Is there mystery in your yard?

I love gardening. Over the past six years since moving into this home, my little kingdom has experienced an expansion each year by at least one plot, sometimes two. With each bit of territory successfully taken for garden use, my unforgiving lawn struggles to reclaim it. Each victory not only affords me an increase in the number of plants that can be grown, but also variety. This increase greatly adds to the level of enjoyment I derive from gardening. However, my joy has always been tempered somewhat by the inability to expand the plot away from the border of the yard into its center.

I am unable because I don’t have enough plants to put in those new plots. Once I get the ‘art’ of propagation figured out I’ll be able to fill those otherwise barren plots thereby making it worthwhile digging them up.

I suppose this is the inescapable nature of a budgeted garden, but, since I am unable to afford to put my ‘grand plan’ into motion all at once, each newly added plot is but another link in the ‘necklace’ of small plots that make up the perimeter of my yard. Each year they slowly expand until they will one day connect and replace the fence as the boundary framing the entire yard.

In the meantime, while my garden may be performing a slower creep than I would like there is no reason why I cannot take advantage of at least one principle of garden design, that being the focal point. Currently I have three focal points: two birdbaths, a one tree stump. I’m not going to include the fruit trees which seem oddly out of place, but I suppose if I could expand my growing space to surround those they could be focal points as well. I have plans of adding a couple signs and during the growing season there are several trellises reaching up out of the vegetable beds to serve as focal pins as well.

But the grandest achievement for me would be to have an island or two out away from the border. This would allow me to incorporate yet another principle of garden design I like to call mystery. If I had some mystery to my garde, my guests would perhaps ask “What is hiding behind that tall spruce in the middle of that island?” or maybe “What is lurking just around the bend in the path?” Maybe they won’t be quite so dramatic about it and just go along down the path without much thought to mystery. I’ll be asking though.

Its rather difficult to hide anything when everything grows in a straight line along the fence and you can see everything the garden has to offer from everywhere in the yard.

Sure the fence is hidden if you have plants tall enough to hide it, but that’s not quite the same thing. With an island, something you can walk 36o degrees around, there are plenty of opportunities to place a statue or the odd exotic plant that you cannot see from the other side of the yard.

Mystery of this nature adds another dimension to the yard that is difficult to match. Turning your yard into a full duty vegetable patch with raised beds lined up in neat little rows is one thing, but a yard with one or more islands each of a different size and shape mounded high with large shrubs and or trees, would provide endless possibilities for mystery.

I don’t know when but sometime in the future I will have my islands. Who knows, maybe they will be covered with vegetables and herbs, just so long as there is something tall enough to hide something behind it.

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Landscape/Garden design software

Does anyone use these? When I looked into them last year I decided they were pretty much designed for large yards or people who consider themselves perfectionists or for businesses who would use them more often than the home gardener and therefore stand a better chance at getting their money’s worth out of them. I don’t have a large yard by most standards: 7,700 sq ft with 2,300 sq ft of that devoted to garden space, I certainly am not a perfectionist and I don’t run a business. The ole ‘pencil and paper’ method works fine for me.

Some people need to see the layout on paper whether it be via hand or computer and printer, while others have the ability to envision it all in their talented heads and bring it all to life without ever touching paper.

I need to see it on paper and I use Excel to layout rectangular representations assigning a separate workbook for each garden space. Next to the design I list each plant and its color, bloom time and length, height and width, and how many plants are planted (or going to be). The plan ends up as squares and rectangles, which can get a bit tricky for curves and rounded ends, and trying to determine the exact amount of space used is a bit skewed, but it all works. I even have hyperlinks to photographs so I can quickly see what the plant looks like in full bloom. The one thing that using a spreadsheet or drawing it out on paper lacks is, how the whole layout looks with all the plants together. This requires that talented ability to imagine the space as it might look.

There are some very good landscape design products on the market and some of these are getting more press lately, presumably because this time of year is when we are all itching to get back into the garden. We all know the best time to put a garden in is in the fall but we can design one any time we want.

