Hello From The Desert
In which I say hi and share my latest project - my garden. And a little art on the side.
Hello hello. There is so much to report and also so little. As a result, I have been quiet on the art front, because I have been largely working on yard projects in the desert. Mostly I have been digging. I have the best arms of my life, even better than the Winter of ‘23 when I shoveled all 850 inches of snow off my deck.
Last year, I hired a landscape designer (Yardfarmer, Hi Daryl!!) to help me envision what to do with our half acre of red dirt and gravel. A decade ago, the advice was to xeriscape, which meant cactus and gravel. But turns out while cactus and gravel might save on your water usage, it is:
HOT.
Not low maintenance (SO. MANY. WEEDs!).
Not inviting.
And we have a lot of open, hot, dirty gravel. Our dogs are filthy all the time. We track dirt into the house constantly, and I would really LOVE to have a lush garden even in the desert. Turns out, you can, IF you do it right with lots of native and drought tolerant plants. So the new advice is to plant lots of plants, but the right kind of plants, and you get a beautiful garden/yard, that doesn’t use much water, doesn’t need much weeding, and is a huge boon for the birds and the pollinators. It’s a Win-Win.
For a long time, I thought we needed to turn this place into a productive garden to make food, but it’s just not practical for us. I am not a farmer. BUT I do love flowers, and flowers and plants are good for animals, and so I’ve changed my mind on what constitutes “productive” and recognized that the highest good for this space is for it to be filled with lots of plants. Turns out, I don’t have to make everything about productivity and hustling.
This new movement has many many different names: Sustainable Landscaping, the New Perennial Movement, the Dutch Wave (Google Piet Oudolf who is credited for this), New Naturalism, and probably other names I don’t even know about. This movement is not just for people in the desert like me, it’s applicable for anyone anywhere. Plant lots of plants (the right plants for your area), use rainwater as much as possible, direct your earth and hardscaping to help absorb the rainwater, and you’ll be supporting local wildlife in the process, all while saving money and effort (well after you install it that is). Plus, you can get rid of your boring lawn.
And while some water districts are asking people to get rid of their lawns, which is great, please though, I’m BEGGING YOU, do not install cactus and gravel. There is a better way. I’m speaking from experience, we did it over 10 years ago and it is not great. I can’t wait to tear it all out and fill it with plants.
Follow Yardfarmer on all her feeds and you’ll get the gist of it. She does such a wonderful job explaining everything and has a lot of great resources as well - her YouTube page is especially helpful. I’m also going deep down the rabbit hole of rainwater harvesting to utilize as much as I can from the water that falls from the sky. For more local resources in your area, your state Ag university has an “Extension” which is in charge of helping people and farmers grow stuff and they will have a ton of resources on local, native plants and gardening. Just type in “[Your State] Extension” and it’ll pop up. They will also likely have demonstration gardens, local workshops, and more resources than you will know what to do with. Also search for local nurseries and garden centers that focus on native plants for more assistance.
The only downside - there is a lot of prep work before you can even put plants in the ground. New drip irrigation lines, moving earth and dirt to direct rainwater, digging basins to collect it, installing french drains and irrigation trenches to move it where you want to go, re aligning gutters and downspouts to utilize the water that falls on roofs. You could even go deep and take your greywater from your shower and washing machine towards your garden. That’s a lot though, especially if your drains go into a sewer line in concrete, like ours. But, if you have a crawl space, you can still do it.
All that to say, I have been doing a lot of digging. And have a lot of digging yet to go. I installed a new irrigation box in advance of planting next fall. I did not know how to do sprinkler plumbing before hand, but the men at Sprinkler World will walk you through it. I am sure being a cute girl helped immensely. Before all this, I was incredibly intimidated by landscape irrigation, but I am learning, and also allowing for this to be a long term project, and a process. It won’t get done this year, and that’s ok.
Now I am working on installing pavers around my studio to make things less dirty and to direct rainwater into the garden. Someday, I will have a food forest too, which I am very excited about. Also big, shady trees and a small drought tolerant area of lawn made with super low-water buffalo grass. Plus a field of wildflowers, which is THE BEST.
