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Home » Gardening Information » Garden Design

All gardens require care. I think of gardening as entertainment, not work. Sure, some of the tasks are labor-intensive, but it is the planting and tending of the garden that teach me about nature and natural processes. I enter this relationship from a sense of wonder rather than a sense of duty. Working with nature, instead of against it, is the route to low maintenance and natural harmony. The way to get there is through organic methods and proper planting.

Buying Plants

Once you have sized up your site, created a good design, and compiled a list of plants, it's time to go shopping and plant your garden. Retail nurseries and garden centers are great places to look for plants. Unless you are seeking a rarity or a brand-new introduction, a garden center should have everything you need. The perennials you find there are grown in containers—neat, well established, and easy to carry away.

Mail-order nurseries are another source of great plants, and they may be the only way to find a particular cultivar, an unusual species or a good selection of native perennials. Order early to assure the best selection, and be sure to specify a ship date that's appropriate to your area. Unpack the plants as soon as they arrive. Water containerized plants well. Many mail-order plants are shipped bare-root. Inspect the roots for signs of damage. If the roots are dry, soak them in warm water for several hours before you plant. If they are rotting, cut off the affected portions. Keep the plants cool and shaded until you can plant them. If you cannot get them in the ground right away, pot them up.

Meadow and prairie gardens are often planted with plugs or seed. Plugs are seedlings or young plants grown in the type of cell packs most often used for annuals. Plugs are inexpensive, easy to plant, and quick to establish. Seeds are an even cheaper option. Many wildflower specialists offer seed mixes prepared for your location, soil, and moisture conditions. Make sure the plants are native. Some wildflower mixes are mostly composed of non-native annuals. Some nurseries will create custom mixes for you, or you can create your own if you know which plants you wish to grow. When seeds arrive, store them in the refrigerator until you're ready to sow them.

Planting Techniques

Provided the soil is well prepared, installing containerized plants is easy. Remove the plant from the container by inverting it with your hand cupped around the plant's crown. Shake the container or rap the rim on a solid surface to dislodge the plant. Right the plant once it falls into your hand, shake most of the soil off the roots, and disentangle them. Examine the roots to see if the plant is pot-bound, and cut any tight, circling, or badly bent and twisted roots with sharp shears. It's important to take care of the roots at this point; otherwise the plant may not get established properly.

Dig a hole twice as wide as the longest roots. If this is unreasonable, trim the roots to a manageable length. Depending on the size of the plant, the hole needs to be three to five inches deep. Make a cone of soil in the center of the hole tall enough to bring the crown of the plant level with the soil surface. Spread the roots evenly over the mound. Holding the crown in place, fill in with soil to bring the hole up to grade. Firm around the crown, level the soil, and water the plants well. Never let the soil dry out during the first growing season.

Bare-root plants are just that: plants without soil covering the roots. They must be planted in the garden or potted up as soon as they arrive. Installing a bare-root plant is easy, because you do not have to break up the root ball as you do with containerized stock. Dig a hole in a well-prepared bed, and plant as above.

Like bare-root plants, plugs are easier to plant in well-prepared soil, but they can also be successfully planted in unprepared soil. Remove the plug from its cell by pushing the root ball up from the bottom. If the roots are tangled use sharp shears or your fingers to pull them apart. Dig a small hole and set the plug against the back of the hole, with the crown level with the existing soil. Fill in around the roots and firm the soil to hold the plug in place. Water plants well and keep them moist until the new root system is established.

Proper Spacing

In a garden that basks in full sun, each plant can develop to its full height and spread. The prettiest gardens are those in which all plants are given ample room to spread without being so far apart that gaps appear in the garden. In a perfectly planted, mature garden, full, rounded crowns slightly overlap each other, leaving no blank spaces, which is a good thing, as open space is an invitation for weeds to grow. To keep maintenance to a minimum, you need to get the spacing right.

Every plant has a predictable height and spread, giving you a good idea of optimum spacing in the garden. One of the most common mistakes is to place plants too close together in a new bed. By the time the plants have been in the ground for a year or so, they are so entangled that you cannot appreciate the forms and flowers of the individual plants. What's worse, they do not get adequate light or air circulation, and they may become weakened or diseased.

How do you determine the optimum spacing for each plant? Check the "Encyclopedia of Sun-Loving Perennials" to learn the average height and spread of the plants you want to grow. The tags on nursery-bought plants also provide this information; they may even tell you how far apart to space each plant. Use this as a guide, but do not follow the recommendations slavishly. Some plants, especially upright and spiky ones such as irises and delphiniums, can be placed close together in clumps or drifts. Plants like oriental poppies (Papaver orientale) fill a large space when in bloom but disappear after flowering, so adjacent plants should be placed close by to fill the gap left when the poppies go dormant.

Watering

During the first year, watering is mandatory for new plants just getting established in your border. In summer the entire garden may need extra moisture. Soaker hoses are the best way to get water into the soil with minimal loss to evaporation. Loop soaker hoses through beds, spacing the loops according to the manufacturer's suggestions. Once the hoses are in place, disguise them with an attractive and water-conserving mulch. On average, moist- and wet-soil gardens need an inch of water a week. Plants adapted to dry conditions can get by with less. If rain is insufficient, turn on the hoses. The manufacturer's directions will tell you how long it takes to deliver the equivalent of one inch of rain.

Sprinklers are another option, though they are wasteful. Place them carefully, so you don't waste water showering driveways or other impervious surfaces. Water for two to four hours once a week, rather than for frequent, short spells. To reduce loss to evaporation, water in the morning or in the evening.

Mulching

Mulches keep beds looking tidy and help suppress weeds while insulating the soil from heat and conserving moisture. Think regionally when you choose a mulch: Local materials are less expensive because they are produced nearby, and they blend more naturally with the garden.

