The great l’scape
Courtesy McCumber Fine Gardens
Kendall McCumber started out her landscaping career as a gardener, tending to people’s backyards and frontyards, their flora and fauna during the summers. This was back in the ’80s, when Santa Fe was smaller, and greener (or, if not greener—in fact—than it is today, most people, even gardeners, weren’t as conscious, or conscientious, about water usage).
McCumber came out in 1988 from Washington, D.C., where she’d grown up. She’d been attending St. John’s College, and the off-campus gardening gigs looked more and more appealing as each semester ended. “I knew I wanted to clear my head and see what happened next after college,” says McCumber. “I have a love of plants and the need to create and be artistic and be outdoors. So I saw landscaping and gardening as a way not to jump into any kind of career.”
In 1994, having backflipped her way into her profession, McCumber opened her own landscaping business (McCumber Fine Gardens). “People think I spend all this time outdoors,” she says with a laugh. “Actually, I’m inside a lot. Or in my car going from job to job.” Most of those jobs involve maintenance work for their 30 or so clients, a few—lasting anywhere from two weeks to four months—involve installation, putting in flagstone steps, dams, and other water features.
Landscaping, though, essentially comes down to control—and flexibility. “Nature changes what you do and what you can or cannot do,” says McCumber. “So you have to have in mind how a place will look in five years—the architectural elements, the planting, the irrigation. And plants do grow, and eventually crowd each other out. So you also have to balance them out for now and for the future.”
And because plants in this high-desert environment tend to peak out in mid-July, that means starting in on your garden in February. (At least in theory, if not in practice.) As for the stonework and the planting, those can be done anywhere from April through June. Plants also don’t grow as fast here, so it’s best to start out with one-gallon perennials; and there are certain plants that thrive here that won’t anywhere else (and vice-versa). But that means bringing in soil. Amended soil. “Gardens do better with amended soil,” says McCumber, who, true to her Greek and Latin readings at St. John’s, knows the Latin names of most every plant out here. “It usually has some compost in it, because there are very little nutrients in the soil here.”
And while most people are prepared to be introduced to a different plant palette (which in this climate makes drip irrigation pretty much essential), “It’s possible,” stresses McCumber, “to get color in a drought-tolerant way. You can have colory stuff up front and native shrubs in the background.”
Flexibility, then—flexibility that comes from being informed and educated about the uniqueness of this particular terrain—is key to starting and maintaining one’s landscape. But McCumber points out that there are five other things to be mindful of when considering your landscape:
• Plan carefully. Decide what your priorities are for your outdoor spaces. Are they for entertaining, family space, beauty, plant cultivation, peace, color, shade, view enhancement, privacy, or all of the above? What kinds of plants are most important to you? Trees, shrubs, herbs, vegetables, perennials, annuals—or the whole shebang?
• Start with the backbone. If you don’t start with your hardscaping, you’ll probably end up moving things around later.
• Choose plants that are appropriate for this area and create special microclimates for your traditional perennials and container gardens.
• Use great soil, soil amendments, and mulch—lots of it.
• Explore the many easily available water-conservation and water-harvesting options.
