August is a good month to review ways to conserve water in the Seattle landscape. Despite our reputation for rain, summers in Seattle can be extremely dry. During summer months, the city of Seattle (and others in growing populations) tiers its water rates, which means the more you use, the more it costs. So there’s incentive to save money by saving water. Here are some ways to conserve water in your landscape:

Evergreen huckleberry. Photo by Ecoyards.

Pick drought-tolerant or low-maintenance plants. Rosemary, oregano, lavender, sage and other herbs are some obvious choices, but they’re certainly not the only ones. Consider beautiful woody shrubs such as viburnum or the strawberry tree, which has glossy green foliage, white flowers and red berries; flowering perennials such as astilbe and penstemon; or edible fruiting plants like the native evergreen huckleberry. Take a tour of the Waterwise Garden at the Bellevue Botanical Garden to check out more ideas. You’ll be amazed at how lush and beautiful a garden can be while still conserving water and reducing the need for fertilizers and chemicals. Now is a good time to start thinking about what you might want to plant in the fall.

Install an efficient sprinkler system. We’ve written before about how a smart sprinkler system can save you time and money. It can prevent sprinkler overspray and other water problems, such watering too much or too little. Ecoyards has been working with customers get water rebates from the city of Seattle by installing smart, water-saving sprinkler systems. Read more about how we helped one customer get $480 in irrigation rebates earlier this year. If you’re not ready for a sprinkler system, or you have a much smaller area that needs watering, consider a drip irrigation system. A drip system saves water because by slowly applying it directly to a plant roots. If you do water by traditional garden hose, try to do so early in the morning or later in the evening to avoid water evaporation. The city of Seattle has a lot of great resources to help you save water.

Brown snail introduced from France in 1850s as food.  Photos by Ecoyards.

I had the unpleasant task this morning of hand-picking about a dozen snails from my garden in Seattle. It seems like these little hungry creatures multiplied overnight, but in reality I’ve ignored my garden during these busy summer weeks and allowed the perfect conditions for the mollusks to grow. I left plenty of damp, hiding spots for them, and plenty of overhanging weeds; for example, I left a tarp in one corner of the garden, which provided perfect cover for the snails to grow and I’m growing plants they particularly love.

Common brown garden snails, otherwise known as Cornu aspersum or Helix aspersa) are a menace because they feast on both living and decaying plants, and they grow rapidly. Plus they’re kind of slimy and gross. Brown snails were brought to California in the 1850s by the French as food (yum, escargots). They love young tender shoots and seedlings, and herbaceous plants that grow close to the ground (strawberries, artichokes, tomatoes). They also like to eat lettuce, marigolds, dahlia, beans, basil, and other veggies. They don’t like woody ornamental plants, such as lavender, rosemary, sage, geraniums, begonias and nasturtiums.

Snail’s mucus.

OK, so what can you do when you’re overrun by snails? Hand-pick them off your plants, fences and walls, and crush them. (This morning I threw them into a garbage bag, and tossed a few into the street for the birds). Hand-picking isn’t the most appealing method for those pest-adverse gardeners, but it really is the easiest and weirdly satisfying. In the past I’ve also tried trapping snails and slugs by putting out a little container of beer at ground level; I’ve never found beer-trapping to be that effective, but others report otherwise. You could also use a little sugar water and yeast to get the same effect. Your container should be deep enough so that snails don’t just crawl out of the sides. (There are plenty of YouTube videos describing how to make one of these beer traps). The experts at the University of California say such traps aren’t very effective for the amount of time it requires; you have to constantly replenish the beer (or other trapping liquid) and they only draw the pests within a few feet of the container.

If hand-picking and beer-trapping aren’t for you, studies have shown that copper barriers can work in repelling snails from containers and raised beds. Supposedly the copper works because the copper reacts with a snail’s slime and effectively “shocks” it and messes up its nervous system. You can wrap copper foil around a tree trunk or planting boxes to keep the mollusks away. If you use these barriers on planting boxes or raised beds, make sure you don’t have any snails or snail eggs inside the container before installing the barrier; one friend discovered that her copper barrier had trapped snails inside her raised bed.

Plenty of garden stores also sell snail baits that are toxic to snails, but the ones containing metaldehyde are also poisonous to cats and dogs. There are some baits containing iron phosphate (i.e. Sluggo) that are safe around children and wildlife. Read the directions carefully and time the use properly (they’re usually not as effective during very hot, very cold or very dry times of the year).

My take-away from this morning’s snail hand-picking session is to do a better job of keeping my garden clean. I’ll try to remove  boards, weedy areas, stones, branches close to the ground where snails thrive. Unfortunately, my vegetable garden is located close to our fence and garbage cans, when boxes and such tend to pile up. Inevitably, snails will come even if you keep a clean garden, so hand-picking will be just another routine.

The Ecoyards grandparents were in town recently from Michigan, so we decided to take them for a visit to The Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island. There are a lot of wonderful gardens in the Puget Sound area, but this is an impressive 150 acres of beautifully, meticulously landscaped grounds. There’s also a lot of see, so give yourself several hours to wander around and explore the Japanese garden, the moss garden, the French country-style estate home and the reflection pool.

Our toddler had a blast, touching moss-covered rocks, running along wooded paths, checking out the waterfalls and trying to find ducks and geese in the pond. We were impressed by the magnificent and massive rhododendrons that were in bloom, by the woodlands filled with native Northwest plants such as oxalis, viburnum and western azaleas.

Here are a few photos we took on our tour:

A lush carpet of native oxalis.

Rhododendrons in full bloom.

The former Bloedel estate home, now the visitor center. .