Product Review: Hyperowl Garden Grafting Tool

September 25, 2019September 25, 2019 | minandadesign

THE GRAFTING TOOL I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW I NEEDED

I first saw an ad for the Hyperowl Garden Grafting Tool on Instagram about six months ago. People have been talking about how great Insta’s ad targeting is but I had simply never seen it. They’d been feeding me ads for cosmetics—hilarious because I only occasionally wear mascara—so those ads get no traction with me. But this one I kept coming back to.

I had never even once attempted to graft a tree! But this nifty tool had me mesmerized, dreaming of the magical fruit concoctions that I could create. Demonstrating the perfect puzzle notch cutting feature, I was simply Wowed! I needed to know more!

One of my Gardening Specialists had been doing quite a bit of grafting recently so I quickly sent her a link to inform her of this wonder-tool. To which she promptly informed me that she had been using this tool for over a year. So, I set aside some time for an interview with Jana.

a conversation with jana: about the Hyperowl grafting tool

Natalie: You’ve been grafting fruit trees for a while now. Have you ever done any grafting with a different tool prior to using the Hyperowl?

Jana: I’ve been grafting for about three years now so considering you have to wait for a while to see whether your effort was a success, that’s not a long time. That said, I’m definitely planning continue on the bumpy road of manipulating nature. I started out using a grafting knife, which certainly challenges a person’s mental endurance, since you’re often holding that very sharp knife in heart-attack inducing positions. It was bad enough when I practiced on cut branches, but became truly challenging when working up in a tree, balancing on a ladder, holding the grafting tape in my mouth and being poked by a branch in both eyes. Then, I joined the California Rare Fruit Growers organization and attended their annual graft exchange. That’s when they presented the grafting tool that would make my life much easier.

Natalie: That sounds completely treacherous! So when you started using the Hyperowl Garden Grafting Tool instead of a knife, in addition to reducing the dangers, did you find it to be sturdy?

Jana: The tool is well made, lightweight and works effectively. It is very important to spray the blades with a bleach solution between cuts so that you don’t end up spreading disease between grafts and trees. Because I do that after every single cut, the metal blade is a little rusty, which doesn’t bother me at all.

Natalie: Do you feel like it gives you a clean cut? Do the notches fit together perfectly?

Jana: It cuts well and the cuts are clean. To make a complementary cut, you simply turn the tool, therefore the cuts match perfectly as long as the circumference of the graft matches the circumference of the receiving branch closely. You want as much contact as possible between their respective cambium layers (the thin green layer right under the outer bark) for the best possible success rate. The only challenge for me is to center the receiving branch so that the cut is even on both sides, especially when the branch is quite thin. It is easier to achieve an even placement of the cut on the graft, since you’re holding the graft in your hand. Ideally, there should be a centering mechanism or visual aid to help center the cut. That would be my main suggestion if the manufacturer wanted a tip on how to improve the tool.

Centered
Not quite centered

Natalie: Do you use the cellophane that they provided or something different? Are there any other ways that you’ve modified how you use this tool compared with the way it was intended?

Jana: I like to use Parafilm instead (available online), it’s more stretchy and adheres to itself more readily, which is a desirable trait when trying to achieve a good seal. Also, three different attachments are provided to create a different shape of cuts, but I picked one that seems to be working best for me and I don’t bother switching them.

a conversation with jana: about grafting

Natalie: What types of trees have you grafted with it. Are any types more successful than others?

Jana: I have grafted citrus, apple, apricot, pomegranate, persimmon and avocado. Citrus, was the most successful with this tool. I want to mention it’s crucial to get citrus graft material from Citrus Clonal Protection Program (CCPP). The program of University of California Riverside offers grafts free from citrus greening disease (aka Huanglongbing or HLB disease) a quickly spreading, fatal disease for citrus trees. CCPP offers an incredible selection of grafts for very reasonable prices. I also grafted apple (90% success), apricot (90%), pomegranate (50%) and avocado (so far so… not good). It’s also possible to graft various fruit onto one tree, as long as they are closely related. I recently successfully grafted plum onto apricot, as well as several different crosses like plumcot, aprium and nectaplum onto my apricot tree.

