front yard dry river bed landscape design

Build a simple cage to protect your plant.When we toured the headquarters to look at the sale offerings last week, we spied several caterpillars that’ll one day become black desert swallowtail butterflies and queen butterflies, an orange cousin of the monarch butterfly that also frequents desert milkweed, Asbell said. Pollinator alert: Buyers might take home more than a plant if they’re lucky. The land trust grows its plants from seeds collected on its desert lands, and creosote is slow-growing, so it won’t have any of those plants to sell until next year’s fall sale, said Asbell, but this year’s sale features 50 other species, including rush milkweed ( Asclepias subulata) and desert milkweed ( Asclepias erosa) desert willows ( Chilopsis linearis) with their frilly vanilla-scented blooms and the delightfully named hole-in-the-sand ( Nicolettia occidentalis), a skeletal, bristly-looking plant with bright pink and yellow flowers. packed up and bought a home in Yucca Valley. pad for a Joshua Tree homestead - and a growing gay community It also has a defining characteristic: “The smell of the desert we all think of, that smell after it rains?” Asbell said. Some native plants do well throughout the region, such as California buckwheat and the red-throated California fuchsia, but others are less familiar outside of the desert, such as cheesebush ( Ambrosia salsola), burro bush or bur-sage ( Ambrosia dumosa) and yellow-blooming creosote bush ( Larrea tridentata) - the Mojave Desert’s ubiquitous and foundational shrub that provides food and shelter to a number of species, including the desert tortoise. These hardy plants have evolved to survive in both extremes. It gets hot here (it’s the desert, right?), but it also gets very cold, sometimes as low as 20 degrees, said Madena Asbell, the trust’s director of plant conservation. Opinions expressed in this newsletter article do not necessarily represent those of ELA’s directors, staff, or members.You’ll find several sales for native plants in Southern California this month and next, since late fall and winter are the best time for planting most natives - but the land trust’s sale is one of the very few devoted to plants adapted to desert life.

Mention of products is not intended to constitute endorsement. Please contact ELA for permission to reprint. Right to reproduce or disseminate all material herein, including to Columbia University Library’s CAUSEWAY Project, is otherwise reserved by ELA. She is Principal at Masters at Work Garden Design, LLC where she has been creating outdoors spaces for over 15 years.Įach author appearing herein retains original copyright. Marie Chieppo is a Certified Massachusetts Master Gardener and Certified Native Plant Designer and Horticulturist. Our ecological systems are counting on it. In the meantime, we will continue to use dry rivers, rain gardens, permeable surfaces and other measures. Hopefully the reality of how climates are being affected will mitigate water consumption. In the midst of historic droughts and rainstorms, the need for mechanisms that address these issues will become increasingly important. On a larger scale, as our urban areas continue to grow, the repurposing and harvesting of water will be front and center. Dirt from the dug-up swale surrounds the periphery and is used for plantings. Dry River IdeasĪ meandering stream helps reduce the velocity of the water (increasing the likeliness that it will irrigate) and creates a more natural look. With great precision his team dug and graded the area, buried pipes, created a network of catchment basins and swales and placed the stones. The various shapes, textures and colors of the stones work beautifully with the landscape. Using science combined with art he and his team created a beautiful and useful structure.

Rather than fight with it, I decided to have a dry river installed.īen Crouch, an ELA member and xeriscaping pro, came to my rescue. I also have neglected plants at the bottom of the property in dire need of water. Included on my property was an area where the soil was terrible erosion and leaching were my biggest problems. I participated in the ELA’s 2017 August Native Garden Tour, which caused me to take a critical look at my yard. Photo: Marie Chieppoįor years my gardens have been composed of mostly native plant material combined with particular non-natives. As the water slowly makes its way down, it irrigates the soil and plant roots. The dry river installed in my yard has a deep midsection that functions as the catchment.

Front yard dry river bed landscape design