Last Week for plant orders! High Country Gardens fall plant shipping ends November 17, 2008. Order your Thanksgiving decor from our new Holiday Store! Internet Specials Every week we have new Internet Specials -- plants, seeds, soil amendments, fertilizers -- just about anything for the garden. Keep checking back to see the latest. Gardening Tips For more information about soil, plants, garden history, botanical news, watering and much more, read 100's of gardening articles in our extensive online Library. David Salman, President/ Chief Horticulturist Ava Salman, VP / Dir. of Marketing Kerry Kirkpatrick, Ezine Editor

Xeriscaping vs. “Zero”-scaping, Part II:
Getting Started on Your New Xeriscape
Remember, just say no to "zeroscapes." Take pride in your landscape while enjoying its many benefits. Make xeriscaping your gardening mantra. -- By David Salman

With more and more people wanting to make the change to a Xeric landscape, I have been asked many questions about how to get it done. For example; How do you get started going from a water guzzling landscape to a water conserving one? Where do you begin? How do you know when you’re done? These are all important questions that must be answered if the conversion is to be successful. 

Don’t start your conversion by ripping out all your old plants and roto-tilling the lawn. You’ll risk abandoning the project in mid-stream because it becomes overwhelming. Take the time to plan it out. Simplify this big renovation project by breaking it down into smaller projects. Complete each small project before moving on to the next.

5 Smart Money Saving Tips Landscaping is one home improvement that actually appreciates over time. Plan your design for low maintenance with a good core group of low water groundcovers and perennials... More

In traditional landscapes, the best place to start is downsizing or eliminating with the lawn. Kentucky Blue grass (or other high water) lawns typically soak up 75 % of a landscapes total water use! If you want to keep some or all of the lawn area, replace the high water grass with either the ‘Low Work and Water’ dwarf fescue or a native type turf grass like Legacy™ Buffalo grass or Blue Grama grass.

To conserve water, many homeowners are planting xeric groundcovers instead of grass lawns. There are excellent woody groundcovers like Rhus ‘Autumn Amber’, Genista lydia or creeping junipers that will beautifully cover large areas using far less water and much less maintenance than grass lawns. Plant some groupings of taller flowering shrubs and/or ornamental grasses into these woody groundcovers for additional color, height variation and texture.

Take the opportunity to plant some new flower beds or increase the size of existing ones by appropriating space from the old lawn area. By using xeric perennials, groundcovers and ornamental grasses these flower beds will provide big benefits with greatly decreased water use.

As part of the lawn removal or downsizing, plan to re-work your sprinkler system to water only where there is lawn or groundcover. Flower beds and trees left standing where they used to be surrounded with turf, will need their own irrigation that can be set to water separately from the sprinklers.

In the dry western US, the xeriscape conversion planning process includes designing a new, more water efficient irrigation system. As part of the irrigation system analysis, take the time to study how water that comes off your roof and hard surfaces moves across your landscape. It’s ironic that we do our very best to drain this water off to the street curb only to replace it later with irrigation water. I highly recommend including passive water harvesting (using gravity to move water) as a part of your overall plan to irrigate. Water harvesting and irrigation systems can work well together. (More on this topic in another article.)

Please, resist with all your might, the urge to simply rip out the thirsty grass and replace it with gravel. Take a deep breathe and repeat several times; “I will not zero-scape, I will not zero-scape.”

David Salman is the President and Chief Horticulturist at High Country Gardens. In 2008, he was a distinguished recipient of the AMERICAN HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 2008 Great American Gardeners Award.

Read Part 1 of "Xeriscaping vs. Zero-scaping"

Learn More About Xeriscaping, The High Country Gardens Way.

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I had a fantastic experience installing a DripWorks system in my xeriscape. I had no problems, no disappointments, and no missing parts. Everything worked well and it made me feel like an expert the first time. Your catalog is so user-friendly; it's like having an advisor there to hold your hand. -- Dan, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Plant Now in Zones 8-10

For milder winter areas (zones 8-10), this is the perfect time to plant. For coastal California, fall is also the best time to put plants in the ground. Why? Because the start of the rainy season and mild winters where temperatures rarely go below freezing.

So get out the shovel, prepare your planting beds, and shop our plant recommendations for warmer areas. Now is the time to set the stage in your garden for a grand show of Agastache, Agave, Coreopsis, Bearded Iris, and Salvia. We have 165 plant recommendations in all!

Final Week for savings.
Warm Area offer ends November 16th, 2008. Click Here

We wouldn't recommend planting an orange tree in Minnesota or a saguaro cactus in Florida. By knowing what hardiness zone you live in, you can properly select the plants that are best suited to your growing conditions. To help you select plants that will grow best in your area, we give you zone recommendations for each plant in our HCG online catalog.



Winterizing Garden Tips
As winter arrives, plants need to concentrate on root growth. They need fertilizers with higher concentrations of potassium and phosphorous. We recommend Yum Yum Mix® ‘Winterizer’, a special formula for trees, shrubs and perennials. Along with increased levels of phosphorous and potassium it has granular humate. Many soils thought to be poor actually have minerals and nutrients that are “locked up” and humates make them more readily available to plants. You can also add Soil Mender® Humate directly.

Apply fall fertilizers while the weather is still warm during the day. Warm soil aids root growth. New plants need to get their root systems established before winter and mature plants need a healthy dose of nutrients. After applying fertilizer, add a layer of mulch for winter protection.

Amazing as it is, plant loss in the winter is more commonly caused by lack of water than by freezing temperatures. If properly cared for, cold-hardy plants can make it through brutally cold weather. They are adaptable. But they can't go without water.

Even dormant plants still need moisture to maintain their physiological and biochemical changes that make them tolerant of the cold. The rule of thumb is to water thoroughly once every 2-3 weeks through the fall. Then depending on the amount of precipitation and severity of cold temperatures, keep up this watering schedule throughout the winter months. In some places the ground is often too solidly frozen in late Dec. and Jan. to water, but begins to thaw enough by mid Feb. to resume supplemental irrigation.