Advertising for these products typically starts off by making sure you know that by using their product you will save ‘time and money’, make ‘fewer mistakes’ and prevent your frustration level from making you want to kick the family pet.

One major improvement I have noticed this year over last years offerings is the ability to import digital photos. This, to me is a nice touch. It helps prevent the cartoonish look of your design by using your own photos of plants you really want to design with and you can actually use a photo of your own house! Some software allows you to edit and touch-up the photos to give your plan a little more sparkle. And while this isn’t a deal breaker it does add a bit of value. Most have diaries to track your gardens progress, and a built-in video tutorial on how to use their product, and the ability to add in hardscape, such as, walkways, driveways, decks, patios, birdbaths, etc.

The more complete software packages, in my opinion, have pre-designed garden plans to get ideas from, access to a (large) plant encyclopedia, helps you identify your hardiness zone, guides to common diseases and insects and their treatments and controls, and the ability to print out a shopping list of plants to order from.

Some extras, that would probably drive the price up, would be:

tips on when to plant,
fertilization,
watering and techniques on how to save it,
soil preparation,
composting,
vermiculture,
seed starting,
companion planting,
basically a ‘complete package’ (provided there ever could be such a thing).

I realize that all of this information could be found in many good books found at book stores and libraries everywhere, but let’s face it, a lot of people are turning to the internet and their computers and, sadly, away from books.

With this in mind let’s look at a few examples of landscape/garden software for purchase in the $30 to $200 range. Trust me, they do come a lot more expensive than this.

Stand alone Computer Software
Graphics have come a long way in recent years and the ability to draw in 3D will greatly enhance your experience. One software product that takes full advantage of this selling point is 3D Garden Composer. This is an upgrade from their Garden Composer 2004.

This software package has one of the most extensive and complete encyclopedias I have seen yet. The illustrations are full color and some come with slide shows. Plant entries include growing zones, sun exposure, soil moisture, soil composition, colors of flowers, leaves and fruit, the colors of autumn leaves, growing rates, spreading rates, plant sizes and annual flowering, fruiting calendars, plant origins, and other useful information.

A plant and resource editor allows you to create your own plant encyclopedia of your own digitally photographed plants with customized fields, and backgrounds, such as fences.

You can publish your garden plan on your webpage allowing visitors to take a virtual tour of your garden. Very nice touch.

You can also publish a detailed list or create an illustrated catalogue of your garden plants.

It comes with a garden care calendar, garden tools database, notepad, photo designer, photo editor, guide to garden pests and diseases, pre-designed garden plans, and the ability to view your garden design throughout the changing seasons.

One drawback is it’s learning curve. Plan on devoting several hours to learn to use its features and apply it to your own landscape.

Another major bit of landscape design software is Landscape Vision Design Software.

This package has one of the best features yet, it allows you to use a picture of your own home. This is a definite plus and I think more software ought to have this capability.

Some other features are:

Drag and Drop pictures of plants from their plant data base of over 1,000 plants, or import your own.
Import images of stone and pavers from select vendors, or draw your own.
Draw garden beds and fill with your choice of mulch.
Draw walkways and patios and fill with pavers or stone.
Drag and Drop images of lawn furniture, gazebos, arbors, bird baths, mailboxes, grills, etc.
Print a shopping list.

A third software package is from Realtime Landscaping and comes in three flavors-Pro, Plus and Photo.

It too has 3D graphics and most of the popular bells and whistles.
Realtime provides:

walkthroughs,
allows you to edit in 2D or 3D,
shows day and night visualizations,
allows designing of raised flowerbeds and decks,
has a plant growth tool,
allows importing of digital photos and custom materials,
can design sprinkler systems, ponds, waterfalls, etc.

Plant databases for these and other design packages range in size from 16 to 15,000 different plants. The three mentioned here fall somewhere in between.

Website based landscape design
Another area of landscape design offering allows you to use them online.

Some are free and some allow you to download their software for a trial period with limited functionality. Not all will allow you to print the design you create while online but you can use it for a quick look at how some plants might look together. They all come with a small list of plant shapes for a birds-eye view.

