When we renovate landscapes, we often find basic errors people make when they install new plants. Planting is one of the most important steps to helping a shrub, tree or other plant grow.

Here are some of the common mistakes we see:

Mistake #1: Planting in poorly-drained soil. This is a kiss of death for many plants, though not all. Some plants can tolerate “wet feet” better than others (such as rhododendrons and azaleas), but most require well-drained and well-aerated soil to get off to a good start. Plants that have been installed in soil that doesn’t drain well will have a hard time surviving in your landscape, no matter how much TLC you give them. How do you know that the soil drains well? The soil should drain quickly, about 1/2 inch or 1 inch of water an hour. If you’ve got hard, compacted clay soil, like many areas of Seattle, it may be better to install the plant in a raised bed or mound. The raised bed or berm should be at least 8 inches high and at least 4-feet wide for a shrub or 8 feet wide for small ornamental trees.

Mistake #2: Digging a hole that’s too shallow, too wide or too deep. When you plant, dig a hole that is only deep enough for the top of the root ball to be at or slightly higher than the soil line. The width of the hole should be two or three times the diameter of the root ball. For large, bare-root, balled, or burlaped plants, make the hole at least one foot wider than the diameter of the root ball.

Flickr photo by cbb4104 via Creative Commons License

Mistake #3: Not taking care of roots before you install in the planting hole. Many plants that you buy at the nursery are grown in containers, and their roots often grow long and in a circle. If you put the plant into the ground without spreading out the roots, its roots will keep growing in a circle, making it harder for nutrients and water to get from the roots to the plant’s leaves and stems. It’ll also make it harder for the plant to anchor itself. Make sure you pull out the roots and spread them. If the roots are fibrous and soft, this can be done easily by crumbling some of the soil. If the plant or tree is root-bound, remove the root ball from the container and slice it through with a sharp knife or pruning shears; from top to bottom at least four different locations. Spread the circling roots out, and make sure they contact some of the backfill soil. Make sure you plant the tree immediately.

Mistake #4: Adding compost, fertilizer, or any organic amendment to fill in your planting hole. Research has show that adding organic amendments in backfill when you plant isn’t beneficial compared to using the native soil you removed. Compost is usually beneficial, but when used in the planting hole it could increase the risk that the shrub, tree or plant will lean or sink. Doing so also will encourage the roots to remain in the planting hole rather than spreading out into the surrounding soil. It’s best to incorporate compost or other organic matter uniformly throughout the plant’s root zone rather than placing it in the planting hole.

Please contact Ecoyards if you’d like help installing new plants in your garden.

hummingbird; photo by lambatofa via Creative Commons License

Each morning, my son runs to the window to see what little creatures are feasting on seeds, nectar and berries in our front yard. Last week, we spotted a couple squirrels, a raccoon traipsing across our neighbor’s front yard, and several birds on the branches of our bare Japanese bloodgood maple). This week, we watched a couple hummingbirds flitter from branch to branch on the white-flowering currant that is getting ready to explode with its clusters of white flowers. Ribes sanguineum is one of our favorite plants in the Seattle landscape because of its spectacular white and red blooms are magnets for birds and butterflies.

Over the years as we have added to and edited our landscape in Seattle, we’ve added more shrubs and plants that can support wildlife. A typical neighborhood can hold more than 25 species of birds and mammals, such as hawks, raccoons, robins, chickadees, and even an occasional coyote, according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. You can design your Seattle landscape with wildlife in mind by providing creatures with four basic needs: food, water, shelter, and space. Bees, birds and butterflies feed on flower nectar; squirrels feast on nuts and berries. Have a variety of plants that flower at different times of the year so wildlife have a steady pick of food throughout the seasons. Insects are also an important food source for birds, so develop a high tolerance for bugs and avoid insecticides.

Trees and shrubs, brush piles, groundcovers and plants that grow at different heights provide creatures with various safe places to hide and rest. A good wildlife habitat has many levels of habitat, from the ground on up to the tallest evergreen. Plant groundcovers for bugs and taller trees like western hemlocks for woodpeckers and hawks.

Consider adding a water source for animals, such as a birdbath, stream or other fountain. The Humane Society recommends studying your yard from the viewpoint of an animal seeking shelter and food when you start gardening for wildlife. Learn the habits and tastes of the species you hope to attract, and identify any potential conflicts early enough to head them off before unacceptable damage has been done to your garden.

The National Wildlife Federation also offers tips on how to garden for wildlife and how to certify your landscape as a wildlife habitat. The Audubon Society has a website on Healthy Yards.

Contact Ecoyards if you’d like to redesign your landscape to attract more wildlife.

Shotweed

By far, shotweed is one of the most annoying weeds in Seattle area landscapes. It’s a delicate annual broadleaf that shoots seemingly hundreds of seeds everywhere when you pull or disturb it. The weed also goes by little western bittercress, snapweed, bitterweed, or cardamine hirsuta. Whatever you call it, it’s a menace for Northwest gardeners. This annual weed is most prolific from fall through early spring, but its seeds, which live in soil for a long time, can germinate throughout the growing season. Shotweed loves the cooler gardens and landscapes of the Puget Sound.

