Herself’s Houston Garden

It took a little less than 100 lawn and leaf bags, and 1 month but the gardens have been beaten back into submission for yet another year. In spring and more so in the fall I try to take the gardens from a really cool collection of plants to a fine landscaped garden.

I try to follow the basic landscape design rules for small spaces ( see below links ). This time I was lucky enough to attend a lecture by Nelson’s Water Gardens part way through my cleanup and picked up some more advice.

From Nelsons: Remove the mid range plants – keep the tall stuff, keep the low stuff, junk the middle stuff.

When in doubt I used the advice from Nelson’s and that helped.

Other new things I learned:
- Don’t let the sago go, rip those pups out immediately. The sago out front was a two day project all by itself.

Simple rules I use to cleanup
- Remove dead plants
- Remove plants that refuse to stand up straight
- Prune all trees up to 8′ high, remove all branched below that level.
- When in doubt, remove it
- Relocate any plant crowding other plants.

Tips:
- Gingers can be cut back to the ground in the fall or spring if you wish
- Take photos – landscape shots, not individual plants. I find I miss lots of things that are obvious when I take some time to look at the photos on the computer.

I still have to cleanup the yaupon clusters out back, but I’m just about done with this year’s big clean up.

10 landscape design tips for small spaces
10 more design tips for small spaces

Before Last month’s pre cleaning garden shots

I recently attended a talk at Mercer on growing cactus and succulents in Houston. If you haven’t attended any talks at Mercer do consider it. They’d love to see you and I learn a great deal each time I attend.

Most cactus prefer drier environments than we have in Houston. While they all prefer it dry, not all of the cactus and succulents enjoy our heat. Winter rains are the biggest threat to cactus growing here. Wet and cold together will cause many cactus to rot.

Cactus and succulents differ only slightly. All cactus are succulents, not all succulents are cactus. Cactus store water in their stem, succulents store water in the leaves, stem or both.

Cactus have tufts of hair or small spines at the base of every spine, succulents do not. While you can strip a cactus bare of spines with out hurting the plant. It is similar to leaf removal. You can not do so with a succulent. Succulent thorns are connected to the stem tissue. Removing them will tear the stem that transports nutrients through the plant.

Cactus have spines which are leaves which have evolved to a more efficient shape for the climate. The spines offer protection from critters looking for water in the desert and also provide shade for the plant. The more spines on a cactus the more sun it likely needs.

Some succulents have roots that spread along the surface to collect water, some use tap roots to find deep water.

Cactus originated only in North and South America, succulents are found worldwide.

Sand and or soil mixed with larger rocks/mulch or other material that will let water drain works best as a planting medium. Be sure to slope and raise the bed to keep water from collecting near the plants.

Mealy bug occasionally bother succulents, treat with insecticidial soaps. Fire ants will some times build a mound right over your succulent, burying it. Treat them with your favorite fire ant treatment.

Succulent gardens look best and least annoy your neighbors and the homeowners associations when you use several plants of different heights, textures and colors together. Try to use one or a few large plants, then fill in with smaller plants. Also include some dry plants that aren’t succulents. Wild flower bunches blend well. The Succulent gardens pool at Flickr has a nice collection of photos for ideas.

See also:
Agaves
Soapweed yucca
Aloe
Aloe rust
Tigertoothed Aloe

While I can grow the plants my design skills leave much to be desired. But I am learning. These are some more tips I learned at a recent talk I attended on small garden design. The speaker has put much of his knowledge up online at The Online Plant Guide where you’ll be able to find more information about various plants to give your garden the look you desire.

I. Don’t choose plants just because they are pretty. ( Oh I am so guilty of this ! ) Think about how a plant will fit into the over all design and how it will relate to your other plants.

II. Use all of your senses when choosing plants. Feel the texture, the smell, the noises the plant creates. Don’t just use sight.

III. Consider how much maintenance the garden you are creating will need. Do you want to be working in garden every day? Or do you just want to sit in your garden?

IV. Open backed, open in general furniture feels less heavy and works better in small gardens.

V. Look up. How does the sky and your tree canopy fit into your garden design?

VI. Repeat plantings to tie things together.

VII. Strong colored shiny pots placed deep in your plantings will draw in your eyes and make a statement.

VIII. Let the plants escape the tight spaces a little. Let them come over the pot or climb out of the border a little bit.

IX. Use small spaces of lawn as an added texture.

X. Prune up your old shrubs into trees and plant smaller plants around the bases of them.

Another wonderful talk I attended at the Master Gardener Conference was about gardening in small spaces. The speaker has put much of his knowledge into an online database of over 2,800 plants and 10,000 photos to help us poor ungifted souls. The Online Plant Guide officially goes online early May.

Some of us are designed challenged. I understand and accept that I was meant to grow things not to know where to put them. I am learning. Here are some of the better tips I heard:

I. The smaller the garden the more important the details become. Pay attention to all the small details. They really matter in small spaces.

II. Things you look through make a space appear larger. Looking past tree trunks half way between you and a fence rather than at the fence will make the fence appear to be further away from you.

III. Proportion and scale are extremely important in a small garden. There is a huge diversity of plant material available to gardeners now. Make use of it.

IV. Use all your senses. In a small garden smell, texture ( touch ), sound ( of plants rustling) all play a role in your perception of the garden.

V. To block a street view use a low barrier. Barrier rows of plants a couple feet tall will often block out the street while leaving you the larger view into the distance.

VI. If the space is dark, thin the plants. You don’t have to take a plant down, raising it up by trimming lower branches and thinning the canopy will often brighten the place up a great deal.

VII. If you are going for a minimalist look in the garden plan on a rough ratio of 3 to 1 hardscape to plants.

VIII. Conceal and reveal views. Create narrow openings and paths that widen into garden rooms. Strategically place things to block views. You don’t need an entire wall to block something narrow.

IX. Use your vertical surfaces. Plants or art or both can be placed on fences and walls.

X. Use tighter fuller plantings, rather than several lonesome plants.