Well-composted organic mulches are best. Chopped leaves make an excellent fine-textured mulch. Horse, sheep, and cow manures are also good. Be sure to use only aged manure, though, as anything fresh from the barn will burn plants. Manure is usually mixed with some kind of bedding, such as sawdust, wood chips, or straw. If you can find a supplier of shredded manure, all the better. Shredding grinds up the bedding and blends it together, making a fine- to medium-textured mulch that is attractive and easy to apply. In addition to insulating the soil, these products slowly release nitrogen.

Different types of mulches are prevalent in different areas of the country. In the Southeast and the Pacific Northwest, pine bark is available as a by-product of the lumber industry. Choose the finest grade of bark—preferably aged three years—when selecting mulch for a herbaceous border. Large bark chips are appropriate for shrubs and trees.

In the arid West, rock mulches may be appropriate in some situations. Fine-textured rock from local sources blends seamlessly with the native stone so prominent in these regions and is a great soil insulator. In the East, rock mulches usually look out of place.

As a general rule, the heavier the mulch, the more thinly it should be applied. For most mulches, a one- to two-inch layer spread evenly over the garden in early spring is ideal. Airy materials like chopped leaves can be distributed a little thicker, as they will settle. Use rock mulches sparingly, usually about one inch deep. Apply the chosen mulch after you have removed spent stems and tidied the garden.

Staking

Tall plants have a tendency to flop when exposed to strong wind and rain. Humus-rich, loamy soils often exacerbate the situation, as they provide a rich diet that promotes fast, succulent growth. To avoid the distress and disarray of toppled spikes and peonies with their faces in the mud, proper staking is essential. Tall, narrow spikes like those of blazing stars (Liatris) can be individually attached to slender stakes stuck in the ground alongside the stems. Full-crowned plants like peonies are best grown through hoops, placed over the clumps as they emerge from the ground. Most of the plants discussed in this book do not need staking if they are grown in the soil and moisture conditions they prefer.

Weeding

Weeds rob nutrients, moisture, and light from your plants. Keeping weeds down is imperative to a healthy, attractive garden. Weeds are most abundant in a new garden. If you stay on top of weeding in the first few years, you will have an easier time as the garden matures and fills in. There is little space for weeds in a fully planted garden, where mature plants shade the soil and keep weed seeds from germinating. Tree seedlings and some persistent perennial weeds like dandelions may require monthly patrols and removal. Dislodge large tap-rooted weeds with an asparagus fork or trowel to ensure that they will not resprout.

Cutting Back

Plants like catmints (Nepeta) and hardy geraniums produce mounds of growth covered with blooms in early summer. After the flowers fade you can cut the tangle of stems back to keep the clump neat and in scale. Cut the stems back by two thirds, or cut them to the ground if the plants have basal leaves, such as hardy geraniums and lady's mantle (Alchemilla mollis). Often, this shearing will promote fresh growth and renewed flowering.

Throughout the summer, as flowers fade and growth declines, cut back plants that look bedraggled. Remove most spent flower stalks, but leave some to allow attractive seed heads to form. At the end of the season, prepare the garden for winter. After frost, cut back all succulent plants like daylilies (Hemerocallis species), peonies, and irises to where the new foliage is visible just above the ground. Plants such as phlox and salvias die to the ground, so cut them down. I like to leave decorative seed heads like those of false indigo (Baptisia australis) and rose mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos) for winter interest. After the ground freezes, mulch the beds with chopped leaves or another light mulch to protect the crowns from winter burn. In early spring, cut down any plants left standing to make room for the new season's growth.

Dividing and Transplanting

Sooner or later, many of your herbaceous plants are going to outgrow their allotted space and need to be divided. Lift the plants in early spring or as they are going dormant in fall. Shake excess soil from the roots, so you can see what you are doing. If the plants have discrete crowns, pull or cut these apart. If you are dividing a running plant like bee balm or yarrow, break off the vigorous portions around the outside of the clump and discard the spent woody center. Use a shovel or spade to divide large plants such as daylilies and ornamental grasses. Chop the clumps into smaller sections and replant the divided clumps into soil that has been enriched with compost.

You may find seedlings popping up that are perfect candidates for transplanting. Your goal is to disturb the plants as little as possible, so move them in early spring before the plants are in full growth or in autumn when they are going dormant. Insert your shovel or trowel all around the plant, loosen the soil, and lift the freed root ball out intact. Replant it in a hole of the same proportions, and move the excess soil to the original hole.

Pests and Diseases

One of the most important things you can do to keep pests and diseases at bay is to choose plants wisely, making sure to pick species that are suited to the growing conditions in your garden. Fortunately, if you match the plants to the site, install them properly, and give them the care they need, you will have few problems. The practices that lead to the overall health of your garden and its many denizens—frequent application of compost, proper pruning, wise watering, and good sanitation, among others—can suppress most plant maladies.

Insects are the most common form of life on earth. To a greater or lesser extent, the best strategy is to live with the minor damage they cause in your garden. When the garden is in balance, beneficial and predatory insects and other insect-eating animals, such as birds and bats, keep most pest species in check. If things get out of balance and a pest invades or a disease breaks out, refer to reliable sources, such as Brooklyn Botanic Garden handbooks Natural Insect Control and Natural Disease Control for the least-toxic treatment options.

Growing With the Sunny border

As your garden grows and matures, it will take on a lush look that unifies the design. You will not be able to freeze the garden in time, however. As conditions change in the garden, the composition will also change. Plants will grow too large and will need division. Seedlings will come up in the oddest places. Aging shrubs will produce more shade, and some plants will die out. The processes of nature are always at work. Enjoy and utilize the opportunities they provide.

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