Design Tips from Sisters Specialty Gardens

Sisters Brenda Gousha and Barbara McFadden, with Patrice Longmire, run Sisters Specialty Gardens in Rancho Santa Fe. Their clients demand year-round color, lush greenery, and no bare spots. Here are their streamlined techniques:

Use Perennials as Backbones, Annuals as Fillers

Flowering shrubs and perennials anchor beds; annuals provide quick, replaceable color. Example: a path accented by Westringia fruticosa 'Morning Light', purple butterfly bush, white 'Iceberg' roses, penstemons, dwarf Agapanthus 'Peter Pan', bordered by annual nemesias. Low chamomile and creeping thymes fill between.

Choose Easy-Care Plants

For hot, dry slopes, mix tough perennials in purples, pinks, grays: Armeria maritima, Artemisia 'Powis Castle', purple bearded iris, lavenders, pride of Madeira, salvias, Santa Barbara daisy, Santolina chamaecyparissus, society garlic, yarrow. Horizontal paths and rock walls hold the slope.

Tuck in Cutting Flowers

Plant sweet peas against a trellis for spring bouquets. Harvest often to prolong bloom. Start seeds in mid-fall, 2 inches apart in prepared soil.

Plant Seasonal Color in Pots

Fill pots twice yearly: October for fall-spring (Johnny jump-ups, pansies, violas), May for summer (white African daisies, lavender bacopa, pale pink geraniums, hot pink million bells, blue/white nemesias). Use 4 parts potting soil to 1 part worm castings. Pack pots full (16 4-inch annuals for a 2-ft pot). Water weekly in winter, twice weekly in summer; feed biweekly with liquid fertilizer.

Cover Bare Soil

Lay lime-colored Scotch moss (Sagina subulata) over soil in containers for a weathered, Old World look. Cut pieces from nursery flats to fit. Water regularly and feed occasionally.

Sisters Specialty Gardens: (760) 473-0234.