Gardening Judith Adam PLANNING YOUR SPRING GARDEN Your northern garden might be shut down by frost, but you can still dream! And winter is the best time for considering changes to both plants and gardening methods for your 2018 gardening year, particularly if you’re planning for a low-maintenance landscape. So dream on, and consider these ideas for less work and more play next summer. Creating a low-maintenance lawn Unless you have a newly constructed home, chances are that you didn’t have the opportunity to customize your own lawn. Rolled strips of sod and bags of grass seed purchased from garden centres are usually composed of multiple grass species (and you can find them listed in the small print on seed bags). Some grasses are fragile and fussy ‒ such as Kentucky bluegrass ‒ demanding lots of water, moderate temperatures and careful grooming. Others have special characteristics, such as bentgrass that will grow horizontally and make a perfect putting surface for golfers, but must be cut twice weekly to keep a smooth surface. One way to know if your lawn meets the needs of your lifestyle is to notice how well it responds to the water, fertilizer and grooming which you’re already providing. If the lawn is thin and shows bare patches with areas of weed invasion, your maintenance efforts aren’t enough. You’ll have to spendmore time on raising the lawn’s appearance to an acceptable standard (more work); or you need to change the grass constituents in the lawn and create a new profile that is attractive, but also sturdier and more resilient. A low-maintenance lawn will be reliably green, even in drought when your neighbour’s lawn is going dormant (browning out) fromheat and moisture stress. It will be tough enough to stand up to backyard sports and soft enough for bare feet. One annual fertilizer feeding (best done in October) will be sufficient nourishment, and one weekly watering for 30 minutes will keep it lush. Mowing every 10 days allows taller grass blades to shade and cool the soil in the root zone. And you’ll work less and enjoy the summer more. Transforming troublesome grass into a low-maintenance lawn is easy to accomplish by over-seeding two new seed choices at the appropriate time. The first is white clover (Trifolium repens), found in most older lawns although you might not notice it. Clover is exceptionally drought hardy, will grow in sun or light shade, and remains green during extended periods of dry heat. It also has the ability to feed itself by taking gaseous nitrogen from the air and depositing it as solid fertilizer in the soil. White clover seed is dependent on cool, wet weather for strong germination, and should be cast over the lawn in late winter or earliest spring. The seed doesn’t need to be covered. The second seed addition is perennial ryegrass, which has a fast germination rate (five to seven days) and is tough enough to bear foot traffic while remaining soft in texture. Ryegrass is heat and drought tolerant, requires moderate amounts of water and will tolerate light shade. Perennial ryegrass seed germinates best in mid spring (about a month after over-seeding with white clover) and should be broadcast into the lawn just before mowing, allowing grass clippings to mulch the seed. Keep the seed wet for 10 days until the ryegrass seedlings are established. White clover and perennial ryegrass are both available in garden centres and hardware stores in spring; or an internet search will lead you to an online purchase. How to stop pruning Is there any gardening practice more stressful than pruning? We all know that one wrong cut results in a permanently ruined plant. It’s smarter to purchase plants withmature growth size to fit the available space. Plant breeders have worked to produce dwarf and semi-dwarf versions of trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials, all able to reach maturity at scaled-down garden size. No pruning necessary. A typical example is your grandmother’s 12-foot forsythia, requiring severe annual pruning to keep it less than six feet. This rambunctious forsythia was once the only size in garden centres. Fortunately, new forsythias have been tamed, and include Show Off (Forsythia x intermedia ‘Lindor’), five feet high and wide at maturity. Dwarf ginkgo tree ‘Green Pagoda’ (h 4’ x w 4’) fits into a perennial border and Swiss stone pine ‘Chalet’ (h 7’ x w 4’) is comfortable in a garden corner. So let’s make a plan. Instead of preparing to hack plants down to size, begin replacing over-large plants with selections that have been bred to reasonable dwarf sizes. And say goodbye to pruning. It’s cold outside, but the garden continues to provide a pleasing view. Simple garden furniture, such as trellises, bird baths and benches are valuable architectural elements in a frosty landscape. Photo: Brendan Adam-Zwelling CSANews | WINTER 2017 | 49
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