Years ago, I was a greenhouse grower for a couple who also ran a floral shop.  Aside from the chaotic flow from holiday center pieces and romantic bouquets to  Mother’s Day (the flower holiday of the year), they had the constant flow of birthdays, anniversaries, and funerals.  I found out soon enough that no floral job ground things to a halt like a wedding.  All other work suffered, morale was tenuous at best, and the amount of overtime clocked in was staggering.  Even the greenhouse staff would get roped into making deliveries to ensure the flow of highly perishable flowers and greens to their destinations.

So, the idea of working as part of wedding preparations makes my shoulders tense up.

I got a call from a client that we have enjoyed working for since 2005.  Their neighbors across the street were getting married in a few months and wanted the garden to look nice as the whole shebang was happening there.  The couple was young, very modern, and had enough of the details worked out that talking about the concept for the garden was a piece of cake.

I proposed that instead of dumping a bunch of money on throw-away floral stuffs, we could stage the wedding with plants that would be reused in their garden installation.  I’m not going to claim we had 100% success with the concept.  We had to integrate a long-term plant palette with a palette of blooming plants that may not be so long-term.  Luckily, the couple had little preoccupation with the exact shade of pink or coral.  We were able to plan out most of the compositions with three to five types of plants and tie them together with a few ground covers.

Repeatedly disturbing the roots of plants is contraindicated to ease in transplant and acclimation.  To avoid this, we popped the plants out of their less-than-aesthetically- pleasing plastic pots and put them in peat pots.  The peat pots worked well with a mulch camouflage and made redistributing plants into their post-nuptial layout a cinch.  We did have a few hiccups with the drip irrigation wetting through the pots.  We spot-watered by hand and that revived all but select few little ones.  May they rest in peace.

I cannot claim that this idea of reusing plants was my great eureka! moment.  People have been planting their Christmas trees after the New Year for generations.  From Get-well plants, to pots of Easter lilies, it seems unconscionable to through away a living plant when one has a bare spot of earth outside their kitchen door.

Here are a few pages that can demystify how we understand soil (sand, silt, and clay) and some of the other materials present in and on our soil. Please note that these are local resources that can help you get started in you garden (add the pun) from the ground up!

Soil and Biodynamics Soil Foodweb Composting

O.K., so going native may be going green, but the color green is not always what you get.  The San Francisco Bay Area is one of the most diverse ecologies on the planet.  Our Mediterranean climate, with its many microclimates, supports just about anything that we try to grow here.  We have taken advantage of this while compromising the health of the plant and animal communities that have evolved here.  We can start respecting the soil and the life that it supports by understanding how going native in our gardens benefits all of us.  We can leave the roses in New York, the peaches in Georgia, and the bluegrass in Kentucky and start cultivate a love and appreciation for what California has to offer.  Here are a few places to start:

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