Category: DIY gardening tips

Harvesting monsoon rain saves gardens

Climate change clearly has arrived in the American Southwest with scorching heat daily. And sadly, no monsoon rains yet, even though monsoon season officially started on June 15th. 

We all hope that storms will be sweeping in from the Gulf of Mexico and Sea of Cortes soon. That’s what the TV weather forecasters keep telling us nightly. So now is the time to prepare to capture that rain water. And by doing it now you will already be prepared to harvest rainfall again when winter storms arrive. (6 hours after I posted this a fierce monsoon storm struck Tucson. Maybe I should have posted it earlier.)

There are basically two methods to keep water in your garden for future use. One is to save it in above-ground or below-ground containers and the other is to help the rainfall percolate into the soil instead of running off your property and away from your plants.

Start with your flower beds

While most flower beds are mounded — hopefully because you add a thick layer of organic mulch twice a year — you may want to consider digging little basins in the center of the beds to capture as much rain as possible. Be careful not to damage the roots of your plants. The water will then seep into the earth for future use by the plants.

If you plant in raised boxes, be sure to have good drainage on the bottom or during a heavy downpour your planter may flood and drown the plants.

High priced infiltration or on the cheap

Infiltration, in its costly form, involves digging a large pit in your yard to hold rain runoff from your roof. This means rain gutters and downspouts must be installed. The pit must be lined with a strong, permeable material and must have an overflow to channel excess water away from your home. Water will seep from the pit into the surrounding soil, thus “irrigating from underground.” Consult a landscape architect or soils engineer if you plan to do this.

In the less expensive version of infiltration, dig or drill narrow, deep holes spaced apart in a circle around trees and shrubs. These holes will fill with rain which will then seep into the soil. To do this effectively, you may have to line the holes with strong, permeable material to prevent the sides from collapsing into the holes while allowing water to escape into the root zone. Some people recommend using French drains, those metal drain pipes with holes, installed vertically like mini-wells.

In the super-cheap version, very coarse gravel or small rocks may also keep the holes from collapsing. Deep watering like this will encourage trees and shrubs to grow deeper, stronger roots. And deeper roots mean more stability when the seasonal winds howl across the landscape in Spring and Fall.

Install cisterns or rain barrels

Our last suggestion is to add a cistern or rain barrel to capture rainfall which you can use later by pumping the water out for irrigation. Unlike infiltration which is designed to allow water to spread out underground during and after a storm, a cistern is supposed to hold water in the container, not diffuse it.

If you want to add an underground cistern–which is essentially a well filled with rainwater–you should consult with a landscape architect or soils engineer because there are engineering and permit issues involved. The sides and bottom must be sealed to prevent water from escaping and the system must have an overflow drain. If water overflows in the wrong direction you may have serious and potentially expensive erosion problems from damage to your home or your neighbor’s house!

On the other hand there is a simple way to capture rain: buy a big plastic barrel or one of the large above ground cisterns–prices start at about $70 and go up into the thousands depending upon the size. It can be a quick and easy method to store the rainfall from the downspouts on your roof to use later. The big risk here is that the rain falls so intensely that the barrel overflows and starts flooding the area before you notice it.

Are cisterns still illegal?

Happily and wisely, the laws in Colorado and Utah banning water harvesting have changed. Now Coloradans can have 2 rain barrels with a total capacity of 110 gallons of water for use on their own property. In Utah homeowners can save up to 2500 gallons of rainfall in above or below ground cisterns for use on the same property. In both these states, please check for specific regulations.

Many other states, including Texas, Nevada and California, now have laws supporting rainfall harvesting and rules regarding usage. These states now allow saving rainwater that falls on your roof and using it in your garden. Using the water for drinking water is banned in some states, discouraged in others. My advice: do not drink it. Give it to your garden.

Our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

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How to make wildlife happy in your garden

You’re probably happy with your gardening efforts — with good reason. After all, you…
– planted a tree on the south or west side of your home to cool it
– removed your front lawn…and perhaps kept some grass in the backyard for a children’s play area
– even added one (or more) shrubs along that concrete block wall to minimize the heat.

So congratulations!

But this post is about why you should take a second look and see your garden through the eyes of a hummingbird, lizard, butterfly, quail, ground squirrel, or other wild creature that may live in your area. (But not javelinas or bears. They are clearly not animals you want to encourage.)

You may even want to re-think your garden as a haven–a kind of “happy place”–for wild creatures in your neighborhood and, thus, deserving of being a Certified Wildlife Habitat. Complete with an official metal plaque you can order and post in your front yard.

