MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR GARDEN
Your garden should never be more expensive than you can afford or more work than you can handle. But it could be a colorful collage, richly patterned with drifts and repeats, different every year, and endlessly fascinating. When you allow Nature herself to take an active role in your garden’s design, you can look forward to the surprises that arise. But also remember that you’re under no obligation to leave plants where they land. I enjoy full editorial control. Whenever the mint encroaches on the strawberries, I unzip whole strips of their runners and ask my bartender for a mojito. Also, by following nature’s lead and propagating your own plants, you’ll have enough to pay it forward—and back—to friends, while keeping plenty for cohesion in your own garden (repetition being a design rule worth following).
The best place to start is by choosing plants that, once established, will thrive in your garden’s particular environment without demanding supplemental watering, fertilizers, or pesticides. (Potted plants, of course, will need extra TLC.) Allow yourself to make mistakes—plants do sometimes die—but take heart that decisions become easier the better you learn how and what your garden grows. Use the hardiness, light, and soil recommendations included in the plant descriptions as skeleton keys to unlock optimal plant health and beauty.
Hardiness
The USDA plant hardiness zones (based on average annual minimum winter temperatures) are helpful indicators of which perennials, shrubs, and trees are most likely to survive our garden’s wildest winter temperature dips. You can also use them to determine exactly how much protection your favorite non-hardy plants will require. Just remember that these recommendations should serve only as a guide: don’t be afraid to push the zone. See “Plant Hardiness Zones” for more information, including links to interactive maps.
Light
Plants’ outdoor light requirements are based on mid-summer levels, when the sun is high and hot in the sky. “Full sun” is the designation for plants that promise to grow strong and sturdy, and bloom heavily when given 6 hours or more of midday summer sun. Plants with foliage that is liable to scorch under the same conditions might need the protective cover of “full shade,” even during the morning and late afternoon. Many others grow well in “partial shade”—the happy medium that ranges amenably from the dapple under a tree, to morning or late afternoon sun.
Even though soil fertility and texture varies from region to region, garden to garden, and bed to bed, the soil requirements listed in the plant descriptions are deliberately uncomplicated. Garden beds that have been amended periodically with organic matter will be perfectly adequate for most common garden plants. “Average” soil is exactly that: neither extremely fertile nor starved; neither very wet nor bone-dry. “Well-drained” soil does not puddle after rain for much more than a few minutes, while the particles of “moist” soil are capable of retaining water for days at a time without ever being boggy (that would be “wet”). “Dry” soil drains well and dries out quickly either due to sun exposure or root competition. It’s safe to assume that plants requiring “rich” soil will be heavy feeders. Offer them supplemental nutrition (compost or fertilizer) especially if they are planted in a container. Reserve your lean and mean sandy soils for plants that thrive in “poor” soil and do not bother with fertilization.
For deeper insight into what your garden is capable of growing—and what changes might be necessary to grow the plants you desperately want—have your soil tested. Local university extensions and some Master Gardener programs offer soil testing and advice for a small fee.
Spacing
Because annuals and perennials are deceptively tiny in the spring, a common mistake is cramming them into beds that are too skinny to contain them as they grow. I think this is exactly why self-sowers and spreaders get a bad reputation. Plants do not need to behave themselves; the garden just needs to be more accommodating. You can avoid the frustration of hostile takeovers, and the disappointment of seeing favorites obliterated, by widening your borders—about 8 feet is a good start—so that full-grown layers of annuals, self-sowers, frost-tender and hardy perennials, and even a shrub or two, can grow comfortably together.
CONTINUE TO OBSERVE your garden as it grows and becomes transformed, and make choices considerate both to yourself and the environment. Evict any plants that cause excessive worry or trouble and try others (throw the surplus on the compost to eventually become your garden’s best soil amendment). The possibilities are endlessly fascinating and the potential to not just do-no-harm but to actually improve the quality and diversity of life in your garden is really, really exciting.
A riot of late-summer color in Blithewold’s Pollinator Garden.
Gardening with self-sowers, spreaders, and keepers is reductive—ultimately, you’ll remove more than you’ll plant—which is perfect for building a free and endless supply of nutrient-rich organic matter to use for replenishing depleted garden soil. The kind of compost system that you choose (enclosed tumblers or a series of open-air piles) will depend on your particular needs and garden space. Regardless, select a site for your compost area that is out of plain sight, not too far from the kitchen, easy to access with a wheelbarrow, reachable by hose, and in a somewhat sunny location.
By using enclosed bins that spin or tumble garden waste inside, it’s possible to make batches of “black gold” in as little as one to three months. Tumbling composters don’t hold very much fresh debris but what they lack in size, they make up for in compact good looks and relatively easy aeration. They also retain moisture well and are pest-proof.
Open-air piles take up more garden space. But, they hold a lot of debris, and if the piles are turned—aerated—weekly (use a pitchfork and don’t bother buying a gym membership) they may stay hot enough to break down as quickly as in a tumbler. If you’re willing to wait, piles that are turned less frequently can take up to eighteen months to produce a supply of finished compost.
Set up at least two tumblers, or make space for three open-air sections each no larger than 5 × 5 feet for manageability. Designate one tumbler or section for “cooking” or decomposing debris, another for adding fresh garden waste. Finished compost, extracted from the tumblers or the bottom of the oldest piles during turning, may be added directly back into the garden or held in the third section.
To speed the process using either system, chop everything finely before adding it to your tumbler or pile. And be careful with your ratios: thirty parts carbon (the brown bits such as dried leaves, stalks, sawdust, and shredded paper) to one part nitrogen (the green bits like plants, weeds, kitchen scraps, and grass clippings). Keep it as moist as a damp sponge and turn it often to make sure it stays hot (anywhere from 100 to 160 degrees F). One or two perforated PVC pipes inserted vertically into open-air piles will help to aerate and saturate the interior.
My open-air compost area. It’s not pretty and the add-to pile is awfully high in the spring, but the pile shrinks quickly (there’s always room for more) on its way to becoming my garden’s best soil amendment.
Wide beds offer space for self-sowers like Mexican feather grass (Stipa tenuissima), sweet William catchfly (Silene armeria), butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa), and California poppies (Eschscholzia californica) to ramble alongside spreaders like Roman chamomile (Chamaemelum nobile), mountain mint (Pycnanthemum muticum), and betony (Stachys officinalis ‘Hummelo’).
These are, in fact, the same negotiations with nature that most gardeners learn to make over the course of years and lifetimes. But you do not have to learn everything the hard way. Use the tools and ideas in this book to jumpstart your confidence. As soon as you begin to make adventurous decisions and exciting changes, your garden will be instantly gratifying, personally enriching, and more fun day by day, and season after season.
