show the diversity. There are 137 with ‘plum' in the name; for example Plum Crazy', ‘Plum Cute', ‘Plum Dandy', ‘Plum Perfect', and even ‘Plum Plum'. Daylilies with “peach” in their names number 314, and 148 daylilies use ‘cherry', and 84 use ‘apple'. I pity the registrar-of-names for these plant societies who have to keep track.
Keeping track of the plants we have in our own gardens is a chore and alas I have forgotten and lost track of quite a few despite my attempts at journaling plantings. I recommend it nonetheless, so when someone asks you ‘What is that beautiful blooming shrub?'; you will supply a correct name.
If you have a gardening related question, you can contact the UC Master Gardeners at 209-953-6112. More information can be found on our website.
