Video: In the garden…May 13, 2015: Succulent Container for Free

Posted on May 13, 2015 by Douglas E. Welch

In the garden…May 13, 2015: Succulent Container for Free

My wife picked up these 4 tiny succulents from the centerpieces at a recent college meeting. Never one to let anything go to waste, I grabbed an old container that happened to be unplanted, these four succulents and some decorative stone I had lying about and combined them into this pretty little container. I always figure that it is certainly worth a few minutes time to create something special, especially when the ingredients were all free. Never miss an opportunity to make something out of nothing for your garden.

Music: “Carefree” by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) under Creative Commons License

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Garden Decor: Driftwood Succulent Planter

Posted on March 20, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

Driftwood Succulent Planter

While I love great uses of recycled materials for the garden, sometimes the old classics just shine out. This driftwood branch, converted into a succulent planter, is absolutely gorgeous. It is both simple and complex at the same time, if that is possible. I am wondering if I could try something like this with any large branch or limb, although the sculptural nature of the driftwood lends its own beauty and complexity to the design.

Discovered via Pinterest User Tessa AraSmith-Cosby

More driftwood ideas from Amazon.com:

Previously in Garden Decor:

Garden Decor: Potting bench from old door

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Douglas E. Welch

Potting bench from old door

I am always on the look out for a door like this — complete with the windows. I have one older door in the garden that could probably be re-purposed, but it is solid and very narrow — coming from the original, pre-ADA code part of our 1943 house. Still, maybe I can put it to use by doing something like this. Thinking, thinking, thinking…(SMILE)

Previously in Garden Decor:

Tolkein-esque garden door

Video: Container Garden Update 017 – Strawberries and preparing a recycled container into a seeding flat

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Douglas E. Welch

Strawberries are almost ready to eat and watch as I turn a croissant container from the grocery store into a seeding tray complete with greenhouse top.

Can’t see the video above? Watch “Container Vegetable Garden Update 017” on YouTube

Watch the “Container Vegetable Garden” Playlist for all related videos

More info on growing strawberries:

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Music: “Whiskey on the MIssissippi” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) – Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

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2012 Gift Guide: DollarSeed.com – One Stop Seed Shop

Posted on November 29, 2012 by Douglas E. Welch

DollarSeed.com – One Stop Seed Shop

DollarSeed.com owner, David Moffitt, is another regular on the weekly #gardenchat and knows quite a bit about seeds, starting, planting and harvesting. I love to highlight small, independent businesses where I find them, so I hope that you will check out DollarSeed.com.

All packs of seed are $1 ($5 for bulk packs) and shipping is as inexpensive as possible.

More about DollarSeed.com…

If you really want to purchase the freshest garden seeds, in great resealable packaging so you can save or share the rest, we’re here for you. Not only do we keep our prices super low, but just check out our seed per pack quantities. Our seeds are not packed by machines, but by people who really care about making sure that you are getting a high Quality product. No, we don’t hand count them, that would be foolish. A pack of catchfly has approximately 1500 seeds. Do you need that many? I should hope not, but our standardized measuring system won’t allow us to give you less. Hence the ziplock style packaging, because these pretty flowers you’ll want to share.

[…]

In April of 2009, I decided to do my part to bring happiness to people. I created the Marigolds Across America campaign, and gave away over 10,000 free packages of seeds. Then it dawned on me, there are many other seeds that people would like or need. No, I do not just give them away for free anymore, just for the asking. But I do still give away an aweful lot of free seeds to help feed the needy and teach children sustainable gardening.

More 2012 Gift Guide Items:

Elsewhere: Terra Cotta Garden Bed Borders

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Douglas E. Welch

You may have seen my past posts and videos about using wine bottles for garden borders. Here is another take on borders using terra cotta drainage tiles, set on end, to frame a garden border. One of the advantages, of course, is you can plant inside each tile as well as in the bed itself. This could make for some nice living borders spilling out over the border and into your paths.

Since these tiles are made from terra cotta, it probably isn’t a good idea for those areas where the ground freezes in the Winter. I think the freezing and thawing would quickly crack these tiles, even in as little as one Winter season, so be aware of that. Perhaps you can substitute with a similar looking, but differently composed piping to create the same thing.

