S & D Garden Design

S & D Garden Design Water-Wise Gardening For The Future Of The Earth DESIGN

A well-designed landscape is an asset. It’s quick, and their object is volume.

It increases property value as well as giving the homeowner years of pleasure with a colorful, inviting landscape that reflects your style, suites your needs and makes a lasting impression. The best way to accomplish this is to work with an experienced horticulturist, so that you can install the right plants in the right place the first time, avoiding costly mistakes, mistakes that would eventuall

y cost more in the long run to remove and replace, i.e., large trees planted too close to a structure or hardscape (sidewalk, block wall, driveway, planter, pool), lifting, cracking, or otherwise causing damage. Shrubs too large for their space will have to be excessively pruned, causing stress to the plant. In order to preserve the health of your landscape and protect your investment, there are pruning techniques that will rejuvenate flowers, trees, and shrubs and preserve their natural beauty. When selling your home, Realtors know that a healthy, well-kept landscape can be one of the key elements leading to a quicker sale as opposed to a home that is not aesthetically pleasing. MAINTAINING YOUR LANDSCAPE INVESTMENT – CORRECTIVE PRUNING

Looking around your neighborhood, you may notice most of the landscapes look very similar. Basically an overabundance of geometrical shapes, predominantly little green squares, balls and cones. Plants don’t naturally grow this way and look much better if allowed to grow as nature intended them, with a more open structure. Done right, pruning of shrubs need only be done once or twice a year, and trees no more than once a year and most less than that. Unfortunately, today, most gardeners are of the “mow and blow” variety and don’t have the know how or even the desire to prune, they just shear. We’re don’t mow blow and go, we prune, tune, and bloom!!!!!

Plants and Design Photos
05/17/2015

Plants and Design Photos

AN OLD BROKEN COOKIE JAR MAKES A FUN CONTAINER......
05/16/2015

AN OLD BROKEN COOKIE JAR
MAKES A FUN CONTAINER......

05/06/2015

CORRECTING YOUR SOILS pH

Before planting, the most important thing you can do, is to test your soils pH level. This is vital! If your soils pH is out of balance with extremes of either too Acidic or too Alkaline, it will effect the release of the nutrients available to your plants. In other words, although you may add the proper Nutrients .....they will not be utilized. One very important nutrient: “Nitrogen” will be trapped in the soil and not available to your plants.

You can purchase a soil testing kit at your local Garden Center and do the test yourself. There are some Garden Centers that will send in a sample for you. Or you can call your County Extension Agent and for a small fee, they will send you a kit to test not 'only' the pH, but also tell you the Nutrient
content and what element's you need to add.

Acidic soil has a pH of below 7.0 (0.0-6.5). This is generally more common where rain fall is heavy. Azaleas, Camellias, Gardenias, Japanese Maples....to name a few.....would thrive in these conditions.

Alkaline soil has a pH level of 7.0 (7.5 – 14.0), and is most common in areas with low rainfall. Bougainvillea, Roses, Geraniums, Ornamental Grasses and many herbs will thrive in these conditions....just to name a few.

Most likely you will be given a list of products to use in order to solve your pH problems. These will generally be Chemicals that are not Organic, and I feel are very dangerous to work with. Also, I wouldn't want those Chemicals for an Edible garden. I feel that the best and safest way to lower the pH would be to add Organic soil amendments and Organic Fertilizers.

Once you have determined the condition of your pH, and the type of soil you have (being either hard Clay or Sandy soil), you will be able to choose the proper amendments and Fertilizers to correct the pH balance.

04/24/2015

FLOWERS

The purpose of flowers is to attract insects, birds, and animals. The petals are bright and fragrant. The flowers reproduce to make more seeds through a process called pollination. Bees mostly pollinate flowers that help nature out a lot.

The parts of a flower are the stamen, pistil, petal, sepal and o***y. The stamen is the male part, which the bee lands on and the anther is where the pollen grains are. The filament holds the anther up. The pistil is the female part where the o***y is. The stigma is the sticky part where the pollen sticks. The style is the tube, which the pollen goes through to get to the eggs. The sepal protects the petals of the flower.

Self pollination is pollen on a flower directly deposited onto a pistil of the same flower. Cross-pollination is pollen from one flower deposited onto a pistil of a different flower. If pollination never occurred, then new plants wouldn’t grow. Bees mostly do cross-pollination. They also do self-pollination.

4

03/30/2015

Finished design

03/30/2015

This Garden Bed previously had 3 Iceberg Roses with Asparagus Fern as a ground cover. Decided it needed color!!

03/30/2015

GARDENING IN THE SANTA CLARITA VALLEY

Living in the Santa Clarita Valley can be quite challenging for the home gardener. Our weather conditions are extreme; from very cold during the winter months; lows in the 30’s with occasional frosts, to very hot and dry during the summer. Including many windy days throughout the year.

The soil is less than ideal (very heavy clay) and some areas of your yard may be near impossible to dig through. BUT DON’T DESPAIR……. It IS possible to have a beautiful, healthy landscape and the secret is in the soil.

The years that I have lived here, has taught me many things through trial and error, failures and successes. But most importantly applying what I have learned through schooling and research.

Next Topic: SOIL
Coming soon !

03/27/2015

WE ARE STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION....
PLEASE BE PATIENT!
THANK YOU~

03/27/2015

DESIGN

A well-designed landscape is an asset. It increases property value as well as giving the homeowner years of pleasure with a colorful, inviting landscape that reflects your style, suites your needs and makes a lasting impression.

The best way to accomplish this is to work with an experienced horticulturist, so that you can install the right plants in the right place the first time, avoiding costly mistakes, mistakes that would eventually cost more in the long run to remove and replace, i.e., large trees planted too close to a structure or hardscape (sidewalk, block wall, driveway, planter, pool), lifting, cracking, or otherwise causing damage. Shrubs too large for their space will have to be excessively pruned, causing stress to the plant. In order to preserve the health of your landscape and protect your investment, there are pruning techniques that will rejuvenate flowers, trees, and shrubs and preserve their natural beauty.

When selling your home, Realtors know that a healthy, well-kept landscape can be one of the key elements leading to a quicker sale as opposed to a home that is not aesthetically pleasing.

MAINTAINING YOUR LANDSCAPE INVESTMENT – CORRECTIVE PRUNING

Looking around your neighborhood, you may notice most of the landscapes look very similar. Basically an overabundance of geometrical shapes, predominantly little green squares, balls and cones. Plants don’t naturally grow this way and look much better if allowed to grow as nature intended them, with a more open structure. Done right, pruning of shrubs need only be done once or twice a year, and trees no more than once a year and most less than that.

Unfortunately, today, most gardeners are of the “mow and blow” variety and don’t have the know how or even the desire to prune, they just shear.
It’s quick, and their object is volume. We’re don’t mow blow and go, we prune, tune, and bloom!!!!!

Dorian Clark

Address

Panorama City, CA
91402

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