Plant in full sun - gardening in Utah

Flower & Garden Magazine, April-May, 1994 by Thomas A. Johnson

My wife Loves to Page through the seed catalogs that fill up our mailbox in midwinter. Occasionally, she'll break into sudden gales of laughter. It's not the pictures or even the names that amuse her; it's the description: "plant in full sun."

Welcome to gardening in our part of Utah. Situated at 5,000 feet above sea level in the eastern foothills of the Salt Lake valley, our steep rock- and scrub oak-covered lot gets more than full sun. It gets hot. Under clear skies summertime temperatures routinely range in the 90s and the humidity hovers around 30 percent on damp days. Add sporadic hot, dry south winds, with gusts up to 70 miles an hour, during the 200-plus days of the frost-free growing season and the result is skin to living in a blast furnace.

You can see why we find "plant in full sun" amusing. The catalog idea of full sun and our idea are two different things. That's not to say that you can't grow anything here but it is a challenge; after all, Utah is the second driest state in the nation with an average annual rainfall of just over 15 inches.

When we first started our gardens, we began with a lot of rocks and alkaline soil (in this area pH values range from 7.2 to 8.6) that at best was sandy when it wasn't gravel. Native plants on the property included Gambel oak, serviceberry, chokecherry and curl-leaf mountain mahogany. Rather than fight climate and soil, we opted for plants native to the area and plants that would survive our less-than-ideal conditions.

After devising a general plan of what would go where, we began improving the soil. My wife calls it "making dirt." First, we sifted out the rocks, which went into borders around beds, terraces and walls, and larger gravel, which we used for paths. Then we dug in a combination of wood shavings and aged horse manure we had gotten by the truckload from local horse barns.

With something approaching soil that would grow more than rocks, we began planting. Over the years we have found an amazing number of plants that will work in our conditions. Many of them, like the nonnative cotoneasters, are tough as a boot. In addition to needing very little water, cotoneasters are almost insect-free and give three seasons of color with small flowers in the spring and glossy green leaves during the summer that turn red-orange in the fall, setting off the plants' dark purple berries. Others, like lavender, give off a lovely scent, don't require much water and attract bees and butterflies. Coreopsis and gaillardia are two hardy perennials that need only to be deadheaded to keep up a continuous display through the summer. We've even discovered some plants, such as globe amaranth, that don't like water at all.

Throughout the gardens we've used plants native to this part of the country. In the front gardens we added a band of Gambel oaks (Quercus gambelii) to blend in with the vegetation on the surrounding hills and to provide a screen from the street when they reach their full height of 10 to 15 feet. Big-tooth maples (Acer saccharum grandidentatum) were planted on the south side to offer shade, a windbreak and orange splashes of color in the fall. Two clumps of aspen (Populus tremuloides), while they do require more water and are insect- and fungus-prone, give a lovely show of soft green in the spring and a brilliant display of yellow in the fall.

It has never been a hard and fast rule that all our plants must be drought-tolerant. The trick with plants that need somewhat gentler conditions, such as roses, is to find the right microclimate. We first planted roses in the front gardens with their east and south exposure, but no matter how much water they got or how deep the mulch they were sad to behold. Then we moved them to the west side of the house where they are protected from south winds and get only a few hours of afternoon sun; now they are doing famously.

Mulch has also helped our gardens immensely. I became a believer when I burned my hand on the bare soil one afternoon. It's amazing how a simple thing like three or more inches of mulch will keep the soil cool and retain moisture.

Which reminds me of water. In the heat of July and August about 2.5 inches of water per week is required to keep everything in this area green and growing. After several years of hand watering, we installed a drip irrigation system, which sends the water right where it is needed, keeping the weed population to a minimum. That and the fact that we have no turfgrass make our water bills about half of what our neighbors pay.

The key to our gardening success is working with the prevailing climatic and soil conditions as much as possible, rather than fighting them. Using a combination of natives and other well-suited plants, we have fewer insect and disease problems. Also, being big fans of benign neglect, we strive to keep maintenance chores to a minimum. The result is not a traditional Western garden, but it is an eye-catching and very satisfying garden.