Room For Thought

I just came across this old draft that I never finished or posted. I do not know where I originally intended to go with it, but I think it is ready and as applicable today as whenever I wrote it.

Self-seeding annuals were taking over the garden, so were thinned out. Overgrown and out of shape shrubs were pruned back hard. Plants that had outgrown their bounds or were sprawling and gave the garden a weedy, untended look were divided and tidied. Definitely a bold move, daunting to some. As always, some plants did not survive the winter and less interesting or unhappy plants were removed. Young plants are still filling in. This all leaves gaps in the garden. For a person who strives for the cottage garden look, or even a full established garden, this can leave feelings of inadequacy. People looking at the garden can feel as awkward as long gaps of silence in a conversation. The thing is, I am not usually bothered by stretches of silence. They provide room for thought which lead to deeper conversation than when filled with trivial chatter. I got to thinking, the same is true of those spaces in the garden. I could fill them with insignificant plants or let others continue past the point of interest, but then there would not be room for more desirable plants that take more time and effort to find or for established plants to shine. Pauses in the garden and in conversation allow space for more depth and interest, something badly needed in this fast paced, often shallow world.

The Cottage Garden = Functional Gardening

As the new year begins, gardening catalogs are sent out to inspire and take advantage of gardeners' dreams of the perfect garden.  Now is a good time to consider stretching your gardening boundaries.

I have always been drawn to the cottage garden.  Informal, inviting, lush, bountiful, overflowing, beautiful ... functional.  Functional?  Yes!  And as I plan next year's garden, that is becoming more important to me.  I have a small yard.  Too small.  I want more roses.  I want more vegetables.  Why should I have to choose one over the other?  Why can they not live together in peace and harmony?  It is not as though the gardening police are going to come arrest me if I decide to allow Tam Jalapeno  Pepper to live next to Graham Thomas Rose.

That is what a cottage garden is all about!  Though in recent years cottage gardens have become something more akin to organized chaos, they were originally making the most of limited space. Peasants only had a small amount of land, so in the space of their vegetable and herb gardens, they would grow ornamentals that had been passed along or propagated from the gardens of their masters.

What do you have when you plant herbs next to ornamentals next to vegetables?  Companion planting!  The biodiversity repels pests and attracts beneficial insects.  It keeps fungus and disease from jumping from plant to plant.  It aids organic gardening.  It creates interest.

For now I will keep my designated vegetable gardens for larger growing vegetables, but so those plants have more room, there is no reason to not tuck plants such as herbs, peppers, eggplants and okra (a relative of Hollyhocks and Rose of Sharon) in amongst the flowers.

Why Organic Garden?

It is very easy for gardeners to not see their gardens as they truly are.  Some tend to see them as they imagine them to be, not looking beyond the limits of their own yard to see the vastness of the gardening world or the effect they have on it.  Others, like myself, tend to be full of next years. The garden is an ongoing process, maybe something did not turn out as planned, is in the process of filling in, or there is another plan waiting to commence.  I look in my garden and have to make a special effort to see what did well rather than what needs doing.  Working in others' gardens helps to keep things in perspective, but this year that has been limited.  The first half was spent caring for my dying Grandma, the second half mostly spent recovering.  Lots of heat, no rain, some things thrived, others not so much, lots of planning of what to do better and dreaming of next year. I knew the garden overall looked decent, but there was so much that did not meet my expectations, and like a pimple on your face, you assume that is all everyone else sees, too.

A glimpse of my garden in early October.

Then I went on one of the first jobs in months and perspective was regained. Despite the hard year and many things already being finished and cut back for the year, my garden is shifting into a fall display.  The garden I worked in, though well established, was shutting down for the season. Many of the plants we had in common were either finished blooming or were nowhere near as lush in her garden.  I came home, and seeing my garden in a different light, was amazed.  Why the difference?  She watered more than I did, fertilized and sprayed for insects and fungus and I did not.  What did I do that she did not?  Instead of focusing mainly on plant care, I also focus on soil care and organic gardening.  Healthy soil equals healthy plants.  Chemicals do not.  I have written on this before, but it is so important that I am going to do so again because I cannot stress it enough.

