PERENNIALS, LIVING LONG, LIVING TOGETHER Re-thinking how we commit perennial plants to live in our domesticated landscapes by understanding how a plant has lived a healthy life in natural communities for thousands of generations, without the intense amount of human input and products we now use and market. Also to understand there is not an herbaceous plant on Earth that genetically knows how to live with the yearly application of wood. All plants have lived healthy lives in their own debris. Leaf Litter, local leaf compost, these are the better mulches that the plants have a relationship to and live with. The product is everywhere!! PLANT COMMUNITIES All plants have lived healthy lives in the close, intimate, intermingled company of other plants. Only in our horticultural belief system have plants been placed 2 feet from each other and surrounded by wood. We need to stop treating all plants culturally like tomatoes. Each plant has its own needs and requirements to have a good life. When you “Come to Know” each plant, you will place them together because of their similar habitat and cultural requirements. They will live well from year to year enhancing the physical and growing characteristics of each other, the plants will then contribute to their own health and success. Without knowledge of the plant and understanding how they live and associate with each other when planted in a community, they can only become components of the replaceable landscape. PLANTS LIVING IN THEIR OWN DEBRIS For larger perennial gardens we are using mulching mowers, we mow over the garden 7 to 8 times then leave all the debris there, the plants are now living in a healthy system like their ancestors. In some gardens we are pruning back the foliage in March and leaving the debris around the plants. If you have a larger monoculture group of plants (like Miscanthus) you will have to take some of the debris away or cut it into smaller pieces. A few weeks after you cut everything back, the early Spring bulbs begin coming up, the planting now becomes a beautiful blooming, duff covered garden. Sustainability is not a collection of products, it’s a process THE DUTCH PUSH HOE Simply using this tool (that is nowhere to be found in our gardening sheds) lets you hoe at a very fast pace WITHOUT BENDING OVER, you’re upright, moving thru the garden at a reasonable and less tiring pace. We hoe 1000 sq. ft. in about 100 minutes, we hoe 4 to 5 times a season, once every 2 weeks beginning in mid to late April ending in mid- June. At this time the planting develops into a closed community, with little sunlight hitting the soil no agricultural weeds are able to germinate. The perennials are now working for you, limiting space for agricultural weeds to live by reducing light from reaching the soil below. When you weed in July and August you are now participating in “Observational Weeding”, go get the big ones, the ones that you missed with the hoe earlier are now visible. (mostly foxtails, prickly lettuce, some chickweed). Your most consistent maintenance is the edge of the garden where sunlight reaches soil, you need to keep that area clean and re-edge.
THE VALUE OF WATER No resource on earth is more valuable than water, now and in the future. We need to develop a direction of planting so future gardens can live healthy, dynamic lives on average rainfall. Supplemental water is crucial to the nurturing years of a planting and once the plants are mature they can live on average rainfall with occasional well-timed additional water in July and August. THE GERMAN GRAVEL GARDEN Simply change the habitat; place 5 inches of 3/8 granite chips over agricultural soil, select plants that live in dry conditions, grow them in 4.5 inch pots, take them out of the pots and plant them in the gravel just above or touching the soil below, push the gravel back around the plant, water every other day for 8 to 10 weeks. Never water again! Cut your labor over a traditional planting area by 75 to 85% This is something to stay up nights and think about, put beauty someplace where traditionally it would get mowed or just wood mulched. Can there be any cost or time savings?? SEDGES Carex sp. All thru our woodlands, prairies and wetlands, Carex sp. have lived covering the earth, from moist to dry soils. Their dependability, durability, textural beauty and ability to share space with other plants make this group too important. They can be combined to create a living mulch around and under trees and shrubs. You can be the artist in the garden developing endless combinations of textures and tonal changes of green and blue colors. In spring you can cut them down with mulching mowers, letting them live in their own debris and eliminating the yearly task of wood mulching. FIND ONE LOCATION AND BEGIN. Try various combinations, space them close, they need to meet and knit together. BULBS No garden should be planted without bulbs. They are the subtle welcoming and warming plants of spring. Their early moments of color give people the satisfaction and patience to wait for their perennial plants to begin entertaining them. Leave the over hybridized Tulips and Narcissus out of your diverse plantings, they don’t share space well, it’s all about them. Use species bulbs, or bulbs with a lower profile, scatter them through the planting, they will grow in proportion with the developing perennials. Have Fun!!