Garden Vistas LLC

05/08/2022

We all know it's going to be a tough water year but by prioritizing water in your landscape you can make the most of what you get! 💦

#1. Trees & shrubs provide so many benefits. They help cool your landscape, provide shade, filter pollution from the air, and can even dampen traffic noise.

#2. Vegetable gardens can help add to your food stability and nutrition and cut grocery costs. If you're not into gardening then move your water allotment to the next priority. 👇

#3. Perennials can provide habitat, and nectar for pollinators and stabilize and improve the soil over time.

#4. Having some drought-tolerant annuals can add to the aesthetics of a landscape and be a great source of food for bees.

#5. Turf has a place on our list and in the landscape. It keeps bare soil from blowing away even when dormant (aka yellow). Turf is tough and can live with less water than we think.

Remember to be water-wise, prioritize!

10/04/2018

Just a Heads Up. If you have been trying to reach the Owner. He has become extremely ill. He has a. Aneurysm and heart issues. I apologize on his behalf. It will be Probably November before he will be able to start work again.

06/29/2018

Even the most simple design can have a dramatic effect.
A simple design like these Zebra grasses that we designed, soften the harshness of the ADA ramps to this building.
Garden Vistas focuses on plants to raise quality of life.

02/27/2018

Winter botanical gardens have never looked so good.

05/21/2016

Not only does tree topping create a future risk. It permanently disfigures the the natural beauty of the tree structure. Tree topping is not a solution it destroys.

03/23/2015

It is long over due. We need to prioritize trees over the turf. Trees and turf do not belong in the same environment. Natural ecology throughout the world proves this.
Turf can reduce tree growth by 65 to 75%, robbing it of vital nutrients and moisture.
A young tree growing in a turf free area 10 to 20 feet in diameter may increase 6 times higher than a tree in turf competition.
Garden Vistas designs turf and trees in their own environment in plans.

04/01/2014

I have found all 4 of the subspecies of Cedar of Lebanon growing in Ogden, UT. Cedars of Lebanon thrive along the wasatch front in Northern Utah.
Branchlets of the 4 subspecies of Cedar of Lebanon, LEFT TO RIGHT:
***(Cedrus libani subsp. atlantica), ATLAS CEDAR, origin Atlas and Riff Mountains Morocco and Algeria, Zone 6.
***(Cedrus libani subsp. brevifolia), CYPRUS CEDAR, origin Mountains of western Cyprus, Zone 6.
***(Cedrus libani subsp. libani), CEDAR OF LEBANON, origin Mountains of Lebanon and Syria, Zone 6.
***(Cedrus libani subsp. stenocoma), TAURIAN CEDAR, origin Ta**us Mountains of southwestern Turkey, Zone 5.
-Photo Taken by Daniel M Wheelwright in my office with Nikon D200 camera, AF Nikkor 50mm f1.8 lens, ISO 100, exposure 1/50 second, aperture f11.

03/17/2014

Plant inventory for Garden Vistas Botanical Gardens.

02/14/2014

It is time to start pruning, buds are swelling on the plants. A great video demonstrating shrub renewal pruning by my good friend Jerry Goodspeed, Weber County Horticultural Agent, USU Ext. Remember, to wait till it is dry out to prune to prevent spread of disease.

Five minute demonstration on how to prune common shrubs presented by Utah State University Extension

05/13/2013

At Garden Vistas holistic honesty with customers is most important! I want to share the following customer experience three years ago: I had a customer call about problems with some pines. When I arrived at the customers home I found they had a mature woodland landscape with Scotts and Ponderosa pines. The customer showed me their Scotts pines and wanted help eradicating scale that was attacking them.
Observing them and the Ponderosas, only the Scotts pines were being attacked and looked to be in sever stress, and the Ponderosa looked great and scale free. Knowing scale will feed on both species. And knowing Scotts pine to be native to the northern, moist, cooler part of Europe. And Ponderosa native to the dryer, warmer, and even semi arid parts of western United States. I knew that scale was just a symptom of a greater problem; Drought!
I questioned the customer about their irrigation methods, and the bare dirt beneath the trees lacking any kind of needle litter or mulch of any kind. They responded that they irrigated 10 minutes a day with overhead sprinklers and that they hated the look of needles or mulch on the ground.
I explained that the problem with the Scotts pine was drought, and shared my knowledge of both species. And that the Scotts pines have become severally stressed leaving them weak for scale to feed on. And that spraying them would do nothing to save the trees and waste hundreds of dollars. I told my customer that 10 minutes a day of irrigation only wet the top couple of inches of soil, and was completely insufficient to effectively water the Scotts pines. And instructed that a deep soaking of water only once a week for several hours was needed to effectively water the stressed trees and the whole landscape. And that needles and mulch were needed to keep the moister in the soil and moderate the soil temperatures in the hot summer and that would be something they would need to adapt to and live with.
The customer looked at me with skepticism the whole time but did pay me for my services. Returning to the property to check in the following years, unfortunately they never followed my instructions, they found someone to spray the scale costing them hundreds of dollars and last time I recently checked they gave up and cut the trees down costing hundreds of more dollars.
I charged my customer $50 for an hours consultation. My knowledge I shared with them could have saved them hundreds if not a few thousand dollars.