day in the life

i thought it might be interesting to do a post about what a day in the life of a gardener is like in southern california. like i have mentioned before, i consider myself a gardener as well as a landscaper. i enjoy all aspects of gardening, not just sitting back and letting others do the hard labor. i love to feel the muscle strain and soil soaked fatigue washing over me at the end of the day. i think at this point there is truly no going back to an inside occupation. no tie, no desk job. i always told my father when i was younger that i would never wear a tie to work. i remember that he laughed and said, we will see. i did wear a tie for just a few years, but i kept being choked out by the starch in my collar. so i traded it in.

so a day in the life. today i picked up the truck at the top of the hill and drove down to meet the crew in laguna beach. over the weekend i leisurely worked at one of my client’s properties cleaning and pruning, so i had the guys help me load my truck with the green waste and then headed to the dump. yay, the dump! a good friend of mine and ex-tree pruner used to say that “it is never a good day until you’ve stood in a trash can”. i second that statement for sure. nothing like getting the attention of a young cutie by standing knee deep in a green waste trash can, stomping down leaves and twigs. so i drove to the dump to unload the truck and sent gilberto and ozzie out to do some maintenance.

weighing in at the green waste dump

i often enjoy driving to the dump. it’s a nice break. i get to drive and blast some Opeth or Mastodon, i get to clean out the truck and “get all OCD” about the truck organization and just relax knowing that work is getting done in my absence. i cruised back into laguna from the irvine dump and met up with guys. for an hour i pruned a boxwood hedge with my kick ass gas powered kawasaki hedge pruner. that thing could seriously lop a finger off in an instant. we cut some grass, pulled some weeds, watered the pots and beds.

lately we’ve been eating lunch at a little hole in the wall mexican joint on glenneyre called laguna feast. if you come to laguna and want some true authentic mexican food i suggest you eat here. they have the best salsa by far. can’t be touched. we are locals there by now and know the owner and his staff too well. i’ve been getting the wet burrito lately – awesome tender pork with green sauce on top.

after lunch we pruned hard for the rest of the afternoon. pruned back some trees and shrubs away from a retaining wall so that people could park closer to the house and not so much in the street. in the back of this same property i’ve been watching english ivy infiltrate the yard for some time now. i think the previous owner either planted a small ivy plant, or else as i’ve seen before they just set an indoor ivy topiary on the ground in the back for lack of anything else to do with it. either way the ivy has been creeping across the back planter for about 2 years now and it had actually begun to choke out other plants and to climb up trees.

ozzie tearing out english ivy

the only way to get rid of ivy is to cut and tear it out. of course it depends how long the ivy has been growing and how thick it is. in this case it was easiest to just get on our knees and pull it out by hand.

me, contemplating the piles of ivy

each day i like to tackle something at each of the properties that i care for. whether i am fertilizing, dead-heading, watering, pruning, weeding, planting, amending soil – it doesn’t matter, i simply enjoy transforming and making a garden look better each time i am there. there is no such thing as a no maintenance garden. there is always something to do. always something to improve upon and make nicer.

i started out the business doing all of the work myself, but eventually was fortunate enough to have so many clients that i just couldn’t handle the work by myself. the day passes pleasantly with a little help as well. day after day it is a grind, just like anything you do over and over. but i tell myself when i get frustrated or tired that it could be worse. i could be sitting behind a desk fearing that the ceo is going to fire me, or that there is some secret meeting going on i am unaware of that is going to determine my fate.

gardening allows me to choose my own fate, plain and simple. i find solace in bringing people happiness through their gardens. gardening is what i do. i make it my business to do the best job over and over again and to constantly better my properties. when we loose the drive and motivation for what we do, we had better find a new source of inspiration to drive us forward. being with the plants and being outside everyday is what does it for me. i would rather work in an orchard picking fruit off trees all day long than be stuck inside with a tie on wishing i could feel the sun on my face.

get outside, dig in the dirt.

we ended the day with some simple sweeping up and weeding. everything is completely important when it comes to good gardening. no detail should be left undone or incomplete. i get ridiculed sometimes for my overly compulsive nature. but i just know how i like things done when it comes to gardening. it doesn’t mean i am not constantly bettering myself and learning – i am, trust me. i am humbled all the time. i realize i have a ton to learn. and all the time to learn it. my intent is true, my drive is pure. gardening, that’s it.

scott

how to kill clover in your lawn

yup. it’s that time of year when weeds begin to infiltrate like mad. grassy weeds and broadleaf weeds alike begin popping up wherever they can – in planting areas and in the lawn. in planting beds the weeds are never quite as bad as in the lawn. that’s just my personal opinion – others may disagree, but i find that i have a way easier time getting on my hands and knees and weeding around plants than i do weeding in the lawn. for one thing, it  is easier to see the weeds that you are dealing with when they are in planters. second of all, you can move plants out of the way and get under most flowers and shrubs well enough to pluck them out by the root.

