Melissa - I love reading your comments about your garden because you are such a skilled writer! On the other hand, all of the work you get done makes me envious of your seemingly nevrer ending energy, and persistence. You took on an enormous challenge, and I am in awe of how you continue to step up to it. It is so fun to hear about changes, and small victories!

Jackie

Well, Jackie, I'm not very energetic, but I am persistent. The muscle is now supplied by my valiant helper, bless his heart. He's a good worker.

This is all about living my garden. I like the time I spend there. I like sitting on the steps in the shade of my miniature Mediterranean oak wood, which is what this area is, and looking down into the sunny, dry, untidily blooming area below me. I like all the different corners of the garden. I like the pine which fell over because we didn't stake it, but which lived, and where I made a little den underneath where the part of me that's eight years old can go hide. I suppose any fair-sized garden that's been extensively lived for many years develops a good deal of personality. My garden certainly has.

I too love all of your stories, Melissa. Having 5 acres and having a naturalistic garden philosophy I am sure I have critics related to wild untamed areas and I know you would relate to what I am going for. I love all my plants and am creating a pollinator paradise.

I know you share many of these ideas too, Jackie, in your beautiful garden.

My garden is much smaller in scale, but I appreciate hearing about how you have planted a steep slope with difficult soil, Melissa, and transformed what was a bare field with evergreen shrubs and trees. It sounds like the back part of my garden and, like yours, half the battle, at least, has been finding the plants that will survive such conditions. The other half of the battle is figuring out how to dig planting holes when the ground is stone-hard (mine is literally gravelly subsoil) and one can barely stand, let alone use a shovel. One section I took to calling the "Bermuda Triangle" because plants would go in and then disappear (die), repeatedly. I eventually found that Rhus integrifolia(lemonadeberry) could withstand the conditions there and elsewhere and now have that nice evergreen shrub/small tree "holding down the fort" in several places, along with toyon, various native California sages, Artemisia california (called California sage, though it's really a daisy!), Ceanothus ('Ray Hartman' -- can't be beat here), Eriogonum giganteum (St. Catherine's Lace -- another species that, like lemonadeberry, is almost unbelievably tough and thrives in the worst spots) and, making my chaparral "multicultural", rosemary and a stalwart Fortuniana rose. I also have a huge Vitex agnus-castus at the foot of this slope and some more on a slope in the front yard; I love it and it is especially floriferous this year -- the bumblebees are going nuts over all those lavender flowers..

Like you I also have used various trimmings anchored with rebar stakes to hew out level platforms for plants to get started. It was a huge help to contrive stairways like that at either end of the slope, too, it being a desperate struggle to get to the top of the hill before that. While the main challenge is the long summer drought, on my hill, too, excessive winter rains can prove too much; a few years ago, prolonged saturated soil as the hillside drained for over a month because of huge rains killed off a swathe of native plantings -- too wet!

Though the sages by-and-large go brownish and shriveled during the entire summer (they still have tiny greenish leaves, sitting in wait for the fall rains, but they are so microscopic that all you see is brown), the large evergreen shrubs (lemonadeberry, toyon) keep the slope from looking too austere.

Though it may have seemed there was "there was not that much to see" looking down your slope, what you describe so well sounds like a wonderful view to me.

So happy to hear from you, Sheila and catspa. I'm pretty sure I would love both your gardens, both for the spirit in which you've developed them, and for the plantings themselves. Ah, if you should ever get over here, see if you can visit!

Catspa, I see that you too have gone searching in the local flora for solutions to your soil and climate limitations. I looked up some of the plants you mention. My Mediterranean natives aren't all well known locally: I've never seen lentisk, myrtle, or phyllirea in the ground locally--and have problems finding some of them even from the nurseries I order from--but they all do fine in my garden. I suspect they'll become better known as the climate warms. By the way, about digging, you do use a pick, don't you? Shovels just aren't enough sometimes. Also, I'm a great believer in mild terracing for paths on a slope, and sometimes not-so-mild terracing for plantings; however, this may be more successful in my clay soil that tends to hold its shape, than in your ground.

You two, and Jackie, and all you other gardeners who are gardening for the health of the environment as well as for the beauty of plants, keep at it! The world needs our efforts.

We have used a pick ax here too, Melissa.

My pick is my best friend,LOL! I hardly use the shovel at all-certainly not for starting new cultivated areas.

