Plan for More Garden Space


During winter, a lot of us make a plan for the next gardening season, and chances are, that plan involves making more space to garden.


If you've thought about increasing your garden space but you're not sure where to start, we can help with a few ideas on how to downsize your lawn and turn it into space for planting. Follow these tips for getting started.

   Develop an overall plan. Decide how much lawn you really need, and for what purposes. A landscape designer can be helpful and can offer advice on replacement plants suitable for your soil and climate.

   Phase in the changes. Set up a season-by-season schedule for your lawn conversion, arranged in order of importance. For example, shade trees should get high priority, since they require years to mature.

Tired of Turf?

   Once a week, my town sends an 18-ton sanitation truck rumbling down my road to collect yard waste. As the crew gathers up bag after bag of lawn clippings from my neighbors, I can’t help feeling that robbery is afoot. But far more is at stake with a lawn than what happens when grass clippings are trucked away instead of being left to return their rich nutrients to the soil.
   Lawns are a 20th-century import from northern Europe. Most lawn grasses are better suited to English gardens than to the varied soils and climates in our North American yards. So maintaining a traditional “putting green” lawn often requires extreme measures that have profound effects on your yard’s ecosystem. Consequently, they’ve been called “green deserts.”
   According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, American lawns guzzle up to 60 percent of our cities’ clean water annually, plus 67 million pounds of pesticides and $5 billion in fertilizers (more fertilizer per acre than farmers use). Conventional lawns account for an estimated 90 percent of landscaping costs. In addition, 10 percent of the air pollution caused by gasoline engines comes from lawn-care equipment.
   Overuse of pesticides, weed killers, and chemical fertilizers destroys the soil’s natural ecology by eradicating most earthworms, insects, spiders, and millions of other beneficial organisms necessary for your garden’s health. Surviving pests can develop resistance to chemicals, leaving lawns dependent on even stronger chemicals. In addition, the shallow, dense root systems of lawn grass prevent moisture from penetrating deeply into the soil, causing run-off of precious rainwater.
   To birds, frogs, bees, and other wildlife, a conventional lawn has all the appeal of a sun-blasted concrete parking lot. As with concrete, a large expanse of clipped lawn reflects more heat than do natural plantings, resulting in higher summer cooling costs for nearby houses.
   Lawns do have their uses, (playing areas for young children for example), and it’s understandable that most people aren’t willing to give them up completely. Still, many gardeners have decided to replace their lawns (or parts of their lawns) with more natural, earth-friendly plantings. Shrinking or eliminating a lawn can be a formidable undertaking, so you may opt to tackle the conversion in stages over several years.
   Develop an overall plan. Decide how much lawn you really need, and for what purposes. A landscape designer can be helpful  and can offer advice on replacement plants suitable for your soil and climate. Besides trees, shrubs, ground covers, and nonlawn grasses, your master plan might include vegetable gardens, mulched walkways, bird-feeding stations, and ponds.
   Phase in the changes. Set up a season-by-season schedule for your lawn conversion, arranged in order of importance. Shade trees should get high priority, since they require years to mature. And if you’re replacing lawn grass with drought-tolerant native plants, put them in areas farthest from water outlets—this will substantially reduce watering chores as soon as the new plants become established.
   Kill unwanted grass. Using herbicides to eradicate grass can harm beneficial soil organisms. Instead, I’ve had good results using two or three layers of newspaper covered with grass clippings, shredded leaves, or wood chips. This starves grass of light while allowing rainwater to penetrate the soil. In small areas, you can simply dig out lawn grass by hand.

Tips for Growing Non-Toxic Lawns:

If you still want to grow some grass, you can minimize your use of chemicals and water by following these tips:
   • Mow with a sharp blade. Dull blades tear the grass, providing openings for disease organisms.
   • Cut only one third of the grass blade at each mowing. Taller grass suppresses weeds and develops deep, drought-tolerant root systems. I leave my lawn at 2" all year long.
   • Leave grass clippings on the lawn. They supply at least a third of your lawn’s yearly nitrogen requirement. Use a mulching blade if you can and rake up only the thick grasses that may damage the lawn if not removed.
   • Water deeply and infrequently. Frequent, light watering encourages shallow roots and reduces drought tolerance. To reduce evaporation, water in the early morning. Never water at night; this could cause other grass deseases to develope. By watering deeper you are training the roots to grow downward into the soil and this makes for a more drought tolarant lawn.

