1. Live in a place for a year, and
watch how the sun angles and exposure changes during the seasons.
2. Decide what you want to do in the
yard. Do you want let the children play, do you want to sip Chablis
and watch the sun set, or party with friends? Think this over carefully.
If you want to concrete over the place and dismember old automobiles,
you are reading the wrong article, and possibly living in the wrong
place.
3. Hang herbs and vegetables from
baskets, if rabbits are a problem. If the rabbits in your neighborhood
can rappel down from the porch roof, then they are better men than
you are, Gunga-Din.
4. Ivy is a plague and an invention
of the Devil. So are St. Augustine's grass, Chinese jasmine
and mint, although you can put mint in ice-tea, and mint sauce.
(Serve mint sauce with roast lamb.)
5. Mulch is very good, but the free
stuff at the city brush-mulching facility is usually full of trash
and dirt, which is ok if you need topsoil, too. Cypress mulch is
best, but the no-float stuff will float after four inches of rain
has fallen on it.
6. Plant invasive stuff on the nastiest,
most unpromising soil you have, or with something equally invasive.
Let ‘em fight it out.
7. Defunct grocery carts, dead automobiles,
and old plumbing fixtures are not acceptable lawn ornaments, but
old truck tires turned inside out, painted and planted with seasonal
plants, and pink flamingos decorated for Christmas, pulling a sleigh
and wearing Santa hats have a certain funky charm. So does a statue
of a saint in a bathtub set on end and planted with day-lilies.
8. Grass lawns outside of northern
Europe, or the eastern United States are an aberration, high-maintenance
and water-thirsty. A wildflower meadow, xerioscape plantings or
gravel interspersed with native shrubs would be an acceptable substitute,
but green-painted gravel or Astroturf is emphatically not.
9. Given a choice, buy, perennials
rather than annuals … unless they self-seed generously.
10. You can acquire nice stone and
brick for pathways and flowerbed edges by watching building sites
carefully. Chatting up the construction crews when the brick or
stonework is nearly finished, and getting permission to take away
the broken stone or excess brick when the work is completed will
pay off handsomely. Keep a pair of garden gloves in the trunk for
occasions like this. Doing this sort of thing is a better reason
to own a pickup truck or an SUV than most owners of such usually
have.
11. A good source for native stone
is wherever they are widening the highway: again, the gloves and
the pickup truck come in handy.
12. Look around at what your neighbors
are growing. If you don't see lilacs in South Texas, or cacti
in the Pacific Northwest, consider that a clue and plan your own
garden accordingly.
13. Whatever the municipality plants
in the park, and the highway department puts along the roadsides
is guaranteed to be tough, self-sufficient, water-wise and idiot-proof.
14. The varieties of antique rose
that were discovered growing on old home-sites and graveyards are
similarly tough, self-sufficient, etc. If something looked after
itself for 80 years, it shouldn't have a problem in your garden.
15. I don't want to waste time
fussing over something exotic, high-maintenance and which requires
a lot of chemicals. If it can't cope without a lot of help,
you probably shouldn't bother. Die-hard enthusiasts for out-of-area
exotica will disagree, but this is a free country. We are free to
select our own perversions.
16. If it's stupid, but it works,
then it isn't stupid.
17. Consider the views from each window,
and arrange something nice to look at from inside the house.
18. Consider growing jasmine, almond
verbena, roses or other scented plants where the perfume will drift
in through an opened window. Pots of scented geranium placed where
you will brush against them as you walk by are another aromatic
thrill.
19. Pottery pots breath, but plastic
ones don't dry out so rapidly in mid summer.
20. Don't disdain big-box store
sources like Home Depot, Wal-Mart, et cetera. They carry the commoner
plants at a good price, during the season, but they are not set
up for long-term care. Buy ‘em the minute they off-load them
from the truck.
21. Once you work out a grand plan,
and decide on the varieties and colors you want, buy the plants
as you see them coming available. Some day, I shall be rich and
be able to buy all the plants I need, all at once, but until then
it's a case of a few at a time, fitting into the scheme like
pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
22. You can't do it all yourself,
all at once. Just pick one little space to improve at a time. By
the time you have finished it all, it's time to go back to
the beginning and re-do it.
23. If not planted immediately, re-pot
into a larger pot. Having a lot of plants in pots lets you move
them around and discover where they work out best. Think of it as
moving furniture around.
24. When it's really hot, the
stuff in pots needs to be watered morning AND afternoon.
25. Put all the garden porn.... you
know, all those lavishly illustrated books of wonderfully lush,
landscaped acres on the grounds of a historic home... on one shelf,
for easy inspiration and reference.