Shotweed is part of the mustard family. Its seed pods are called siliques. The plants are small, no taller than about 5-8 inches. It grows pretty little white flowers, and isn’t a bad looking plant. But don’t be fooled. Shotweed can quickly become a huge nuisance in your garden if allowed to go to seed. Annual weed seeds persist in the soil for years and can grow when turned and exposed to light.

The best way to get rid of shotweed is to pull them by hand before they develop seed pods. Generally, annual weeds are easy to pull, especially in loose soil. As with most weeds, pulling them often and early is the best  way to get rid of them. Also, make sure to mulch your beds with a thick layer of compost, bark or other mulch; eliminate bare soil by adding dense ground covers to your landscapes to keep out undesirables; and keep plants growing healthy so they can out-compete weeds. All those practices can help you improve your chances against annual weeds like shotweed.

A propane weed torch also can be an effective tool against shotweed, since you can instantly kill the plant without risking sending seeds flying everywhere. Please follow all safety precautions when using a weed torch, including having a fire extinguisher on hand and wearing proper gear. Weed torches work great for annual weeds, whose roots aren’t as deep or thick as, say, those of a dandelion. They’re also best for sidewalk cracks or gravel beds where you won’t run the risk of torching other plants.

For gardeners in the Seattle area, the release of the Great Plant Picks each year is right up there with the Academy Award nominations. OK, not really, but it’s a still pretty cool list of showstoppers. Check it out.

If you aren’t already familiar with Great Plant Picks, it’s like having the chef of a restaurant come out and tell you the best things to order from the menu. The experts of the Northwest horticulture community have done all the work for home gardeners. They’ve weeded through and came up with a list of reliable, hardy and easy-to-care-for plants for this region. All the plants must be hardy for USDA climate zone 7 and 8, which covers most of the Seattle area. (Find your plant hardiness zone here). All the plants must be vigorous, easy to grow by the average gardener, reasonably disease- and pest-resistant, have a long season, be available from at least two retail outlets in the state and generally not be too needy or picky. Time and time again, Ecoyards has turned to this list to find the most suitable plants for our Seattle landscaping clients.

Shade tolerant plants, Seattle

The 2012 Great Plant Picks includes some of our favorite plants, including several varieties of Hosta and Trillium, as well the Virginia creeper vine. New for 2012 is a list of plants that are made for the shade. You can look up bulbs, shrubs or trees for shade. The newly-designed website now has categories that are broken down even further, into plants for light shade, dappled shade, deep shade, open shade and dry shade. Find your great plant pick using this search tool.

Winter storm Jan. 2012 – photo courtesy of Hector Castro

Rain, snow, ice, wind. The Seattle area got walloped with all of that in January 2012, when a storm toppled trees, broke branches and downed power lines. The storm caused a lot of damage when trees landed on cars, homes and in yards. For big trees and big jobs, homeowners dealing with tree damage should call a certified arborist. Need a referral? PlantAmnesty can help.

For smaller trees, make sure you prune the branches properly. Use a sharp pruning tool and make clean cuts. Contact Ecoyards for help.

Whatever you do, don’t top the trees. The practice of topping, or removing large branches or the tops of trees, can actually create more problems in the future. As PlantAmnesty explains, topping can lead to thick regrowth of suckers or sprouts that make the tree more top-heavy and more likely to catch wind. That makes it more vulnerable to getting blown down in a storm. Selectively thinning trees is a better way to go. This allows wind to pass through the branches.

Sometimes you can’t anticipate what Mother Nature does, but you can take measures to protect your trees from damage during wind, snow and rain storms. Proper tree care can minimize hazards during storms. Trees that are pruned regularly tend to be more resistant to storm and wind damage. Neglected trees are much more likely to fall or shed limbs during storms.

The USDA recently unveiled new plant hardiness zone maps, the guide many gardeners rely on to figure out which plants grow and thrive best in a particular location. The maps give you the historic average annual coldest temperatures for a particular area; nurseries and seed producers often include these zones on plant tags and seed packets to indicate how hardy a plant is. Use this handy online tool to enter your zip code and find out your new zone.

Our Ecoyards’ office in West Seattle is now in zone 8B; that means the average annual coldest temperature for a past 30-year period were between 15 and 20 degrees F. According to the old hardiness maps, our office was located in zone 7B, where the average coldest temperatures were between 5 and 10 degrees. Gardeners will likely be able to plant a few more things that they previously weren’t able to, or at least push their luck a bit more. But by and large, the changes aren’t likely to be too drastic. There are a lot of plants such as aster, green beans, asparagus and peonies grow great in both zones 7 and 8, so we won’t be pulling out plants or rearranging the planting lineup too much. As gardeners in the Northwest know, each garden and landscape can have its own micro-climate based on the amount of sunlight it gets, whether it’s sheltered or exposed, is south-facing and so on. The hardiness maps are just a good “rule of thumb” guide.