Natalie: How successful would you say your grafts are with this tool vs. with the grafting knife?

Jana: There are many factors at play when it comes to grafting success. The quality of the graft, the time of year, the grafting technique, and how fat the birds are that land on your new graft. Fruit trees require different individual grafting techniques. Citrus trees and persimmons, warrant bud grafting, in which a grafting knife must be used. You cut a T shape in the bark of the receiving branch, peel the bark to expose the cambium layer and then insert the bud into the space. Despite having an extensive theoretical knowledge of the technique, my success rate on that one was zero.

The next best method for citrus is the Z cut method, which also requires the use of a grafting knife. A series of heat waves followed my grafting spree. The rate of success on that one was about 10%. Then I attempted to graft citrus with the Hyperowl and the success rate was about 20%. Not amazing but much better than using the other methods. Here is a note of caution when using the Z cut method on citrus. Your arms will look like a mountain lion used you as a scratching post. Using this tool it’s more like you had a play date with a rambunctious house cat. When I used the Hyperowl on apple and apricot trees, the success rate was about 90%. It made the process infinitely faster and more convenient—no animal analogies required.

final word

I really enjoyed getting this information from Jana about grafting. Although I spend most of my waking hours in gardens, designing them, visiting them and writing about them, grafting is something that I’ve never really delved into before now. The challenge excites me and the discovery of this tool has me ready to dive in head first.

What about you? Are you an experienced grafter? If so, let me know what your favorite methods are. And if not, what do you think? Will you give it a try?

Good luck!

Boundless Landscape Border Ideas

September 14, 2019September 11, 2019 | minandadesign

glass landscape border — Garden in West Seattle with a super-cool idea to separate the front yard from slope out front.

Landscape border ideas? “Boring!” you might be thinking. But wait a sec. Borders are brilliant! Something as simple and straightforward as that border can be the difference between a basic garden and a spectacularly innovative one. Perhaps you think I’m over-selling a bit here, but I assure you, this is exactly the detail that makes a garden stand out.

It’s true, in the most basic terms, borders are just lines in the ground that divide two spaces. But before you draw one of those basic lines in the garden with some bender board you must first ask yourself, What do I want from this design? Do I want a nature-scape where the borders are invisible—grasses, perennials and trailing vines tumbling over one another to make a sea of horticultural communion? Or do I want to separate the garden and the turf to let each region of the garden shine on its own?

Either way, never overlook this oft missed opportunity to insert your own panache into your design.

An aside about Turf

I’m going to break a little blogging rule now and mention turf which is not our main topic of conversation here. It’s related however, and, in my opinion, an important aside. There’s a huge movement for removing lawns, particularly in the hotter, drier regions of the US. The primary goal is to dramatically reduce water usage. There are numerous other angles to explore as well. I have strong opinions about this, and I assure you we will discuss it at length, so I encourage you to stay tuned for our series entitled To Grass or Not to Grass, which will look at these issues and investigate design solutions for turf and turf-free gardens. This post is not that space. Right here, we’re just acknowledging that lawns exist and they often require borders. No judgement! Ok, back to the subject at hand…

FUNCTION: Why Do We Need Borders in the Landscape?

landscape edging with river rock — The edging in front of the stone prevents grass from creeping in.

Separation. A little distance. That’s all we’re trying to do. We want our garden residents—turf, decomposed granite (referred to as dg), shrubs etc.—to stay on their own sides. First let’s look at how things spread.

Grass: By it’s nature, turf grass is a spreader. It either uses underground runners (rhizomes) or above ground runners (stolons) to propagate itself and take over any non paved area within reach. Without a border it’s grass, grass everywhere!

DG: It is strong and inexpensive and if it’s stabilized with a polymer it can be as hard as, well, rock. It’s an excellent choice for walkways and patios. Nonstabilized dg however, has a consistency not much firmer than wet sand. Without a proper border, dg will spill out into the surrounding areas, look messy, alter the soil biology and ultimately cause your space to lose shape.