Here are three, picked at random, that highlight the range of functionality you can expect (listed in no particular order).
BBC – Gardening Design
I have used this one several times for a quick look at how some plants will look together. It requires a plug-in to be downloaded but it provides the usual grid where you can quickly layout your chosen bed and add a few plants to see the colors together. The software is easy to use and is quite useful for design basics.

Showoff
This package uses real color photos, includes photos of real homes or use a photo of your own, allows you to select your hardiness zone, shows the plants grow over a five year period and also is very easy to use.

Garden Planner Online
This design software can be used online or you can download a trial version. The online portion is pretty handy to get a quick representation of your yard and plants in general terms.

Besides the usual trees, shrubs, plants, groundcovers, etc, you can add buildings, paving, ponds, fences, garden furniture and you can print the plan.

Each object you place can easily be resized.

The downside is that you cannot save the plan, but you can print it out.

Do it Yourself Websites
There are of course loads of do it yourself websites that are ready to show you their projects and walk you through designing your own great looking yard/garden.

One of the most detailed websites, full of great information, is Landscape Design Do It Yourself.

About.com: Landscaping is very informative as well.

These are only two but if you do an online search you will find a large selection of information sources from webpages and books.

For those of you who are talented enough, there are graphic design software packages, such as IrfanView, Adobe Illustrator, and a host of others that require a fair amount of graphics understanding and talent to freeform the whole shebang. With these you have to build everything from the ground up.

All in all there are loads of options to help you design your own landscape depending on how much time, effort, and money you are willing to spend.

To me, gardening is not spending time on the computer designing, but designing is part of the overall gardening experience. So it is something we all do sooner or later.

If you are ready to throw your hands up in the air and turn everything over to someone else, you can always pay a landscape designer to do it for you.

During the winter months we may have time on our hands to design but how many of us actually shell out money for design software?


Disclaimer: I want to take the time to point out that there are no promotional considerations taken or given for listing any product or website on this post.

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Deciding on what path to take

My yard is beginning to evolve from a typical suburban landscape of lawn, a few trees and a fence. I have added some raised beds and a few level beds. Although I am pleased with the progress in this first year of perennial gardening, I can’t help but think the design is boring.

Maybe it’s because I have time on my hands now that the winter chores are done and I can take the time to just look around.

I have noticed a distinct pathway developing between the rear door of the garage, where I keep the bird seed, running past the deck and on toward the two trees where I have bird feeders hanging. I make this trip every evening at dusk to refill the feeders so I don’t have to go out at the crack of dawn when the temperature is at its coldest. Plus, this way the feeders are already stocked full when the birds decide to show up. Sometimes, they would actually get their before I would in the morning so this method just works out better for all of us.

It is amazing to me how a path can be worn through the grass by only two human feet making this trip just once a day, but I’ve been doing it now for about three and a half years. Granted the path isn’t real obvious yet and it gets blended in when I mow the lawn, but I know it’s there.

Now that I see this path being laid out for me I have turned my thoughts to building a path through the yard. It would make sense to have the path follow this straight-line course that I obviously have felt is the best way to get to the feeders because, as they say, a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. And since there are no obstructions, a straight line is what I take. But sometimes taking the long way around is more enjoyable and my right-side brain tells me to make the path more, shall we say, 'interesting'.

In order to make the trip from garage to feeders most interesting there should be planting beds along the way. This intimates that I would design the path first and then the beds, but hold on. I have a few concerns about what I want to see from the deck, since that is where I will view the garden most often, and what I don’t want to see. For instance, I would like to be able to view the bird feeders and the birds on the ground under the feeders that don’t sit on the feeders, such as the Mourning Doves, the Dark-eyed Juncos, the ducks, etc. Also, I would like to block the view of the compost area. So these consideration dictate that I should design the beds first and build the path around them.

Starting a path from all entrances and destinations would seem to be the most logical, i.e., the garage, both sheds, the deck steps, compost area, bird feeders, vegetable beds and both side entrances from the front yard. Where the individual starting points of the path would meet depends on the design of the beds and the path would, of course, run along side some of the beds. Maybe this path design is creating itself for me.

