- 7 months ago
Today on Architectural Digest, we’re joined by AD100 landscape designer Carlos Campos Morera of Geoponika to tackle your top plant and garden questions. Does talking to your plants actually do anything? How do you know which plants are safe for kids and pets? Morera shares his expertise to help solve your burning garden and landscaping problems.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00How do I make sure the plants in my garden are safe for kids and pets?
00:04Well, that depends on how dumb your kids and pets are.
00:09My name is Carlos Campos Moreira.
00:11I am a landscape designer at Geoponica in Los Angeles,
00:16and I'm going to answer some of your landscape and garden questions.
00:24This is Uncle Johnny, who taught me everything I know about landscaping
00:28and who I worked for every summer since I was 14.
00:31He is going to be helping me answer some questions today
00:34and hopefully not getting in any arguments.
00:37All right, let's see.
00:39How do I make sure the plants in my garden are safe for kids and pets?
00:43Oh, everyone asks this question.
00:45If you Google it, 90% of plant material is poisonous to someone somewhere.
00:51I wouldn't go down that hole.
00:53But stuff like cycads, sago palms, that group of plants is toxic to kids and pets.
01:03It has a neurotoxin in its seeds and leaves.
01:07And unless you're on the more risque side, I would avoid.
01:11Also stuff from the Datura family is pretty poisonous,
01:14although some people grind it up and smoke it.
01:17So, you know, to each their own.
01:19So they have like these trumpet-shaped flowers on the tree form.
01:24Datura ritei is a native, which has white trumpet flowers
01:29that come out from a low spreading bush.
01:31It's one petal around the stamen as opposed to like a daisy,
01:35which is a composite and has many, many petals.
01:38A lot of the time, it's about the spikiness of plants as well.
01:41There's a whole class of cactus called a puntia, which are like the paddle cactus,
01:46which from a distance look like they're the most demure of all the cactus,
01:51because they don't have long spines.
01:53But they do have something called glochids,
01:54which are like tiny hair-like spines in bunches that are the worst spines of all,
02:01because they just get into your skin.
02:03They're so small, you can't even get them out with like a tweezer.
02:06What's the easiest thing to grow in a garden?
02:09Weeds.
02:11Do I need to use different soil for different plants?
02:14Hell yeah.
02:16Let me get some soil samples.
02:18Where does this plant come from and what is the soil type that it requires?
02:23And so in a sort of basic sense, there's plants that grow in tropical conditions
02:29where most of the soil is composed of organic matter.
02:34Leaves that fall to the floor decompose into soil.
02:39And so if the plants that you were planting were coming from those areas,
02:42you would want to plant, you know, something like this.
02:46It has a lot more organic material in it, you know, and it looks like classic soil.
02:51Dark and rich.
02:53Dark and rich.
02:54A gradation down from that is, and there's gradations in between all of this,
02:59so I'm just showing you the big steps.
03:01A drier environment where there's a lot more minerals in the soils.
03:05There's a combination of leaves decomposing.
03:08There's sand and there's rocks that are decomposing as well.
03:12So here you see different size rock material.
03:16And then there's also a little bit of organic matter.
03:19So like it'll increase drainage.
03:21Plants from those areas, they don't like to sit in water for a long time.
03:27They're not accustomed to it.
03:28Because there's rocks in the ground, the water goes in.
03:31Some of it hangs around, but a lot of it drains right through the rocks.
03:35And then on the extreme ends of things,
03:38that would be something like planting in pure pumice,
03:41which is a rock that retains a little bit of moisture,
03:46but there's almost no organic material in it.
03:50So plants that come from hyper arid conditions,
03:53you'd want to plant with something like that.
03:55But then you can sort of use soil to augment your conditions.
03:59For example, if I was planting a succulent garden in Florida,
04:03and these succulents took this middle type of soil
04:06that has some organic material and some rock material,
04:10but I'm planting it in a place like Florida that's hyper, hyper wet,
04:15then I would maybe use the soil that is 100% rock material
04:21to offset the amount of water that is being introduced.
04:25The size of the roots of plants will typically tell you how coarse the soil is
04:32that that plant is accustomed to.
