Maintenance and Irrigation

Irrigation: Your first step should always be planning the plant groupings by water requirements. It's a time consuming delay to starting any garden, but it's a critical investment which pays off handsomely in reduced plant mortality and reducing wasted effort during future expansion.

Initial plantings usually require one to two watering cycles per week but once established, one to two watering cycles per month are sufficient for many drought tolerant plant groups. In winter, water supplements are restricted to rain replacement during real droughts.

Reprogramming the irrigation system as plants mature is at least as important to plant health and decreased water use as is the maintenance of the rotors, stream heads, and valves.

 

Passive Catch Basins: The rock washes that you see throughout the gardens are passive and intended to be both holding ponds for rainwater (to allow the water to percolate into the ground instead of eroding the gardens) and to channel excess water into culverts during storms.  Sam arranged the large rocks at the end of the catch basins to make them more attractive in the landscape.

Tree Trimming: Under development, thank you for your patience.

Mulching and Composting: Prunings are chipped into small pieces to use as mulch and spread back over the area that produced it. Trimmings are often just broken up as they are cut, and spread around the plant where you are working.

Pruning of plants: Under development, a calendar. Thank you for your patience.

 

Plantings: Under development, a calendar. Thank you for your patience.