Plant funnels water to itself

Researchers from Israel's University of Haifa-Oranim have managed to decipher the unique self-watering mechanism of the desert rhubarb plant in the Negev desert. The gist:

...the plant's leaves channel rainwater toward the ground surrounding the rhubarb plant's root.
The leaves are also coated with wax, which helps to quicken the water flow toward the sunken parts of the leaves and from there to the root. Most neighboring plants simply survive on the rain droplets that directly penetrate the ground around them.

Coincidentally, Israel is where the modern drip irrigation methods were invented, although the theory was first put in practice in Afghanistan in 1866, so says Wikipedia.
[via LiveScience.com]
[pics via University of Haifa]

With a name like horny toad, there should be more of them

The native horned lizard (mainly driven out of habitats by the invasion of farms, cities and Argentine ants which displaced their favorite food source, harvester ants) has been found to have three distinct population groups. The gist:

Aside from the oldest and original species, P. coronatum, found only in southern Baja California, the researchers identified a new species, P. cerroense, in central Baja and a third, P. blainvillii, whose range extends from northern Baja to Northern California. Within the third, wide-ranging species, the study's authors found enough genetic and ecological differences to suggest there are at least three distinct populations of P. blainvillii, each requiring separate management and protection.

Why it's important that our native reptiles have a place in the ecosystem is because they are predators. Predators are vital to creating a healthy living space for plants-- they eat bugs that eat plants, and the deeper the food chain in your yard can be, the healthier your plants will be.
[via e! Science News]
[pic via National Geographic]

At least you can move the shade

Although this academic text is a little thick with phrases like "necrosis of the leaf tips" (read: parts died) and "in some genotypes anthers did not dehiscence" (meaning: flower parts on some types didn't open) it does explain what's going on with your plants when they suffer heat stress -- uses a cowpea nee black-eyed peas (not the band) as an example. But overall, the gist:

Reproductive development of many crop species is damaged by heat such that they produce no flowers or if they produce flowers they may set no fruit or seeds.

[by By Dr. Anthony E. Hall, UC Riverside, Botany and Plant Sciences Department]
[pic via Seedman.com]

The conquering worms

Every gardener and composter is indebted to earthworms. Soon, reports the International Journal of Environment and Pollution, textile manufacturers (and their neighbors) will be too. The gist:

Most gardeners will tell you the earthworm is their best friend as it aerates the soil and helps break down compostable materials so releasing nutrients for improved plant growth. One particular species of earthworm, known as Eisenia foetida, thrives in rotting vegetation, compost, and manure. This species is grown commercially for composting because of their skills at converting organic waste into rich compost.

E. foetida is ambivalent about the source of organic matter it will vermicompost. It will wriggle its way through kitchen waste, animal manure, and many other materials. According to Vinod Garg, Renuka Gupta and Priya Kaushik of Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology, in Haryana, India, say the red wrigglers could even be used to produce compost from the huge volumes of solid sludge produced by the textiles industry.

Via e! Science News

First Gardeners

This past March, the First Lady Michelle Obama and some neighborhood grade schoolers tore up some of the White House lawn to put in a kitchen garden. By mid-June, they were harvesting lettuce and snap peas, which became part of their lunch.

Besides being a great object lesson, it's in service of the Child Nutrition Act.

Photos by coverts

It seems there is a Kill Your Lawn phenomenon under way. Photos on Flickr including this one, mainly selected because the ID is a reference to maybe my favorite movie of all time, wherein the lawn killer seems to opting for the chemistry-free method of covering the turf space with plastic and cooking it to death after a couple of months. The procedure is a little more complicated than that, but not much. Via Boing Boing

Waste not, want rot

By way of the LA Dept of Public Works, comes this detail:

California lawns can generate approximately 300 to 400 pounds of grass clippings per 1000 square feet annually, depending on turf variety, environmental conditions, and turf management practices. This can amount to over eight tons per acre per year!

The above link has a chart on suggested mowing heights.
Although their goal is to encourage recycling the waste into the compost that they provide for free (PDF for locations), that info is reason alone to consider eliminating an ornamental lawn. No need to start up the mower, fill the barrel, roll it to the curb, make the trash truck stop and dump the barrel just to haul it away -- if there's no lawn clippings in the first place.

