Getting Hardscaping Right

July 18, 2013

...good one. Get the hardscaping done first, do it right and be bold. Putting plants in first and then building things like decks and seating areas is a recipe for disaster. Any construction project, even carefully done, causes a considerable amount of destruction. 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 mat...

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There is Something Beyond the Straw Bale

Mr. Homegrown

May 31, 2019

Fruit Trees, Garden Design, Gardening, Straw Bale Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

2 Comments

...getables–beyond that solitary straw bale we have a lot of edible perennial plants and a bunch of work to do to straighten out the yard after years of other priorities. Site of future seasonal rain garden. Towards that end, our landscaper, Laramee Haynes and crew are coming next week to clean things up, install a kind of seasonal rain garden fed by a downspout, fix the paths in the backyard, and install some sprinklers and a few path lights. In sho...

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Leaf Litter

Mr. Homegrown

December 12, 2006

Permaculture

1 Comment

...d eucalyptus produce so called alleopathic chemicals that kill neighboring plants and hence would not be good candidates for mulch production. With the exception of these alleopathic plants, there is simply no good reason to rake up leaves. Blow up the bridge, let the leaves fall, let nature do its thing, and join the SurviveLA idleness non-revolution (as the folks at SoapboxLA would say, it would take too much effort to start an idleness revoluti...

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Pee on your Compost

Mr. Homegrown

January 24, 2007

Composting

1 Comment

...t a bladder infection. Urine should be diluted before applying directly to plants since salts in your pee can build up in the soil. Dilution should be at least 10 parts water to one part urine. Peeing directly on plants can burn them as anyone who owns a dog already knows about. Urine is easiest to apply to non-food crops, though it’s perfectly safe to use on fruit trees and bushes. Applying it to root crops is more controversial, and frankly seem...

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Phytoremediation of Heavy Metals

Mr. Homegrown

February 25, 2014

Gardening, Lead

13 Comments

...them up as readily. One promising strategy is phytoremediation, the use of plants to uptake heavy metals. youarethecity, in New York, is experimenting with Indian mustard, mugwort, basket willow and sunflowers to remediate a contaminated garden. The results are promising with some metals down 50% in a year. Mugwort (Artimesia vulgaris) did an especially good job with a wide range of contaminants. I should note that Garm Wallace, who runs Wallace L...

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