clover at the base of a palm tree

but weeds in the lawn are a whole other story. i have given weeding lawns by hand my best shot in the past. i have literally spend hours pulling clover out of a fescue lawn by hand. it actually feels like you are making progress at some point too. until a few days go by and the clover comes back even stronger. sometimes i even use a screwdriver and gently pry the roots loose. i do advocate weeding by hand as much as possible. but sometimes the problem is just too big to overcome by hand weeding.

clover in a fescue lawn

i combat  many weed problems by using a pre-emergent herbicide, which should be applied to planting beds and lawns prior to any sign of weeds. this is especially effective for grassy weeds in lawns – like crabgrass, which can become a total nightmare if left untreated year after year.

as far as the broadleaf weeds go – clover, dandelion etc.., there is a simple solution if weeding by hand is just to time-consuming and maddening. the answer – use chemicals. i hope to not ruffle the feathers of staunch eco-friendly “green” people out there – but come on, sometimes you have got to fight fire with fire. i am all for making as little of an impact on the earth as possible, so i advocate using chemical methods only when absolutely necessary.

ok, follow directions below – and no, i am not being paid by ortho. this is not some cheesy advertisement and i did not sell out. this is simply what gets rid of clover very inexpensively in lawns.

broadleaf weed killer and hose end sprayer

pour weed killer into hose end sprayer container

set dial to appropriate amount per gallon

attach hose to sprayer

spray lawn with herbicide

*please follow specific directions for whatever herbicide you decide to buy – remember to be very careful when using chemicals. follow directions on labels, that’s what they are there for.

march blooms

the rain has been coming down here in southern california – on and off – for the last two months. not every day of course, and not like heavy east coast or north western rains, but good healthy rains nonetheless. in fact, i was stranded at home – off of work – for a whole week back in january. the great thing about the rain is that all the plants have been given a good deep drink as the days begin to get longer and warmer. eventually the cool days and nights will give way to an unbearably long summer with not a cloud in the sky or a drop of precipitation for about 8 months.

only within the last two to three weeks have new leaves begun popping out, bulbs sprouting and blooming and buds forming on the citrus and fruit trees. in the beginning of february i began fertilizing with triple 15 and also gave the lawns a boost of nitrogen.

today was just too beautiful to pass up taking some great photos of the new growth and flowers at some of my jobs. the freesias are blasting impressive blooms, and some delphiniums i planted back in january are stretching to the sky. my garden sidekick, ozzie, was in awe of how in just a short amount of time the plants have begun to “pop-off”, as he says. he was attributing it to our fertilizing, which i agree with, but was also telling him how it is just the right time of year – and the good amount of rain we’ve been getting this year. the native wildflowers are going to be something to see too.

just this morning we were working at about 8:30 a.m. when a big storm cloud pushed east from out over the ocean and onto land. the dark clouds down-poured for about 20 minutes before letting up to a perfect blue sky with patches of cumulous clouds. it was quite a fresh cool day not to be sitting behind a computer!

all these photos were shot in laguna beach. i was very glad to be out in the garden today – enjoying the amazing scent of pink jasmines and orange blossoms, and checking out the array of color and life.

enjoy the gardening – scott

alyssum - freesias - roses

iris

orange tree blossoms

freesia

leucojum

delphiniums with sunflower

welcome to white sage gardening

the idea behind this blog is simple. it is a blog about gardening. it exists to answer your gardening questions, as a tool to research plants and gardening techniques and as a fun place to check out photos of plants.

i got into plants several years ago and it quickly turned into a passion. a passion so strong that i went back to school for horticulture and got a job at a local nursery to teach myself about plants. at the same time i volunteered at a botanic garden for even more hands on experience. now, several years later i run a modest gardening business in southern california.

a friend of mine convinced me to start a blog as a way to reach out to other fellow gardeners. i hope this blog will grow over time and become a fun place for you to visit. my intent is for the users of the blog to direct its path. i will post photos and stories of my day to day activities in hopes that other gardeners will find them interesting, helpful and enjoyable.

i chose to be a gardener because i love being outside working with plants and giving life and happiness to my clients. the positive energy that flows through the plants and the earth is something i feel every human should enjoy. the benefits of being a part of the natural world are often forgotten and overlooked in this day and age where technology reigns supreme.

i know for a fact that my health has improved remarkably since i began gardening for a living about 5 years ago. i hope this blog encourages everyone to get outside and feel the earth through their fingers, to plant something new in their garden, and to feel the quiet perfection of nature.

thanks for reading – enjoy the garden

scott j ward – white sage gardening

flowering plum tree