Archived Articles
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Landscapes Go Green
Feng Shui in the Landscape and Garden
Hydrangeas
Tackle Lawn Brown Spots
Beat the Heat
Less Lawn, More Drought-Tolerant Plants
Landscapes Go Green
Most of us think of reducing the driving of our gas-guzzlers and using twirly lightbulbs when we hear the term ‘going green’. But the term applies to the landscape industry also (besides being a pun). Here are a few ideas for making small changes to your landscape that can contribute big results to the health of the planet.
Plant shade trees near your home and reduce the air-conditioning needs of your house by up to 50%.
Trees also effectively reduce carbon by absorbing and emitting, in return, oxygen into the atmosphere. Properly site the trees for best effect, and choose trees that work well in our climate and soil. Use well-branched, strong wood, and at least medium growth-rate trees such as Autumn Blaze Maple, Autumn Purple Ash, Ohio Buckeye, Ornamental Pear, Sweet Gum, or London Planetree. Avoid planting Willow, Cottonwoods, or Silver Maples.
Design a beautiful, four-season yard that requires less water, but adds texture, movement, and color to an otherwise drab yard.
It is key to try to reduce the water needs of your landscape: There are numerous areas of your yard where you can implement drought-tolerant plantings, reduce areas of bluegrass lawn, properly prepare soil prior to planting, and upgrade or raise the efficiency of your sprinkler system. Take out rarely used areas of grass and use more drought-tolerant groundcovers, or inert materials such as gravel or wood mulches. Add plantings that are well adapted to our region in terms of water and soil requirements. Audit your sprinkler system to determine how to be more efficient in your watering. Know when to water, the amount of water plants really need, and how to deliver that water most efficiently.
Reduce, recycle, reuse.
Focus on what elements in your landscape contribute to the structure and beauty of the yard, and pay attention to those elements that are costing more time and money than they add. What can be done to renovate with the least amount of energy use while still upgrading your landscape to a newer, more current look and feel? Design and plan your new landscape to incorporate materials that are locally produced, and/or recycled, while still providing for the needs of your lifestyle and space. Consider our climate and soils when planning and constructing so that maintenance products and time are reduced to a minimum to save money and energy costs.
Go Natural!
Act preventatively in your landscape construction and maintenance projects to avoid use of fertilizers and pesticides that may be unnecessary. If you water more efficiently, at the right time with the right amount, your plants will remain robust and healthy, thus not requiring fertilizing or pesticide applications to protect them.
Start small, plan well, implement good design, and be green.
Feng Shui in the Landscape and Garden
Feng Shui is the practice of arranging your environment to maintain and build chi, which the Chinese believe is the positive energy flow that connects all things. Thoughtfully arrange your environment and reduce your clutter, which blocks energy flow, and you can enhance your life. Here’s a primer on getting started.
Analyze your life and decide which areas you wish to enhance and improve. Prosperity, Fame and Reputation, Relationships, Family, Health, Children and Creativity, Skills and Knowledge, Career, or Helpful People and Travel are all areas Feng Shui can improve. By deciding what areas to address, you can then use a Bagua Map (see illustration) as your guide to how to improve those areas. Use the Bagua Map to overlay your front or back yard, and then work to enhance those areas you are working on.
Align the map to the property boundaries of front or back yard and then design a layout for the yard which will address the areas that correlate to needing improvement in your life. Here are some ideas for enhancement:
- Add color and beauty to the area, and get rid of old or dead plants. Weeds add to clutter which clogs and slows down energy flow.
- Add a water element, making sure it re-circulates, or flows towards you, as water creates chi (and you want that to flow towards you). The front yard toward the entry of a house is a good place for a water element.
- Use groupings of softly shaped shrubs to soften a sharp angle that might be pointing towards your space or front door.
- Use consistent groupings of plants and avoid 'busy' plantings as these create clutter. Again, you want to create good visual flow throughout the space so that energy flow is good.
For more information on feng shui in the landscape, consult The Feng Shui Garden by Gill Hale (Storey Books).
Hydrangeas
Hydrangeas come into full bloom in late summer and early fall, displaying their showy blooms in large bushes and hedges throughout Colorado.
This spectacular garden plant flowers from mid-summer till frost in shades of cream, periwinkle blue, lilac, chartreuse, rose, aqua, mauve…you get the idea. New colors and forms appear each year.