Also you can compost it yourself (PDF for a how-to and a residential yard waste drop off site)

Kill Your Lawn

What this is, is The Lawn Gone Blog -- dedicated to eliminating your lawn, or at least reducing it.

It costs too much water, time, energy, chemistry... to get only a green rectangle that (if you're an average suburbanite) you really only walk on when you're mowing it. And if you have a gardener, he walks on it more than you.

Kill your lawn and fire your gardener.

Grow food or flowers; grow natives and grow peace of mind.

Green Vandals

By night, abandoned public planters get flowers, TreeHugger.com reports --more links there. Craft displays a particularly aggressive example. It's mainly a United Kingdom thing. There's a YouTube channel. Thanks to HuffingtonPost.com

Donnie Darko plants a garden

Via JustJared.com, Jake Gyllenhaal helps build a garden at Manuel Arts High in L.A. during a Green Service Day. Link has video.

Going slow

The New York Times writes about Felder Rushing and his "slow gardening" approach.

The mix of shrubs and flowers Mr. Rushing planted instead of a traditional lawn is an example of his “Slow Gardening” approach. The term takes its name and inspiration from the Slow Food movement, whose adherents believe in using local ingredients harvested in an environmentally responsible way. Mr. Rushing says that he didn’t coin the term, but that he has “appropriated” it.

A busy lecturer on the horticulture society circuit and a born proselytizer, Mr. Rushing, 56, has long advocated a reliance on perennials and an acceptance of a little disorder, and expressed a rebellious affection for lawn ornaments that might in some circles be called trashy (pink flamingoes, for example).

Lately, he’s been preaching slow gardening.

Simply put, the doctrine calls for gardeners to relax, take their time and follow seasonal rhythms, instead of doing everything at once...

Rushing hosts a weekly radio show with podcasts and  has a blog.

Landscaping to inhibit brushfire

Information is vast about landscaping in fire-prone areas. Most information is pretty obvious once you think about it.
Order a free LA County calendar or for Ventura County

Some cities force a lawn upon you

The Los Angeles Times reported a regional roundup that reflects some municipality's turf uber alles notions:

* Los Angeles: There are some landscaping rules, but they're "scattered all over the zoning codes," L.A. City Planning associate O'Brien said. Owners of single-family homes can pretty much do as they please; the city regulates properties with duplexes and larger residential dwellings, which have different rules. Historic Preservation Overlay Zones have their own rules governing landscaping.

Note, also, that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa recently signed an ordinance that doubles fines for residents who repeatedly violate the city's "drought buster" rules, including a ban on watering lawns between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.

For more information, go tocityplanning.lacity.org/.

* Long Beach: Residents are "encouraged" to dedicate no more than 50% of their frontyards to concrete, said Development Services Director Beck. Wood chips and gravel are permitted, up to 100% of frontyards. Rules are set by neighborhood associations; the city "doesn't strictly enforce landscaping regulations," he added. Drought-tolerant measures are encouraged and may soon be required. Go to www.longbeach.gov/plan/pb/zd/ ordin ances/default.asp.

* Glendale: Rules vary with the neighborhoods, most of which require that 40% of setback areas be fully landscaped (not all in one corner of the yard) and that the landscaped areas consist primarily of live plant material. Go to www.ci.glendale.ca.us.

* Burbank: No more than 45% of frontyard and street-facing side yards may be hardscape (concrete, brick, pavers, etc.). Go to www.ci.burbank.ca.us/De partments/deptsa.htm#cdd.

* Riverside: Frontyard landscaping is not regulated, other than requiring that the space be maintained at a quality at least equal to that of the rest of the neighborhood, and that varies by neighborhood. Go to riversideca.gov; click on "municipal code," then "zoning code."

* Irvine: Each of the city's 80 or so master-planned communities has a homeowners association, which decides the landscaping plan. Homeowners seeking a change to their yard must get association approval.