These are just two factors that make landscape borders so important!

FORM: Why do we need borders in the Landscape?

Because they look great! We now know what can happen if we don’t install physical barriers, but looking beyond that the most important part of garden design is making every item look intentional. The hard objects that help us keep things separate in the garden are just as important and can be just as interesting as the plants they are there to retain.

basic landscape BORDER MATERIALS

Here are the super basic choices for borders. Note I didn’t say bad choices. Every one of them serves a purpose and may be the perfect one for your needs. Here are 7 of the most common ones. I’ll discuss the top three.

Benderboard
Steel edging
River rock
Concrete Band
Brick
Concrete paver
Wood

steel edge landscape border — Clean, invisible line of the steel edge

Benderboard vs. Steel Edging
In a battle between the two, steel edging is the clear winner, hands down. It comes in 20’ powder coated 4” sheets of brown, black and sometimes green. You get steel stakes with your purchase to anchor it into the ground, and it is sturdy stuff! The reason I prefer it is that it makes a very clean line—straight or curvy—and it almost never comes popping out of the ground when it’s installed correctly. The cost is typically around $55 per 20′ panel

Benderboard, on the other hand comes in two varieties: one is brown, about 1/4” thick x 5” high, comes in 40’ rolls and is made of HDPE plastic and also comes with plastic stakes, the other is a black edge with a rounded bubble at the top and made of an unspecified plastic. The black one, I never use, ever. It simply looks unprofessional and will often start inching it’s way out of the ground as soon as you turn your back on it. But at a cost of only around $25 for a 40′ roll plus installation, it is an adequate cost effective substitute.

River Rock
The third basic edging material is river rock. By this, I’m referring to the white-ish speckled stones that are relatively consistent at about 6”-9” in size, although you can certainly find them somewhat, and even much larger. I often see them used as borders in a garden, marched in a single file row around turf areas. While, I myself often use them in my borders, I assure you that this application (the single row of matching rocks) is not an elegant choice. But we’ll get to design in a moment.

River Rock Pro-Tip: The most important thing to know if you are using river rock is that you must ALSO add edging first! Rocks do not a true border make. These rocks, when laid out, leave holes and openings for sneaky creepy grass to find its way in, or dg to find its way out. If you’re going to be there to maintain the garden and keep the grasses at bay then have at it. But it’s a risky move and extremely frustrating and time consuming to keep that mess managed. I know! I’ve made that mistake exactly 3 times before figuring it out.

Beautiful landscape Border Materials

We know that borders are used to divide spaces, and that’s really all there is to it. No one ever said that it had to be rocks or a straight piece of metal or plastic. Somehow, over time however, that’s just what evolved in most typical gardens. But there are so many interesting materials out there that can be repurposed and used to do the same job.

I have a husband and wife client pair, one is an artist who works with pottery. Along the side of their property lived stacks of cast off bricks, multi-celled cement blocks, and pile upon pile of broken and unused pieces of the artist’s pottery. It was an absolute gold mine!

I started out using some randomly sized rocks and boulders and then interspersed small groups of varying patterns of old bricks and blocks. Finally I selected uncommon and exceptional pieces of pottery from what she referred to as the “chard pile” and voila! We had a border, literally unlike any other!

So many different materials to make a whimsical and unusual border.

unconventional border material ideas

I was lucky with that project. It’s not often that you find such a unique assortment materials all in one place and at no charge. You can however keep your eyes open for all kinds of items that would work well in your border. Here are a few examples of borders I’ve designed and others that I’ve seen and either fallen in love with or been intrigued and amused by.