Prepare Water Gardens for Winter

 By: NHGC


As frost begins to nip at our gardens, it's time to think about winterizing ponds and other water features. The experts at TetraPond, a water-garden supplier in Blacksburg, Virginia, offer the following tips:

Cut back lilies and other deep-water plants to about one inch above the tip. Replace soil and gravel, as needed. To prevent rot, be sure not to cover the plants' crowns.

Move plants to deeper water if you live in a climate where ponds freeze.

■Cut back all growth on bog plants surrounding your pond and mulch with 6 inches of straw.

■Place tender floating plants like water hyacinth in a 3-inch water-filled tray and move them to a frost-free shed or greenhouse.

■When temperatures drop and fish spend most of their time on the bottom of the pond, stop feeding them.

■To reduce next spring's chores, clean out leaves and twigs that fall into the pond and remove as much duckweed as possible. You may want to buy a pond netting to aid in the leaf removal.

■If you don't already have a de-icer or bubble airater, buy one now to keep a small area of the pond ice-free. This will help your fish survive by creating a spot for harmful gasses to escape.

■Turn off filters, (other than fall boxes and skimmers; these can remain running.), then clean them and store them inside.

*Check out Ken's Landscape Designs website store for products.

Awesome Autumn Container

Create a colorful autumn container
By: Michelle Leise
 
Follow our steps to create a colorful and vibrant autumn container.
 Materials
• Drill with 5/8- to 1/2-inch bit
• Pot, about 24 inches high with a diameter of 24 inches at the top
• Plastic saucer with a diameter of about 18 inches
• Trowel
• Potting soil
• Assorted fall perennials and annuals
Tips
• Put in more plants than you think you’ll need. You’ll be surprised by how many will fit and still flourish, and it’s really the only way to get a spectacular-looking container.
• Fertilize once a month and water as needed, depending on the weather and amount of rain.
• For cold climates, use pots made of fiberglass, which withstand freezing temperatures better than plastic and terra cotta.
• Protect your potted perennials during winter if you live in a cold climate. In late fall, carry the pot to an out-of-the-way location and tip it upside down with the plants and soil left in the pot. Don’t bother trimming anything—even the grasses—because the extra foliage will provide warmth and protection during the winter. The foliage will get crushed when you tip the pot over, which is fine. The plants and soil will stay secure because the roots will have combined into a single root ball. Pile plenty of straw around the pot to insulate the plants during the winter.
• When danger of frost has passed in spring, tip the pot back over, trim back the perennials, discard the old annuals, and plant new annuals in their place.
• After a perennial grows for two to three years in the container, divide it so it stays healthy.

Method

-Step 1: Drill drainage holes. Drill three to five drainage holes into the plastic saucer. If the pot doesn’t have drainage holes, drill several of them.

-Step 2: Choose pot and placement. Use a pot that’s sturdy enough to hold large plants and big enough to look visually balanced when you add tall grasses. Place the pot close to its permanent location so you won’t

have to carry it far when it’s full.

-Step 3: Fill with soil. Set the saucer into the pot (see step 3 photo) so it rests about 6 to 8 inches into the pot—that way, you won’t have to fill the entire container with soil, which saves money. Fill with potting soil until the soil is 2 to 3 inches from the top. Don’t fill to the brim or soil will spill out as you add plants.

-Step 4: Group plants. Group together the plants you’re considering so you can look at the overall color scheme and see how their textures and heights work together (see step 4 photo).

For a fall planting, purples, grays, silvers, and burgundies combine beautifully, especially when they have diverse textures. Think of plants such as kale, purple fountain grass, miniature asters, mums, sedum, and licorice plant. Look to recycle summer container plants—we reused Lamium maculatum ‘White Nancy’ and Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ from a summer pot we took apart.

-Step 5: Plant selections. After you remove plants from their nursery pots, use your hand or a trowel to gently spread out roots that appear root-bound (growing in a tight circle). Mums are especially prone to this.

To get lots of color and size right away, put in healthy potted plants from a nursery and some well-established perennials that you (or a friend) have grown for at least a year or two. Ornamental grasses, for instance, will be taller and more lush if you divide them from a mature plant.