There are two general types of hydrangeas – mopheads (full round flower heads) and lacecaps (flat heads of large-petaled flowers clustered around beadlike ones). They prefer a location with some moisture in the soil, and bloom best in dappled light. The wide variety of color in the blooms of hydrangeas is due to the acidity in the soil (blues where soil is acidic and tones of pink where it is alkaline). Soils somewhere in between yield the more unusual, somewhat unpredictable colors.
One of the best hydrangeas for this region is from the Paniculata Peegee family (look for ‘Grandiflora’). They are easy to grow in areas with morning sun and afternoon shade and are hardy to Zone 3. (No hydrangeas do well in full shade - the blooms are sparse and don’t fully develop). You can grow the Peegee family variety in full sun if it gets adequate moisture). The creamy flowers of this hydrangea become rosy in October and like all hydrangeas, offer blooms abundant and beautiful. They can reach five to six feet in diameter. Another winner is the ‘Annabelle’ (Hydrangea Arborescens), which puts on a fabulous show despite hard winters and late frosts and grows to a diameter of three to five feet.
Oakleaf hydrangeas are dramatic, white-blooming shrubs that bloom best in areas where summers are somewhat hot, is winter hardy, and can thrive in much drier locations than some other varieties. The Oakleafs tend to do well with very little attention.
Camelot Design recommends you plant these shrubs in threes to compose a hedge or border, or pair a single hydrangea with perennials and annuals. Try to avoid planting them alone, as they can look awkward in the landscape without some companion plantings.
Pruning
Best to plant hydrangeas where they do not need to be pruned to control size. Once pruned, they quickly grow back to their former size. Mophead hydrangeas do not need to be pruned back unless they are very old. Removing dead stems is all you need to do to keep this variety healthy. Dead blooms should also be removed (deadheading can be done any time of year). If you do decide to prune, do so before August to minimize the risk that you will be cutting off blooms buds for the next year. When pruning, cut back about 1/3 of the older living stems.
Special Note: Annabelle and H. paniculata (PeeGee) hydrangeas cannot be pruned in the spring (Annabelle) or summer (paniculata) when they are preparing to bloom. For these two, you will trim out only crossing branches and those that do not contribute to an attractive form.
Don’t know what kind of hydrangea you have? Take a bloom to your trusted garden center and they will assist you in identifying and pruning your hydrangea.
Cutting for bouquets
When you cut blooms for arrangements in June or July, cut them with long stems. When cutting blooms after the first of August, it is safest to remove them with very short stems so as not to disturb any developing bloom buds for next year. Cut above the first set of large leaves for best results.
Planting
Purchase a hydrangea while it is blooming (so you can be sure what type you are getting – mophead or lacecap). Avoid planting in the hottest part of the summer unless you are able to give it some TLC and can keep it well watered.
FAQs
Q: Can I plant a grocery store hydrangea (foil wrapped) outside?
A: Generally, no. The foil wrapped hydrangea has been grown for a one-time spectacular show and are likely not winter hardy. But you never know! Some have tried it and been quite successful.
Q: How can I change the color of hydrangea blooms?
A: Changing hydrangea bloom color is not as easy as folklore would lead you to believe. It’s easier when the plants are potted than in the ground. Hydrangeas often change color on their own when they are planted or transplanted. And it is not unusual to see several different colors on the same shrub.
To change a hydrangea from pink to blue means adding aluminum to the soil. Visa-versa entails subtracting aluminum from the soil (back to the trusted garden center for information on how to do this). We recommend you leave it your hydrangea color to Mother Nature, who usually wins in the end anyway.
Tackle Lawn Brown Spots
Brown patches commonly show up in lawns during the heat of summer. Here’s a primer on troubleshooting unsightly spots.
Check your soil by pushing a knife or screwdriver into the soil around the yard. If it goes in easily in both green and brown areas, your brown spots are not because of a lack of water. In fact, over watering can make the problem worse.
If you determine that the brown area isn’t getting enough water, check your sprinkler system and adjust as necessary for adequate coverage. The throw area of each sprinkler head should overlap that of nearby heads to ensure that all areas of the lawn are receiving enough water. If the overlap is a little off you’ll see brown spots begin to form.