04:34If a plant has super fine roots, they're very thin and delicate,
04:39that means that the soil substrate, where they come from,
04:42is a much more delicate, fine soil.
04:46If you plant it in here, you know, in this thick rock substrate,
04:49there's going to be lots of air gaps in there,
04:51and they're not going to be able to find their way to moisture.
04:54And then conversely, if your plant take it out of the container
04:57and it's got like super beefy jumbo roots,
05:01that means that plant is used to much larger substrate.
05:04You don't want to plant with super fine soil
05:06because that could suffocate those roots.
05:08If they're not used to that amount of density.
05:12Does talking to my plants actually do anything?
05:15Yes and no.
05:18I don't think they understand what you're saying,
05:20but maybe they can sense it.
05:22But more importantly, it's about a relationship
05:24that you're cultivating with this thing.
05:27And you're looking at it and regarding it as a living being.
05:30And that type of respect and attention
05:33makes you a better caretaker of a plant.
05:38How to integrate a playground seamlessly into a backyard?
05:42This is a good question.
05:44Aesthetically, I don't, I can't say,
05:46I don't know what your backyard looks like.
05:47You can approach it more philosophically.
05:49The three things that I typically think about is,
05:52one is watching how kids play, take kids into nature
05:57and watch how they traverse the landscape,
06:00what they find interesting,
06:01how they use the topography of the place
06:05and take your cues from that.
06:07The second thing I usually do is look at the playgrounds
06:10from the 1950s and the 1960s.
06:13In that golden age of playground,
06:16they were getting artists like Isamo Noguchi
06:20or scientists or engineers like Buckminster Fuller
06:24to design playgrounds.
06:26Aesthetically, they were being designed
06:28by artists and engineers and thinkers.
06:30So that automatically creates something
06:33that's like visually interesting.
06:36Whether it was a study of geometric forms in the universe
06:39or the way children interact with space
06:43or with the textures of stone and masonry,
06:48it almost doesn't matter if it matches aesthetically
06:51to your house or not.
06:52The thought behind it shines through
06:55and they become interesting things onto themselves.
06:58The third thing I like to think about,
07:00how does this playground grow with the child?
07:04Hyper-specificity has such a short shelf life,
07:09whereas a simple mound with a hole
07:12that you can go inside of it
07:14could be a cave for a three-year-old
07:16or it could be an imaginary horse corral for a nine-year-old
07:20or it's a place to escape your annoying parents
07:23and gossip as a 16-year-old.
07:25Are there plants I can be using to help protect
07:30my home from wildfires?
07:32Yes-ish.
07:33It's a combination of things.
07:35One important thing is how well irrigated your plants are.
07:40So this is, I guess, a little bit of a catch-22s
07:42in California.
07:43The more that you water it,
07:45the greener and lusher the plants are,
07:47the less it becomes a fire hazard.
07:49The other element to consider is breaks
07:52so that the landscape is not a solid sea of plants
07:57right up to the house.
07:58That there's moments where there's hardscape
08:01intersecting the planting
08:03so that a ground fire can't spread completely.
08:06A bunch of trees that are all,
08:08their canopies are all touching all the way up to the house
08:11would be an issue because it's a straight shot
08:14for the fire just to move across onto the house.
08:16And then comes the type of plants that you landscape with.
08:20So succulent plants are typically much safer
08:25to landscape with than wood-bodied plants
08:29like shrubs or trees, right?
08:31Because a succulent body is filled with water.
08:34So obviously that's going to be harder to burn
08:37and the fire would sort of dissipate a little bit
08:40when it came in contact with one of these plants.
08:43You could call all of these methods
08:45and there's some more as well, fire-scaping.
08:48What's the best thing you can do for your garden?
08:51The best thing you can do for your garden
08:53is to look at it every day.
08:57What makes a garden successful?
08:59Does the garden make you happy?
09:01And does the garden make the plants happy?
09:03Most plants, when you're planting them,
09:05there is some transition time
09:07where there's a little bit of a freak out there
09:09in a new environment, they've been repotted,
09:11they're not the happiest.
09:12So I would really start to assess things
09:14three weeks to a month later.
09:17Beyond that obvious stuff that's glaring, right?