* Santa Barbara: Owners submit landscape plans to the city. Yards of single-family homes must be designed with no more than 20% of the landscaped area planted with grass or plants that are not drought-tolerant. Grass is not allowed on slopes with 20% or greater grades within landscaped areas. Landscaped areas not covered by grass, shrubs or succulents must be covered with mulch. Strict irrigation rules apply. More information is at www.santabarbaraca.gov/Gov ernment/Departments/ComDev/.

210,000 people a year can't be wrong

It's not just the lawn that saps personal and public resources and requires unhealthy chemistry to maintain. The lawnmower does too. The New York Times reported:

Last year, nearly 210,000 people were treated in clinics and emergency rooms for lawn mower-related injuries, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. About 16,200 of those accidents involved children.

Likely, it's a good case for hiring a professional.

Now that you've taken that yard waste out of your house

Sustainability blogger Green LA Girl provides a roundup of area Christmas Tree disposal prospects, calling it treecycling. Although there's an inherent foolishness in partaking in the tradition of taking a 5-15 year old tree and chopping it down and trucking it to your neighborhood so it can be festooned with electric lights and other nostalgic gewgaw for a few weeks-- it's a trend that will likely endure regardless. For those who don't have the wherewithal to chop it into recycling bin-sized pieces, Green LA Girl gives a good list of services including people who'll do it for you and vacuum afterwards.

Those who bought a live tree (watch for updates) will soon be moving it outside to be subject to Western pine beetle and planting it in the ground or repotting it. Other choices besides the obvious reusable artificial off-the-shelf product include these.

For dirty minds

This gardening column, via Gather.com's gardening group, offers a simple soil test to help you determine what your soil type is: clay, silt, or sand. 

A lawn isn't always wrong

Today I bought lawn seed to fill in bare patches in a lawn on the Westside that is mainly Bermuda (destined to be eliminated, and now dormant), some unknown fescue and now-dead rye. Since this 15'x40' is mainly a play area for Little Miss Short Person, little but turfgrass will do. So under the disclaimer that lawn is suitable only for recreation, this space applies.

But still... a 4"-6" layer of wood chips would probably work as well for the tykester.

A growing movement

Food Not Lawns is dedicated to having you turn your water- and energy-sucking, useless turf into lunch -- a grassroots movement to do away with grass roots. Info here and there's a book by that title, with a subtitle of "How To Turn Your Yard Into A Garden And Your Neighborhood Into A Community." There's a community seed swap on  Jan. 31

More lawn than corn

I'll write this out later, but this '06 story on Science Daily reports that turf is the largest irrigated "crop"-- three times the area than corn.

Hoe, hoe, hoe

Bought a "mortar hoe" at The Home Despot. It was longer-handled, seemed heavy-duty on the blade end, wider and $14 more than the comparable fiberglass-handled garden-varoety model. later I'll go into why that choice, suffice to say, it wasn't so heavy duty but the longer handle and wider blade were good choices.

What it is

The Lawn Gone Blog is about killing your lawn, replacing it with perennials, edibles, native plants, exotics, hardscaping, mulch... or even a car on blocks. The premise is that a lawn takes an inordinate amount of time, water, chemistry and energy to look good, and often even then it doesn't. And what's it for? If you're using it for recreation, fine. There's no real substitute. Otherwise, kill it. Before it kills you.

Reason season

Putting in seeds on Dec. 30? Indeed. This wonderful strip by Zippy The Pinhead creator Bill Griffith shows how there's always something to be done in the garden. Yow!

Sow what?

Planted vegetable seeds today, so this is as good a place as any to begin. It was warm and clear and into the soil went Little Marvel (dwarf) Peas, planted about twice as dense as recommended. And a bed blanketed with lettuces (something Ferry-Morse is calling Salad Bowl, Mesclun [gourmet greens mixture], Rouquette/Arugula) and spinach (Bloomsdale, Long Standing).

The lettuce bed will be harvested by trimming with scissors when the plants get 3-4" high, providing a bushel of baby lettuce leaves. I did this previously at the West Valley Occupational Center garden while a student there and had about a 20-gal trash bag worth of lettuce in about 8 weeks. That bed was planted about Thanksgiving and was harvested for a 2nd time by the end of January.