Philosophy
The Right Tree in the Right Place
Plant selection and placement can be intimidating! We've put together a checklist for trees mostly (but broadly applicable to the landscape) to help sort out the chaos.
Some questions to ask when selecting trees. It's generally much cheaper to get tree planting right the first time!
Which direction will the branches grow and will they be helping or burdening?
Blocking unsighly views, street noise, providing shade where needed, potentially catching embers?
Into a building, power line, walkway, shading a tomato garden, roots into a sewer lateral or sidewalk, creating a fire ladder?
How tall will it get?
Just tall enough to block what you're aiming to block?
So tall that it must be regularly cut back! $$
This variety only gets 2 feet tall..whoops!
Does it:
Thrive in this climate zone? Tolerate drought or wet feet? Tolerate frost? Crowd its surroundings? Produce allergens that I'm sensitive to? Invoke any childhood memories? Attract birds? Produce fruit? Require a pollinizer, and are there any compatible trees nearby? Require chill hours? Produce medicine or long-term timber? Shed it's leaves continuously or all at once, and how will shade and light penetration differ throughout the year? Have resistance to pests or diseases that have already struck other plants on or near your site?
Irrigation
We irrigate by observation, not formulas. This allows plants to signal need, then applying deep, minimal water to determine the lowest sustainable input for each zone under real, changing climate conditions.
If you would like to steer your landscape in this direction, we recommend turning off your irrigation system completely, or at least dialing it back, and then observing. Your plants will tell you when they need water by wilting. You should still do deep, infrequent watering on occasion (especially during heat waves) for larger trees. You may find that some zones are completely adequate without irrigation, and you can turn them off for good. Others may need to be dialed back just a bit until you find the sweet spot. This also encourages roots to grow out wider to seek water, making the plant more resilient in the face of drought.
We also like to place drip emitters beyond the drip line of a tree's canopy for the same reason. The goal is a landscape that's well-adapted to the climatic conditions of our area. Maybe you have an irrigation zone where all but a few plants are thriving with minimal or no water. You could replace those plants with more drought-tolerant ones, or add more emitters to them. We've seen drastic reductions in water use with this method.
The Soil is Alive!
Plants get their nutrients from the soil. Just as we do, plants need to get minerals and trace minerals in very small amounts, but they are essential for physical growth, development, maintenance, and reproduction of both us and them.
A plant's roots pull these mineral nutrients from the soil, but they can only access so much of it on their own. Much of the minerals are locked up tight in soil aggregates, only able to be unlocked with the help of microbial assistance. Plants and microbes work together. Bacteria break down chemical bonds, making nutrients avialable to plants and fungi, fungi use their fine filaments to access soil aggregates that plant hairs are too thick to get at. Some of these minerals are offered to the plant in exchange for its photosynthetic sugar. This is highly valuable carbon currency in the natural world. Plants manufacture it for their own energy, and trade up to 70 percent of it to the soil microbiome!