Double-potting plants exposed to the sun is recommended for two reasons: The heat kills roots in the side of the container facing the sun and smaller pots blow over in the wind.
While preparing to write this week’s column, I clicked down into a rabbit hole of links on the San Joaquin Master Gardener website, and discovered a fascinating paper posted on the University of California, Center for Landscape and Urban Horticulture page, ucanr.edu/sites/UrbanHort/.
The paper, 9%: Perspective on the California Drought and Landscape Water Use, was written by University of California Cooperative Extension researchers, Hodel and Pittenger in May 2015, while California was in the midst of the last drought.
According to Hodel and Pittenger, we have been looking in all the wrong places to conserve water, and making the wrong statewide policy decisions. “Landscapes and the water they use are under relentless attack as California confronts ongoing drought. Most of these attacks are misguided when one looks at the facts, however.”