09:20Where the plant shrivels up or it turns a different color
09:22or it starts to droop.
09:24There is another level that you reach,
09:27which good gardeners know of
09:29and people that work in greenhouses know of
09:31where it's a sixth sense.
09:33Becoming in tune with your garden and your plants
09:36where you just get a weird feeling about it.
09:38The plant just doesn't feel right to you.
09:40And I can't tell you how many times we've done that.
09:42We've got to unpot this entire tree
09:45and look at its roots
09:46and you look and there's mealy all over the roots.
09:48And you're like,
09:49there was nothing about this thing
09:50that physically showed that.
09:52It was just, it gave off a sense.
09:54And you should always listen to that intuition.
09:56It's usually correct.
09:59People get really distraught when a plant dies
10:03and I get it,
10:04but I've had tens of thousands of plants die
10:10under my watch, unfortunately.
10:12And most plant people and growers have had the same.
10:17The plant is a being like any other being
10:19and it unfortunately sometimes gets sick
10:22outside of your control or it's too old
10:24and it dies.
10:25And you just got to take the lessons
10:27and then keep moving.
10:29And another point is a lot of plants you buy
10:31will have an instruction on them.
10:33And it tells you, you know,
10:35water approximately every three days
10:37or once a week or something.
10:39And they're living things.
10:41Sometimes you're hungrier.
10:42Sometimes you're not hungry.
10:44And plants are like that also.
10:46Yeah, they're just guidelines.
10:47And so only with experience,
10:49only with plants dying,
10:51do you start to hone your sensibility
10:54and your way to pick up on what these plants need
10:57in a very specific personal way.
10:59Are gnomes cool?
11:02Can I use kitschy stuff
11:04and still be respected by my neighbors?
11:08Yes, gnomes are cool.
11:09You should ask yourself if a gnome is cool.
11:12And if a gnome is cool to you,
11:13then you should put a gnome or many gnomes
11:16or hundreds of gnomes in your garden.
11:18I think the stuff that's cool in reality
11:21is the stuff that people are truly authentically into.
11:25And it's like part of their personality
11:28and they don't give a shit whether their neighbors
11:30respect them or not.
11:31I love a gnome garden.
11:32Like, you know, thousands of gnomes
11:35where some freak has collected them
11:36for 30 years is incredible.
11:39What should I incorporate to attract wildlife food?
11:44What are the plants that this wildlife feeds on?
11:48Plants for pollinators,
11:50if you're looking for butterflies and hummingbirds.
11:53The whole family of aloes have these tubular flowers
11:57that hummingbirds really love.
11:59Milkweed is like sort of the favorite of monarch butterflies.
12:03There's a very common milkweed that comes from tropics
12:06and it's sold everywhere and should not be confused
12:10with the native milkweed because it makes for
12:13Frankenstein butterflies hatching and with crippled wings
12:17and totally screws them up.
12:19Certain palms that have like a lot of like loose thatch on them
12:23or plants that have a sort of wiry material
12:26that birds can take to use to make nests.
12:29Even a small body of water is a huge attractor for birds.
12:34They keep track of all the water sources in the area.
12:38So even a small birdbath or something
12:40has a huge effect for bringing birds to your backyard.
12:43Okay, next question.
12:44How to landscape on a budget if you are renting.
12:49If the plants are expensive and you know,
12:52they're specimen plants,
12:54I wouldn't recommend putting anything in the ground.
12:57If you're going to landscape in the ground,
12:58you want to use shrub material,
12:59whatever you put in there is going to stay there.
13:01Density always looks rich.
13:05Even if you buy a bunch of cheap five to $10 plants
13:09and you buy a good quantity of them
13:11and you plant them all together,
13:13that itself can look like a really lush, rich garden.
13:16And it's, you know, maybe you spend 300 bucks.
13:19The other thing to consider is container gardening.
13:22If you have like an emotional connection to these plants
13:24and you're going to care for them for years and years and years,
13:27maybe it's better that you plant everything in pots
13:29and that so you can take that stuff with you.
13:32Full vagabond style.
13:33I had a absolutely pleasurable time
13:36answering all of your questions and happy gardening.
13:43The final thing is,
13:50is
13:50so
13:51is
Be the first to comment