Pacific Plant People – Plant Recommendations on Watershed Gardening

Fall 2021

Watch the video excerpt of the Pacific Plant People interview here.

Adapted from landscape architects Tom Rau and Marilee Kuhlmann’s answers during a conversation with Saxon Holt for the Pacific Plant People video series. Tom Rau and Marilee Kuhlmann co-founded The Urban Water Group in Los Angeles.

Las Virgenes Municipal Water District waterwise summer-dry drought tolerant demonstration garden. Credit: Saxon Holt
Watershed gardening

The watershed approach to gardening uses bioswales to redirect water to root systems in a way that promotes drought tolerance and resiliency.
When designing a resilient garden, it’s important to understand that plants gather nutrients and share resources with one another through their roots, as well as symbiotic fungi connected to roots known as mycorrhizae. This fungal network is called the rhizosphere.
Root systems and their surrounding rhizosphere are living irrigation systems that move water from wet to dry and play a key role in nutrient availability. Rhizospheres sequester carbon that might otherwise contribute to worsening the effects of climat...