By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

In the course of a garden remodel for Sherry Burke of Bainbridge Island, WA, designer Susan Calhoun (Plantswoman Design) built a wonderful vegetable-cleaning station that keeps dirt in the garden and out of the house.

It comes in two parts.

The heart of the system is a cleaning table complete with sink and cold-water supply. The sink was a freebee Sherry picked up by the road (and Kohler, no less). Susan made an opening in the tabletop for the sink and installed a rudimentary drain pipe that channels rinse water back into the garden.

Clean water comes through a self-coiling hose that's fed by a ground-level hose bib under the table. Sherry uses the shower setting on an adjustable hose nozzle for the rinse, and lets washed veggies drain in a collander before she takes them indoors for the table. When she's done, she hangs the hose hang from a hook next to the sink.

The small compost bin on the left side of the table holds the wilted leaves, split fruit, and carrot tops that inevitably come with the harvest.

The vegetable garden itself grows in galvanized stock tanks (below) that keep the crops elevated, where they're easy to plant, tend and harvest. Herbs grow in the ground around the stock tanks.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

I try not to look at Dirt Couture, the retail portion of Cindy McNatt's garden blog, Dirt Du Jour, because--between Coldwater Creek and Chico on-line sales--I have enough temptations as it is.

But, visiting her garden recently and seeing some of her products first hand, I got curious about what her best sellers might be.

Turns out Hose Clothes, which you might describe as tights for the common garden hose and which turn a utilitarian item into garden decor, are her top seller.  Especially in this leopard version.

Guess gals just can't get enough of animal prints.

And her best customers?  Germans.  Not sure why that surprises and tickles me but it does.

Air Head, a foliar feeder designed for tillandsia, is another customer favorite.

Tillandsias are such easy plants, says, McNatt, people forget they do need some care.  Soak them in water at least once a month, mist once a week and feed them with this mist-form fertilizer every other week, and they'll stay healthy and happy, she promises.

Here's another best seller.  When a friend complained about having to buy a 50-lb. bag of cement just to make one  hypertufa trough, McNatt saw a marketing opportunity.

Premix the hypertufa ingredients and sell in a size just right for one larger container or a couple of small ones.  Just add water and you're ready to sculpt.

Her mix also includes some colorant, which is a nice touch.

And the artisan-made concrete bowl below?  A little too pricey to be one of her best sellers most likely. But, maybe, why I've been wise to stay off Dirt Couture until now.  Tempting, very tempting.

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

When gardeners have asked me about deer control, I've always responded that a tall fence is the only sure thing. It still is, but a new repellent comes close in effectiveness. Called Bobbex, it was shown to be more effective than nine other commercial repellents (including coyote urine) in tests run by the University of Connecticut last year.

Made from a combination of ingredients that blends the scents of rotten eggs, garlic, fish, clove oil, and vinegar (among other things), it works by mimicking predator scents, so it is classed as a fear repellent. It also tastes awful, so deer have at least two reasons to stay clear of it. You'll want to bring cut flowers in from the garden immediately before you spray, or at least a day later, after the odor has had time to dissipate.

Bobbex requires reapplication every couple of weeks. Following a slightly less frequent application regimen, the University of Connecticut gave it a 93 percent protection index (with a fence at 100 percent, and the control—no protection at all—at 49 percent). Other repellents scored across a range that ran from 50 percent to 83 percent. Coyote urine earned only a 53 percent protection index (and how would you harvest it anyway?).

The repellent trials were done by measuring damage done by white-tail deer browsing Japanese yew (Taxus cuspidata). West of the Cascades and Sierra, most deer in the West (like the one pictured above) are blacktails, but the difference between them and their eastern cousins should be negligible, at least in dietary issues.

You can buy Bobbex from local retailers (but not big box stores) and such online sources as Amazon.com.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

On Wednesday I suggested that anyone interested in losing their lawn or sustaining it a more environmentally friendly manner check out this month's Garden Designers Roundtable where those bloggers tackled this issue along with guest contributors from the Lawn Reform Coalition.

I have been reading those posts myself since and came across this opportunity in Genevieve Schmidt's post about ways to keep your lawn but reduce its environmental impact.  