Summer patch and necrotic ring spot fungus
This destructive disease of Kentucky Bluegrass leaves circles of brown with green centers and often develops in mid- to late-summer. It attacks and kills the roots and crowns of the grass and tends to be more severe in lawns established from sod and on sites with compacted soils. Do not over water! Deep water as infrequently as possible, and follow these additional tips:
· Core aerate the lawn at least once a year to reduce thatch and improve soil drainage
· Maintain a mowing height of three inches
· Avoid excessive amounts of nitrogen fertilizer (follow only recommended application times for Kentucky Bluegrass).
· Water the lawn lightly at midday during periods of high temperatures to cool the turf grass and prevent additional death.
Dogs urinating on the lawn
Hose the spot when possible to dilute, or try training Fido to urinate in on area of the yard only. Lawn burn, when mild, will often repair itself over time.
Grass Mites are a serious pest of drought-stressed turf
These little pests cause grass to turn a bleached straw color, often killing it rapidly. Grass mites are difficult to control with pesticides. The most effective turf grass products for this problem contain either lambdacyhalothrim or bifenthrim as the active ingredient. Adequate watering (deep and thorough, not light and frequent) is important in preventing the mites from developing. This includes adequate fall and winter watering, when populations of the mites can build up.
Asochyta
This leaf blight is a common problem for Kentucky Bluegrass in Colorado. You’ll recognize the problem when you see the tips of grass blades begin to dry out and die, and large, uniform straw-colored areas appear. You will be able to see healthy leaves among the dead ones. It occurs most commonly during hot dry summers that follow a cool, wet spring or in drought periods when excessive over-watering is present.
· Water deeply and thoroughly (and only as needed)
· Keep lawn height at three inches tall
· Keep mower blades sharp and clean
· Maintain a balanced fertilizer program
· Reduce mowing frequency to reduce risk of spreading the fungus
· Avoid over watering during drought stress periods (check your irrigation system to make sure all heads are working properly and water distribution is uniform)
Proper turf and landscape maintenance is essential to successful Colorado gardening. Your local garden center can help you further troubleshoot any problem you might be having or refer you to someone who can.
Help your Landscape Beat The Heat
The soaring temperatures of recent weeks combined with restricted water usage make it difficult to keep landscapes looking verdant and your water bill reasonable. Try the following tips to help your landscape and lawn during dry hot spells:
Water Less Often
Resist the urge to water more. Instead, water deeply but less frequently. You’re going for long-term landscape health, here. Brief daily watering encourages shallow roots that dry out quickly in hot dry weather. Landscapes that receive a thorough watering develop roots that reach deeper into the naturally more cool and moist deep earth so that when the top layer of soil dries out in the heat, they have moisture reserves to draw on.
Let it Grow!
Mow too short and your lawn’s topsoil will dry out fast. Keep your lawn’s blades about three inches long and it will help keep the soil cool and moist at the surface because the sun has difficulty penetrating the lushness.
Consider The Alternatives
Buffalo Grass
Buffalo grass is a low-growing, soft gray-green perennial turf grass. It works very well as a lawn grass and has several advantages over water-guzzling Kentucky Blue Grass. Buffalo grass is extremely drought tolerant and stands up well to wear. It requires water about once every two weeks and needs to be mowed only about once a month in the summer to keep a uniform appearance.
Because it is a warm-season grass, Buffalo grass turns brown when the first freeze of fall hits, and redevelops its soft green color with the return of warm weather in the spring (it can lag behind Kentucky Blue Grass in re-greening in the spring, however). Consequently, it can be brown and unattractive when other cool-season lawn grasses look their best.
Buffalo grass is typically started from seed. The best time to seed Buffalo grass lawns is in May and June, but seeding can be successful in the fall also. With good daily watering, the seedlings begin to appear about a week after planting.
Suggested seeding rates vary widely. To learn more and get pricing information on this great lawn alternative, contact us at 303.734.1126.
Less Lawn more Drought-tolerant Plants
Watering, fertilizing, aerating, controlling weeds, and mowing are all part of owning a gorgeous lush lawn. When you think about it, owning a lawn is fairly expensive and time-consuming. One way to cut down on the time and cost of having a lawn is to reduce the amount of it in your landscape! Talk with Camelot Design about redesigning all or part of your outdoor environment using beautiful plants that required only minimal amounts of water and feeding (and no mowing). You can still have lawn areas to enjoy, but you really don’t need as much of it for your landscape to look fabulous as you might think. Call us today for a consultation on reducing the amount of lawn in your landscape. 303.734.1126.
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