South Eastern Connecticut Landscaping

Recently I ordered plants (which I’ll cover in another post) and while choosing the plants I used a few criteria to guide my selections.  I wouldn’t rule out purchasing plants just because they might miss one or two of these characteristics but I do know that when all five can be found in the same plant I’ve got a winner!

Soil Conditions
The soil conditions in my garden range from pretty good to downright awful. The front yard is severely lacking in organic matter and consists mostly of clay and limestone gravel from the construction of our house (hello builders bring back the soil please!) When I dig I hit little rocks from the gravel and kick up tons of water-retaining-clay. In the back yard I have better quality soil and the plants thrive there with little help. When I select a plant I either have to find one that does well in clay soil or I’ll have to plant it in the backyard gardens.

Drought Tolerance
Our rainfall in the south is consistently inconsistent. The spring brings loads of moisture (last May we even had floods) while our summers can be severely dry. Plants need to be able to tolerate the drought conditions yet handle the wet springs. This is also another reason why soil conditions are important. A soil filled with good organic material will retain water during the dry periods.

Wildlife Benefit
Pollinators and wildlife can benefit when I pick plants with nourishing flowers or produce some sort of edible berry or seed. Hollies, pyracantha, and beautyberry all produce fruits that the birds can feast on to help them through the winter while coneflowers and other perennials produce seeds that the birds love!

Invasiveness
If the plant catalog says “self-sows” I’m always cautious. Many self-sowers are easy to control but other can be problems. In general if it’s on our state list of invasive plants I try to avoid adding it to my landscape. That doesn’t mean it can’t be controlled but it does mean it will require some work!

Overall Aesthetic Quality
In many cases this is what gets you to look at the plant to begin with, it just looks good! I try to fit it into a location with companion plant that will complement each other. Contrasting foliage with flowers, creating backdrops for berries (like Winterberry – Ilex verticillata), and long flowering periods are all factors to consider. Foliage, flowers, cand colors all factor in to providing and excellent accent in the garden!

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Installing a new mulch bed sounds simple enough of a job until you are presented with such a job and have never done it before. Then you start to think about all the different ways you could go about doing it and then wonder to yourself, which way is best and will take the least amount of effort so as to maximize your profit. That is what one business owner was wondering when he wrote on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum “I have a job tomorrow to put in a new mulch bed. Do I need to remove the sod or can I just put down weed barrier over the grass? Any ideas, I don’t have any big equipment to remove sod. Just my hands and a shovel.”

One lawn care business owner replied “I will tell you from experience, if you do not want to go back to fix anything after the job is complete, you need to get rid of the sod first. You don’t want anything in the way of successfully performing the job. Take out the sod then lay your barrier and lay in the mulch. Charge the customer for all work done including sod removal.

A second business owner said “There are a lot of determining factors here.

• Is this going to be a raised bed?
• Will there be plantings in it?
• How thick will you be applying the mulch?

I would never apply a mulch or soil directly over turf, if you do you may be asking for problems.

Here are some problems you can encounter;

• Poor drainage for the bed

By leaving the layer of turf under the bed you are adding a barrier for water to pool/collect. Therefore drowning the plantings in the bed and decomposing the mulch too quickly.

• Organic matter stealing nitrogen

Turf is organic matter and when it breaks down it actually steals nitrogen from the soil to do so. Leaving the turf may stunt the growth of any plantings you install in the bed.

• High maintenance for the bed

Leaving the turf under the bed is asking for hours of weed/grass pulling over the growing season, which is counterproductive in my book.

In closing, do it right in the beginning. Remove the turf before installing planting/mulch beds and you’ll save your self headaches in the future. Plus it makes you look better as a contractor to clients. You’ll leave them in a peace of mind knowing that the job was done correctly.

If it is a large area that needs to be removed and you don’t have the equipment to do the job, sub out the sod removal and then finish the job.”