One of the ways, she says, is to revert to a mower where you supply the power.  And with the new Fiskars Momentum Reel Mower, says Schmidt, you can do that without being Hercules.  She's giving one away.  Click here to enter the contest.  Don't delay, though.  Today's the last day to enter.

But read some of the other posts on the Roundtable, too.  Great information all in one spot.

By Johanna Silver, Sunset test garden coordinator

You're coming, right? 

Here are all the details about the weekend. 

Other than speaking on the home and garden stage at 2:15 on Saturday and noon on Sunday, I will be tethered to the test garden, ready to show it off and answer any questions. Come say hi!

Highlights in the test garden include a guest installation by Matthew Levesque, author of The Revolutionary Yardscape. He's built us some amazing decking out of all recycled materials. He'll also be speaking on the home and garden stage at 12:45 on Sunday.

We also have lots of new plants and plenty of ideas on how to mix ornamentals with your edibles. 

See you there!

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

You've heard it before: good gardeners take the trouble to learn botanical names so there won't be any confusion about what they're buying and growing. I'm quite sure I've given the lecture myself. "There are at least a half dozen plants representing several species with the common name 'loosestrife'," I say; "common names change from region to region, and in some cases from (human) family to family. You just can't trust them."

But in the years I've done this, nobody has had the presence of mind to ask me why the RHS Plant Finder, the last word on botanical names, has to be updated every year. Are botanical names as undependable as common names? The answer, I'm afraid, is "yes."

Consider this example. Because even an annual update of the RHS Plant Finder can't keep pace with botanical name changes, England's Royal Botanic Gardens (run by Royal Horticultural Society) and Missouri Botanical Garden created a wonderful web site called The Plant List. You can go there, key in the name of a genus and species, and learn whether the name is accepted, or a synonym, or unresolved. It turns out that of more than a million species names you might enter, about a quarter are unresolved, and nearly half are synonyms—that is, they were once, or were once thought to be, the correct name. But no more.

Further, when The Plant List gives you its judgment on the status of a name, it doesn't just say yay or nay; it supplies a confidence rating. For example, when I checked American elderberry, which was moved from S. nigra canadensis to S. canadensis, the confirming page tells me that they are mostly sure (two stars out of three) that this is right. There are even confidence ratings for synonyms and unresolved names—they are slightly certain (one star out of three), for example, that the nomenclatural status of Sambucus alba is unresolved. This reminds me of Winston Churchill's famous assessment of his prewar government: "they go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent."

The changes in genus names are shocking. Remember Chrysanthemum? Now it's been split into Ajania, Arctanthemum, Argyranthemum, Coleostephus, Glebionus, Leucanthemum, Nipponanthemum,  Rhodanthemum, and Tanacetum. And if you're a native plant lover, you get to move Alaska cedar (a Chamaecyparis) to Xanthocyparis. And Eucalyptus? I don't even want to talk about it.

But with all these moves, guess what hasn't changed? Well, Shasta daisy (which has worn the names Chrysanthemum X superbum, C. maximum, Leucanthemum X superbum, and L. maximum) is still Shasta daisy. Alaska cedar is still Alaska cedar, and ponytail palm (once Beaucarnea recurvata, then Nolina recurvata, then back to Beaucarnea recurvata again) is still ponytail palm. Of course, it isn't really a palm, but we won't go there just now.

Everyone's hope—my hope, anyway—is that present advances in DNA fingerprinting will help taxonomists determine actual relationships in a way that allows them to fix names, then go away. But that's a future we will never see. For now, I feel my confidence in common names rapidly climbing from one star toward three.

By Johanna Silver, Sunset test garden coordinator

I may or may not be crazy. I keep thinking that I'm seeing the start of some moss growth on my hypertufa-ish slab. I can't really tell. It's subtle at best.

I know what you're thinking -- it's the wrong time of year. I know, I know. We just got so excited when all the moss started growing in winter, but it was mid spring by the time I made the moss milkshake. 

I'm trying to keep it misted in hopes that it'll grow by Celebration Weekend. But I think the more likely scenario is that it'll be the coolest moss project you've ever seen in April 2012. Sigh.

To solve the mystery of whether or not anything is actually happening, I've decided to put to work another product that I've been meaning to trial.