Source: apartmenttherapy.com via Bekkie on Pinterest

Free Mulch Giveaway – City of Los Angeles

Posted on June 13, 2012 by Douglas E. Welch

Information from the City of LA Web Site…

Free Mulch Give-Away

The Free Mulch Give-Away program is available to all L.A. Residents.

The Bureau of Sanitation is “Closing The Loop” by providing free quality mulch in 11 different locations throughout the City of Los Angeles that are open to the public.

Instructions: Bring your own shovel, bag or pick-up; load up your own containers and take as much as you need.

If any locations run out of mulch or you want to know delivery schedule
Please call the Lopez Canyon Environmental Center at (818) 834-5122

To learn more about the mulch we offer visit san.lacity.org/srpcd/mulch_compost.htm

Flyer for Free Mulch Give-Away

Note: Clicking on the “Directions” hyperlink provided will give the exact location of the give-away.
Location addresses listed may be for the nearest property in the vacinity of the give-away.
The back page of the Mulch Give-Away Flyer will also have those exact locations illustrated.

Boyle Heights

is Now Open

Address: 850 N Mission Rd. Los Angeles, CA 90033
Mulch Delivered to this Location: Thursdays (compost) and Fridays (mulch)
Hours of operation: Tue/Thu 9:00 A.M. – 12:00 P.M. & 1:00 P.M. – 4:00 P.M.
How to get there: Directions

East L.A.

(near Boyle Heights)

Address: 2649 E Washington Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90023
Mulch Delivered to this Location: Wednesdays
Hours of operation: Fri-Sun 9:00 A.M. – 3:00 P.M.
How to get there: Directions

Elysian Valley

Address: 3000 Gilroy St. Los Angeles, CA 90039
Mulch Delivered to this Location: Mondays and Thursdays
Hours of operation: Everyday 7:00 A.M. – 5:00 P.M.
How to get there: Directions

Lake View Terrace

(near Sylmar)

Address: 11950 Lopez Canyon Rd. San Fernando Valley, CA 91342
Mulch Delivered to this Location: Everyday (except weekend)
Hours of operation: Everyday 7:00 A.M. – 5:00 P.M.
How to get there: Directions

North Hills

(near Van Nuys Airport)

Address: 16600 Roscoe Pl. North Hills, CA 91343
Mulch Delivered to this Location: Wednesdays and Fridays
Hours of operation: Everyday 7:00 A.M. – 6:00 P.M.
How to get there: Directions

North Hollywood

(near Burbank) is Now Open

Address: Corner of Vineland Ave. & W. Chandler Blvd., San Fernando Valley, Ca 91601
Mulch Delivered to this Location: Mondays and Thursdays
Hours of operation: Everyday 7:00 A.M. – 5:00 P.M.
How to get there: Directions

San Pedro

Address: 1400 N Gaffey St. San Pedro, CA 90731
Mulch Delivered to this Location: Fridays
Hours of operation: Everyday 7:00 A.M. – 5:00 P.M.
How to get there: Directions

Sun Valley

(near Sheldon-Arleta Park)

Address: 12455 Wicks St. San Fernando Valley, CA 91352
Mulch Delivered to this Location: Tuesdays and Thursdays
Hours of operation: Everyday 7:00 A.M. – 5:00 P.M.
How to get there: Directions

Van Nuys

(near D.C. Tillman Plant)

Address: 15800 Victory Blvd. San Fernando Valley, CA 91406
Entrance South of Densmore Ave. Intersection
Mulch Delivered to this Location: Mondays
Hours of operation: Mon-Fri 7:00 A.M. – 3:30 P.M.
How to get there: Directions

West L.A.

