Human Hopes International
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Human Hopes International
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Preparing a New Garden
Whether you recently moved into a new home or you've just got the gardening itch, planning a new garden can be a great deal of fun. The opportunity to act as creator can be very appealing. But anyone who has gardened for long has learned the necessity of accommodating nature and has developed a sense of humility in the process. The hardest thing to convince new gardeners of is the need for patience. With the first warm day of spring they are eager to begin planting and nothing can stop them. Many of these bursts of enthusiasm yield ill-conceived gardens doomed to failure. The plants wither and the would-be gardeners become convinced that they lack some secret knowledge or inherent skill. In most of these cases, however, a few hours of planning and preparation would have made all the difference. It is quite easy to dig up a plot and throw some plants in the ground. It is another thing entirely to create a healthy, living garden.
The first thing to determine is what will grow in the spot available for your garden. This is where many gardeners make their first mistake. Too often plants are purchased before thought has been given to the conditions under which they will have to grow. The three chief factors determining what will grow in a particular spot are sunlight, the composition of the soil and soil moisture. While you can have some influence on soil composition and moisture, as far as sunlight goes, you're stuck with what you have. It is important to have a good idea of what amount of sunlight will reach your garden throughout the year. Plants that require "full sun" will generally need at least 6 hours of direct sunlight a day. Patches under large deciduous shade trees receive only mottled sunlight. In this situation there can be large variations in the amount of light hitting nearby spots, so generally you will want to find plants that require "half sun," or a few hours of direct sun a day. Other sites, like the north side of a building, are going to remain in shade year-round. The shade garden requires the most careful planning, but there are many wonderful plants that will thrive in the darkest of shade.
Next, you will need to determine what type of soil you'll be working with. The three main constituents of soil are sand, silt and clay. Sand has the largest particles and clay has the smallest, which is why it packs so tightly together. Silt particles are of intermediate size. An ideal garden soil, or loam, would be about 40% sand, 40% silt and 20% clay. The easiest way to see what type of soil you have is to dig a few holes and take some samples. There are a number of simple tests you can do to determine the composition of soil. One method is to take a fistful of soil and squeeze it into a ball. If it is unable to hold its shape, your soil is probably too loose, or sandy. Now try to break the ball apart by pressing on it with your thumb. A good soil will break apart readily; if not, you probably have too much clay in your soil. Another method is to take a couple of cups of soil and put them in a half-gallon jar half filled with water. Agitate the mixture until all the soil is in suspension and then let it settle overnight. The next day you will see that three distinct layers have formed: sand at the bottom, then the silt and at the top a layer of clay.
The best way to amend a poor soil, whether sandy, clay or silty, is to add organic matter. If your soil is high in sand or silt, add a combination of topsoil and peat moss or compost. (Always moisten peat moss before adding it to your soil.) If the problem is too much clay, add peat moss or compost and some sand. Many gardeners advise never adding sand to soil as it can sometimes create a kind of concrete. I have found this to be the case when dealing with urban soils, which can be 80% silt. But when used in addition to organic matter, sand can help loosen clay soils and allow for proper drainage. If your soil is very heavy, i.e., high in clay, you may want to work with a raised bed. This will provide your plants with a little more drainage than they might have otherwise and won't entail replacing several tons of soil. Landscape timber or stones can be used to create a short wall several inches high, or the soil can be gently sloped to prevent erosion.
Soil moisture is obviously tied to the climate of the area where you live, but even in a small yard there can be wide variations. If your garden is at the bottom of a hill, the soil may remain wet for long periods of time. In this situation, you can try creating a raised bed as mentioned above, but it is best to stick to plants that enjoy having their feet wet. Alternatively, if your plot is very dry, don't asume you'll be able to compensate by frequent watering. Select plants that will be happy in a dry place and you'll be able to take that two-week vacation without worrying whether your neighbor has remembered to water every day for you.
While some measures can be taken to make your garden a hospitable place for particular plants, your experience will be much more rewarding if you learn to work with nature. Yes, you may be able to plant your rose garden in that shady spot, but you'll need to feed the roses more fertilizer and spray more fungicide, and they still won't look as nice as if they were planted in full sun. And azaleas in bloom might look great at the front of your south-facing home, but if they were planted beneath some protection from the sun, they might not be constantly infested with lace bugs. Of course, you can spray them regularly with insecticide, but now your garden is becoming about as environmentally friendly as an oil refinery. Learn to work with nature and you will save yourself a lot of time, money and grief.
The Importance of Watering
Once your garden has been planted, nothing is more important to its ability to thrive than water. When provided too little water, plants are unable to develop properly and become more susceptible to damage from pests. Too much water can of course be equally bad. In soil that is kept too moist plants become prone to rots and other diseases.
As a commercial gardener, I have many times been shown plants on death's door and asked what should they be sprayed with, as if there is some miracle chemical capable of reviving neglected gardens. Nine times out of ten, the answer is water. It never ceases to amaze me how people can spend hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars on a landscape and then watch it gradually die for want of an occasional watering. Proper watering would probably save 75% of the plants that are lost in gardens each year. Even those plants that succumb to pests were usually first weakened by inconsistent watering.