The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and the Arizona Wildlife Federation set standards for having a Certified Wildlife Habitat and the official plaques come from them. They state that in order to be Certified a garden should provide wildlife with food, water, cover from predators, shelter for raising the young, PLUS do all this sustainably.

Start with food for wild creatures

For wildlife food the NWF suggests that you plant natives with colorful flowers and lots of seeds. It’s not necessary, however, to install only native plants because natives often bloom all at once. Other drought-tolerant plants that bloom and produce nectar or seeds at different months during the year can be suitable additions to your wildlife-friendly habitat. For example, you could plant South African natives Pink Trumpet Vine (Podranea ricasoliana) or Cape Honeysuckle (Tecoma capensis) for summer nectar for bees and birds. Humingbird and birdseed feeders can also be good additions to your backyard.

Then next to those vines, for example, plant a desert native Brittlebush (Encelia farinosa) and Mexican Gold Poppies (Escholtzia mexicana) to produce seeds. (Click below to see images of each.)

  • Pink Trumpet Vine Podranea ricasoliana
  • Capoe Honeysuckele
  • Mexican poppies in Tucson

Daily water is a must-have

To provide water, small shallow plant saucers or bowls are your best bet. Backyard fountains look glorious, but given the water problems–and potential water rationing–in the American Southwest, fountains should be disconnected and turned into planters.

Add a few small stones to the plant saucer to help smaller creatures, such as little lizards or little birds, drink comfortably from this water source.

Hidden from danger

Like humans, wildlife wants shelter from predators and shelter to raise young. These can be identical. Trees and shrubs–from short to tall–are excellent hiding places and nesting sites for birds, as well as havens for insects and lizards. These two photos, taken at the Tucson Botanical Garden, demonstrate wildlife-friendly gardening with shrubs at various heights combined with tall trees. There are also hiding places between the pots shown in the second photo.

What you don’t see in these photos are wide stretches of rock mulch with one or two plants. In a good wildlife garden at ground level, attractive ground covers, like cacti and succulents as well as Lantana montvidensis, hide small creatures from predators. Lantana is also a good food source for bees. (In the first photo a fountain appears in the back right side, but we do not recommend adding fountains these days!)

  • lantana montevidensis yellow blooms

Now, the last requirement for Certification as a Wildlife Habitat is that the garden is sustainable. You probably already do much of this: minimize or eliminate lawns, harvest water, avoid pesticides, use natural mulch, and use only drip irrigation.

Do all this and you, too, can have a Certified Wildlife Habitat. You can take the first step here.

While this post is primarily written for gardeners in the arid U.S. Southwest, these standards for a wildlife-friendly garden apply worldwide including Australia, the U.K., Cyprus, and Middle East where many Hot Gardens subscribers live. And where many native creatures are now struggling to survive due to climate change.

Our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Turn a love of gardening into extra cash

Mother Nature can be your BFF if you want to turn your love of gardening into a source of extra spending money. And it is so simple. All you need are inexpensive pots you can buy on Amazon or your local garden center, some potting soil and patience. Then, on a sunny Saturday, hold your “garden sale” on your driveway.

Here is how to start creating cash from plants

varigated pelagornium geranium

Take cuttings from special plants in your garden and plant them in small plastic pots–like the ones you see in the local garden center. Actually, the plants don’t have to be rarities, but they do have to be healthy. For example, if you have a sturdy geranium (Pelargonium) with pretty blooms or varigated or scented leaves, take a few 4″ to 6″ long cuttings for starters. Then stick the cuttings in a inexpensive plastic pot filled with good potting soil. And water frequently. If you think that your geranium seems too ordinary, keep in mind that you liked it enough to buy it, so, no doubt, other people will like it too. You could even have an example in bloom nearby during your garden sale so people can see how attractive it is. It may take six weeks for the geranium cutting to take root.

Divide to multiply

Another example of a plant to sell would be iris, which grow well in hot dry climates as well as looking beautiful. You should divide iris rhizomes every 2 to 5 years anyway, so why not keep some and offer others for sale? Be sure to cut the leaves back to 5 to 6 inches and clearly label the color and if the iris is a rebloomer.

Depending upon where you live, you may also have agapanthus in your garden and they are good candidates for dividing. Simply dig up the root ball, cut it into 2 or 3 large size pieces, replant one section in your garden and sell the others. You should probably divide the iris and the agapanthus just before your driveway garden sale. They should not dry out before replanting. It might also be helpful to your customers to have a little note to give them about planting iris and agapanthus. Each has different requirements.

