• Creating Coastal Sage Scrub in a City Garden on the Mesa: A Q&A with Craig Denson

    Craig Denson is a chapter volunteer with our annual Native Plant Sale and pursues California native botany through courses, his own field explorations, and his garden. His garden, 'Coastal Sage Scrub Revivified' will be on this year's Garden Tour as an FYI (Front Yard Inspiration). When you visit the garden you can see an evolving effort there, with an attempt to emulate 3 zones of local coastal sage scrub: (1) a drier, more open area with dudleyas, bulbs, and annuals occurring in openings in coastal sage scrub; (2) a grassy meadow-like area in front of that with annuals and some perennials; and (3) some denser perennials and shrubs.We asked Craig some questions about how he got started with native gardening and what he has discovered in the process.
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    Rocking Out on Lake Hodges: Garden Tour MPG (Multi-Purpose Garden)

    An interview with owners Joe and Laurie FergusonDriving just a road snippet up from Lake Hodges, one doesn’t enter the tour garden, MPG (Multi-Purpose Garden) from a front yard. Instead a back street will open onto a separate property behind the house. The owners, Joe and Laurie Ferguson purchased a half-acre lot behind their house, a completely bare space, to create an area for their 3 small children with no playgrounds in the neighborhood. After doing some major grading with the soil to create a flat play area, they tried tropical plants and banana trees, but nothing really fit.Then, Joe ran into Greg Rubin, the renowned California native plant landscaper in San Diego County. The Fergusons were about to put in the same 20 landscaping plants you see across San Diego but Greg persuaded them to try California natives. And thus 600 native plants were installed in 2001.The Fergusons did and continue to do 95% of the work of planting, watering, and maintenance. For them “it is fun, a way to get away from the kids” they say, laughing. Laurie would point out areas in the garden that could become a design feature. She is the originator of many of the built-out garden features. As the ideas grew it became “Now let’s do this, now let’s do this.” Today, viewing the expansive landscape filled out with native plants and still including the flat play space, the hard work has paid off richly.