I admire you ,too, Melissa. And, alas, struggle not to envy you-all of you, who have your gardens around your homes. In this particularly bad summer, I can only go out there twice a week at around 8PM to water.As I mentioned before, going out there very early in the morning just isn't practical. Simply doing the drive and opening up the gates and getting organized for work (bringing down whatever tools and/or materials I'd be needing, etc)would be very tiring,and by 10 AM it would already be intolerably hot,and I'd still have to close up and drive home- the whole thing would be exhausting. And then, how would I find the energy to go out in the evening and water? By the way, my DH recently did try going out there in the morning,simply to take some photographs, and said that it was a very unpleasent experience, because even though the garden was still in shade, there was not a breath of air.The thing about this summer that is so horrible here is just that-the almost total lack of wind. The year of 2003 was infamous for the heat, but I do remember there was consistently a strong south-west wind that made things so much more bearable. Also, it has never, in my memory, been so humid here as it is this year. It cooled down a bit, briefly,so when I was out there to water last Thursday I did get a bit of mulching done,but it was still windless and very buggy and humid.

I also think that my ideas have been overly romantic and foolish. I should have been focusing much more on viability ,as you have done with your steps and terracing,Melissa.. Both you and catspa have been so much wiser than I in focusing on native plants and other tough guys,instead of mooning around with floribundas. I really do need a helper, but don't know how to find someone really reliable and trustworthy, and what's more, economically this is not a good moment to be hiring someone anyway. We just spent a lot on getting much-needed AC installed in the bedrooms. Our beloved DS is going for his specialization,and so we want to contribute to the cost of that. What's more, I want to try to obtain Italian citizenship-the political situation in the USA is just too terrifying. But doing so promises to be very complicated and expensive.

Sorry to be so depressing; it just feels like my garden is risking doom because of my fecklessness,the tragic reality of climate change,and my ever-diminishing energy . I try to remind myself that I always find summer depressing,that progress has been made -and ,indeed, when I look at old photos of how our land was when we first bought it,I must admit that almost single-handedly I've worked a semi-miracle. What was once totally barren is now a jungle of roses ,trees and, unfortuneately, brambles that want to over-take everything. It bothers me a lot as well that I seem to be suffering from a total lack of initiative; if I could just get off my butt I'd doubtless feel a bit better, lol! I need a vacation!

Hang in there you two. I really empathize with the hot gardener's plight.

Oh yes, Melissa, I do use a pick, first to make a step on which to stand to be able to use the pick....it's that steep.

Looking for plants tolerant of my climate extremes has also led me to locally unusual (though not native) species. One of my favorites has become Crithmum maritimum, a plant of England's coastline (!), which thrives here with little water (a lot of halophytes are drought-tolerant) and even on south-facing slopes. It is a pretty, architectural, grey-green plant that makes a great groundcover (I even use it among roses), requires little care, and is even edible (tastes like fennel). It is surprising that it tolerates heat as well as it does, despite what is said on some websites about it. I've been growing it for at least 14-15 years. Another favorite is Salvia muirii, a South African sage, which is in bloom from May to December, long-lived (I have plants of it that are at least 16 years old and still going strong), and also requires little care and water.

I haven't tried these two up in the gravelly subsoil -- yet -- only in dry areas where there actually IS soil. But they both seem to handle clayish conditions and heat well.

Should add, though not so unusual, the Cistus that I grow, which can all do without summer irrigation and make good-sized shrubs: C. ladanifer and two of its hybrids, 'Blanche' and 'Elma', and also the smaller C. creticus (syn. C. incanus, or C. creticus ssp.. incanus). They also tolerate clay and heat.

Even though our small 1/3rd acre lot is totally flat, and has clay soil, we (meaning my DH) has used a pick axe on it occastionally, and even small jack hammer. When we moved in here the strip between the sidewalk and road was as hard as concrete - it had been covered with gravel for 80+ years, and sprayed routinely with weed killer (where my DH's German ancestors did not plant something, they liked that area to stay neat and tidy!)

So, when we moved in and I told my DH that I wanted to plant roses alll along that strip, which was about 90 feet long (our lot is sort of a truncated triangle, with the longest side at the street), he sighed and bought a small jack hammer and put a small shovel bit on it, and dug up the entire 90 by 6 ft strip, of course avoiding the 4 large black walnut street trees which were growing on it. After that he dug me at least a dozen holes for my roses (this was 35 years ago, so he was younger). To my surprise the black walnut droppings of fruit and leaves did NOT discourage the roses at all, despite the reputation those trees have.

