It’s tempting for many of us to pull out the heavy-duty bottle of pesticide when we find insects, diseases or weeds in our landscape. We want the problem to go away, and go away fast, whether it’s powdery mildew on our squash or aphids on our roses. But before you bust out the sprays, consider that pesticides are toxic to pets, birds, bees, and fish, and end up in our waters. (Check out the Washington Toxics Coalition site to read more about it).

You can adopt a more gradual approach to dealing with pests and plant diseases by identifying the problem and then trying less-toxic methods of getting rid of it. You’ll often hear people call this process IPM, or Integrated Pest Management, but really it’s about using common sense to tackle the problem.

First, identify the problem. It’s possible that it’s not a nasty disease attacking your plant, but symptoms that you’re watering too little or too much. Or you may find out that the bugs in your garden are actually good, beneficial insects such as lady bugs and lacewings that eat bad bugs.

Once you’ve identified what’s wrong, find the least toxic way to get rid of it. Aphids, for example, can be controlled by hosing the plant down with water. Other pests and weeds can be removed simply by hand-plucking them from the plant.

Prevention is also a good way of keeping these problems at bay. Pick plants that are disease resistant, thrive in your climate, and grow well in the site you chose for it. Reduce plant stress by watering, pruning and fertilizing properly. Use barriers like mulch to suppress weeds or floating row covers to keep bugs away. Check out these fact sheets on less toxic ways to deal with snails & slugs, spider mites, roses, and more.

If you live in the Seattle area, it’s inevitable that you’ll run into a patch of heavy clay soil somewhere on your property. The parking strip on the south side of our West Seattle house is mostly clay, and the sole plant that we have out there, a dogwood, doesn’t thrive as well as other plants and trees on our property.

So what do you do if you have clay soil? Whatever you do, don’t add sand to your clay thinking that it will improve the soil. It’s a big no-no and one of the biggest myths.  Sand + clay = cement.

Adding organic matter — such as grass clippings, shredded leaves, composted manure and compost — is one of the best things you can do to improve clay soil conditions. Remaking a landscaping bed is a good time to do it. Dig it into the soil down about 6 to 8 inches deep. Tilling the soil and adding organic matter makes soil more permeable, allowing water to drain. The organic amendments will decompose over time, and help improve the soil structure.

If you’ve got clay soil under your lawn, try aerating the lawn, which pulls core plugs of soil about three inches long and then plug the holes back in with compost.

Some trees and shrubs, however, will do well in clay soils, such as gingko, witch hazel, burning bush, honeysuckle, potentilla, spirea and lilac. When you plant in heavy clay soils, try to plant the trees and shrubs a few inches above the grade of the surrounding soil.

To read more about improving clay soils, click here.

Want to know what’s killing your dogwood or how to properly prune your roses? Looking for a less toxic way to get rid of slugs, aphids and other pests? Got a tree or shrub that you need help identifying?

Starting this month and through early September, you’ll find gardening experts who can help answer your questions at dozen of Master Gardener clinics throughout King County. Master Gardeners are volunteers who go through a rigorous training program by Washington State University. They provide research-based information on home gardening and pest control.

In West Seattle this summer, Andy will periodically be staffing the Master Gardener booth at the West Seattle Farmers Market, and I can be found at McLendon Hardware in White Center. Here are the hours & location:

West Seattle Farmers Market, 44th Avenue SW and Alaska Street, April 27-September 14, Sundays, 10 a-.m.-2 p.m. (No clinic May 4).

McLendon Hardware, 10210 16th Avenue SW, April 5-September 13, Saturdays, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

But don’t limit yourself to West Seattle. There are clinics in Ballard, Rainier Valley, Renton, North Seattle, Vashon Island, Lake City, Federal Way, Burien and more. Find the full list of locations and times here.

King County has one of the largest Master Gardener programs in the world. It started here, before spreading to all 50 states and many other countries. To find out more about becoming a master gardener, click here.

One of our favorite plants, the flowering currant, is currently in bloom this month, and we’ve been watching bees and hummingbirds swarm to its flowers. The currant is just one of many plants that attract bees, which do the heavy lifting by pollinating fruit trees, squash and other plants.

Many of you have already heard of the mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder that has wiped out thousands of bee hives throughout the region over the past several years. In Washington state, the loss of the bees have fruit tree growers particularly worried since they’re dependent on bees to pollinate their apple, pears and other trees. You can read more about Colony Collapse Disorder here.

You can do your own part to encourage bees to come to your garden. Create a landscape that encourages honeybees by growing flowering plants with plenty of nectar and pollen. Bees feed on the nectar for energy, and collect pollen to feed their young.  Some of our favorites bee-loving plants include lavender (pictured above), salvia, penstemon, black-eyed Susan, sunflowers, thyme, mint, purple coneflower, and rosemary. Herbs that attract bees and do double-duty in the kitchen include: basil, oregano, mint and sage. Bees like annuals, too, including zinnia, marigold, sunflowers and poppies. Other plants that attract bees (and that we often use in Seattle landscaping projects) include: flowering currant, verbena, barberry, lilac, and sedum.

Try to keep the bees interested throughout the season by planting flowers that provide nectar and pollen year-round. Landscapes that have a variety of plants, particularly native ones, will encourage more bees.