The beds would have to be designed to be inviting enough to come off of the deck to investigate. Up to this point my beds have abutted fences around the outer edges of the yard, in a very typical manner, and although the leading edge is curved, giving each bed varying depths, I have not yet reached toward the center of the yard. Since I have been thinking about paths, I now feel compelled to expand my gardening experience into this uncharted territory. I will no longer be restricted to creating beds for three view points, I can now design them for viewing from four sides. The shape of the fourth side, previously dictated by the straight line of a fence, will now become curved as well. I feel so liberated.

I have never been fond of a balanced or symmetrical appearance in any design, except where efficiency or safety has to be a factor. Even the wall hangings in my house are not perfectly balanced or symmetrical in their layout. I find symmetry to be boring. Nature is not symmetrical so why should I force symmetry where it is not natural?

But I digress. Allowing oneself to be drawn into parts of the garden that are unseen from somewhere else in the garden is like giving yourself a gift. Rounding a shrub in order to view a particular plant, and then comparing that new vision with that which you remember from the last time you saw it offers a sense of newness, a freshness that cannot be had with the constant familiarity of a plant that is always in view such as that obtained from standing in the middle of the yard and being able to see everything at once..

Your garden should be a place of surprises. It should be your personal amusement park drawing your senses from one combination of plants (grouped by color, texture, fragrance or height) or single specimen to a contrasting group or single specimen. You should be able to arrive at your destination by traveling through a range of sensory triggers. Textures, fragrances and colors that both soothe your spirit and give a sense of well-being and peace are something we all strive for in our gardens.

Most books I have read concerning landscape design says you should have one or more focal points for your eyes to rest on. I can see merit in this. Focal points could be anything, a statue, a trellis, a shrub or other planting and can fit anywhere within the garden. But they don’t necessarily have to be seen all at once. Winding paths through the garden allow these focal points to be hidden and encountered singularly.

Hiding focal points can be extremely challenging in a small suburban yard so the paths and beds need to be constructed in such a way as to make the yard appear larger. I have heard the term ‘garden rooms’ used to describe just such an illusion. I’m not so sure I want garden rooms in my yard, mainly because of the limited space I have to deal with, but smaller areas along the path like pockets can work the same way.

We are told to always put the shorter plants up front with the tallest to the rear in order to see everything. Nature doesn’t do it this way and I would prefer not to either. So creating pockets of surprises tucked in here and there allows you to see everything from the path but not from everywhere on the path. For instance, if you move just two feet to the right you can now see that 18” tall Heuchera that was hidden between the 36” tall Chrysanthemum and the 6’ tall Viburnum. This apparent randomness in design, I think, is much more appealing. It may be considered too messy for some, but I think it looks more natural.

Building a pathway that forces you to explore, in addition to getting you to where you are going, should be a worthwhile goal. And as such I think I should build curved beds, not necessarily circular or symmetrical beds. This, hopefully, will allow visitors to want to explore and discover. If you cannot see the entire garden from the porch, deck or windows of your house then you are more likely to walk out into the garden in order to see everything, to experience it more first hand, if you will. Standing in the center of the yard, turning 360 degrees to see everything your garden has to offer, seems a bit boring. This is what I have now.

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Gardening is a learning experience

I am grateful for finally having the space to garden as I always knew I could. And I am grateful for being healthy enough to get out there and do it.

I am grateful that gardening is such a popular activity. Its popularity has made possible the wide variety of plants and the nurseries that make them available.

I am grateful for the variety of media available to give me ideas, to spark my imagination and to answer my many questions either through websites, bulleting boards, blogs, podcasts, books, magazines, and to a lesser extent radio and television.

I want to take this opportunity to send my heartiest thank-you to each and every one of my wonderfully talented, generous, caring fellow gardeners who take the time to blog their experiences so beginners like me can learn.

And I have learned a lot this past Spring and Summer. About how plant colors interact with one another. How to put color combinations together to design a ‘cool’ setting or a ‘hot’ setting. About how some colors give the feeling of depth, and how texture can give the illusion of movement. I have also discovered that there are no hard and fast rules. That it is okay to experiment to find your own unique style.

