Sierra Foothill Garden

Planting Cleveland sage on the meadow edges

On this fine May day, I plant two California natives in my dry sloping meadow to add perennial color. See how I did this and a short video ‘how-to’ from Tree of Life Nursery.

It began with a bit of weeding. You know how it goes….one thing leads to another….

I had carried down two gallon sized sages to look for a good spot and while weeding, I was enlightened!  I kept in my head the objective to eventually plant drought tolerant and colorful California natives around the edges of my ‘meadow area.’  This meadow has not been reseeded for the last two years and an empty space there called for these two plants.

This is a sloped area on the north side of the open area I call my meadow. These two Cleveland sages, Salvia clevelandii ‘Winnifred Gilman‘ will grow about four feet tall and wide and the existing white yarrow will benefit from the watering today.  I’ll have to plant some contrasting Black-eyed Susans in between for some color contrast.  Fun stuff!

I dug a hole the depth of the gallon pot, about 10 inches deep and about two feet across to allow for a nice wide watering trough.  Fill the hole with water and let it drain.  Also water the potted plant itself.  This will make the soil a very friendly place for roots to spread out and grow.

In the buckets is pine mulch from all the pine cutting in the mountain area.

Set the plant in the hole and rather than fill in with the dirt you removed, instead, chip away at the side of the hole and tamp down the soil as you go.  Use the soil you dug out for the troughs as shown.

Check for level by filling your troughs with water.  The plants need it at planting time and you can easily tell where you need to shore up one side or another.  Later on, it’s easy to tell that you’ve watered them enough….the water collects.

I had time and inclination to begin a watering trough for the Chaste Tree, Vitex agnus-castus, next to the area. There’s no drip irrigation in the meadow and watering troughs are so helpful.  I’ll really be counting on their drought tolerance.  They won’t need any more water (from me) for another two weeks now.

Video Demonstration

This video is about “Planting it Right” specifically for transplanting high-quality nursery-grown California native container plants into their new home at your landscape project. Tree of Life Nursery owner Mike Evans gives us a tour of the basics such as the size and make-up of the planting hole and appropriate watering during planting. Don’t forget to check out Part 2