With some misgivings, I am throwing open my yard for our July field trip/workshop. The topic will be Wise Watering for the Hot Months Ahead. I have 6 different watering systems in use, ranging from the laundry-to-landscape greywater our April speaker Sergio Scabuzzo installed in front , to basic inline drip from Smiths Plumbing, individual drippers on a solid hose from various sources, hand watering from 10 gallon buckets where I store shower water not yet heated up (and I just got the niftiest watering can!), and a small rotary sprinkler system on the tiny lawn. If the rest of you could bring samples of whatever you are using to water your gardens, we could answer one of the biggest recurring questions members have here in Drought City.
Members should enter through the big driveway gate and head to the backyard where I will put fences around anything I am concerned about people trampling. As is true of all field trips, please do not pick, poke or otherwise molest the green-age.
The driveway is in perpetual shade but I have no chairs there so if any of you have portable ones, it would be great to bring them. There are a (very) few chairs on the back deck plus steps where the younger folk can sit, so if it is not too hot, we can have our workshop there.
The backyard has some mature trees: a Black Mission fig, 2 Satsuma tangerines, Moro blood orange, Meyer and Eureka lemons, Bearss and Mexican lime, Big Jim Loquat with a Champagne graft from Marjane, Black Persian Mulberry (plus a new little Pakistani from Hal), Saijo persimmon plus half a dozen cherimoyas from seed (and one transplanted from Gary Richwald’s yard), 2 passionflower vines from Jorge Ochoa, a new little Sweetheart Lychee, four apple trees, two ridiculously huge Laurus Nobilis (an object lesson in why they shouldn’t be planted here especially on the south side of our yards) a couple of Cherry of Rio Grande, one Surinam cherry and probably other stuff I’m forgetting (oh yeah, papayas from seed and a Babaco from Charles Portney, plus a new Stewart avocado–ed. the Stewart just ended up in the front yard). The tiny lawn is the UC Verde drought tolerant stuff developed by, right, UC Riverside.
The front yard is not to be entered and will be rung with Home Depot’s best DANGER tape. It is full of bee and butterfly plants, an extremely fragile drip system and an even more fragile graft of Yang Mei onto Pacific Wax Myrtle. Fang Liu did approximately 15 such grafts and only the one took. Needless to say, I am extremely protective of it.
Nonetheless most of the front yard’s residents are visible from the front sidewalk or the driveway, including two Gros Michel bananas, a Janice Kadota fig and some seedlings from Marjane’s Panache, the Cotton Candy tree some of you have cuttings from, a lot of Pomegranates from sticks stuck in the ground after scion exchanges, three pears (well, only one is really visible from sidewalk), two apple trees (and two more which never really took and are probably coming out for avocados!) a new and struggling Hachiya Persimmon — struggling because the sunflowers and borage tend to crowd it out. Half a dozen roses. And my rose apple seedling from Marjane which is NOT bearing and is asking to be chopped down. The Burgundy plum next to it may be gone soon too. It has two plums on it after three years. Not especially visible are the blueberries and self-sown strawberries. Please do not walk in my neighbors’ driveway on that side. They are extremely hostile to Rare Fruit Growers, including me. Sofia will be monitoring with a machete
There is also a native California garden on the parkway (and a lot in the front yard too) which is a whole other topic we discussed at Hal’s but people can see in action.
There will be cookies. Please don’t feed them to the extremely large but friendly dog.