Then there are seedlings–pick your favorite annual flowers and herbs–which should be started in very small pots again like at the garden center. Then water and wait.

Mother Nature should do her work within a few weeks. The cuttings will have taken root and the seeds should have sprouted to produce seedlings.

Advertise your private garden sale

Then hold a “garden sale” on your driveway on a Saturday morning. Post signs around your neighborhood. List your garden sale online on Craigs List or Next Door. Post notices about it on community bulletin boards. 

Before the sale begins do some research about pricing. As you probably know, iris rhizomes are expensive and agapanthus, too, so price yours accordingly. But geraniums are priced lower and herb seedlings even lower at garden centers and yours should be, too. And at the end of the garden sale day, you pocket the money you made and move any unsold pots into your back yard to continue growing until you hold your next garden sale.

Selling unusual plants for microclimates

Hot gardens plumeria blossoms
Plumeria blossoms are exceptionally fragrant and the plant–a small tree–can grow indoors.

Not long ago we spoke with a man at a California farmer’s market who had trimmed an old tropical Plumeria tree in his back garden and put the 2 foot long ends of the trimmed branches into big plastic pots filled with rich potting soil.  Several months later, when he was confident the cuttings had taken root, he held a garden sale on his driveway based on one ad on Craigs List. And he earned over two thousand dollars over two weekends.

A few weeks later he showed up at a farmers’ market with the few remaining potted Plumeria and proceeded to sell them in another couple of weekends. His goal for his garden sale was to raise money for his daughter’s college education.

One of the reasons he was so successful was that Plumeria trees had just begun making a comeback in popularity after 50 years of being pretty much ignored.  His Plumeria was also of a rare color, which made it all the more desirable and allowed him to charge higher prices.

It’s important to note that Plumerias need a sheltered microclimate in a Southwest desert garden; their leaves will burn when subject to intense, all day sunlight. (Sorry, Phoenix, no plumeria trees for you.) On the other hand, they do well in Mediterranean climates where the temperature doesn’t rise over 90-95F very often.

Cacti and condos – meant for each other

A retired couple we know sell succulents and cacti in small, colorful pots at a local open air market for extra retiree income. Cacti and succulents are often the plants of choice with apartment and condo owners because they grow very slowly and can be ignored for weeks without whithering and dying. Of course, cacti and succulents are the mainstay of many desert gardens so homeowners are also potential buyers.

And as with the other garden sale ideas in this post, Mother Nature does most of the work in producing the products you sell. And you harvest the profits.

Our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Visit my author’s site to see the books I’ve published.

Follow the 90 degree rule for planting

Fall is definitely the best time to plant in hot, dry Western gardens. It’s actually a good time to plant in much of the world, because, after all, Fall is when Mother Nature sows seeds.

But not just any Fall day will do. In the desert southwest, including parts of Texas and California, you should wait until the average daytime temperature drops under 90F before you plant.

The issue isn’t only the air temperature, but the temperature of the ground. The soil, especially native soil, is far too warm now for the roots of transplants to grow. Between the dehydrating effect of the air temperature on new leaves and the “cooking” effect of the hot earth on the roots, new transplants may not survive very long even if you water them frequently.

How to protect your transplants

Clematis in bloom
The Clematis jackmanii in my backyard.

However, if you just can’t wait to start gardening again after a summer hiatus, you may be able to protect your transplants by placing a piece of tile or broken terra cotta pot over the root zone, thus keeping it cool.

I did this with a Clematis Jackmanii, a plant not commonly found in a hot, dry garden. I planted it by a trellis in a very sheltered corner with a broken piece of pot over the root zone. It grew and bloomed then over winter it died back. The following spring it rose from the seemingly dead to climb the trellis and bloom again. To see other climbing plants for hot dry gardens, to here.


You could also add shade cloth to help reduce the temperature.

Should you avoid planting in native soil?

I have to admit that the Clematis was not planted in purely native soil. In most of the Southwest the soil is alkaline and lacking many of those tasty chemicals that hungry plants need. Realizing this, I made sure the Clematis was installed in a flower bed with super-enriched soil made mostly of organic mulch. And remulching twice a year is a must with our poor quality dirt which leeches all the good chemicals out of the mulch into the dirt within months. “Poor dirt” returns to being “poor dirt” rather quickly.

Another approach is to plant in raised beds, but those large wooden or metal boxes can become rather expensive. So, consider going to Amazon to find grow bags for a more affordable solution.