But I’m doing it all myself, so it’s taking time. I have been trying to limit myself to 2-3 hours of digging a day, to not kill myself. Digging and pick axing compacted dirt and gravel is no easy feet. And despite the slowness, I am loving it. I wish I could just devote myself to this project totally right now. I am 100% grounded right now.
And now I walk around my neighborhood on dog walks looking at everyone’s yards and noticing how many of them are not utilizing rainwater harvesting and sending all the water directly to the streets and the storm drains. I see yards that were previously lawns being converted to Xeriscaped gravel hot ovens and it makes me sad. And then there are other yards that are lovely and lush with gardens that are full of plants, and there are more birds there than anywhere else.
It fills me with a great deal of pride to know that I am working on tending to the space that I have to make it better. Better for us of course, because it will be beautiful and cooler, but better for the birds, the pollinators, the lizards, the bats, the neighborhood cats who will have more places to hide, my resident roadrunner who spends their winters in our yard, my neighbors who will benefit from my lush yard. And when a big rain storm rips through here and dumps a ton of water, someday (when I finally get the project done!) my yard will absorb it all instead of sending it off to flood the streets.
Anyways, that’s what I’ve been doing lately. And I’m grateful we’ve had some cool springtime temps to help me with the digging. Rain this weekend has been delightful, because we are in drought conditions already.
There is art going on too, but at a slower pace, because that’s what I am giving myself right now. But you can expect more desert gardening from me in the future (and more art of course). My yard is somewhere that I can immediately have an impact on right now, and can feel good that I’m making a beneficial contribution to our lives, my town, and even the world at large. Besides, I’ve been obsessed with plants for ages, so it’s good to get my hands deep into the earth.
What I’m Into This Week
I read every one of Heather Havrilesky’s advice columns. She is always on point, and this one was especially. As a recovering depressionic (depressionist?), this is in writing how I feel about it all. Her Ask Molly substack is also great, which is a little on the darker side. The most recent one about her conversation with AI was fascinating, horrifying, and relieving all at the same time.
Go immediately watch this 1 hour mockumentary on Netflix. I laughed SO HARD. The Cunk on Earth series was also fucking delightful. And I dressed as her for Halloween last year. No one knew what my costume was, but oh well.
Magnitude 4.1 earthquake shakes Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City had a small earthquake last week, which I missed, but I have felt a few over the years. We have a pretty decent fault line that runs along the Wasatch Front and the “Big One” could hit at any point. This article goes a bit into the fault line and a bit also about Grove Karl Gilbert, a geological genius from the past.
Watershed Management Certification
I don’t need another job, but should I want a different one, I would seriously consider going into sustainable landscaping and get this certification. I want to take this course on rainwater harvesting JUST BECAUSE.
Did you watch/listen to Pete Buttigieg on Flagrant? I have no idea what Flagrant is, but I loved listening to Pete. I was also impressed this week by JB Pritzker with his firey speech and his dedication to actually doing something about climate change. He’s definitely one to watch. While I’m normally averse to billionaires, especially ones that use their money to just make penis-shaped rockets to make up for the lack of a real one, this billionaire, actually seems to care.
I’ve been making hummus from scratch lately and I’m obsessed. It’s SO. MUCH. BETTER. Then, buy yourself some Everything Bagel seasoning, drizzle on a little olive oil, and enjoy with your favorite chip, cracker, or veggie. I’m also a big fan of hummus, cheese, pesto, and veggies on a sandwich for lunch.
Anna Brones deftly writes about “Hustling” this week and since I’m in an ANTI-Hustle phase, it was very much appreciated. Anytime I hear someone talk about Hustle, I think of the 1975 disco song “The Hustle” and I want to reword it “Don’t Do the Hustle” Also, I wish I was in the Bay Area to see the Ruth Asawa Retrospective.
What are you into this week?
Amazing! On the shower water: Install an outdoor shower and use that gray water for irrigation. I haven't showered inside in years, just so much nicer out in the open, and you don't waste the water!