Garden in the Parks Needs Your Help!

We all know how important the green spaces and parks are on Daniel Island to island residents and friends.  If you enjoy gardening and being outdoors, then you will definitely want to participate in the Garden in the Parks event at Etiwan Park on Saturday, February 11 from 10am – 12pm. Sponsored by the Charleston Parks Conservancy, this event will help make the pocket garden in Etiwan Park continue to look beautiful! Activities include winter pruning of roses and more.  Don’t come empty handed.  Bring your tools and shears and contribute to maintaining the beauty of this wonderful park.  The Charleston Parks Conservancy’s mission is to care for and improve Charleston’s 120+ parks.  By helping out, you are contributing to the city’s beauty, health and economic strength.  For more information, click here.

Digging in the Dirt: Brenda Cook’s Garden

Daniel Island and its neighborhoods offer all sorts of garden and landscape design ideas. Some island residents choose to keep it simple and clean, whereas others really take it up a notch. Brenda Cook is part of the later group. Brenda has been a resident on Daniel Island for seven years and a real estate agent at Daniel Island Real Estate for almost as long. Her garden in Daniel Island Park is an incredible blend of formal and informal design, incorporating both native and ornamental plants and flowers and a number of smaller nooks throughout that serve varying functions.

Brenda began work on her garden in 2004 at the same time Hidden Oaks Properties was building her house. When searching for a good landscape architect, she was referred to Clyde Timmons of DesignWorks. “Clyde and I hit it off immediately and have become great friends,” says Brenda. And Clyde agrees. “Brenda is dynamic, like her garden. The relationship between designer and client is critical to creating the perfect space, “ said Clyde. “You have to work well together so you can give each other ideas and explore options together. It’s a give and take relationship”.

Clyde Timmons has worked in residential landscape design in the Lowcountry for more than 30 years. His interest in plants and gardening began when he worked as manager of Abide-A-While Nursery in Mt. Pleasant before going back to school for his Masters in Landscape Architecture. He then returned to Charleston and began working for DesignWorks. Since then he’s won numerous design awards, including a Merit Award from the South Carolina Chapter of ASLA for Cattle Trough Park in Daniel Island Park. His designs have been published in several books and magazines, including Seascape Gardening by Anne Halpin and Southern Living magazine.

When Clyde started work on Brenda’s garden, the two got together to discuss what Brenda had in mind. She wanted a fairly traditional Charleston garden, but one that also included some whimsical, creative and relaxing elements to set it apart. Her home in Daniel Island Park has “borrowed views” of a butterfly garden, pond and marsh. She wanted all of these elements to become a visual extension of her own garden. Clyde’s incorporation of these gave Brenda’s garden an open feel while also remaining private.

There’s a path system that leads from the house and meanders through the garden, creating a sense that the garden is a part of Brenda’s home. Pocket gardens are found off the pathway, ranging from annual and perennial flowerbeds to decorative objects, fountains and sitting areas. Among the many plants that bloom successfully are hydrangeas, a popular shrub that thrives in the south and means “water lover” in Latin.

Since 2004, the garden has continued to grow and evolve with the care of Brenda, Clyde and Aaron Stace of Coastal Scapes, who does the weekly maintenance. And, about once a year, Clyde will come to take a look, go through the space and talk to Brenda about what’s working, what’s not and what she can do to make it even better.

“A garden is like life: it’s ever changing and requires lots of love and attention. Sometimes it can be very disappointing but at other times, it’s so rewarding,” says Brenda, “I often tell my clients that I love “digging in the dirt” – I think it’s the farm girl in me”.

Gardening Tips for Daniel Island Residents
Clyde Timmons, ASLA, RLA | DesignWorks, LC

• Pay attention to your drainage system and make sure it’s working properly.
• Amend your soil frequently with organic material. This will help improve the quality of the soil so your garden grows successfully
• Balance your garden with low maintenance areas that require little work with plants and shrubs that need more care. This way you will have time to actually enjoy your garden!
• Plant annuals and perennials so you always have something blooming no matter what the season may be.
• Hire a good landscape architect. They will help you “weed out” what will work best for your location.

Click below for more pictures of Brenda’s garden.

Photos by Pat Stuckart Photography. Click HERE to see more of his work.

Summer Lawn Care Tips

By Michael Fabrizio, Director of Grounds and Golf Maintenance, Daniel Island Club

Summer is in full swing so it’s a good time to focus on some seasonal practices that will promote a healthy lawn.

1.    Aeriation and Thatch Removal
If your lawn is more than three to five years old, one of these processes may be in order.  For thick, soft and puffy lawns, thatch removal is probably needed. For thin grass and hard ground (perhaps due to traffic from children or pets), you might need to aeriate.  A lawn care company can take care of both the aerification process and thatch removal, or you can rent the necessary equipment and perform the process yourself.

2.    Topdressing
Topdressing your lawn with sand after aerification and dethatching will help your turf in the long term by mixing with your existing soil and organic matter.  Sand will help reduce compaction and dilute the organic matter to help air and water better infiltrate through the soil profile.

After completing these processes, an application of a balanced controlled release fertilizer will help your lawn heal and give it controlled growth for the rest of the summer.   If a less expensive soluble fertilizer is used, there is a risk of burn, plus there could be an excessive flush of growth that will slow down and not be maintained for the rest of the summer.  A balanced controlled release fertilizer such as a 12-4-8 or similar ratio, that has some minor nutrients in it such as Fe, Mn and Mg, will help promote a healthy green color without excessive growth.

3.    Irrigation
During the summer, the Lowcountry gets a moderate amount of rain. June through September is the wettest time of the year in the region.

Due to this, I don’t recommend setting your irrigation system to water on a predetermined schedule. With normal rainfall, irrigating 0 – 2 times per week is usually an adequate amount of water.  During dry periods, 3 – 4 times per week should be more than adequate.

I can assure you that there is no lawn or landscape on Daniel Island that needs to be watered every day.  More often than not, due to our soil conditions, homes with irrigation systems sometimes have more lawn and landscape plant material suffering from excessive moisture instead of not enough moisture.

Garden Club Transforms School’s “Front Yard”

The Daniel Island School will have some new students to take care of this spring, and mostly due to the hard work and dedication of the Daniel Island Garden Club! For more than a year, the Garden Club has been hard at work; planning, preparing and transforming the area in front of the school entrance from a wooded and uncultivated space into six different gardens.

Using several different techniques and themes, members of the Garden Club have created an alphabetical plant listing, bird and butterfly garden, Japanese garden, woodland shade garden and a rose garden. Already the irrigation system is in place, along with some winter plants. In the next several weeks, after the last frost of the season, the remainder of the plants will be planted.

Stop by the Daniel Island School this spring and check out all the Garden Club’s hard work!