A trench of pea gravel with tumbled glass. Contain it in edging with landscape fabric underneath to prevent weeds from emerging and rocks from sinking.
Spanish roof tiles on their ends to create an “S” curve.
PVC or metal drain pipe cut to varying sizes. Place on ends in the ground, then add plants into the actual pipes. Cascading plants such as Sedum rupestre ‘Angelina’ or a wild strawberry would do the trick.
Gabions. Wire frames filled with rocks or any other chunky type of material. In collaboration with another designer, we once made gabions out of broken tiles and tea sets and won an award for it!
Dried bamboo poles—anything from 2” to 5” in diameter, cut to varying heights and “planted” on their ends. It makes an interesting natural edging with a twist.
Flagstone “planted” vertically to be about 6”-9” high, and irregularly organized: this is a great choice if you’ve had a recent flagstone project because there’s almost always leftover pieces that are too small for paving. Use these smaller pieces to make a low vertical border.
Skateboards. They will degrade but that’s part of the charm. I recommend wood decks not plastic. The plastic turns to powder with over exposure to sun and moisture.
Metal car rims (avoid plastic. See above). You get the best impact with a variety of designs!
Bicycle rims. Unlike with the car rims, bike rims are finer and thiner and look modern and streamlined when you use matching ones. But if you want to avoid the problem of many things marching in a row, it would be interesting to bury them to varying depths to make the border of a varying height.
Glass wine or other beverage bottles turned upside down and “planted”. Caution: don’t use clear. They get dirty and moldy inside and it’s unsightly. Darkly colored bottles mask this problem.

Try mixing materials! Bottles, bamboo and drain pipe—all round objects—can be combined to make a dynamically interesting, colorful and extraordinary border. If you’re adding something like rims or skateboards, it’s likely going to be difficult to find enough of them to make a complete border with only that subject. Consider using boulders and river rock to supplement with these special items.

So, what do you think? I hope now that you’ve poured over some of these unconventional landscape border ideas that you’ve come up with some of your own. I find that once you break away from the home improvement or landscape supply center’s choices for border materials, you begin to look around your world and consider everything a possibility. As long as you continue doing that, you are going to create some killer gardens!

Send me photos of your great borders and I’ll happily post them here!

Good luck! -Natalie

WHY ARE MY PLANTS DYING?

September 11, 2019September 9, 2019 | minandadesign

the Truth about plant death

I’ve got some cold, hard truths for you today. There’s no point in beating around the bush about it (pun intended) so I’m just going to say it. You ready?…Plants die. That’s right. It’s a grim fact and no one escapes the carnage. If you tend to plants, you will kill plants. If you think that’s rough, keep in mind that when you design or maintain gardens for others, you will kill their plants too.

Ouch! I know. But sometimes you just have to rip the band-aid off.

Who Kills Plants?

Beautiful Peacock…in garden
Dying plants because Beautiful Peacock nests in them

Everyone! If you want to know why plants are dying, here’s the thing, plants die for those with the proverbial “green thumb” and those with a “brown thumb”. No matter the color of your digits, no matter how much you pay attention to, or ignore them, they are living entities that have a cycle of life and death. Some impress us with their long liv-ed-ness and others seem to kick the bucket even before we’ve put our tools away after planting them. And others have a little help from the creatures and critters that share the space.

There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Even the best gardeners kill plants although they might make it seem otherwise. Those “plant whisperers”, have probably killed at least as many as they have nurtured to great beauty. In fact, you know what makes them so great at keeping beautiful plants? It’s in fact, because they’ve killed so many. The key is that each time one doesn’t survive, you learn something new about it. Perhaps the Sunset book said sun to part shade and you discover that, whoops! Not so happy with the shade part in that equation. Lesson learned.

My Plant Graveyard

Many years ago, I went to a course for Mediterranean garden design. The instructor was world famous in her field. Yet, of all the information that she shared the thing that really stuck was that she kept a very special planter in her garden. One that contained the markers for each of the plants that she had killed. Hundreds of them! She called it her plant graveyard and said, “If you’re not killing some plants, you’re just not trying hard enough”. She inspired me to be brave. I learned that when I’m not afraid of killing plants, I’m able to be way more creative in trying new ones. What a gift, not just for me but for my clients!