In most cases, the gardener needs to supplement natural rain water. The questions of how much and how often are a matter of judgement. The best way to tell when a garden needs watering is to look at it. If the soil is dry to a depth of a half an inch or so, it's time to water. How often you need to water varies greatly with the temperature. With high temperatures in the mid-70s (24 C), watering once a week will probably be more than adequate. But when temperatures hit the mid-90s (35 C), you may need to water as often as every other day. Other factors influencing the frequency of watering are the nature of the soil, the amount of sunlight, how well the garden is mulched and whether the plants are in flower (during flowering plants generally require more water). But always keep in mind, you can most definitely water too much. When watering you want to make sure the soil is well moistened. This can be time consuming, but it is better to water thoroughly once a week than to give your garden a brief shower every day. Never use a spray nozzle on a hose, it delivers either too strong a flow or an inefficient mist. The best way of controlling water flow is to use your thumb. Always try to water the base of the plants, but in times of meager rainfall you can give the foliage an occasional spray as well. The best time to water is in the morning, but the warnings against mid-day watering are over done. Late evening is probably the worst time to water, as it leaves the foliage damp at night when molds and fungi are most active. But never let a bone-dry garden go without watering simply because you can't do it at the optimum time of day.
Irrigation systems can be great time savers for those with large gardens or little time. The best use drip hoses to supply water directly to the base of the plants. This minimizes the loss of water to evaporation that makes sprinkler systems so inefficient, particularly in hot, dry climates. Sprinkler systems are also much more prone to mechanical failure. And since they are usually set to go off in very early morning, problems can be difficult to detect. For some very large landscapes a sprinkler system is a necessity, but bear in mind they are expensive both to install and to maintain. The most economical way of creating an automatic watering system is to use soaker hoses (porous hoses that allow water to trickle out throughout their length) and a simple timer that fits onto the tap. Mechanical flow timers (these turn off after a certain amount of water has flowed through) can be found for $10-$15 and more elaborate electronic timers are available for $30-$50. Place the hoses under any mulch and about six inches from the base of your plants. With just a minimum amount of pressure, this hose can be left on for several hours. Keep an eye on your garden's moisture and you'll save yourself much trouble and expense.
Planting with Care
No amount of watering or fertilizer will compensate for improper planting. On many occasions I have puzzled over the problems of plants only to discover they were planted six inches too deep or with their roots bound tightly. There isn't any mystery to good planting, just some common sense techniques.
Before you unpot your plant, prepare a hole fifty to a hundred percent larger than the plant's root ball. Work some compost, peat moss or other soil conditioners into the soil you've removed. When planting smaller perennials or bedding plants, rather than preparing individual holes, it may be simpler to amend a larger area and use a trowel to place the individual plants. In the case of large trees, it is generally best not to amend the soil too much. The roots of the tree will try fairly quickly to spread past the prepared area, and if the composition of this soil is significantly different from that of the surrounding area, the roots can have trouble getting past the barrier. If the tree is going to have to survive in a primarily clay soil, you won't be doing it any favors by creating a super-rich loam immediately around the root ball.
Place some soil in the center of your hole creating a mound. Generally, you want the soil line to be at the same point it was in the pot. But since the loose soil you'll be using to fill your hole is bound to settle some, start with the plant sitting a little higher. Then when it settles it should be at the correct height. It is usually better to err on the side of having the plant too high rather than too low. Some plants, like rhododendrons, actually like to sit with the top of the root ball an inch or so above the soil line, especially if you have a slow-draining, clay soil. When the hole is ready, unpot the plant. Hold it upside down, and with one hand holding the plant in place, hit the bottom of the pot with the palm of your other hand. Now make sure the plant isn't root-bound. If the roots have formed a solid wall around the inside of the pot, you'll need to gently loosen them or carefully score the outside layer. If planted with the roots left constricted, the plant is unable to send out new roots beyond this barrier and can actually strangle itself. As you place the plant in the hole, try to gently spread the roots atop the mound of soil.
If you're planting a large shrub or tree that's wrapped in burlap, place the plant on your mound of soil and then untie the burlap. Lean the plant in one direction and pull the burlap underneath it as far as you can. Then lean it in the opposite direction and you should be able to pull the burlap out. At this point it will be much easier to pull soil out from under a large plant than to try to put soil underneath it. This is another good reason to make your mound of soil rather tall to start with. As you fill in the hole around the plant, leave an indentation, or shallow moat, around it and fill this with water. After it has drained, fill it again several times. The purpose of watering at this time is not just to dampen the roots, but to help the soil settle and fill in any underground air pockets that might have formed. You can now fill in the moat with soil and mulch around the plant. Leave a gap in the mulch around the stem or trunk of the plant to allow air to circulate and prevent rot. With a little luck, years from now you'll be giving your grandchildren cuttings from this plant. |
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Getting
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