Address: 6001 Bowcroft St. Los Angeles, CA 90016
Mulch Delivered to this Location: Thursdays
Hours of operation: Everyday 7:00 A.M. – 5:00 P.M.
How to get there: Directions

Lincoln Heights

is Now Open

Address: 1903 Humboltdt St. Los Angeles, CA 90031
Mulch Delivered to this Location: Monday and Thursday
Hours of operation: Everyday 7:00 A.M. – 5:00 P.M.
How to get there: Directions

Million Trees LA, the Mayor’s initiative that aims to grow the Los Angeles urban forest and make the city greener and more sustainable, will use the new facility as the location for its future tree adoptions, environmental workshops and other events. The parcel of land at Mission Road, previously housing air treatment facilities owned and operated by the Department of Public Works Bureau of Sanitation, now offers tree adoption and mulch give-away services.

For more information call James Kurz: (818) 834-5133

Mulch for the garden paths…and a little unexpected excitement

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Douglas E. Welch

We noticed a tree service truck in the neighborhood that had a load of wood chips that was mainly that, wood, rather that the typical load that contains more leaves than wood. We had been thinking of a project for a long time and this finally set it into motion.

After visiting Descanso Gardens years ago, I noticed that they used their own wood chips to lay the paths through the more wild area of the garden. After fighting with the pea gravel that covered the paths when we first bought our house, I have been looking for an alternative for a long time and I thought the idea of wood chips was one of the best. We have been creating our own wood chips using our chipper-shredder, but simply didn’t have enough material to even begin to cover the paths in the garden. Pea gravel can play havoc with the blades on a chipper-shredder, so finding a solution that allowed us to clean up leaf litter without picking up the gravel was high on my list of needs.

Load of wood chip from local tree service

The wood chip as it arrived

Spreading the mulch out and then onto the paths.

Is it hot in here?

Of course, not major project like this goes without a hitch and we had our own little bit of drama.

As you can see in the top photo, the mulch was dumped off the truck into a fairly large and fairly deep pile. While I had learned about spontaneous combustion¹ in my farm town childhood – it could lead to fire in the barns in the area — I hadn’t really though about it much since moving to Los Angeles. Spontaneous combustion occurs when materials start to breakdown in an organic process. It is the very same process that creates such wonderful compost for our gardens, but if it runs away it can actually cause piles to smolder, or even ignite. Yikes!

When I went out to move some of the mulch onto the garden paths that evening, I noticed something quite worrisome. From the deepest part of the pile, steam was rising. Not only that, but there was a faint smell of smoldering wood. Hmmm, not good. I knew immediately what it was, although I hadn’t thought that it could occur in this relatively small pile of material.

Sure enough, after digging around a bit I found some areas of the pile to be extremely warm. Opening up parts of the pile would release heat and steam almost like walking into the room after someone had taken a hot shower. Time to get to work. We spent the better part of 2 hours breaking down the large pile into a wider, flatter pile — opening up any areas that appeared to be steaming. I wasn’t worried so much about the pile catching fire, but rather that a neighbor, seeing the steam rising, would call the fire department.

Luckily, spreading the pile out reduced the amount of heat any area could hold and the steaming stopped. I did notice that as we began spreading the mulch onto the paths in the back garden, there were still a few areas that were quite warm. It is my guess that the hot areas are where there were a large collection of wet green leaves. These leaves can start their breakdown very quickly and the mulch around it acts as an insulator, allowing the heat to grow more and more.

So, if you are planning on a delivery of mulch, wood chip or compost, you might want to keep an eye on it and spread it out a bit. Leaving it in a large, deep pile — even for a few hours could result in a little more excitement than you might wish.

Mulch on the paths

Resources:

Another beautiful use of bottle edging in the garden.

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Douglas E. Welch

Here is another person who has used wine and water bottles to edge paths in their garden. I think it looks quite nice. Where I was quite haphazard with my color selection, it looks like they took the time to keep the same, or similar, colors together.

I haven’t yet finished my one bed with bottle, but photos like this give me the impetus to move ahead, finish that job and maybe start another area. Many thanks for that!

Source: tumblr.sproutrobot.com via Douglas on Pinterest

Recycle: Pallet trellis for vegetable garden climbers

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Douglas E. Welch

I love to see folks reusing and recycling old materials and this pallet trellis looks to be as simple as they come. Attach some supports to the side and you have a trellis for growing cucumbers, squash and just about anything else that likes to climb.

Source: earthlytenthomestead.wordpress.com via Douglas on Pinterest

A Gardener's Notebook