They come in small, medium and large and are good for growing almost every type of vegetable or herb. You can fill these bags with soil you buy at the garden center or mix native soil into the bag with commercial potting or top soil. And all the good, nutritious chemicals in the growing mixture end up feeding your plants — not dissolving into the surrounding soil.

Playing for Julia ebook

Prickly Pears may save us all

Well, I’m late with this, but according to a five-year study at the University of Nevada Reno, those ubiquitous prickly pear cacti (Opuntia) can become a new source of bioenergy feedstock to replace fossil fuel. This cactus also does double-duty as a land-based carbon sink removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it in a sustainable manner. Just like trees do.

This is especially important because, according to a biologist at Saguaro National park as the climate in Arizona and around the world is changing prickly pear cacti are becoming more common. They really like the new weather conditions and poor quality soil is no problem for them. So add a prickly pear to your garden to help with the changing climate. And keep in mind that prickly pear jam is delicious!

Our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Visit my author’s site to see the books I’ve published.

Gates to hide secret gardens and courtyards

Summer heat has arrived and planting season is behind us in the Southwest. If your gardening urge is still strong, there are other additions and/or changes you can make at this time of year starting with landscape features — the walls and garden gates around your home.

In newer communities in the Southwest, grey concrete block walls on three sides of a property are pretty much standard. In Tucson, perhaps because of its long ties with Mexico and Spain, many homeowners–especially in older neighborhoods–go one step further and enclose the front yard to create a private, family courtyard. And with walls on four sides, the garden gate entry to this secluded area becomes a very important statement.

So be inspired by these photos. Some are of very expensive custom stuccoed walls with garden gates designed by artists. But there others that use standard, off-the-shelf elements and even one that falls within the do-it-yourself range. And a simple coat of paint on a gray block wall or iron fence can always bring new life to a desert garden.

Fearless color and custom gates

One would expect a Spanish Revival home behind this wall and custom garden gate, but actually the house looks more like a Craftsman home that has been painted dark chocolate brown with orange trim. The gate with its sunburst is clearly Arizonan, but not a visual barrier. Definitely no fear here–well, except for that coiled snake on the left.

Another orange/terra cotta wall, but with a far less elaborate–and less expensive–gate. It is an ordinary door, painted deep blue. The sugar skull design appears to have been routed out of a thin panel of wood, but using paint for the face would create a similar look. The lights on either side of the door have pierced clay covers. Privacy is clearly important to these homeowners. But where is the door bell? I’m not sure.

Three doors that are almost medieval. All three appear to be handcrafted with found or repurposed wood. And each says “Stay Out”. The small sign on the brown wood door with a lion knocker states that the person standing there is under video surveillance. I guess some people are friendlier than others.

Gates across your driveway

  • garden gate with giraffe

Driveway gates with decoration added. The teddy bear parade gives passers-by laugh, especially with the giraffe, far right, peaking over the wall. In the second photos, the actual gate to the house is quite open. And in the third image at another home, the trickster Kokopelli playing his flute guards the drive.

Less expensive and very Arizonan

An ocotillo branch fence — a tradition that goes back thousands of years. The indigenous people used ocotillo for fencing, as well as for “roofs” on their ramadas long before any Europeans showed up. You may be able to collect ocotillo branches yourself, or they are available for purchase at a few stores I found online.

Another use of ocotillo on a gate. This one, however, seems to be a hybrid of the medieval fortress gates and ones using natural materials.

Rustic and charming

This is a charmingly rustic, do-it-yourself sunburst garden gate. It appears someone dismantled an ordinary gate and inserted painted metal elements representing the Arizona environment: cacti, mountains and a sunburst. The wall has been artificially “aged” by incomplete exposure of the brick. Fun!

Painting a iron gate and fence purple gives a customized look to what is probably an off-the-shelf addition to this Spanish Revival cottage and garden.

True confession: I love this gate and wall. 100% found and repurposed materials aging naturally in the Arizona sun. And who knows what lies behind; it’s on the edge of a light industrial area. In the second image, it is apparent that the red door was once something else that looks as if it is from India. Repurposed on an entirely different continent!

One last comment: if your homeowners association bans front yard walls or if you prefer not to add one, see the 6 distinctively different desert landscape designs on this website. They range from woodland to dry creek bed. All are open to the street.

Our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Visit my author’s site to see the books I’ve published.

So your garden died. What’s next?

While there are two ways to combat plant death-by-dehydration, it is probably too late for many in the U.S. Southwest, especially Arizona and Nevada, after a weeklong stint of record setting heat. (For those of you outside of the SW, there were high temperatures of 110-120F (43-48 celsius) for 8 days in a row and it continues.)

