<![CDATA[wonder-flora.com - Blog]]>Fri, 10 May 2024 22:19:57 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Regenerating Cascadia: Principles & Practices]]>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 17:47:40 GMThttps://www.wonder-flora.com/blog/regenerating-cascadia-principles-practices​Wondering what guides Wonder-Flora Landscape Design in decision-making? 
core principle #1: shape the land to manage water
Water is a life-giving resource that we must value and protect. Too often residential and agricultural development and forestry practices within the Cascadia region have disturbed soil on a massive scale and dealt with rainfall by sending it through pipes directly into creeks, rivers and shorelines. The resulting sediment and pollution levels have led to devastating effects on salmon and other species as well as the quality of drinking water. Increasing climate instability is causing extreme weather events including floods, droughts, fire and unprecedented heat.
We are able to mitigate the climate crisis by restoring the small water cycles wherever we are. We can shape the land into shallow basins surrounded by berms known as rain gardens to infiltrate runoff from houses, driveways and lawns. There may be space for a pond and overflow can be directed to slowly flow through planted swales. We can capture rainfall and filter it, effectively spreading it out and sinking it into the ground for the benefit of plant growth, people and wildlife.
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Core principle #2: restore healthy soil
Setting up conditions for thriving plant/soil communities
Follow these principles for soil health  for the best possible outcome:

Maximize the presence of living roots
Regenerative landscape design aims to fill the landscape with a variety of plants to fill every layer from below ground into the sky. Each perennial bed will include bulbs, low growing plants and groundcovers, mid-height flowering plants, shrubs and trees. Annual plants sown in place are fast growing fillers, attracting pollinators, creating root and leaf biomass and contributing organic matter. Some plants may fix nitrogen while helping to cycle nutrients. Others excel at stabilizing disturbed soil or growing deep roots to access nutrients and improve drainage.
Plant a variety of species offering benefits throughout the year. Several plants in each area will maintain active growth during our winter rainy season. Cool season annuals, bulbs and evergreen plants continue to cycle water through roots and leaves while their roots provide the critical functions of preventing erosion and loss of nutrients when it rains. Plants that bloom in Spring and throughout the warm seasons will ensure food for insects and the web of life that feeds on them. Maximizing photosynthesis and long term relationships within the plant and soil food web community will fuel the engines of the living system.

Become aware of the effects of disturbance
Although the evolving soil ecosystem of a regenerating landscape is far too complex for us to hope to know everything about it, we can observe how our actions lead to responses. For example we can observe that digging or tilling the soil causes weeds to grow by exposing seeds that would otherwise lay dormant underground. This is sometimes used as a strategy to encourage weeds to sprout so they can be dealt with before a grower sows seed.
Physical disturbances including repeated tilling, heavy machines or even footsteps in wet soil can damage soil structure. The compaction that often results is a very common situation in disturbed soil that impedes water flow, lowers oxygen levels and restricts plant root growth. In this case it may be helpful to use a broad fork, garden fork or machinery to fracture the soil during the dry season. Further compaction of the soil can be avoided by dedicating permanent pathways that allow access for people. Keep digging and tillage to a minimum to build soil microbiology and fungal mycorrhizae networks. Our goal is to eventually create a soil ‘sponge’ as soft and friable as soil deep in the forest, absorbing and filtering rainfall on the site.
Chemical disturbances can be caused by misuse of pesticides, herbicides or synthetic fertilizers.  Use of chemicals should never be taken lightly, as the full effects on the ecosystem as a whole remain unknown. Synthetic fertilizers are mineral salts that create conditions in the soil inhospitable to fungi. Any concentrated fertilizer, even excess manure, has the potential to interrupt the development of beneficial relationships between a plant and the soil microbiome.  We might think of how a diet of processed ‘junk’ foods affect our appetite and intestinal health. 

Maximize soil cover
The healthy diet for soil is biologically active compost covered with a protective layer of coarse organic materials, mimicking the slowly decaying leaves and wood that create and sustain healthy grasslands and forests. A two to four inch topping of wood chips, leaves or straw mulch will prevent soil erosion, reduce annual weed pressure, retain moisture and protect soil life from extreme heat and cold. Wood mulched pathways offer the same benefits and eventually break down to feed the soil microbiome.
The best soil cover is a living mulch; a mixed species cover crop or groundcovers that will provide all the benefits of physical protection as well as nutrient cycling through photosynthesis and decaying plants and their associated community of organisms. Mowing and blowing a living mulch pathway or chopping and dropping creates a nitrogen-rich feeding mulch for plants.

Maximize biodiversity to foster all of life
recognize that every living being has a role in the ecosystem
Plants thrive by interacting with a vast community of cooperative and competitive organisms both within the soil and above ground. Fungi, bacteria and countless other species can be found numbering billions within the microbiology of a shovelful of healthy soil. This diversity allows plants to create beneficial alliances that are key to resilient and vigorous plant growth.

Consider non-toxic Approaches to restoring balance
Wasps are not welcome near doorways and we may knock down or destroy those nests with ice. However, many species of wasps feed their larvae caterpillars and other small insects, including some that are potentially damaging to plants. The wasps in turn are preyed upon by birds and dragonflies and their larvae is food for mammals. Research the long lasting effects of pesticides such as neonicotinoids that may be in flea and worm medicines, and avoid their use.
Rodents are a common problem when their populations rise in response to ready habitat and easy food sources. Poisons can hurt predators of rodents as well, leading to a loss of natural controls. ‘Exclusion and confusion’ are some techniques we have used to target pests in specific locations while avoiding damage to other organisms and the environment.

