A marvelous DIY garden in Eastlake Chula Vista, California

by David R. Pearling

Here is an excellent DIY designed garden in Southern California 

We discovered this homeowner-designed and planted front yard during our daily exercise walks near our home in the Eastlake neighborhood of Chula Vista, near San Diego California. Denise, the homeowner, said that she and her husband created it in large part to eliminate the maintenance demands of their former front lawn. The result has been a complete success. 

This garden is filled with easy-care shrubbery-with accents of color throughout. There is some nice hardscaping. This garden almost perfectly follows my five recommendations for garden design:

1) Have plan 

2) Planted beds are everything 

3) Never use plastic edging, cheap concrete blocks, or gaudy colored mulch 

4) Hardscapes will make or break your garden 

5) The finishing touches 

This single-family home sits in a quiet neighborhood in a lesser-known area of metropolitan San Diego. The homes here are as nice and spacious as those located in any southern California locale.

Most of the homes in this area have wall-to-wall, thirsty lawns needing weekly mowings. Added to those chores are weeding and the -pest controls that often come with lawns. Denise no longer has to deal with any of that. 

Her home perfectly follows one of my central recommendations: Have as little lawn as you can stand. No lawn is best. Lawns, if watered regularly, will consume 80% of the water that a home uses. Even though this is well known in Southern California, too many homeowners disregard it. Lawns in this region often require weekly mowing throughout the year. 

Let’s see how Denise’s garden plan follows my five main concepts for garden design. These are all clearly described in my book, ‘Garden and Landscape Design – a Quick Start Guide’ available at Amazon. 

Go to: https://www.amazon.com/Garden-Landscape-Design-Quick-Start-ebook/dp/B00COMHCXK

HAVE A PLAN ON PAPER AND TO SCALE 

Denise did not say if she had her garden plan on paper. But you can easily see that she had a plan. The plants are appropriately sized and spaced, accents for color are well placed, and the hardscapes fit. They were installed by Denise and her husband.

Plans on paper, drawn to scale, are very helpful. It is much easier to make changes on paper than it is in your garden. Your plan will make it much easier to order plants in the right sizes and to order your hardscape materials and mulches in the proper amounts. 

You can plot it on graph paper using your plat-of-survey as a starting point. 

PLANTED BEDS ARE EVERYTHING 

When you have removed all or part of your lawn, create planted areas to fill the spaces. There are many varieties of plants that are easy to grow no matter where you live. They fill in relatively quickly. Groups of the same plant that I refer to as “Set and Forget” plants are perfect. Author and TV garden expert P. Allen Smith calls them “workhorse plants.” Plant them in “broad brushstrokes.” These are groupings of the same plant. 

All climate zones have appropriate plants. Your local garden center can help you choose. Groups in odd numbers: three, five, seven, etc. will be more pleasing to the eye. 

When purchasing plants, keep this in mind: buy more small plants and fewer large-plants. Plants grow! Smaller plants are easier to carry and plant. 

The planted spaces in Denise’s garden have several groups of the same plant. Wide spaces are filled with- set and forget varieties. Her use of Rhaphiolepis indica, India hawthorn, demonstrates this perfectly. Several are planted parallel to her front porch. They are evergreen with small, pink flowers. 

Rhaphiolepis indica is one of the most widely used landscape plants in Southern California. You will find it in nearly every commercial landscape at shopping malls, apartment complexes, and office buildings. The landscape architects who design these spaces specify it because it is very easy to grow. 

There is also a sprinkling of color throughout. Denise has planted a few society garlic and some sweet pea shrubs. They add nice color to her garden and are easily maintained. 

NEVER USE THESE THREE THINGS 

Never use black plastic edging, cheap concrete block retaining walls, or gaudy colored mulch or stone.

Denise almost accomplishes this recommendation. Almost. She does not have concrete block retaining walls. However, there is a bit of the other two: black plastic edging, and artificially colored wood mulch. But they are not prominent. 

Plastic edging serves no useful purpose. The edges of your beds can easily be kept neat and clean by using a string trimmer or a garden spade. If you live in an area with cold winters your plastic edging might pop out of the ground from “frost heave.” The freeze-thaw cycle pushes it upward until it simply sits atop the ground. This is unsightly. In the southwest states, the intense rays of the sun eventually break down the plastic and it begins to crumble. 

The photo below shows black plastic edging in a neighbor's front yard. It lies nearly all out of the ground.

Ask yourself, “Does plastic really belong in my garden?” Probably not. 