If you still have hopes for some plants in your garden you can do this:
1. Deep water plants more frequently than usual.
2. Hang shade cloth over your plants.

Realistically, however, dead plants — especially vegetables that were planted not long ago–are the new normal in Southwest gardens.

So what comes next?

For starters you can add those dead plants to your compost pile, so all is not wasted! And do not regularly fertilize any plants during summer months in desert climates. Even sturdy native plants are simply hunkering down and trying to survive until cooler weather arrives. Give them water, and in late summer, a tiny taste of fertilizer–that’s all.

Replanting right away is, obviously, not a good idea. Many gardeners now seem to be considering planting only natives when they replace what they lost this summer, but wisely they are waiting until Fall.

I’m thinking about pots on my patio overflowing with non-native Lantana (L. montevidensis) which seems to be able to survive almost anything and continue to flower.

Adios tomatoes and peppers

My vegetable growing experiment of this year will not be repeated. It has become a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I can buy organic veggies and support organic farmers while I eat healthy.

While I have stopped wasting water trying to help my sunflowers, tomatoes and peppers survive, I am still trying to help birds and other wildlife stay alive. I’d suggest that you do this, too.

Set out a shallow plant saucer filled with water and refill at least once a day. It can be a lifesaver for birds, insects and other creatures suffering from the intense heat and scarcity of water.

I’m not sure which creatures drink from this water source on my patio, but at least this Mourning dove has. You could also set up a trail camera to learn which wildlife comes to visit your garden.

Turning your garden into a kind of wildlife preserve may be the best use of that space as climate change brings hotter and dryer conditions. This extreme heat may not be the last.

Our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Visit my author’s site to see the books I’ve published.

There outta be a social media law against lawns

*shriek!* Some postings on social media gardening sites drive me crazy!

I just read a post on a Facebook gardening group from a newbie who has planted a big green lawn next to his new home in Arizona. It was, he said, like the one he had Back East. He proudly included photos and thanked other members of the group for all the advice they gave to him. He “couldn’t have done it without them”.

What??!!?

I wonder who told him that a grassy green British lawn was a good idea in a hot, dry climate? That it was a good idea in a land where water has to be imported hundreds of miles across a desert so he can turn a faucet and spill that water on to desert soil where it soaks in an inch or two and/or evaporates almost instantly.

Blame those green lawns on the Brits

Yes. Neatly trimmed green lawns originated in the rainy, damp British Isles. They are not common around private homes in Spain or Italy or Germany or elsewhere in the E.U. or most of the world. And even in the U.K. lawns are a relatively recent innovation that had something to do with wealthy landowners raising sheep or impressing the neighbors or something. Sadly, the lawn idea took hold and jumped across the Atlantic where it spread across the continent–even into Southwest desert communities.

American home builders also are to blame for the U.S. lawn obsession because they planted lawns in massive housing developments particularly after WWII because turf grass in the front yard is easy, cheap and fast landscaping.

Serious drought…really serious

I wonder if that newbie lawn guy, and other well-meaning, but poorly informed, participants in that group, realize how serious the drought conditions are in the U.S. Southwest as the U.S. Drought Monitor shows.

And how fast water tables in towns across the Southwest are falling as local water districts–the ones not relying on Colorado River water–pump more and more local ground water to new housing developments where new homeowners are planting wasteful lawns.

And I wonder if they realize that ground water isn’t being replaced in reservoirs and rivers with rain falling from the sky. The soil just gets drier and drier. The local wells have to go deeper and deeper. And choosing to plant a lawn becomes more and more absurd.

One woman in Pasadena CA pulled out her front lawn and turned it into an astonishing and somewhat bizarre front garden complete with blue bottles and plastic ornaments. This is the strangest lawn replacement I’ve seen. But to each, her/his own!

Local government officials are trying to handle current and future water usage. Efforts to slow down and re-allocate usage of water imported from the Colorado River show up in things like golf courses closing or being converted to dry landscaping and towns passing laws to ban lawns in front yards.

But there are other choices.

Before I show you some attractive lawn-free gardens for hot dry climates I’d like to suggest that if your heart is really set on the look of a lawn consider planting Buffalo Grass (Buchloe dactyloides) an Arizona native grass that many are planting as turf. Originally known as the grass that American buffaloes (bisons) grazed on, it grows green in summer, dies back to brown in the Fall and needs no irrigation and almost no mowing after it is established. [Note: This is not the invasive Buffelgrass (Pennisetum ciliare), an African native that is overwhelming plants in the Sonoran Desert. ]

Beautiful replacements for grassy lawns

So here are a few examples of front yards that are lawn-free.

