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The Complete Guide to Landscape Design, Renovation,
and Maintenance
by Cass Turnbull
MORE UNHEEDED ADVICE
You should now have a map of how you want your yard to look and
most, but not all, of the plant names filled in. You should also
have a fair idea of how to plant everything. You have also received
the first of three always- ignored-most-important-pieces-of-advice.
It was to choose and place your plants according to their cultural
require- ments, especially mature size, light requirements, and
soil requirements. Now that you've ignored those, let's get on to
the other two which are: amend your soil and plan for irrigation.
As soon as you price these, you will be tempted to ignore them as
well, if you haven't already.
Improve Your Soil
You should probably improve your soil now before everything is planted,
and while you're considering building up mounded beds anyway. It's
sort of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do it right. Very few
people are blessed with a good rich sandy loam soil naturally in
their yard. If you do have this or have inherited good soil from
previous owners' obsessive use of compost, you should take some
time to gloat in the knowledge that you are the envy of less lucky
gardeners everywhere.
I would guess that 80% of the pest, disease, death and general lack
of good looks in gardens is due to bad soil, either too sandy or
with too much clay. Sand doesn't hold nutrients and it dries out
instantly, so that plants starve and die of thirst. Clay soils alternately
drown their victims when wet and bake them when dry. It's also hard
for roots to push through packed clay. Clay additionally tortures
gardeners by breaking their backs, it's so hard and heavy to dig,
and it will increase the time and difficulty of weeding by at least
threefold. The heavy clay soil has to be pried up, forked up, just
to get at the weed roots. The roots tend to break off and the weed
will rise again as soon as your back is turned. Or if you manage
to get the whole root, you will get a giant mass of clay glop attached
to it. Clay is the absolute bane of a gardener's life.
You solve both of these problems, clay or sand, by mixing in generous
amounts of organic soil amendments. Organic, of course, means anything
that used to be alive, for example sawdust, bark, old molded leaves,
peat moss. "Compost" is of course the best. In addition,
organic fertilizer, such as powdered dry chicken or steer manure
you buy in bags at local supermarkets, or by truck loads of the
real thing from the nursery, is great. Blood and bone meal are also
used. This not only improves the soil structure and texture, but
will also slowly release elements. Use these fertilizers along with
organic amendments to improve the soil structure.
My former partner swears that powdered dry manure cures just about
every garden ill from chlorosis to moles. I suspect she's right.
The organics also encourage the natural web of organisms which combine
to create a healthy, lovely yard. We will discuss these at greater
length in the chapter on maintaining your yard. The "top soil"
you bought (three-way or five-way) will be woefully lacking in wonderful
organics. The good old top-soil stripped from old farms is no longer
available. They now build "topsoil" out of sawdust and
poor dirt. It's better than clay or sand but many still refer to
it as "sh..." These "store-bought" topsoils,
as well as bark and sawdust mulches, will actually rob your soil
of nitrogen as they decompose for a few years, so be sure to add
some fertilizer, organic or chemical, every year. If you have a
clayish soil, called hardpan, you should forget mixing in amendments
and just build raised beds of good soil above it. To see if you
have hardpan, try digging a hole. If you have to jump on your shovel
with both feet to get it in, you are in deep trouble. To see if
you have a drainage problem, dig a hole and fill it with water.
If it takes a day to drain--more bad news. Perhaps you want to design
and build a "bog" garden. Seriously.āā If you buy "soil,"
from the landscape supply company,consider turning in generous amounts
of organic matter and composted manure. Your plants will āloveā
you for it. It is said that when the gardener enters paradise, first
thing he says is, "Ah! Just smell that humus!"
Plan For Irrigation
The other always-ignored-most-important-piece-of-gardening- advice
is to plan for irrigation. I ignored this one and I'm so tired of
dragging hoses around my yard I could give up and die. Hoses look
ugly, especially in summer barbecue pictures; you have to move them
to mow every week; and you have to put them away in the winter.
I know of a humorous description of a man battling with a hose like
a giant snake. It's said that an elephant hasn't a memory to compare
with that of a coiled hose.
Here in Western Washington folks say, "But it rains here all
the time. Anyway, I can water the whole lawn with just one sprinkler."
This reveals two common misconceptions. One is that only lawns need
water. Shrubs and trees need water, too. It just takes longer for
them to brown up from drought than grass. Whereas grass can green
up again in the fall rains, your pieris won't; it will be brown
and dead for good. Lack of water usually stresses plants and it
takes several stresses over time to kill, but just a few will make
your new shrub prone to leaf drop, disease, freezing, you name it!
I, who usually am pretty good about watering, watered even more
last year to encourage my bedding annuals to grow and be beautiful
in time for the wedding. I was shocked to see how much better everything
else did, too. It was magic. People just don't believe the difference
good deep regular water makes to the looks of plants.
The other misconception is that it rains here in Western Washington
all the time. Statistics prove that a one month drought is the norm
in this region (you know, we call it summer). It will cause lots
of hardship on trees and plants. This is, incidentally, the season
you will want to be gone vacationing, not dragging hoses around.
An automatic or semi-automatic irrigation system will solve your
problems. And you won't have to roll it up and hide it for the barbecue,
either.
Now that we know the three pieces of essential advice and can ignore
them, we can go on to the nuts and bolts of planting your yard.
SUMMARY
The three pieces of most-ignored, best garden advice are:
(1) Meet your plant's requirements: mature size, light and soil
needs.
(2) Put in automatic irrigation.
(3) Improve the soil with organics or truck in new soil.
Forward to Installation How-Tos and Tricks
Back to How to Choose and Arrange Your
Plants
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