The most interesting aspect of the new maps may be that they indicate that temperatures are warming across the U.S. As The Associated Press points out in this article:

The government’s colorful map of planting zones is being updated for a warmer 21st century. The official guide for 80 million gardeners and a staple on seed packets reflects a new reality: The coldest day of the year isn’t as cold as it used to be. So some plants that once seemed too vulnerable to cold can now survive farther north. It’s the first time since 1990 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has updated the map and much has changed. Nearly entire states, such as Ohio, Nebraska and Texas, are in warmer zones.

The new map relies on weather station data from 1976 to 2005, compared to the 1990 map that used statistics from 1974 to 1986. Experts say that increased accuracy in weather data will be really useful for gardeners and others.

At Ecoyards, we pride ourselves on our professionalism, knowledge, and high standards in the landscape industry. This year, owner Andy took the extra step to become a Landscape Industry Certified Manager through the National Association of Landscape Professionals. On Sept. 21, the National Association of Landscape Professionals announced that Andy has successfully earned his certification. He is now a nationally-certified landscape manager in Seattle. the National Association of Landscape Professionals is an international association serving lawn care professionals, maintenance contractors, installation/design/build professionals, and interiorscapers.

To get his certification, Andy underwent an exhaustive written examination that tested his knowledge, skills and theory in all aspects of working in the landscape industry. He had to demonstrate mastery of seven topics covering leadership and corporate citizenship; production operations/horticulture; sales and marketing; strategic planning; human resources; risk, law, and contracts; and corporate financial management. The program requires that he maintains certification through mandatory continuing education.

For our customers, it means you can expect the same high quality and professionalism that you’ve come to expect from Ecoyards. Andy’s certification, however, means he’s taken the extra step to validate his skills and knowledge in the industry.

For more information, visit landscapeprofessionals.org. 

If you have a sprinkler system installed on a hilly or sloped area of your property, chances are you may have a system that leaks water at the sprinkler heads for a short time after the system is turned off. This is something called low head drainage. With ups and downs in the sprinkler system, water tends to find the lowest points in the pipes when the system is off. Water then drains out of the lowest sprinkler heads and spills out onto walkways and sidewalks or collects in a puddle. That’s all wasted water; it could add up to a lot of wasted water. The slope doesn’t even have to be that extreme for this to happen; even a change in elevation of about a foot or less can cause this problem.  The other problem with low head drainage is that it pulls air into the lines, which results in noisy, spitting sprinklers each time they start.

The Ecoyards crew often sees a lot of low head drainage issues in Seattle landscapes, which tend to be hilly or sloped. When clients approach us with this problem, we install a simple device called an anti-drain valve, or check valve, at the sprinkler head. These valves prevent the water from draining out of pipes through the lowest sprinklers. On new sprinkler system installations, we use sprinkler heads with built in check valve to prevent this problem. The devices close and holds the water in the pipes when the sprinkler system is off.

Contact us for help dealing with the problem of low head drainage.

Even though it rains a lot in Seattle during the fall, winter and spring months, the summer months can be dry, dry, dry. So saving water is an important goal for homeowners in the region. Water conservation during the summer and early fall months can not only help homeowners save money on their water bills, but also ensure there’s an adequate water supply for salmon, habitats and other wildlife — while also keeping your plants and lawn watered and healthy.

Conservation is so important that the city of Seattle and other local utilities will pay homeowners to save water. Yes, the city will give you money to save water! The Saving Water Partnership offers many rebates to homeowners inside and outside of the house, including rebates up to 50 percent of project costs for rain sensors, smart controllers, drip irrigation, sprinkler heads and more.

Weather sensor provides temperature and rainfall data to the controller for daily irrigation schedule adjustments.

Ecoyards recently helped a conservation-savvy client in North Seattle apply for and receive $480 in irrigation rebates from the Saving Water Partnership. We did that by designing and installing a smart irrigation system that reduces water use by more than 50 percent. The basic idea is to have an in-ground sprinkler system with sophisticated technology that knows not only when to shut off the sprinklers when it rains, but also when to restart it for precisely the right amount of time based on recent rainfall amounts, while factoring in everything from soil type, plant type, to the slope of your lawn to the amount of sun exposure different areas receive.

For our North Seattle project, we qualified for rebates by using drip irrigation on the landscape beds that slowly release water directly to plant roots; rotary spray nozzles on the lawn sprinklers that increase watering efficiency; check valves on heads with potential drainage problems; and a smart controller equipped with a weather sensor.

We installed a state-of-art smart controller system from Rainbird, which knows when to water only when the landscape requires it. The sprinkler system automatically turns on and off based on different factors: the plant and soil type, the climate for your specific zip code, the allowed watering days and times, the slope of the lawn, and sun exposure. There’s a weather sensor installed on-site that accurately tracks your local weather condition as it changes around-the-clock and adjusts your watering schedule accordingly. This prevents over watering and under watering.

Classifying soil type for each irrigation zone.

Once we were done installing the new smart irrigation system, Ecoyards helped our North Seattle client fill out the rebate application and coordinated with Seattle Public Utilities for an on-site inspection. Needless to say, the home-owner was pretty pleased. Ecoyards is excited to help you water smartly. Email Ecoyards for help installing a smart irrigation system.

Here are a few photos of fun plant combinations in Ecoyards landscape designs —