In an effort to embrace the truth, I created my own Plant Graveyard. I even performed a tiny little ceremony. Ok, not a ceremony per se, but when each new tag was placed in my horticultural place of repose, I’d take a moment and reflect on where I may have gone wrong. What signs did I miss that could have prevented this tragic outcome. Was I too neglectful? Did I smother it with too much…water, pruning love etc? It helped.

Understanding the life cycle of plants helped me become a more mindful gardener; also, a more mindful designer. And you can too. Some plants just aren’t meant for longevity. It’s helpful to know that before putting them in a garden.

What else can be learned from dying plants

Ok, now that you’re settling in to the idea of plant mortality, let’s dive into the nitty gritty of why plants die. Here’s the very important, key information about plant death: although we simply cannot prevent them all, we can definitely be vigilantes to defend the gardens we protect. There are a handful of the most pervasive culprits that with knowledge and a good checklist we can guard against.

Some dangers are obvious. Some very sneaky. Here’s what you should look for, and how to defeat the offenders. Having a plant graveyard is fine, but let’s save as many botanical souls as we can*.

*I have purposely not included plant diseases and pests in this post. They certainly are villains in the garden, however, they comprise a completely separate and unique topic which extends beyond our scope here. We will discuss in a later post.

ABOUT THIS BLOG & ABOUT ME

June 30, 2019October 3, 2019 | minandadesign

FIRST, ABOUT MY BEGINNINGS

Hi there! My name is Natalie Cousins-Robledo and I’m the owner of successful landscape design firm, Minanda Landscape Design. We’ve been creating spectacular gardens for 16 years now but, my personal journey to this point was hardly a straight shot. It’s been more like a circuitous, meandering one through multiple careers and life changes on my way to doing something that I truly love.

Like many of you, I didn’t graduate from college, jump into my dream job, and BAM! Successful career! I changed my major a few times first, got a degree in Peace Studies, worked for a while and then went back to school to study landscape design. I’ve been a mediator, a voice and piano teacher, a bank teller, a case manager for pregnant and parenting teenagers, a fundraiser for a major cultural institution, and more along the way.

The 1998 memory of my first inkling to explore landscape design is as salient today as ever. Grumbling over a bowl of noodles, I was again, miserable at my current job and pondering if I’d ever land on a career that fulfilled me. “Well, what do you like doing?” my husband prodded.

That was easy. We had recently rented a house with a huge back yard and I was taking it over. Vegetables in the sunniest spots, a compost bin in the back and even a home made worm bin which I’m particularly proud of considering this was before Google and YouTube. I delighted in spending every minute of unscheduled time in my first garden since childhood when my dad used to tell me I had to work in the “Weed Patch” before I was allowed to go out and play. Now, the nostalgia of that sweet memory drew me into the garden day after day. How could I turn this love of gardening into a career? Design was my answer.

I didn’t immediately leave my job, or jump into a classroom though. I started by devouring everything I could get my hands on. I bought books, subscribed to magazines and took classes at our local nursery. I bought plants (promptly killing most of them before buying more and learning what I did wrong). I even designed friends’ gardens for free just for the practice. Only then, after really proving to myself that this was not another phase, did I begin studying landscape design in a small and short lived but exciting program at Cal State Northridge. Licensed Landscape Architects taught us everything from design theory, and construction materials to irrigation design and plant ID. It was heaven!

I made it my goal to dive in 100%. I wasn’t taking a traditional approach with a degree from a 4 year program so I needed to make myself as knowledgeable and professional as my future counterparts who had. I won’t kid you. It was a lot of work. But here’s the thing, it never actually felt like work!

Six months after completing my design certificate program, I interviewed at 4 landscape architectural firms and got 2 job offers. I began working for a firm where I learned the ropes of project management for both commercial and residential projects. I’d take a project from the earliest iterations of a concept and to the grand opening. I took on side jobs for homeowners in my neighborhood and cut my teeth on going it alone. I networked with other professionals and joined associations which led me to getting a job working on a successful landscape makeover television show called The Outdoor Room with Jamie Durie for 3 seasons. I’ve won a couple of awards for my work and have designed and installed gardens for countless fabulous clients. When, after 4 years in the field, I became pregnant, and the phone calls began coming in at a regular pace, I knew that I was ready for my own firm.

