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
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Shellfish farm
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Seaside Muffler and Off-Road
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