Cheap concrete block retaining walls are overused. Too often they are forced in where there is no need for a wall. Blocks like this make an overpowering visual impact. They draw the attention of visitors who might overlook the planted beds. Stay away! 

Denise has not paid strict attention to the last maxim of the never use family: Use no gaudy colored stone or artificially colored wood mulch covering the open spaces in your garden beds. There is some artificially red colored wood mulch. Fortunately, it is not too overpowering. 

The worst example of gaudy colored stone is white marble chips. This product makes a blinding blast of hot white light. Other strong and vivid colors are almost as bad. They take all the attention of visitors. 

When using wood mulches, select the ones that come in their natural colors. Artificial colors have little value in our gardens. Gaudy and artificially colored mulches steal our attention. That is not their purpose. Imagine that you are decorating a room in your home. The carpet or other flooring and the paint on the walls are merely in the background. The furniture, artwork, and the rest of the décor are what make the room pop. 

Here is a rule of thumb to use when selecting a stone mulch: If you live in an area, where you have hills or mountains nearby, especially in the southwest, look at the natural colors there. Try to match that look. Stone suppliers in your area almost certainly will have something that works. 

Here is one more product you should not use: weed barrier fabric or plastic sheeting below your mulches. In some cases, the weeds will sprout in the mulch above the fabric. You will have gained nothing by your effort to lay out the fabric, cut holes for your plantings, and tacking it down to prevent the wind from sweeping it away before you mulch your beds. 

When you have weed barrier fabric and choose to add plants in new locations, you will have to cut more holes in the fabric. Finally, and invariably, weed barrier fabric starts popping up to the surface. It becomes unsightly. There is some of this in Denise’s garden. 

You will be surprised how easy it is to control weeds if you walk your beds at least once a month and simply pull them by hand. Or you can do what I do: apply an appropriate herbicide on each individual weed as needed. Easy! 

There is one more product that I never recommend: artificial turf. Our gardens were never meant to be covered in artificial ingredients. Design wide, sweeping beds instead. Artificial turf can be expensive to install if you hire a qualified contractor. It is not maintenance-free. Weeds will poke out around the edges. It can look messy when debris, dry leaves, dead blossoms, or seed pods collect. A leaf blower will be needed. Artificial turf can get very hot on summer days in full sun. The manufacturers

recommend that you install a regular lawn sprinkler system for cooling. Really! 

When you browse through books about fine landscaping and garden design you will discover a stark reality. I refer to books like this as “coffee table books.” Each one has dozens of photographs showing wonderful gardens. However, you will never see a photo in any such book that shows a garden with plastic edging, cheap concrete block retaining walls or gaudy colored mulches. Never! The moral of the story is that if you don’t ever want your garden shown in coffee table books, all you need to do is use one of the three. 

HARDSCAPES WILL MAKE OR BREAK YOUR GARDEN 

Hardscapes are features like patios, walls, decks, newel posts, gazebos, arbors, fences, gates, boulders, and those other things that are not living, breathing plants in your garden. Design possibilities are infinite. Materials range from all-natural such as stone, boulders, and wood, as well as hundreds of other possibilities with man-made products such as pavers and wall stones. 

The effort to install hardscapes can be substantial. The materials can weigh several tons for even a modest project. The technical knowledge needed is sometimes beyond the abilities of homeowners. This is a part of your garden for which you should consider hiring a qualified contractor. Check references. When the contractor is finished you can add the plantings yourself. 

The contractor can also add good, rich soil amendments where needed. Soil is poor in many new subdivisions. Your contractor can remove a layer of poor soil before you plant and bring in a good quality mix appropriate for your locale. Add to a depth of six inches if you can, or at least 4 inches. 

Denise’s garden has hardscapes well suited for her garden size and design. It has a dry river bed that runs diagonally through the bed. It is defined by using rounded river stones with a few small boulder accents. The boulders were carried in by hand. No tractor is needed. Keep in mind that she and her husband installed this themselves.

Dry river beds will come to life if you create a recirculating water system in all or part of it. You do NOT need to make the entire run have gurgling water. Just a few feet will add a wonderful effect. Of course, this section of the river bed must be lined with heavy-duty plastic or concrete, have electricity nearby to power a small pump, and it will require regular maintenance. Skip this if you are averse to maintenance. 

Special note to California homeowners: 

Protect yourself from dishonest or undercapitalized contractors with these regulations from the California State License Board (CSLB). These apply to all projects costing $500 or more in combined materials and labor for residential projects: 

1) Avoid paying in cash. 