Think of it this way ... If you feed your kids a diet of candy bars and potato chips, they are going to get big, maybe even look healthy for awhile.  However, they will not be getting the nutrients they need to remain healthy and their bodies will struggle.  Eventually they will get sick with something that their body cannot handle and be given an antibiotic.  The antibiotic kills most of the bad bacteria, but the good bacteria are sacrificed as well and the system is thrown out of balance, creating the perfect environment for a fungal infection and health is still not obtained.  A healthy diet provides the nutrition needed for a strong immune system whereas overuse of antibiotics and antifungals lead to superbugs that everyone has to deal with.

The same is true in the garden.  Plants fed a diet of chemical fertilizers do not get the nutrients they need to be healthy, only to grow big fast.  New growth is attractive to insects who move in to feast and infect the plant with disease.  Fungal spores are introduced by various means.  Roots struggle to grow in compacted soil, using up more of the plant's energy reserve. The plant struggles and sprays are used, killing beneficial insects, further throwing off Nature's balance and creating superbugs that effect everything from the food we eat to the clothes we wear.  There has to be a better way.  Forests, jungles and grassy plains have remained for thousands of years without, or until man's involvement.

Back to the soil.  Beautiful, nutrient laden, soil.  Full of organic matter, maybe even a nice, sandy loam. It does not happen by accident and it must be maintained as organic matter breaks down, but when it is present, plants thrive.  Roots easily grow deep in the loose, moisture retentive soil, taking in the micronutrients needed for health and saving energy for fighting pathogens.  Less water is needed.  Weeds that compete with the plants are easily pulled.  Bugs will come, both good and bad, but the plants will be strong enough to hold their own until the good overpower the bad.  Fungus may appear, but a healthy plant can usually handle it.  Planting a wide variety of plants attracts different beneficial insects and prevents bad bugs, fungus and diseases from easily jumping from plant to susceptible plant.  Balance is maintained.  Of course, some plants have been highly hybridized into something that Nature never intended, something that would never survive in Nature, and no matter what the care, are so finicky they will struggle.  One must then make the decision to risk the balance of the entire garden for the one plant, or replace the plant for the good of the garden ... and Nature.

Also see Wait! Don't Grab That Spray!

Native American Gardening

I recently saw this link posted on facebook and was immediately impressed by the technique. While it is too late this year for me to completely follow the method, I am certainly going to put into practice what I can at this point.  I do not have a wood burning stove or fireplace, but I do have an outside fire pit, so I will collect bones and eggshells in it and see if the occasional fire breaks them down enough.  I am anxious to see if it makes a difference in my own garden.

The Perfect Garden

Through time, by nature or circumstance, gardeners and their gardens evolve, as does their opinion of what the perfect garden is.  As I work in different people's gardens, I must remember the details that are important to them.  What one person considers a weed, another considers a treasured plant and maybe wants seedlings dug up to share.  Where one person wants plants left at the end of the season for winter interest, another wants everything cut perfectly at ground level.  Their gardens range from one of everything to specific collections, from cottage to formal.  That is the beauty of my work.  Getting to do different things to see what I want to incorporate into my own garden.

When I first started gardening, as many gardeners, I was the one of everything type.  Free plants were especially desirable.  I wanted to try everything.  As time went by, I determined I had to narrow down plants.  Though an extensive list looks nice on paper, there is not room in my small yard for everything.  Especially when they are plants that love to spread ... the type you most often get for free.  One lady I work for laughs that it took her seventy years to get to the point that she did not have to have every plant, but could be content to say, "I grew that once."  Needless to say, by this point, some more invasive plants are very well established and it can be overwhelming to get rid of them.

Through the one of everything phase I did get a good idea of how plants behave and the type I like.  Without fully realizing it, I amassed some nice collections.  In the evolution of the garden, I took out plants that were not spectacular and grouped various collections together to compliment each other as well as show the extent of the collections.  Because of the work I do, I still get lots of free plants, but I always verify first that they are not invasive.

I suppose that now my perfect garden is an organized cottage garden.  I like the lush informal look of the cottage garden, but I also like specific gardens.  Regardless of how the next gardening year turns out, I can already see my shade gardens overflowing with hostas, accented with heucheras, ferns and various shade plants ... rose gardens filled with fragrance and complimented by peonies, day lilies, mums and a wide variety of perennials and self-sowing annuals ... the xeroscape garden lush with grasses, sedums, iris and other hardy plants ... hens and chicks running over in the Sempervivum bed ... a bountiful crop in the veggie and herb gardens.  I am reminded of a joke that they once did an autopsy on a gardener and found she was full of "next years."