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3C THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, APRIL 10, 2015 A holistic approach to landscaping in the garden Ŷ with Leslie McClanahan Q: Your business, Arcadia Organic Landscaping, describes itself as doing “Holistic landscape design.” What does that mean? A: Holistic landscape design uses all the steps of a con- ventional design and then goes a step further by incor- poration details that insure a beautiful thriving garden that has a greatly reduced need (if any) for pesticides and chemical fertilizers. And even beyond that, my goal is for my gardens to enrich more than my clients enjoyment in their garden, my goal is to enrich the environment surrounding it. Encouraging benefi cial insects and oth- er wildlife adds balance to a garden. A simple example of this is choosing plants that provide bee forage year around. Encouraging benefi cial insects and other wildlife adds balance to a garden. Another example is hardscaping with native stone. Many years ago, the late Elaine Meyers hosted “Rainfor- est Gardening” on KMUN and I’ll never forget one epi- sode about snake motels! A little creepy, right? But the gist of it was that our common garter snake eats a tre- mendous quantity of slugs and snails. Well, snakes love warm stones and also to sleep between dry laid stones in stone walls. So, providing habitat for snakes will go a long way toward reducing slug and snail popula- tions. My gardens don’t look that much different from conventional gardens as there are still lawns, hedges, shrub, flower borders and hardscapes. It’s just that the materials chosen have an added purpose. Q: What is organic lawn and garden care? A: Organic lawn and garden care is using the best cultural practices so that the plants are never stressed and are all thriving as much as possible, so that they can fend off problems. We mulch, thatch, aerate, prune, and always use organic fertilizer. We are always watch- ing for aphids and slugs so that we can control them before their populations become difficult to control. And always, planting the right plant in the right place is key. Organic lawn care is extremely challenging just be- cause of the weeds. I think that an organic weed-free monoculture grass lawn of any considerable size is pretty much impossible. I have tried so many organic weed control products for lawns and they have always failed. I hope that someone reads this and can prove me wrong! Call me! When I have clients who want a lawn, I try to steer them to an herbal lawn seed mix. I have used this for more than 20 years and I love it. It fixes its own nitrogen, provides bee and beneficial insect forage, needs less mowing and watering than a conventional lawn. But it’s not for everyone. And lastly, organic gardening only uses nonorganic herbicides, fungicides, or fertilizers as a very last resort. I admit, last year I had to use a pesticide to control Eu- ropean crane fly because the population was just too large to use beneficial nematodes (which is our usual defense). Writers, recipes welcome JOSHUA BESSEX — The Daily Astorian Leslie McClanahan poses near one of her landscaping projects in Tolovana Park. Q: What ways have you found to lower mainte- nance in the gardens you design? A: Hate to sound like a broken record, but again, a good design will lower maintenance. That said, most maintenance is weeding, especially in young gardens that have a lot of exposed ground. Mulching with com- post or bark works well. I’m not a huge fan of bark for many reasons, but I understand why some people are locked into that idea. The compost mulch is ideal, and you can always plant an annual like nasturtiums that will smother weeds during the growing season. Q: Describe the joy you gain from gardening. A: For me, gardening is a spiritual practice. I can al- ways ‘come back to myself’ when I’m looking up into a tree, gazing deeply into a flower, or just marveling a really good dirt! Leslie McClanahan has worked in the horticulture busi- ness for more than 34 years, starting at Raintree Garden Center in Seaside. She now owns Arcadia Organic Land- scaping in Tolovana Park. Fukushima radiation has reached North American shores Woods Hole chemical ocean- ographer Ken Buesseler empha- sized that the radiation is at very Seaborne radiation from Ja- low levels that aren’t expected to pan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster harm human health or the envi- has reached North America. ronment. Scientists at the Woods “Even if the levels were Hole Oceanographic Institu- twice as high, you could still tion detected small amounts of swim in the ocean for six hours cesium-134 and cesium-137 in every day for a year and receive a sample of seawater taken in a dose more than a thousand February from a dock on Van- times less than a single dental couver Island, British Colum- X-ray,” Buesseler said. “While bia. that’s not zero, that’s a very low ,W¶V WKH ¿UVW WLPH UDGLRDFWLY risk.” ity from the March 2011 triple Massive amounts of contam- PHOWGRZQKDVEHHQLGHQWL¿HGRQ inated water were released from West Coast shores. the crippled nuclear plant follow- By TRACY LOEW Statesman Journal If you are a writer who would like to submit a col- umn on gardening, beliefs, technology or have a rec- ipe to share, contact Sue Cody at The Daily Astorian: scody@dailyastorian.com or 503-325-3211, ext. 218. We also welcome suggestions for short feature stories that staff members could pursue. AP Photo/David Guttenfelder, Pool The crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power sta- tion is seen through a bus window in Okuma, Japan Nov. 12, 2011. Tiny amounts of radiation have reached the shores of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. ing a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami. More radiation was released to the air, then fell to the sea. Frustrated by the absence of monitoring by U.S. federal agen- cies, Buesseler last year launched a crowd-funded, citizen-science seawater sampling project. He’s tracked the radiation plume across 5,000 miles of the 3DFL¿F2FHDQXVLQJKLJKO\VHQ sitive, expensive equipment at his Cape Cod, Massachusetts, laboratory. There, he analyzes samples sent to him by West Coast volunteers and scientists aboard research cruises. For the latest local news and sports action, visit www.dailyastorian.com FREE PUBLISHED THE FIRST FRIDAY OF EACH MONTH January 2015 ess in the Chronicling the Joy of Busin n Columbia-Pacific Regio striverbusinessjournal crbizjournal.com • facebook.com/coa Volume 10 • Issue 1 stry spo allenges Inside: Indu copes with ch Shellfish farm an conditions oce nging s optimistic despite cha tlight: Taylor remain Available at a newsstand near you NEWS County makes a splash PacifIc in the pot biz page 10 NEWS Seaside Muffler and Off-Road 21 revs up its reputation page BOAT OF THE MONTH The Sadie out of South Bend, Wash. page 24 crbizjou rn a l.com