A front yard filled with blooming perennials including kangaroo paw, sea lavender, rosemary and flat grey dymondia groundcover. This garden is located in Pasadena which gets about 17 inches of rain each year.

A desert-style garden in Springtime when the aloes and other plants are in bloom. This garden is located in Tucson which receives about 12 inches of rainfall a year.

These homeowners added berms, small “hills”, to their previously flat front lawn and planted drought-tolerant shrubs and trees that need almost no maintenance. Goodbye lawnmower! Berms need to be carefully designed to channel rainfall away from the house foundation.

This landscaped garden includes a dry creek bed as an ornamental feature surrounded by agaves and blue-gray fescue grass and taller green deer grass. As with adding berms in a garden, adding a dry creek bed has potential problems. Dry creek beds are not always dry and should be designed so rain water flows away from a home’s foundation.

I think of this front yard with its large decomposed granite space as a Mexican Garden because it reminds me of plazas and courtyards I’ve seen in Mexico. The “bare ground” decomposed granite suppresses weeds and is surrounded by drought tolerant plants that bloom seasonally. Zero maintenance and it requires only the water from the sky.

I was also going to write about silly social media posts praising decorative backyard ponds, but I have ranted enough for today. Those weird backyard ponds are as wasteful as grassy green front lawns in hot dry climates. If you have one, convert it to a flower fountain with plants on each level.

A postscript: there are now over 6,000 Little Free Plant Stands in Arizona! Vastly more than when I wrote about them back in March.

Our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Visit my author’s site to see the books I’ve published.

Little Free Plant Stands and other tips for Spring gardens

Many of you may have heard, seen–or even used–the Little Free Libraries. They are those small boxes erected in front of homes where neighborhood people deposit books to be given away for free to anyone who wants a book.

Then, recently I saw some Little Free Pantries. It’s a similar concept where non-perishable food is kept in a small box posted in front of a home or business or community center for anyone to take for free. (Here is a link to the post I wrote about little free pantries in Tucson.) Which bring this to the Little Free Plant Stands…

Swap your plants at a Little Free Garden Stand

This concept of hyper-local donation “boxes” has now extended to Little Free Plant Stands. It’s like a public neighborhood plant swap that operates by itself unattended. It’s an ideal way to freely exchange plants, etc. while maintaining social distancing.

As far as I know this movement does not have a national organization, unlike the Free Libraries or Free Pantries. I like that! It’s a purely spontaneous local activity by neighborhood gardeners and it seems to be proliferating like wild.

How to set up your own free plant stand

If you plan to set up one of these, you will probably need to “prime the pump”, so to speak, by placing plants, cuttings, seeds, old worn pots, gardening books or tools–whatever you have to spare–on the shelves of a little stand like this green one. This green “stand” is clearly home made and very charming. This generous gardener in Phoenix even added a bowl of freshly harvested lemons.

Photographer Danica Tuxbury retains all copyrights.

A plant stand doesn’t have to be elaborate. I saw another plant stand that was simply concrete blocks with painted boards laid across them–like a bookshelf, but filled with small plants and old pots. Definitely fast and easy to assemble.

If this inspires you to set up a stand similar to this, check out the growing number of Facebook groups in the categories of “Little Free Plant Stand” and “Little Free Garden Stand” for ideas and suggestions. You may even find some near you. But if you don’t, you can easily set up a FB group for your town or neighborhood to spread the word about your Little Free Plant Stand and to encourage other nearby gardeners to get involved.

Be mindful that your city or Homeowner’s Association may have rules about stacking stuff in front of your home. And it may turn out that you have more takers than givers and everything could be gone overnight.

One solution may be using “drinks cart” or tea cart with wheels that can be rolled out in front of a home during the day and back inside at sunset.

Free Flower pots

Keeping with the idea of free stuff for your garden this Spring, take a look at these “flower pots”–every one a conversion of an old object into a useful plant container instead of being tossed in the garbage. I especially like the last one in this slide show where all you need is a newspaper and some folding skills!

While you are out in the garden take a good look at your patio furniture. If it is looking drab or sun-bleached, you can revitalize old furniture–even those cheap and oh-so-useful plastic chairs–and refresh your outdoor living space for the cost of a can or two of spray paint.

Next, make this year the one you string white Christmas tree lights on the inside of your patio table umbrella to let you enjoy outdoor dining later into the night. Come July you will love it!