At Ecoyards, we pride ourselves on excellent customer service. We’re happy to report that the users think so, too. We recently won the top award for quality service from a popular online company Web site. We mentioned the name here once before, but have been advised that we’re legally not allowed to mention it unless we buy the rights to do so. (Without giving it away, it rhymes with Flanjie’s Wrist). We don’t agree with that policy, so it remains the company-that-shall-not-be-named. 

To be eligible for that award, we’ve had 100 percent positive customer reviews. Users of that site can login and search for “Ecoyards” to view our positive customer reviews and read about our award.

We work hard to help our clients figure out their lawn and landscaping needs, whether they’re looking for a complete makeover, a small paver patio, or to renovate a tired Seattle lawn.

One of our biggest pet peeves is walking into a commercial nursery and finding plants for sale that are considered noxious weeds. Washington has a state law that requires citizens to help control noxious weeds, but that doesn’t always mean you can’t find it for sale in various places. In our opinion, no Seattle landscape should have English ivy, English holly, Scotch broom or any of the numerous other weeds that spread like rapid-fire and choke out our native plants and take over natural landscapes.

Ivy in particular is vicious because it’s well-adapted to our climate, grows year-round West of the Cascades, and can cover everything in its reach. It’s hard to get rid of it once it has taken over your landscape, so we recommend the next best thing: prevention. Don’t buy any ivy (or other noxious weeds) if you can help it, even if you find a tiny little plant at the nursery and think it can’t be that harmful.

Milk thistle is a noxious weed.

King County has a noxious weed control program that tries to keep noxious weeds like Himalayan blackberry and Italian thistle, just to name a few, out of our streams, parks, and public lands. Don’t know what is a noxious weed? King County has a terrific photo index to help you identify which ones are noxious. Some are nasty-looking, like the milk thistle pictured right, but many have pretty yellow or pink flowers. Find out more by reading this citizen’s guide to noxious weeds.

There are some great plant sales coming up in the next few weeks. We want to call your attention to two sales in Seattle in early May.

As Master Gardeners, both Andy and I will be volunteering to help the Master Gardener Foundation of King County with its annual plant sale. There’s a huge selection of annuals, perennials, vegetables, trees and more. Many are grown by local master gardeners, while some professional nurseries will also be on hand to sell their goods. Proceeds go toward paying for the Master Gardener clinics, demonstration gardens, youth programs and more. The Master Gardener Plant Sale is May 2-3, 2009 at the University of Washington Center for Urban Horticulture, 3501 NE 41st St, Seattle. Hours are Saturday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sunday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.

If you’re into growing vegetables, head to the Seattle Tilth Edible Plant Sale that same weekend. I’ll be volunteering to help out with this sale, which offers the largest selection of organically and sustainably grown vegetable starts in Seattle. You’ll find over 50 varieties of tomatoes and 20 varieties of peppers, rare and heirloom veggie varieties, an extensive selection of culinary herbs, edible flowers, and drought tolerant perennials. The list of starts includes ‘Fairy Tale’ eggplant, lemon cucumbers, golden midget watermelon, ‘Cajun Delight’ okra, ‘Gypsy’ sweet peppers and much more. Find the lists of items on sale here. The sale is May 2-3, 2009 at Meridian Park in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood, 4649 Sunnyside Ave. N. Open 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday & Sunday.

If you need help finding the right plant to fit into your Seattle landscape, Ecoyards is here to help. We love assisting clients to find the right perennials, trees, even edible plants, to incorporate into an existing landscape or add to a newly-designed landscape. Email us or give us a call at 206-770-7879.

The city of Seattle and others have made it easy to recycle your used nursery plant pots, but we found an even better way to put them to good use. At Ecoyards, we have hundreds of pots that we try to reuse or find good homes for.

This week, we cleaned up our used pots and delivered them to volunteers with the Longfellow Creek Community Garden and the Longfellow P-Patch, the Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle and the West Seattle Edible Garden Fair.  They plan to reuse the pots for several community gardening projects in West Seattle.

One of the most requested landscape features we get at Ecoyards are paver patios, walkways and driveways. Pavers offer many benefits over concrete. They come in a variety of rich colors, textures, and styles to fit your landscape design. Pavers are much easier to adjust and repair than concrete slabs that tend to crack over time. They’re also aesthetically pleasing. Take a look at some of our paver patio and walkway photos.

At Ecoyards, we’ll work with you to choose the right material for your patio or walkway. We use local suppliers that produce their brick pavers and other materials locally in the Puget Sound area.

To properly install your paver patio or walkway, we excavate the underlying soil and create a base of compacted crushed gravel that’s a minimum of four inches for regular foot traffic and even more for areas where vehicles will be driving over the pavers.  A good low-impact tip is to keep the excavated soil on-site rather than transporting it across town as fill material.  In some cases the underlying soils can be amended with compost and used in planting beds.

The next step is to place a thin layer of bedding sand, which proves a smooth, level surface for the pavers to sit on. We then set the brick or stone pavers in the style that you like, cutting pavers to fill gaps along the edges. We set edge restraint systems around the perimeter to prevent settling and spreading.

Once the pavers and edging are in place, we compact the pavers down using a vibrating place compactor to ensure that the pavers are set. Voila! Your patio is ready for you to enjoy.