It was the best move I’ve ever made!

NOW, ABOUT THE BLOG

Now that you know all about my landscape beginnings let me tell you about this brand new beginning and why I’m here, in the blogosphere.

Recently, I had a huge life-change! My family and I relocated from Pasadena California to Tokyo for 18 months, and what an amazing experience it has been so far! With so much to see and learn my expertise as a designer has deepened greatly and every garden and green space that I explore fills me with wonder. I am thrilled at just being here in this place of rich historical significance, and witnessing the remarkable achievement of living art everywhere you look, as one season unfolds into the next.

Fall color in the gardens of Tokyo Teien Metropolitan Museum of Art

Since arriving here in August 2018, I’ve continued to design and manage the maintenance division of my company from here. The physical distance that separates me from running the hectic day-to-day aspect of business, however, has brought into focus an exciting, new opportunity that I’m eager to explore.

It was not too long ago that someone asked me how I got into designing landscapes. It was a new friend who was picking my brain about her own garden. She had good ideas but was frustrated because she was having trouble tying them together and executing them. She felt great about the plants she selected but wanted to include a stone patio. This is where things started to get tricky. She tried doing it herself but had some trouble with the pavers staying put. Her regular gardener offered to help and although the pavers didn’t sink this time, he arranged them in a way that just looked all wrong.

I realized in that moment that I’d heard this story before. Not exactly this story, but versions of it. Many times. People who at the heart of it, are just like me: lovers of gardens and design, who want to take their skills to the next level. Maybe they want to transform their own garden or begin branching out to transform the gardens of others. But how?

I had an employee a few years ago who was a landscape designer in her own right—great skills and a degree in the field. After we got through a particularly tricky project, she offhandedly remarked, “They really don’t teach this stuff in school!” It’s so true, I thought! When I finished my certificate program, I thought I really knew my stuff. Years later, when I left my job working for a Landscape Architectural firm, I felt even more empowered. Once I was face to face with a homeowner, on the other hand, someone who had just paid me real money to solve their landscape quandaries, I felt very differently.

None of my classes taught me which plants are poisonous to dogs, for example. They also didn’t prepare me for how many plants in the Sunset Garden book, really aren’t available to purchase. Learning about gardens in different regions of the world and through history—that I studied that on my own. The first time I had to deal with the City’s permitting process, I was stymied. And then there’s the biggy: budget! Not one minute of my two years of classes was spent on how to understand and convey the complexities of project scope in relation to the money available. Zero!

So here I am, 20 years into my career, and I assure you that every new project I take on delivers me the opportunity to learn something new, spread my wings a little further, and to deliver newer, more conscientious and creative gardens to my clients. It is this accumulation of experiences and knowledge beyond what the classrooms offer that I want to share with you! I am here to fill your tool kit with real life, get your hands dirty (literally and figuratively) information about all things garden design.

Plants? Sure, we’ll talk about plants, but we’ll also talk about how to space them, what size to buy, and how much you can expect to pay. We’ll talk about how much patio you need to fit six chairs. There will be secrets on how you can make the farthest corner of your garden as interesting as the space right outside your back door. We, of course, can’t forget that the materials you choose when you create a border, walkway or fence can mean the difference between a nice garden and an amazing garden. We’ll therefore, look at some really sensational and unexpected choices! Also, particularly because I’m in Japan, we’ll look at existing gardens designed in a far gone era to find inspiration for our tomorrows. I have a list of topics a mile long and I simply can’t wait to dig in and share them with you!

This blog is an exciting new addition to Minanda Landscape Design and the services that we provide. It is a place I intend for you to come back to over and over to find inspiration, learn new skills, and grow in the garden as I have. Join me! Let’s make the world a more beautiful place, one garden at a time.