Re: garden planning

Dear Margaret,
I'm sure I speak for many gardeners on the list-serve when I say I am humbled.  I knew I was a pampered gardener working in suburban southern California, but I must say I am utterly spoiled!

So, hats off to all your efforts!  You have set for yourself a huge task.  Let me get my facts straight:

-Large property (5 acres of gardens!) in a larger property.
-Constant wind
-Extreme temperatures
-No water

I can't give you any first-hand advice on a situation like this, but this is what I would do if I were in your situation.

1. Is there any neighbor whose garden you like?  What did they do, and how did they do it?
2. If you don't like what you've done, undo it!  If the wormwood and ceanothus look bad with the melaleucas, get rid of them.  I agree with Diane, that establishing windbreaks are the first step, and these are utilitarian plantings, but they still shouldn't be ugly.
3.  Think smaller!  5 acres is to me a very large garden in a gentle climate, insurmountably large in a punishing one. Even a 1-acre garden of fruit trees and flowers and shrubs would be more work than I'd care to take on without a good assistant or two.
4.  If water is not locally available, can it be bought?  A tank of water to establish drought-tolerant natives through their first year might greatly improve your success rate.
5. Go native.  For the more utilitarian windbreaks, keeping all your plants native might insure that they are all aesthetically and horticulturally compatible with each other: maybe then the thickets wouldn't be a visual mess.

Anyway, those are just some thoughts very humbly submitted by a very spoiled gardener.  Good luck with the project!  I hope its successful enough that one day you can post photos.

-Ben Armentrout-Wiswall
Simi Valley, inland Ventura County
Southern California

From: Diane Whitehead <voltaire@islandnet.com>
To: medit-plants <medit-plants@ucdavis.edu>
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 8:00:24 AM
Subject: Re: garden planning

Margaret,

I am staggered by the daunting task you have set yourself.

I have no experience with extreme conditions, so these are just random thoughts.

I remember reading years ago about planting in the Sahara.  They didn't mulch in the usual way, but used something quite unusual to hold moisture in the soil around the roots - was it asphalt?

When some trees are grown in situ, they develop a taproot, rather than just the fibrous roots that nursery-grown and transplanted trees have.  I think this might be an advantage for a dry windy site - to sow the seeds where you want your windbreaks to be.  If you sow lots of seeds, some should survive - you mentioned that a move of a few metres makes a big difference in adaptability.

Some famous gardens in Scotland could only be planted after windbreaks were established, and the windbreaks themselves were utilitarian, not decorative.

Windbreaks that seem advantageous can later be considered detrimental.  Pines were used a lot in South Africa and are now being removed.



Diane Whitehead
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

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