A third lawn care business owner said “spray the area you want removed with round up first. Then wait two weeks for a good kill. Scalp the area that is to become the mulch bed to the ground or rent a sod cutter and cut it out. Leaving the roots in the soil actually aids in the aeration of the soil so water, nutrients, and air moves more readily to the root zone. Weed block is a very short term answer for suppression of weeds.

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As the temperatures warm up in some parts of the country (OK, Atlanteans, I know you just got socked with half a foot of snow yesterday), weeds in the landscape may be the first to signal its time to garden again.  Garden centers are starting to bring their best spring flowers out and dead-looking plants in your landscape are starting to shoot out some green buds.  A quick way to get a little bit of gardening done while temperatures warm up a bit more is to fix up one of your landscape’s flower beds.  You know that mass of brown material by your mailbox or front door; that’s what I’m going to help you fix up.

These Pelargoniums have damage from too many sub-freezing nights. New growth can be seen emerging from the center of the plant. Image by Gardenipedia.

STEP 1:  CLEAN-UP YOUR ACT

The first step is to clean up the garden bed.  Remove any weeds that may already have emerged, throw out any rocks you see lying around (unless you want them there), clean-up debris, and use your trusty pruning shears to remove all dead growth from plants.  But hold on!  If you see any green on any of the “dead” growth you’re cutting, you may just be pruning dormant branches so be careful.   It is vital that you clean up all the dead growth as this can harbor diseases and insects that may affect the new, green growth emerging from plants.

The Pelargonium cleaned up. Notice I left the dead leaves in there. They will eventually break down and add much needed organic matter into the soil. Image by Gardenipedia.com

STEP 2: ADDING THE GOOD STUFF.

Whenever I work in a garden bed; whether its cleaning up or adding a plant or something else, I like to take the opportunity to add compost to the area.  You can add compost that you made yourself or go to your local garden center and buy the stuff in bags.  If your flowers all died in winter, till the compost into the soil to a depth of about one to two feet.  This will give a good growing medium to new plants.  If some of your perennials are still ticking, however, you may want to top dress instead, as tilling the compost into the soil is bound to damage the roots of the plants.  Compost helps add nutrients to the soil, but more importantly, it helps to give the soil a good structure (I’ll be going into this in a future post).

The flower bed with a compost top-dressing. Make sure not to cover new growth as this may suffocate the crown of the plant, killing it. Image by Gardenipedia.com

STEP 3: INDULGE IN A LITTLE SHOPPING SPREE.

This is the time to add the new flowers.  If you’re doing this when it is still cold outside, make sure that the plants you choose can withstand the wide temperature fluctuations of late-winter and early-spring.  I won’t be going into planting specifics in this post as each plant has its own requirements, but you can ask your local garden center for help when you buy the plants.  If your flower bed still has last year’s survivors and they are coming along slowly, you can still indulge in a little shopping by giving them some companions in the new year (assuming that there is still space in the garden bed, you don’t want to suffocate the plants).   The new companions will give a little show while last years plants come back to full force.

I added Osteospermum to the garden bed to grow in some of the bigger gaps between some of last year’s Pelargonium. Make sure not to harm the roots of the established plants. Image by Gardenipedia.com

STEP 4: MUCLH AWAY

Add landscape mulch to your beds for a clean look, to help retain moisture in the ground, to add nutrients over time to the ground, and to to control weeds.  Try to stay away from synthetic mulches, such as rubber, as it does not offer much nutritional benefits to plants.  Also, stay away from mulches like Cypress mulch which are made from slow growing trees, pick mulches from tree farms or fast growing tree varieties.  A 1-2″ layer of mulch is generally good.  Be carefull not to suffocate new growth under the mulch.  After your finish muclhing clean up your tools, put yard trash away, and enjoy your refurbished landscape bed.  They should look like winter was never here.

The finished mailbox flower bed. The Pelargoniums, still barely visible in between newer plants, will take over the show in a month or two. Image by Gardenipedia.com

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the comments.

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