I have begun to learn ‘nursery speak’, the hidden meanings behind words like creeping (invasive) or airy (long and thin).

About what plants won't grow in 'full sun' areas like I was told they would. Without casting too much discredit onto nurseries trying to sell their wares, I realize they look at ‘full sun’ from the view point of warning potential buyers to give the plant at least six hours of direct sun. My experience has now shown me that more than six hours of full sun can be detrimental to the plants health. I probably should have watered more for those particular plants, but I don’t know which plants need more water in the ‘full sun plus’ areas just by reading the warning that they need full sun. Communication is a wonderful thing, but only if all pertinent information is properly conveyed.

I have learned how valuable it is to have someone you can count on to actually water everything when you are on vacation.

I learned I need to start seeds indoors earlier than I did this year. As well as the fact that I can actually make it work.

Another thing I learned is that this can be a pretty expensive hobby if you let it get out of hand. The rewards are far greater though. Being outside in the sun, exercising your knees and back, and shoulders and legs, and neck, and oh, what a workout!

I have learned the true value of a great pair of pruning shears over the economy of a good pair. Likewise with every other garden tool available.

Other rewards come later after you see all of your planning and hard work come to fruition and even if only one person tells you it looks great, then it was worth it. That’s the moment when you take a break, stand back and don’t look at your work with a critical gardeners eye but look at it for the beauty it is and say “You know, it does look good”.

When dozens of birds, butterflies and bees come around to visit, that is when it will really hit me. That I have actually created an environment that is natural enough for wildlife to nourish themselves, find protection and feel comfortable enough to nest here. That is when I know I have achieved something really important and worthwhile.

I already have more than my fair share of birds coming around to all of the feeders I have filled every day for the past three years. I’m used to, daily, seeing a variety of Finches and Doves. I am regularly visited by Hummingbirds, Starlings, Flickers, Mallards, Chick-a-dees and the occasional Red-tailed Hawk. Now I am to the point that I am anxiously looking for the never before seen birds that migrate through here.

This year there were more bees than last year. Next year I hope there will be even more. This year there were only the white cabbage butterfly and once I saw a red butterfly, but next year, there will be more, I’m just sure of it.

I learned that maintaining a garden bed is a lot of work. I was already in tune with the rhythm of digging, amending, planting, feeding, and weeding with vegetables. But this year it was different. This time it is with perennials. I have already gone through three winters of caring for roses and fruit trees and one winter of caring for a few other perennials.

This winter I will be caring for so many more plants than I ever have before and attempting to learn the timing of when to mulch and which plants should be covered and which ones should not that I am really looking forward to how they come through.

Gardening has taught me to accept nature on its terms, and if you can do that and provide its very basic needs then you will be rewarded by the simple yet complex beauty that only nature can provide.

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Never mow again.

Boy, those three words just painted the most wondrous image for me.

Imagine, a beautiful plant-filled ‘yard’ with meandering, shrub and flower-lined stone paths that lead from one welcome view to the next. If you saw the pictures of my backyard you would know I desperately need something to liven it up. It is just so bland and grass-filled right now. The edges are beginning to take shape, but the middle is where the real fun will be.

I have seen so many of everyone else’s yards in your blogs that are filled with plants and paths and I get to longing for my space to look as colorful as those.

I was reading the latest issue of Garden Gate magazine just today and found an article about this very topic. This particular article displays a yard in Colorado, same zone as mine, 5, but on the other side of the Rockies, and it looks like it would be idea for my place. Of course, being on this side of the mountains we tend to get a little drier so that would require a slight adjustment to my available plant options.

In trying to determine just where the paths should be laid out I am using my ‘daily’ trek to the bird feeders as a guide and they should be ‘indirect’ paths, of course.

And of course the path should continue on to the back shed, and then to the raspberry patch, and to the fruit trees lined up on the west side of the yard. and the raised vegetable beds at the very back.

I don’t think there’s a shortage of ideas as to why I ‘need’ a stone path. And then, there is the biggest reason of all. I don’t like to mow my lawn! And I would like the yard to be more…I don’t know, 3 dimensional! Not just north to south and east to west, I want it to go up too.

