Privacy shrub (10-12') zone5a drought tolerant, pretty?
Catherine Di Stasio Morgenstern
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
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ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
8 years agoRelated Discussions
Drought tolerant edibles
Comments (10)you may want to think about some kind of cover crop that grows well in your area and start incorporating some organic matter into that sand you got. you can reforest a desert but you really need to start with the soil first. you can plant 500 trees and shrubs but without water holding capabilities your going to loose a lot of plants when you cut off the irrigation regardless of how old they are. if you can't find a cover crops that grows well in your area you can find native weeds that grow lush on the side of the road and get a few seeds and plant them in your yard. then till them in before it self seeds. This can be a bad thing for invasive spices but do a little research on the plants you find and you should be fine. even weeds produce organic matter and if your soil won't grow much of anything without irrigation I'd take what I can get just to get the soil built. after about 2 years of building your soil incorporate plants slowly and add plenty of compost to the holes you dig each time you plant something. also much deeply and try terracing you slop a little so the mulch don't wash away. I'd say at least 6 inches and use a layer or 2 of cardboard under the mulch so no light ever gets to the plants you don't want anymore....See Morefast-growing drought-tolerant groundcover?
Comments (7)A relatively narrow 60' length with only a single planting of a very low, ground-hugging groundcover may be a bit more boring than you expect :-) While creeping or woolly thyme are very nice and pretty rapidly spreading GC's, they are rather characterless when not in bloom (and not nearly as great a weed deterrent as a few other GC's). They offer a much better aesthetic if grown on a gradual slope or even on low, rolling mounds. I'd consider adding some hefty landscape boulders to create some contours (and take up some space - you have a lot of real estate to cover) or selecting something with a bit more oomph to it - Rubus calcynoides or Genista pillosa 'Vancouver Gold'. Both will grow and cover far faster than the thyme, have more of a profile and offer much better weed suppression. The Euonymus fortunei 'Kewensis' PJ mentions is also an excellent choice and tolerates sun very well. Growers flats of GC's have become increasingly difficult to locate in recent years and even my best GC suppliers offer them only in the summer months and infrequently and very selectively at that. But with a very low growing, mat-like GC like the creeping thymes, you can easily cut up the typical 3.5" pot into 4 or more chunks, thus increasing your supply. I'd also recommend holding off on the planting of thyme - if that is your choice - until spring or after the worst of the rainy winter. Unless well-established and in extremely well draining soil, it dislikes the amount of moisture we receive in winter. For a 12" spacing (and no boulders) you need 900 plugs/pots - for an 8" spacing, you need approximately double that. With either the rubus or genista, you can easily get away with 16-18" spacing or 400-600 plugs/pots....See MoreDrought tolerant hedge near pool plumbing?
Comments (14)We have a hedge on three sides that I "affectionately" refer to as Hedgezilla that I would love to tear out because it is a BORING, man-made monoculture of a labor-intensive maintenance chore (podocarpus gracillior). While yes, it provides privacy, that's all it does. It appears to offer no wildlife benefits except as a haven for unsavory creatures from time to time. Although the space between the property line block wall and the pool is very narrow, I have recently begun planting a variety of drought-tolerant evergreen trees in front of the hedge with the intention of eventually tearing out the hedge behind them after they get bigger (we're not rich and can't buy big box trees). The goal is a more natural-looking environment (and hopefully, a reduced maintenance headache). I have several acacia stenophylla (shoestring acacia) which provide a lacy, open weeping effect, but like silver sheen, it's not dense--but the good news is, there's no litter from it. I'm mixing the acacias in with a couple of other uprights as contrast and repeating the mix so it doesn't get too jumbled. It's still a work in progress and why I don't want to put in a picture, but I'm pleased with the effect so far. But you might want to consider your style overall in picking what you want to do. While a tightly clipped hedge might lend itself to a contemporary feel, depending on the plant you pick, it can also look very traditional and formal which may not be the look you're after. You might want to look at the some garden books to see what kind of garden style appeals to you, before you commit. Just remember, a hedge will be, above all else, boring. And do yourself a favor, run from the ficus....See Moretraining-your-roses-to-be-drought-tolerant
Comments (17)The "official" max temperatures for my area have been around 34 degrees Celsius, which, as I wrote in my former comment ,is in the 90's F (93.2 precisely) However I am convinced that it gets a lot hotter when the sun is beating down on an area,because years ago when I had a thermometer I tried placing it in full sun in my garden, and it went up to more than 40 degrees Celsius. So I'm talking about very, very hot.I don't know how to measure humidity levels,but quite often it's muggy as well as hot; I guess they are fairly high,so in spite of the south-weatern exposure,the drought and heat I think it's rather different from,say,Arizona or Las Vegas. No roses recieve supplemental watering after their first year in my garden,so I'm talking about a garden full of roses all at different levels of establishment. For the most part mine are climbers.I don't expect any real flowering after the spring flush; in fact, right now it looks kinda sad out there,since I don't have time to dead-head all the finished blooms(though Reine des Violettes was looking mighty beautiful!) I'm trying to mulch,mulch, mulch but it is slow going ,and I try to add as much organic matter as possible, but that is slow going as well. I don't think I have any shrub HTs at all,but I sonorously applaud your neighbours, Rosylady, for making this experiment. I bet it will work. I'm not saying that "everybody should do as I do" or any such childish nonsense as that; clearly,my circumstances are very different from those of a suburban gardener in a non-drought situation who has access to running water and only a few rose plants that they want to keep flowering for show all summer (though I'd be willing to bet that even these folks could get away with a lot less watering) . I'm just annoyed to read that someone who touts themselves as a "master gardener" would state as fact something that is completely false,as I and obviously many other fellow forum members know from experience. The rest of the article was good,I thought. But it is spoiled by this one statement....See MoreCatherine Di Stasio Morgenstern
8 years ago
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