New Gardener's Tip - Know Your Style

Getting out into the yard is an annual winter rite-of-passage.  But before taking a backhoe to the yard, take a few moments to consider these few aspects of building a successful garden.  Gardening is not supposed to be stressful, but many get discouraged because they skip these steps.  

                                        Envision  - Enrich  -  Enjoy 

My approach to gardening is simple.  Envision, what is desired in the garden.  How will the yard be used?  Do the children need room for practicing soccer?  Will vegetables be grown?  Is a shady sitting area in the plan?  Is outdoor cooking wanted?  These questions allow for a picture to form in this planning stage of the new garden. 

I know getting that Vision is difficult.  So I encourage a trip through landscape pictures, gardens, patios, and decks.  What you like will be evident when you select favorites and the 'likes' will most certainly fall into a style that expresses you and your life style.

There are fifty styles that  can be developed into your space.  Here are a few styles that may appeal to your tastes.

English Cottage

Relaxing nook

Front Yard Vegetable Garden

Formal Garden

Zen Meditation

Mulched Tree Garden

Mulched Borders

Contemporary 

Entertaining Garden

Urban Border

Each garden embraces the owner's requirements for their life style. This vision of what you will use the space for is key to deciding on a garden style. No direction of taste or style will get a confused mish-mash garden that may not work for the family.  There may be an area where you never go, or one area is too small or crowded for where everyone hangs out.

The over-all yard design may be too difficult to easily maintain.  Shrubs that need constant pruning may not be the relaxed space you want.

Decide you style. Then be honest about the maintenance you are willing to do. Formal gardens need periodic pruning to keep the crisp lines of this style.  Let's face it, an overgrown space will overwhelm most gardeners, and sets the gardener up for failure.  I want all gardeners to succeed.  Clean and simple may be just what is needed.

I personally have been so busy pruning, weeding, deadheading, watering, mowing, and mulching, that I never had time to just sit and enjoy my yard.  Learn from my mistakes - and be realistic in your new garden project. 

Enrich the lives of the homeowner.  Allow the pleasure of this outdoor space to bring friends together, provide a quiet spot to read, and gather veggies for the family.  Sun, shade, rain, and colorful flower beds will add an element of satisfaction, peace, and relaxation to enrich any life.

Enjoy the outdoor space you have.  Families and jobs certainly deserve our best efforts.  But even if the tablet is in your lap on the patio, that space can be yours to enjoy.  

Where to Use Compost in The Landscape

Previously, I explained how to make compost.  In that article I highlighted why compost is so good for the soil by feeding the microbes, improving the soil structure, and allowing moisture to move through the soil. So now I would like to show the many way to incorporate compost into the landscape.

Three yards of compost from landscape supplier

Add compost to a new garden bed.  The spring is a great time to add some gardening space to the landscape.  Many cool, rainy days will aid in the process.  Removing turf is the hardest part. Using a flat head spade will skim the sod from the soil. 

Test the shape and size of a new bed 

Several steps to visualize the new space in the landscape.  What will it be used for, and how is the plan moving forward to a landscape that is usable.  Creating the bed once size and shape are determined is next.

Using landscape paint, this homeowner outlined the desired garden bed.  This will give a visual of size and shape.  This exercise using paint or even a garden hose to outline an area can easily be changed.  The cutout is harder to change if it does not look acceptable. 

Create new garden

Add compost as a planting base for new garden

This raised bed will be a great vegetable garden and there are uses for compost here as well. 

Another way to build a garden bed on sod or other planted area, is to lay down cardboard or newsprint on top of the grass.  This layer needs to be thick - about 6-8 sheets of newspaper will successfully suffocate weeds and grass.  I have done this several places in my garden.  The digging is eliminated, and rolling up sod is unnecessary.

Use newspapers smother grass

Skip scraping sod to make new bed

At this time, I cover the paper with a 4" - 6" layer of compost.  The paper will decompose, and the area can be planted in as little as eight weeks.  The compost enhances the planting area, and plants will take off well.

Top dress planting bed with compost

Add compost to planting holes when installing new perennials, shrubs, and trees.  The nutrients will be available to the roots slowly and steadily.  And the compost will allow water and oxygen to move freely at the roots. 

Amend soil with compost

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Add compost to planting hole

Rake Compost through grass for rejuvenation of a lawn

  Compost raked into an established lawn can rejuvenate a tired area. Compost can help break up compacted soil, and allows water to be better absorbed.  The nutrition that compost offers is secondary only to the benefits it gives the soil and the microbes that are in it.



Compost is an additive I like to add to containers.  Potting soil can be supplemented with compost - or mixed with peat moss and perlite to make a homemade potting soil more economically.

Perlite particles in a soil mix allows air spaces to form where oxygen and water have free movement.

Perlite

Peat moss

Compost added to container as growing mix.

Whether making home compost or purchasing compost from a landscape supplier, compost is one of the best soil amendments.  By building the soil with compost, a new garden bed, or the lawn, or the containers sitting on patio will benefit from the organic material.

Soil Health - the Cornerstone of Life

Beginner Gardeners have come to my attention.  Many do not know where to begin, but they know they want to begin. A friend bought a few acres with the plans to 'garden'.  She also is raising chickens.  While I was reducing our garden beds, I potted up extra plants and gave them to her.  But the focus has been on the plants, and I'd be amiss if I do not give her some other information that will make a world of difference in her new garden.

That information is how, and why the soil is so critical to, not only her garden, but to the environment, and, as far as that goes, the planet. Here is why.

Millions, and billions of microorganisms reside in healthy soil.  The eat organic material, and the enzymes they excrete allow the roots of plants to take up nutrients as needed.  The problem I see as an organic gardener is the media blitzes proclaiming the praises of chemical fertilizers (Specifically, liquid fertilizers). Advertisers do not tell of the harmful effects on the soil.  Chemicals kill microbes and leaves the soil dead. Synthetic fertilizers will feed the roots of plants while it is liquid. However, the soil cannot retain nutrients, so more and more applications of synthetic fertilizers are needed to keep lawns or gardens growing. No amount of chemicals can make up for the benefits of good organic material re-introduced into the soil.

Soil structure that is less than optimal can prohibit roots from taking up moisture and nutrients. Also,sandy soil is so porous that water runs through it rapidly.  So fast that roots have minimal time to take advantage of the moisture.  Clay soils, on the other hand, are so dense, that air and water cannot get down into the roots, thereby suffocating them.

By adding compost to sandy soil, moisture is slowly moved through enabling roots to stay moist longer.  Compost added to clay soil open up the pores and allows air and water to move through the soil.  The diagram above indicates that air and water are vital to good soil, and as little as 5% organic matter can make a weak soil into a healthy base.

The term 'friable' may be used in this instance.  Making the soil crumble-able.  Good organic soil will do this easily.

Nature has a way of building rich organic soil.  The forest is a good example of allowing debris such as leaves, bark, and microbes to return to the earth as organic matter.  This decomposing is Nature at her best. Mimicking Nature is the best way to return to a way of living that many have forsaken.

Adding compost to the lawn and garden will go a long way to reestablishing the balance that nature intended.

Healthy soil improves water-holding capacity reducing runoff of surface water and drawing moisture down. 

These roots indicate that air and water are deep into the soil making for a more robust plant.

Organic soil can maximize plant growth by giving the microorganisms in the soil food.  They decompose the organic matter and return available nutrients to the plants.  Plants thrive and provide food, lodging, and oxygen to the world above.

The message I've tried to convey today is that we need to feed the soil, not the plant.  Healthy soil will take care of the plant's needs IF we take care of the soil.