I envision lots of evergreen shrubs (in several shapes, sizes and shades of green), yarrow, daylilies, dianthus, salvia, lavender, roses, ornamental grasses. Take a breath. My mind is just swimming with possibilities. I’m mapping it out as I’m writing this trying to get as much down as I can.

My back yard covers just under 1,000 square feet so this is not going to happen by next year. I’ll have to figure out how to break it down into stages so it can slowly (and more affordably) get to where I want it.

I love planning and designing. This yard is the first where I have actually been able to put my plans into action. Because of my job, the one I retired from, I could never plan on staying in one place long enough to realize my designs. Finally, I’m going to get to see if those plans will actually come to fruition. So far my wife, family and neighbors like what they see. But it’s so small and new still. I am so exited.

Sometimes I think they all just tolerate my enthusiasm. But, I guess I do believe they like the changes so far.

Let’s see, this is going to require adjusting my irrigation plans. And if I can work out having some fragrant plants near the back deck…oh! See ya.

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A Gardening year: preparing the plot

For all of you who have felt the urge to start a garden, congratulations for rediscovering our agrarian heritage. That urge is rooted in a time when farming, for the sake of feeding ourselves, was once so necessary, so much a part of the fabric of our lives, that it would never occur to us that we would not ever have a food garden or farm. A backyard garden may be small but it is still a farm. With the proliferation of cheap, readily available food year-round from supermarkets and farmers markets, we no longer have to farm. The trade-off is that we have lost touch with our heritage.

Growing your own food, once a necessity and a chore, has become more of a treat. For the fresh taste that you simply cannot get from store bought produce. For the variety of produce that supermarkets cannot provide. For the sheer joy of creating life out of your own backyard, through your own toil and sweat. These attributes, experienced by home gardeners everywhere, cannot be measured.

Gardening is a pleasure for all your senses. Feeling the suns warmth on the almost silky smoothness of well-worked soil as it flows through your fingers, smelling its earthy almost sweet aroma, seeing the soil come alive with worms and other critters, tasting the freshness of vegetables and fruit that you have grown, hearing the wildlife that your efforts have attracted, all of these aspects make gardening worthwhile.

Just because we are surrounded by row after row of tract housing or stacked up buildings doesn’t mean we can’t grow something beautiful and/or edible.

Once you have picked and tasted the fruits of your labors gardening can truly consume you. You will end up spending hours lost in the Zen-like reverie of tending your garden that will force you to re-prioritize your place in this world. You will find a peace that you cannot find anywhere else.

If you are serious about gardening, you will soon learn it is as much about tending to your psychological well being as it is about tending to nature. One of the first things you need to do is put yourself in the frame of mind that it needs to be enjoyable. Once you have lost the fun factor then you may as well go find something else to entertain yourself.

Gardening is fun, but not in the way of anything else that offers the instant gratification that is necessary for some people. It is long term. After all, it is nature and nature is not an overnight proposition. It requires dedication, it requires patience, and it requires you to understand that there will be failures. Sometimes these failures can be of your own making, often times a failure can be attributable to mother nature herself. Do not take it personal. Nature has failed billions of times and yet its beauty can be found everywhere.

I think it is important to note that gardening is for more than just our health and enjoyment. We are creating a habitat for natures denizens. Insects, both good and bad, birds, both beautiful and not so beautiful, mammals, large and small, and of course us.

Now, if you are still here and still want to go forward with turning that boring and non-productive lawn into the beautiful and bountiful flower or vegetable patch of your dreams, then please read on.

You should decide now if you want to build raised beds or dig trenches around your plot. Walls and trenches are an attempt to keep the surrounding lawn from encroaching into your beds. If you dig a trench you will have to re-dig it every once in awhile, until you get tired of doing it and end up installing a barrier of some kind anyway. The advantage of raising the bed now and surrounding it with boards or concrete blocks is that the soil will tend to stay looser because there is less chance of you walking on it.