Happy Springtime!

Our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Visit my author’s site to see the books I’ve published.

Don’t let rainfall escape. Capture it.

Saving rainfall for your garden

(This post was originally written about winter rains, but is now even more applicable for desert gardens in the summer of 2023.)

Rain has finally arrived in the American Southwest.  After an almost rainless summer which made our serious drought even worse, storms are now arriving one after another from both north and south Pacific. So now is the time to capture that rain water.

Use one or more of the following methods to keep water in your garden by encouraging it to stay on your property for future use or percolate down into the soil now rather than run off into the street.

Build basins

The simplest way to capture rainfall for the plants in your garden is to dig shallow circular trenches or basins around your trees and shrubs. The basin edge should be 3 feet or more from the tree trunk and not very deep. Creating a basin all the way out to the tree canopy’s edge is ideal. An inch or two depth will create a basin to hold a good amount of water while it sinks into the earth. 

Be careful not to damage the root crown at the base of the trunk. In fact, the basin shouldn’t start right at the trunk of the tree. You want to water to go to the smaller roots further out.

While most flower beds are mounded — hopefully because you add a thick layer of organic mulch twice a year — you may want to consider digging small basins in the center of the beds to capture as much rain as possible. Again, be careful not to damage the roots of your plants.

If you plant in raised boxes, I hope you have good drainage on the bottom or during a heavy downpour your planter may flood and drown the plants.

Infiltration–high priced or on the cheap

Infiltration, in its expensive form, involves digging a sizeable pit on your property which will receive water from rain runoff from your roof. This means rain gutters and downspouts must be installed. The pit must be lined with a strong but permeable material and have an overflow to channel excess water safely away from your home. Water will seep from the pit into the surrounding soil, thus “irrigating from underground”. Consult a landscape architect or soils engineer if you plan to do this.

In the less expensive version of infiltration, dig or drill narrow, deep holes spaced apart in a circle around trees and shrubs. These holes will fill with rain which will then seep into the soil. To do this effectively, you may have to line the holes with strong but permeable material to help prevent the sides from collapsing into the holes while allowing water to escape into the root zone. Some people recommend using French drains, the drain pipes with holes, set vertically into the soil so they are mini-wells.

In the super-cheap version, really coarse gravel or small rocks may also keep the holes from collapsing. Deep watering like this will encourage trees and shrubs to grow deeper, stronger roots. And deeper roots mean more stability when winds howl across the landscape in Spring and Fall.

Add a cistern or rain barrel… or seven

Our last suggestion is to add a cistern or rain barrel to capture rainfall which you can use later by pumping the water out for irrigation. Unlike infiltration which is designed to allow water to spread out underground during a rain storm, a cistern is supposed to hold water in the container, not diffuse it.

If you want to add an underground cistern–which is essentially a well filled with rainwater–you should consult with a landscape architect or soils engineer because there are certain critical engineering issues involved. The sides and bottom must be sealed to prevent water from escaping and the system must have an overflow drain. If water overflows in the wrong direction you may have serious and potentially expensive erosion problems.

On the other hand buying a big plastic barrel or one of the large above ground cisterns–prices start at about $100 and go up depending upon the size–can be a quick and easy method to store the rainfall from the downspouts on your roof until you use it later.

Are cisterns illegal?

In Colorado and Utah having a cistern on one’s own property to collect water used to be illegal. But no longer. Now Coloradans can have 2 rain barrels with a total capacity of 110 gallons of water for use on their own property. In Utah homeowners can save up to 2500 gallons in above or below ground cisterns to store water for use on the same property. In both these states, please check for specific local regulations.

Many other states, including Nevada and California, have regulations or are planning to enact them, about water harvesting and usage. California, for example, is encouraging water harvesting. To see if your state has regulations, go here.

Our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Visit my author’s site to see the books I’ve published.

Frugal DIY gardening tips for Fall planting

For thousands of years frugal gardening was the only way to garden. Instead of buying starter plants at a local nursery or garden center, people planted seeds they had collected and saved during the previous harvest. Or swapped seeds and cuttings with friends and family. Or divided their own existing plants.

They didn’t buy mulch or composting equipment from those Big Box garden stores either. For century after century they created soil amendments themselves or did without. All gardening was do-it-yourself gardening.

This thrifty approach still works in the 21st century and may be more important than ever, especially for those of us whose gardens scorched right down to the bare earth during the relentless heat this summer. Replacing the plants that died as well as introducing new ones may be what you are facing this Fall. And the expense can be shocking. You may even have moments when you think: Buy groceries? Or buy for the garden?

