Our new front yard, part 6: it’s all potential at this point

.... In the meantime, I will update this series if anything comes up– any new mistakes or discoveries or victories on the road to developing a meadow community. Doing this project has made me aware of how often we expect instant results with our landscaping, and how this haste often comes at a price. I don’t mean money, though that is true as well. So often the homeowner or the designer installs way too many plants, and plants them too close to one a...

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087 Foraging Controversy with Lisa Novick

...2016 Theodore Payne garden tour Theodore Payne plant list Native gardening mistakes Edible California natives California natives in pots Hooker’s Evening Primrose in bloom. Photo: Lisa Novick. If you’d like to leave a question for the Root Simple Podcast please call (213) 537-2591 or send an email to [email protected]. You can subscribe to our podcast in the iTunes store and on Stitcher. The theme music is by Dr. Frankenstein. A downloadable ve...

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Getting Hardscaping Right

...n. Some other lessons I’ve learned from fifteen years worth of hardscaping mistakes at our house: Design the hardscaping before even thinking about plants. Open the wallet and get quality materials for any hardscaping project. It’s more economical to do it right the first time, rather than re-do badly done projects multiple times. Go where contractors get materials not the big box stores. A recent trip to Home Depot reminded me about how ugly most...

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How’s that Tomato Grafting Project Going?

...6otA What could possibly go wrong? Let’s just say that at Root Simple Labs mistakes were made. The root stock grew a lot faster than the heirloom tomatoes I chose. When you graft you want similarly sized stems. It would have been good to stagger the days I started my seeds rather than planting them all at one time. The healing chamber needs to be a carefully controlled environment. I improvised a greenhouse by putting my seedlings in plastic bags....

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Tomato Grafting Fail

...ven managed to attract tomato hornworms for the first time ever. Two early mistakes led to subsequent problems. First, I should have purchased or made a seed starting mix rather than the potting soil I used. I ended up with weak seedlings. Secondly, I did not manage the post-graft period well. Having a greenhouse within which to create a “healing chamber” for the grafted plants would have made the process much easier. Since I have no space or desi...

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