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Low Maintenance #3

23 Feb

Tip #3  The Money Shot

Do you believe that an evergreen garden means no maintenance because you don’t have to rake leaves? Guess again little grasshopper. The most interesting and easiest gardens are ones that have a variety of evergreen and deciduous.  If the plants are spaced correctly and layered with tall plants in the back and short plants in the front (exceptions are permitted) then the leaves and needles can fall and remain to be composted right there in the bed.  The lower plants in front skirt the mulch you may not want to see.  It’s the plant’s way of protecting and feeding itself.

We have clients who request evergreen gardens and we have learned not to drop our jaw nor furrow a brow.

*Conifers drop their needles, drip sap or scatter cones.  The Dwarf White Pine begs to be preened of its old brown needles every spring.  Some conifers decorate the neighborhood with yellow pollen.

*Evergreen grasses look so much better if the old blades are combed out yearly.

*Evergreen ferns need annual hair cuts.

*Broadleaf evergreens drop their leaves, but just not all at once.

Low Maintenance Gardening #2

11 Feb

Tip #2: Weed Less

When your bed is planted you’re still not finished.  Covering the ground with compost will help keep the weeds down and will keep the soil healthier. However, if you want  low maintenace in this new bed there’s another step.   If you had subscribed to the newspaper a few months ago, you’d have a big enough collection to lay full overlapped sections on the ground and then cover them with compost.  The paper keeps the weeds from growing through until the plants have time to establish and fill in.  But if you didn’t plan ahead with the paper subscription, don’t fret.  I’ve used the heavy paper painters use to cover a floor and it works pretty well.

Low Maintenance Gardening #1

8 Feb

Tip #1:  PLANTING

A little known study that’ll save your back and get your plants to grow faster.

You have the plant, you’ve dug the hole and you’re ready to bury it.  Hold the phone.  Don’t add compost to the hole.  According to studies, most shrubs and trees adapt sooner and grow faster when planted in native soil (the soil that is there).   Adding compost to the hole acts as a washtub by holding water.  Just plop the plant in the hole.

If your soil is hardpan or heavy clay and you want to make your life easier in the long run, hire strapping young people to amend the entire bed.  Joy Creek Nursery adds 1/10 minus and compost to their beds to help with drainage in hard clay soil. (joycreeknursery.com)

You might also consider compost tea applications.  It’s full of good microorganisms.  ”Microorganisms, such as bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and nematodes, give soil its structure, water holding capacity, and the ability to get nutrients to the plants. This essential web of life in the soil is damaged when it is tilled, compacted or moved. Compost tea restores soil ecology by replacing these missing microorganisms.”  Willamette Organics is the company we recommend for Portland, Vancouver and Salem areas.  www.willametteorganics.com/compostteaapplications.html

Snow in the Air: and your Garden

18 Jan

Don’t be to concerned about your garden and the predictions for snow. We’ve had good moisture before the snow so the ground is wet, but not soggy. If it snows enough to cover plants, the snow will act like a blanket to protect plants from the wind.  If it doesn’t cover plants and the wind comes up we have worries. Then, throw an old blanket over your favorites, or those in direct east winds.  The other thing to remember is don’t bury planting beds in more snow when clearing the driveway and walkways. The weight may crush shrubs.  Lawns can take a beating with kids playing, but their fun outways the week or so of extra care in spring. So, sit back and enjoy or get outside and play.

Enjoy your seed catalogs and hot chocolates.

 

Roses and easy care in the same breath? Yes

10 Jan
Roses and easy care go together when one uses carpet roses. These Knock Out roses bloom all summer.
Knock Our Roses

Roses can be easy

It’s that time of year when bare root roses can still be ordered for spring planting:  www.jacksonandperkins.com  and www.heirloomroses.com  are two places that have fabulous selections, and look to carpet roses for spectacular color all summer and even into fall.  They are low maintenance, disease resistant and beautiful.  I use carpet roses in big masses for the strong color statement they make. Plant them about 4′ apart. They self dead head, need water in August, and they need to be sheared in the late fall.  That is just about all they need. Other colors include pink, white and yellow.

Christine Ellis, Gregg & Ellis Landscape Designs, Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington since 1995

Oh Deer

17 Oct

 I do not have Bambi frolicking in my yard and so I’m tickled to spot the occasional wild animal (and take of picture of Chrisitne taking a picture).  But designing for people who share their yard with these rose-loving chompers puts the kibosh on my plant palette.  Not only that, deer refuse to read the deer resistant plant lists and rudely eat plants willy nilly.  Those new little morsels get free pruning before their time which can cause some homeowners to become a tad testy.

Bounce dyer sheets on the roses, coyote urine, blood meal or soap in a sock, water sprayers are tricks people use to deal with the issue, but some of the best are 7′ fences, or large roaming dogs.  I suppose it doesn’t help that for those of us without deer, they’re still pretty darn cute.

Deodar Cedar

3 Aug

I live beneath a blessing and a curse.  A Deodar Cedar sits ten feet from our house with branches stretching out forty feet from its trunk.  For the past twenty years I have been gardening under it.  It is a never ending source of needles and cone pieces.  This constantly falling, free product becomes mulch for paths and garden beds and to my dismay, some of it works it’s way into my underpants or socks or sheets.

The issues go on—cones that pierce feet, mulch that becomes eight inches deep, tree limbs that drop suddenly on windless days—but I don’t want to go overboard on tree dissing.  If you have a Deodar Cedar, consider it a crop. Perhaps cutting it down before it finds its way into your bed sheets might not be a bad thing.

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