Native plants bring landscape success to Garcia yard
After 25 years living in Spring Lake Hills, Vic Garcia can claim a landscape success: a yard with colorful flowers that resists deer browsing. As Spring Lake Garden Club’s September Yard of the Month, the home of Vic and Julia Garcia on West Mimosa Circle employs both deer-resistant plants and height barriers to include color in the front yard. Blossoms range from small scarlet flowers on native sage to a showy deep red geranium in a hanging basket beside the entry sidewalk. Oleander shrubs on one side of the yard produce red, white or pink blooms in season, along with yellow ball flowers on a volunteer huisache tree near the curb.
Curbside beds, edged with rock and mulched with stone, have expanded in size over the years and include a mix of plants ignored by deer — sages, irises (from neighbors), volunteer lantana and small sago palms. Flanked with two bald cypresses and concrete garden art, the entry sidewalk winds toward the house between two mature trees, an oak and cedar elm. Vic has added cairns or stacked stone art amid plants in the curbside beds, as well as other garden art in a stone-edged circle near the entry. Mulch for midlawn beds is shredded wood chips, reserved after an arborist pruned several tree limbs overhanging the house and ground up the trimmings. Vic adds lamb’s ears to these beds, since the long, gray fuzzy leaves are shunned by deer, although the browsers do nibble nandina shrubs on one side of the house.
The entry sidewalk is lined with tall black metal poles curved at the top and ending in hooks to elevate and protect a variety of colorful plants in baskets. Succulents and portulaca (purslane or moss rose) thrive in sunny areas near the street, while a geranium benefits from semi-shade near the oak tree. Pots hung from porch eaves include purple leaved tradescantia and traditional fern, and asparagus fern thrives near the front door. A nearby sunny spot is home to a large pot of attractive but invasive vine, an example of balancing desirable features with unwanted traits.
Success in landscape management comes “a little at a time, over the years,” Vic said, and involves investment in physical effort as well as planning and creativity. To prevent deer from jumping a chainlink fence into the back yard, Vic constructed a wood stockade fence. Later, he modified the original gate by interweaving sticks into the metal mesh to extend its height, so deer see it as a barrier. A hybrid fruit tree just outside the gate was ignored by deer but threatened by squirrels using the fence as access. Vic trimmed branches away from the fence and festooned the tree with strips of wind-blown foil to reflect sunlight and deter diners. Even if these measures eventually fail, Vic will surely experiment to find success in another way — that’s his landscape style.