Turning your chosen plot of earth from lawn to garden is not something that happens overnight. After all, it took awhile for that lawn to fill in so it makes sense that any plants you put in will take awhile to thrive. You are going to need good quality soil, access to water and properly selected plants that will survive in the amount of sunlight that hits your plot.

Healthy soil is key to healthy plants. Whether your soil is ideal to begin with or if it has been laying barren for years, keep in mind that you will have to amend it every year. A combination of natural materials such as soil and compost, composted or aged animal manure, leaves, grass clippings, shredded newspapers, cardboard, and/or anything else that breaks down in the soil will go a long way towards maintaining that healthy soil texture that supports microbial life. Gardening is more about feeding the soil than about feeding the plants. Healthy soil needs to be loose enough to allow roots to easily pass through yet thick enough to support the plant so that it can stand up as it grows larger. Soil needs to also be able to retain water through periods of drought without having to water it every day and adding natural materials will keep this quality.

The plot you choose ideally should be no wider than three or four feet, so you can reach across it without stepping on it. Stepping on it compacts the soil, not good for growing things in. Some people place a board across the bed or stepping stones to prevent stepping on the soil. Outline the area with a garden hose, bricks, string, sticks, flour, spray paint or whatever to get a clear picture of the final shape of the bed. Nothing is really final in gardening, we all make adjustments as we go but once you have the layout identified the area needs to be cleared of all grass, plant roots, rocks and other debris.

Existing grass can be either removed or smothered.

To remove the grass, you will use either hand tools (turf edger and a square shovel) or a machine called a sod cutter. In either case you will be left with pieces of sod that you can either place in other barren areas of the lawn or throw onto the compost pile (lay them upside down on the pile to help smother the grass and expose the roots to the sun). After the plot is clean, break up the top eight to twelve inches of soil with a pitchfork. This tool is great for this job as you are not necessarily looking to dig up the whole area, just open it up so water and soil amendments can reach down into the substrate. You might be tempted to rent or borrow a roto-tiller but I caution you to resist the urge. Roto-tillers tend to more completely destroy the soil structure and there is growing evidence that soil just below where the tines reach can become a hard pan which is difficult for plant roots and water to break through.

Next, spread top soil mixed with compost or composted animal manure. What we are doing here is improving the soil texture. The manure is a great way to attract earthworms, the true workhorses of the garden. Spread the mix about 3” thick and then work it into the top six to eight inches of soil with the pitch fork. After digging it all in and leveling the plot, sprinkle the area with a gentle shower of water until just before puddles form. This allows the soil to settle, pushing out any air bubbles.

Smothering the grass can be done with clear plastic sheeting or newspapers. Use the plastic sheets in the summer so the heat of the sun bakes the grass until it dies (3-4 weeks). Use the newspaper method at anytime of the year by piling on 8-10 sheets and holding it down with soil until the grass dies (several months). The newspaper method is best done in fall and allowing it sit over winter. A way to speed up either process is by spraying Glyphosate on the grass first. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in many products on the market such as Hi-Yield and Round-Up. This chemical is considered the safest in that it will break down and become harmless within 10-14 days. I have used this method and it works great. After the grass is dead, the grass becomes a mulch and you can now pile on top soil mixed with compost or composted animal manure.

As the soil ‘ages’ you will begin to see earthworms throughout the plot, this is an excellent sign that you have the start of a fairly well balanced ecosystem.

When choosing plants for your new plot, pay particular attention to your growing zone and light/shade requirements. Full sun means at least six to eight hours, and more than this can be too much.

Be sure to follow growers recommendations for the proper width and depth of the hole. Then fill the hole with good garden soil and some fertilizer, time-released 10-10-10 is probably best.

Doesn’t it feel wonderful to know that you have taken the first steps towards bringing life up out of the ground and reconnected with your past?

Well this is enough for now. I’ll cover compost and mulch in another posting. So, until then good luck and have fun.

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New EPA program

EPA’s “Greenscapes” is a new program designed to promote healthy landscapes through water conservation, pesticide reduction, recycling, and “green landscaping.” www.epa.gov/greenscapes

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