He used his pick axe dozens of years later, when the FIre Dept had told us we had to remove the 9 climbing roses which were climbing to the roof on 3 sides of our house. I was so sad. I took cuttings of most of them, and actually dug up the base of one entirely and successfully transplanted it later. Well, there was a fairly large area next to our driveway which we had not touched - it was completely covered with ONE (1) bush - a horrible huge barberry bush (10 ft high, 25-30 ft wide and deep) with THORNS which came in an arrangement of 4 growing together at angles, and razor sharp. When they fell off the bush, they always landed with one thorn pointing straight up - they may have been the inspiration of caltrops, which are the same thing in metal which they used to "deny the ground" against war horses for centuries. Anyway, by then we had 2 gardeners, and they agreed to to take out the entire bush (we called it "the barbarous barberry"), prepare & amend the soil, etc. They did that, but could not get the main trunk/roots out of the ground. So, my DH got his pick axe and the 3 of them took turns using it. The result of all of this was success, and then my DH built me a rose garden where the bush used to be, fenced in against deer, and I planted all of the roses I had saved from the house. So, I have not had to do any hard work myself, just enjoying and admiring other peoples'!

Jackie

Jackie, probably when it was planted that barberry was the latest great horticultural discovery but how things change. I've never had a barberry or mahonia get anywhere near that large. Do you know what species it was?

Catspa, I'm taking notes. I need more salvias in the garden anyway, and ought to give a thought to cistus, too. I somehow have the notion it's difficult, possibly due to early failures. Time for a re-think.

P.S. How is S. muirii for long, not cold but chilly, winters?

Melissa, From what I read, I think S. muirii should be okay with zone 8 winters, as long as its site is decently drained. Mine all came through that dreadfully long, wet winter of several years ago fine (all growing in flatter areas), which can't be said for some of the other drought-tolerant plants in my garden. The other S. African sage I've grown, S. dolomitica, though otherwise excellent, did object to the soggy soil then and died, as did some teucriums and thymes (and native salvias and ceanothus on that hill that stayed saturated for so long). Cistus for me has been easy to grow, even in terrible soil -- has been one of my go-to plants for tough situations. Sun and drainage are all they ask, in my experience, and a little, occasional water to get through their first summer.

There are two barberries that can get to 10 feet tall around here that I've seen, Berberis darwinii and Berberis julianae. Berberis julianae is especially known for its vicious spines: https://landscapeplants.oregonstate.edu/plants/berberis-julianae.

I was wondering, Melissa, if you grow Phlomis lanata, the small Jerusalem Sage? It's another one that is long-lived and that I have had growing in terrible clay-gravel with very little summer water for years, even through our Great Drought.

A big non-native sage that I grow (and which reminds me of you!) is Salvia melissodora. From Mexico, it really does smell like grapes and, here, even blooms in the winter. But, it does need some irrigation in the summer. I was wondering if it is much grown over there?

Edit to add that Cistus creticus is very easy to grow from seed, by the way, as I found out by accident. I had gathered some capsules from it last year and put them in an unlabelled envelope ("Oh, I'll remember what those are...", famous last words!), and, of course, I had no idea what they were come this January. So I planted them and about 6 or 8 weeks after they came up finally realized what they were. So now I have 8 nice plants of it to put out this fall on the hillside. Thank goodness there is not yet a shortage of bad planting spots out there in the backyard, though the good spots are long gone and hotly contested!

Catspa, thanks for all this feedback. Re barberries, I have B. julianae. It's a very handsome shrub, one I admire highly, and it does well for me, but I've never had it get as big as Jackie describes, not even the one growing by the drainage ditch, which I think is about 6'x10'. I readily forgive it its thorns. I used to have B. darwinii, and it was lovely too, but it didn't last. S. melissodora is new to me, but when I hear 'summer irrigation', I turn my attention elsewhere. After the first year, plants here must get by on what Nature offers. Our local water supply has a lot of demands made on it.

About the phlomis, I grow several, gifted years ago as cuttings by a gardener I knew who was phlomis crazy, but I don't know their names. I think I have five kinds, two smaller than the massive standard kinds as I think of them. They all appear to be long lived, plus they seed.

I'll keep cystus in the back of my mind. Also I need to dedicate more attention to ceanothus. I've lost a couple to various causes, preventable.

Good luck in your gardening!