PlantCam is the coolest thing ever! It's a weatherproof camera (still or video) designed especially for a garden setting. You program it to take pictures or movies whenever you want, like once a day at a certain time, or every hour while it's light. Then it streams the pictures or clips together into a time-lapse of your garden.

I actually set it up last year and monitored the dahlias in bloom. The problem was I deleted all the photos before converting them into a movie. Let's just say it was operator error. I make a lot of those. 

I rigged it back up and am having it take a photo of the moss once a day. Hopefully it'll be able to help solve the mystery of whether or not I'm crazy (at least when it comes to this).

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

For years I've been interested Pamela Crawford's containers, which do a great job showing off annuals and perennials in baskets, window boxes, and on patio stands. The containers come with coco fibre liners, so they're easy to plant from the top or the sides. Last year, Kinsman Company asked people who used these containers to send in photos of what they'd achieved. I was amazed at the results—these are home gardeners taking their own photos, not pros—so I got permission from Graham Kinsman to publish some of them here.

Frank Bartolomeo, Myrtle Beach, SC

Patty Classen, Newfield, NY

P. Michaelides
Warwick, RI

Phyllis Blosser
North Liberty IN

You can mail-order Pamela Crawford containers and get instructions for planting them from Kinsman Company.

By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine

Apple blossoms are still weeks away, but when they come, they must be pollinated or you'll get no fruit. With honey bee populations in decline from Colony Collapse Disorder and other things, native mason bees are more important than ever.

You can help them most by supplying housing. They emerge about now, breed, then nest in holes whose entrances they seal with mud. Two housing systems work especially well. Both are pictured above under the south-facing eaves of Franki Baccellieri's house, where they get a little extra warmth and shelter from the rain. That's Franki at right, nibbling on petals of pineapple guava. She's so successful at multiplying mason bees that she has become one of the Home Orchard Society's mason bee propagators—which is to say that she puts out tubes in her fruit- and flower-filled garden, the mason bees fill them, and the Home Orchard Society sells them (they're sold out this year).

The horizontal bucket above is full of these 5/16-in.-diameter tubes, bent in half and thus doubled. The ones whose ends have been sealed with mud have mason bees inside. You can order the empty tubes from the Home Orchard Society for $6 per bundle of 27 tubes, or from the Kinsman Company for about $15 per 100.

You can also use wooden blocks like the one in the top right corner of the picture above. They are easy to make just by drilling an untreated 4 by 4 with 5/16-in. holes, or order one from a company like Planet Natural.

You can learn more about mason bees (plus grafting, fruit growing, and lots of other great garden stuff!) at the Home Orchard Society's annual Fruit Propagation Fair on Saturday March 19, 2011. Hours are 11 to 5 at Canby Fairgrounds, about 40 minutes south of Portland, OR.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

In Wednesday's post I mentioned how much I learned about successful produce growing from Kathryn Agresto, the culinary gardener at the Park Avenue restaurant in Stanton. 

For instance, I found out one of her favorite tools is polyethylene T-Tape.  This irrigation system is similar to drip irrigation except that it's flat not tubular and instead of emitters it has slits every 8 inches.  T-Tape is a farmer's favorite but is  also available in smaller lengths more suitable for homeowners.  Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply, for instance, offers it in 100 ft. rolls.

One of the things Agresto likes about T-Tape is you don't see it.  Or at least you don't have to.  While farmers usually leave the tape on the soil surface for expediency--see the example below--if you have a set up as handsome as the one as Park Avenue, why spoil the aesthetics? 

Besides being prettier, burying the irrigation has other advantages, says Agresto.  The tape lasts longer, for one thing. Also a dry soil surface seems to prevent a lot of common disease problems, says Agresto.

 For shallow-rooted plants like lettuce, she might bury the tape only one or two inches.  But with tomatoes she might go as low as seven or eight.  "I had terrific tomatoes with this method last year," she says.  And last year, remember, was, for most of us, a horrid year for tomatoes.

Agresto's lavish praise of T-Tape got me curious about what we used in Sunset's test garden.  Turns out we use T-Tape as well.  Johanna Silver, our test garden coordinator, didn't purchase it herself; a supply was already on hand when she took on the job.  But she's sold on the stuff now.  "I like it so much more than drip," she says.  "It never clogs."