Core principle #3: Right plant, right place
Plant preferences have evolved to suit the conditions of a particular place in relationship with other species
  
Wonder-Flora Landscape Design values native plant communities and 10,000+ years of land stewardship by indigenous peoples as the basis of our understanding of this place and our role here. Observation of the current state of our landscape shows a greatly diminished diversity of species and widespread fragmentation of habitat. Two-thirds for the Birds is based on research showing that if at least two out of three plants in an area are native, chickadees are supported in raising a successful brood. We may need fully half of the land to be regenerated as a healthy forest ecosystem in order to protect the quality of water we all depend upon for life. At a minimum, we must follow Washington state wetland, stream and shoreline buffer guidelines to restore fragile critical areas.
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Know the habitat where your plants originated. Most plants native to Cascadia have a superior ability to cope with extremes of a winter-wet / summer-dry climate. Specific plants are especially adapted to drought conditions and some may require fast drainage to survive. Others thrive in wet soil. When researching a species origin, consider adding the associated plants of its native community. Make sure you are placing the plant in the appropriate soil type or amend the soil as needed : gravelly / sandy, acidic soil, heavy silt, clay or high organic content. Plants requiring full sun need at least six hours a day. There are plants for any and every site!

Contact Janaki to find out how Wonder-Flora can help you with your goals!

www.wonder-flora.com   |   (360)920-1082   |   janaki@wonder-flora.com
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]]><![CDATA[Fertilizers and Soil Amendments: Do We Need Them?]]>Thu, 26 Feb 2015 03:10:31 GMThttps://www.wonder-flora.com/blog/fertilizers-and-soil-amendments-do-we-need-themThe 2015 Seattle Flower and Garden Show gave me the chance to hear presentations by some brilliant minds in the horticulture world. WSU professor and author Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott offered compelling science-based research dispelling garden myths and advised against some commonly accepted practices. Are we actually harming our plants by loading up their tidy beds with bonemeal and chicken manure? In the case of gardening with woody plants in non-agricultural soils, the answer may be yes.

Nearly all shrubs and trees and quite a few perennial plants have associations with mycorrhizal fungi. These relationships make plants more efficient at absorbing water and minerals from the soil. High phosphorus fertilizers including bonemeal inhibit the growth of these beneficial fungi. Root growth will increase, but it will be at the expense of other functions the plant needs to perform.

Lack of phosphorus is usually not a limiting factor of plant growth in urban soils. The only way to be sure is to get a complete soil test. Otherwise, look to other possible factors in determining why growth appears to be slow: available nitrogen, ph levels, temperatures.These are complex relationships and rushing to apply a commercial product could lead to other imbalances. I look for the quality of plant growth as an indicator of plant health, not the speed of growth. If the colors are true (not faded or unusually tinted for that variety) and the complexion is clear (not showing the ravages of insect or disease) then the plant is doing fine.

So how can we help plants struggling to overcome pest and disease pressure and be resilient in times of changing climate? Dr. Chalker-Scott is a big fan of mulch ( I am too!). My mulching guidelines are to match the type of mulch to the plants you are growing. While woody plants have their partnership with fungi, many annuals and vegetables thrive in soils where bacteria life is favored. Manure based compost works best in the veggie and flower garden and a mulch of leaves and wood chips will best nourish the soils around shrubs and trees. This is a grand paradigm shift: feed the soils, not the plants!

Some cautions about mulching from Dr. Chalker-Scott's presentation:
Sheet mulch (laying sheets of cardboard to smother weeds after mowing) may cut off the soil life from moisture and inhibit gas exchange. In my experience, watering the soil deeply and applying smaller pieces of overlapping cardboard seems to work well. Don't use this method where burrowing rodents are a problem and expect a temporary increase in the slug population.
Lasagna gardening may overload a bed with high nitrogen materials that leach nutrients. My advice is to keep the moisture content at a moderate level, as with any compost pile, by protecting it from heavy rain. Gardeners in our area have had great success creating fertile beds with a little initial effort and then have patience while the worms do the hard work.
More on Dr. Chalker-Scott's work

What's Growing: Lonicera fragrantissima

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Well, I just learned that this easy-going shrub with the sparkling, sweet smelling Winter blooms may have a dark side. In Tennessee it may be considered an invasive plant along with some of its honeysuckle cousins. So, if you are cautious, don't grow this one. But right now I am so grateful for this shrub from China by my front walk as it unfurls it's fresh green leaves and dangles a hundred flowers from it's arching branches. The perfume has a fruitiness that is refreshingly different from those Spring bloomers veering toward the cloying or musky scents. By summer the leaves have a blue-green tint and hold on until bitter weather cleans the branches. All this from a plant I have never fertilized or watered, growing in deep shade in heavy clay under a Black Walnut tree!

What's Cooking: Alliums at Every Meal

Onions, garlic, shallots, leeks, scallions, chives- all are alliums - and I grow them all. It seems cooking at my house always begins or ends with one or more of these. Now is the time to start allium seeds and plant "sets" or baby bulbs. (Garlic goes in the ground in October, and no later than mid-winter.) They are cold tolerant plants, and as soon as the seeds sprout in the tray I keep them in a bright and barely frost-free space to be planted out after about six weeks and a haircut or two. Setting out the starts as single plants is very tedious. I am grateful for the farmer who advised me that onions grow just as well in clumps of four. Even fistfuls of baby onions will make gorgeous scallions - they really grow like grass around here in the early Spring. Keep them growing fast and free from weed competition because when the days stop getting longer the alliums will plump up their roots in direct relationship to the vigor of the green tops. Mulching with compost, grass clippings and straw will feed the soil and shelter the plants.
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