2) Contractors cannot ask for a deposit of more than 10 percent of the total cost of the job or $1,000, whichever is less. (This applies to any home improvement project including swimming pools.) 

3) Stick to your agreed upon - in writing schedule of payments. Do not let payments get ahead of the completed work. 

Here is the link to CSLB with more information:

https://www.cslb.ca.gov/Resources/GuidesAndPublications/WYSKPamphlet.pdf 

I know of situations where contractors have asked for higher deposit amounts. Sometimes the contractors have said that this rule does not apply to them. Actually, it does. In one case a homeowner I know lost $5,000 to a shady contractor. 

Your state may have similar regulations. Check it out.  

THE FINISHING TOUCHES 

Finishing touches are garden décor, statuary, container plants, and ob·jet d'art (artsy things) and objet trouvé (found objects). They are also the convenience and safety features like an automatic drip irrigation system or low voltage lighting for nighttime. 

Denise has three of these pieces in her garden. She has a birdbath near the far end of her dry river run. It is not too bold or splashy. It stands there giving welcome to us and to our feathered friends (when there is water in it!). The plantings are watered automatically by an irrigation system. A modest container garden sits near her front door. 

The irrigation system in her garden simplifies watering chores. Denise has two kinds. A few popup heads are watering the sedum groundcover. These might be operating at full pressure from the home’s water supply. 

She also installed a drip irrigation system consisting mostly of tiny spray jets that stand upright on black plastic stakes. Drip irrigation systems are very easy to install. The tools needed are very simple: heavy-duty scissors or garden pruners to cut the black plastic tubing as needed and a special drip tube punch tool that makes the holes where the ¼ inch connectors are attached. All of the fittings are compression or insert, no glue or PVC solvent needed. Easy. The system can begin at a garden hose faucet, so no need to hire a plumber. It can be controlled with an inexpensive battery-operated timer making it set and forget. After that, it simply needs seasonal adjustments to its watering schedule a few times each year. 

Drip system components are very inexpensive. You will find them at most home improvement and hardware stores. The professional irrigation supply houses where the pros shop have a greater selection and knowledgeable staff. Most are open to the public. 

We have found that both the ½ inch and ¼ inch plastic tubing sold at big box home centers is very hard and stiff in cooler weather making it difficult to handle. A butane lighter or a cup of hot water solves this problem. The tubing sold at the professional supply houses has a higher quality plastic that is more pliable easy to work with even at lower temperatures. 

Here’s a tip: use a little butane lighter to soften the ¼ inch plastic “spaghetti tube” before you try attaching it to any ¼ inch connectors. Apply the flame for only a second or two. This works miracles. You can soften ½ tubing by dipping the ends into a coffee cup with hot water from your microwave oven. 

The container garden near the front door consists of just a few easy to grow plants. Hand watering keeps them healthy and - only takes a few minutes. Denise’s container plants add appealing green to an otherwise blank wall. 

We discovered Denise’s garden by accident during a random walk down her street. It is a nice surprise among many other homes surrounded by expansive, high maintenance lawns. We are grateful to have met Denise and for her allowing us to take these photographs. 

Her gardens, designed and planted with the help of her husband, fulfill all five of my recommendations almost perfectly. This is impressive when you consider their “amateur” status. We had wrongly assumed that this landscape had been designed by a professional. 

There was a plan. Her planted beds have no lawn at all. They fill the entire area with groups of set and forget plants. Colorful accent plants are judiciously placed - - and no plastic or cheap concrete block retaining walls were used. There is some artificially colored red wood chip mulch that we do not recommend, But in Denise’s garden, it is not too overpowering. The plantings demand your attention instead. The dry river run is a good hardscape in this garden as is the birdbath It looks natural, and-was easy to install. Her finishing touches are very good. The irrigation system takes care of the watering. All very good. 

Can this garden be made better? Of course, it can. Nearly every garden can be improved. A striking focal point near her entry would be nice. The birdbath is a bit understated. Another nice addition would be a “greeting pad” near the front door. These are wider places near the entry made with paving stones of some kind. The space needs to be partially enclosed by a low stone or brick wall. She could welcome her guests here before they enter her home. 

In summary, Denise & Co. did a very good job. Her garden calls to us daily when we go for our walks. This is a wonderful oasis in a neighborhood of other homes surrounded by grass. 

Projects like hers are within the reach and budget of even novice gardeners. They only need to follow the five steps.

Please contact me for a presentation to your garden club, HOA, civic organization or any group interested in the best methods to design and plant gardens.