So here is what to do to create a money-wise, water-wise garden this year.

Your Library is Your Frugal Gardening Friend

Hundreds of public libraries from coast to coast have turned their old card catalogs into bins containing packets of free herb and vegetable seeds. The seeds are most commonly collected locally and packaged in carefully labeled plastic bags by volunteer gardeners. Because the seeds come from their own gardens you know that they should thrive in your climate.

seeds in library card catalog

If your local library does not offer this service, ask them to start one of these “seed banks”. Master Gardeners or members of gardening clubs may be willing to help launch this free seed service.

There are also free seed swap services online. I haven’t used any of them, so I won’t make a specific website recommendation. If you use one, keep in mind that seeds that thrive in one location may not in another, for example, in a hot dry garden. It’s best to find local seed sources.

And DO NOT plant any seeds that come from China or other foreign countries. Don’t even put them in the garbage. Destroy them or turn them in to the US Dept. of Agriculture.



Multiply by Division

Plants that grow from bulbs, corms or rhizomes, which are basically fat roots, can be easily doubled or tripled by dividing them after they have finished their growth season. Note: In most U.S. Southwest climates, it is not necessary to dig up and store these over the winter. Leave them in ground year ’round unless your garden experiences hard freezes.

Among the easiest to multiply by dividing is the drought-tolerant Bearded Iris (Iridaceae). Every 3 or 4 years simply dig up the rhizomes, trim the leaves back to about 5 or 6 inches, then cut the rhizomes apart with a sharp, clean knife. Allow the rhizomes to dry for a couple of weeks, then shallowly replant in late September or October. Don’t wait until Spring.

lily of nile canna lilies
Canna Lilies and blue Lily-0f-the-Nile Agapanthus.

When you divide Canna Lilies (Canna indica) there’s no need to dry out the rhizomes for weeks before replanting, but do wait until it has stopped blooming and the leaves have died down before you dig it up. After you’ve cut the rhizomes into pieces each with a short length of stem attached, let them sit for one or two days. Once the raw cut side has scabbed over you can replant.

Daylilies (Homercallis) and  Agapanthus also lend themselves to being divided. Again, dig them up, divide the large root ball clumps and replant. No long drying out period is required. You should do this every 3 to 5 years to encourage these plants to keep blooming beautifully. After replanting be sure to water them frequently until they are established.

Cutting it up

Take cuttings of your favorite lavender and replant. Bees will thank you!

You can multiply many shrubby perennial herbs, like salvias, rosemary, thyme, lavender, marjoram and oregano simply by taking a 4 to 8 inch long cutting of a stem with two to four leaves attached, then putting that stem in a pot of natural soil from your garden or use commercial potting soil mix. I prefer to mix native soil with potting mix. Take the cutting from fresh new growth for best results and keep the soil damp until ready to transplant into your garden.

You can also take cuttings from your favorite Geranium (Pelargonium) and simply stick them into a pot of soil or potting mix. Keep the soil damp and — voila — you will have vigorous new geraniums in bloom next summer.

Garden Shows mean big savings on uncommon plants

Because people who belong to specialty flower clubs and garden clubs usually cultivate rare and uncommon varieties of plants, at their plant sales you are likely to find unusual hybrids and colors to add variety to your garden.

Check out nearby botanical gardens, too. They often have ongoing plant sales to help support their operations.

Because of Covid-19, however, this is not a good year to hold a neighborhood plant swap in your front yard or driveway. Garden club sales and Botanical Garden events may also be cancelled because of the pandemic.

Not So Perennial

santolina and petunias
The short-lived Santolina (Santolina incana)
with petunias in a flower border suitable for a
hot, dry climate.  The annual petunia will not
last long in hot summer weather.

Now many of these plants are ones we think of as “perennials”, but perennials are not really perennial. They don’t last forever. Over a period of 4 to 10 years you may have to replace every perennial in your garden so DIY frugal gardening can be a real budget saver.

Some perennials don’t even last that long. One of our favorite plants for a perennial flower border in a hot dry garden is the Santolina. I love its brilliant yellow ball-like flowers but it rarely lasts more than 2 or 3 years and then must be replaced to remain beautiful.

And Finally: A Wake Up Call

And remember, it’s best to plant in Fall when the average daily temperature falls below 90F (32C). After all, that’s when Mother Nature plants her seeds. And plants that survived this summer’s blistering heat and have been in summer dormancy are now waking up and they are hungry. Feed them well in the next few weeks so they will be strong and not need replacing next year.

Our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat