Cactus Tactics: North San Diego garden cuts water bills


This article originally appeared in San Diego Home/Garden magazine.


Text and photos copyright (c) Debra Lee Baldwin. All rights reserved.


Outside the large windows of her home in the foothills north of San Diego, hawks surf updrafts as Elisabeth Crouch describes her cactus and succulent garden, and, matter-of-factly, how to kill a rattlesnake. "You need two shovels. One to keep its head pinned down, and the other to slice through it." She is petite and soft-spoken, with a slight German accent: An unlikely rattler rustler.


Elisabeth Crouch holding a golden barrel cactus (Echinocactus grusonii). Agave attenuata in background.

                               Elisabeth Crouch holds a golden barrel cactus

Elisabeth, who is married to Bob Crouch, a retired scientist and farmer, knows what attracts people to this rocky neighborhood and what doesn't. When she first arrived in the mid-1970s, she says, "I was afraid to get out of the car, for fear a snake would jump out at me."

The Crouches have occupied their present home, on 2-1/2 rocky acres with top-of-the-world views, for six years. They loved the house and its location, but native chaparral had been cleared from the property, and tinder-dry weeds had taken over. Their criteria for landscaping was to minimize the fire hazard and to compliment their home's Arizona contemporary architecture. Ideally, the garden would be lush and interesting, and require minimal water and maintenance.

Elisabeth immediately thought of cacti and succulents; she was once a member of the Palomar Cactus and Succulent Society, and had helped do installations at the Fair. Bob's only requirement was that their garden be colorful.


                 Yellow-flowered aloes and orange California poppies bloom in spring.


To amend her garden's decomposed granite soil, she brought in compost---tons of it---and spread it everywhere prior to planting. "I think that's why everything does so well," Elisabeth says. Her source, Mountain Meadow Mushroom Farm at 26948 N. Broadway, Escondido, gives away compost free of charge to anyone willing to bag and transport it.

Alongside their upward-curving driveway the Crouches installed a dry creek bed lined with smooth boulders. An immense Italian terracotta pot, which had to be craned into place, echoes the circular lines of the home's entry. The large pot effectively lends character to the garden and unites it with the home's architecture.

Amid the garden's granite boulders and scrub oaks grow aeoniums, agaves, cereus, aloes, fuzzy white cleistocactus, dasylirions, ferocactus and much more. In spring, yellow spires of Aloe vera contrast with deep purple lantana and sea lavender (Limonium perezii). Cylindrical Echinopsis (Trichocereus) cacti bloom in neon hues, their satiny flowers 8 inches across. Kangaroo paws send up crimson flowers, seasonal California poppies are searing orange, Senecio mandraliscae groundcover forms drifts of blue, and pale chartreuse Euphorbia ingens trees punctuate a cloudless Southern California sky.


Succulent garden on hillside with trichocereus (echinopsis) in bloom


Barrel cactus, trichocereus, columnar cactus and yuccas are essential to the garden's drought-tolerant landscaping. Frost-tender plants such as Agave attenuata (upper left) are nestled amid boulders, which retain warmth.



Elisabeth does most of the gardening herself, and has scratches on her arms to prove it. She routinely rearranges barrel cacti the size of soccer balls. "I wear really good garden gloves, dig up the cactus, hold it by its roots, then maneuver it with wadded newspaper." She spends "about one day every two weeks" in the garden, and occasionally hires day laborers. "Gardening is a great stress reliever. But I'm a good-weather gardener. I'm not out there if it is too cold, wet or hot."

Amazingly, the water bill for the home and 2-1/2-acre property (an acre of which is garden) averages under $60 a month. "That's because we don't have to water," Elisabeth says. As for rattlesnakes, "In 34 years since I moved here, I haven't seen very many---maybe four or five." She adds with a smile, "I now know they don't chase after you."


White flowered echinopsis (trichocereus) in dry garden


A white-flowering echinopsis (trichocereus) in bloom resembles a wedding bouquet.


Columnar cactus in bloom in drought-tolerant garden


Despite the size and heft of this fence-post cactus, its flowers are small and delicate.


Bird atop a columnar cereus in succulent garden


A bird surveys the garden from atop a cereus.


Agave americana 'Mediopicta Alba' (tuxedo agave) in waterwise succulent garden


Agave americana 'Mediopicta Alba' (tuxedo agave) with purple lantana.

 

 

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