{"id":212,"date":"2010-11-10T08:43:02","date_gmt":"2010-11-10T16:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.loghouseplants.com\/blogs\/greengardening\/?p=212"},"modified":"2010-11-10T14:22:04","modified_gmt":"2010-11-10T22:22:04","slug":"easy-care-garden-tips-for-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.loghouseplants.com\/blogs\/greengardening\/2010\/11\/easy-care-garden-tips-for-fall\/","title":{"rendered":"Easy Care Garden Tips For Fall"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Simple Sustainable Gardening<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over the past few months, I’ve offered you several posts about simple and effective sustainable gardening techniques. Here are a few more ideas for you to consider as the great fall cleanup time arrives.<\/p>\n

Pinpoint Problems First<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before starting your whole laundry list of fall chores, step back and consider two great questions: Where do you spend the most chore time in the garden? Which parts of the garden are the most enjoyable for you? Rarely are these places the same. Identifying our garden’s most high maintenance areas can help us to make smart choices about which garden features to eliminate or alter.<\/p>\n

For instance, if we constantly need to weed a cracked stretch of paving, we may decide to burn away the weeds with our flame weeder, then seal the cracks with cement. If we are constantly whacking away at a fast-growing, too-wide hedge, we may choose to replace it with a fence that will never outgrow its position.<\/p>\n

Lessons From Nature<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before you whack your garden to the ground, take time to think about which plants might rot happily in place. Often you can reduce your workload considerably by sheet composting in the garden instead of making big heaps elsewhere.<\/p>\n

After studying natural models, from woodlands to meadows, I’ve adapted the idea of forest duff–leaf fall rotting in place–into making “self mulching” gardens. A self-mulching garden bed is filled with plants that die with dignity and can be allowed to compost in layers or sheets on site.<\/p>\n

Learn To Chop & Drop<\/strong><\/p>\n

I always start off with a nice thick layer of mulch, usually compost or aged dairy manure, to give new plants the best possible beginning. In subsequent seasons, I use my favorite “chop-and-drop” method of grooming to speed things up. Chop-and-drop grooming involves cutting any big foliage and thick stalks into smaller pieces and letting them rot where they fall. This idea is troublesome to the tidy-minded, but think about it for a minute. Recycling in place works in the woods, so why not in our gardens?<\/p>\n

Leave The Leaves<\/strong><\/p>\n

When we think about fading foliage as food packets that still have plenty of nutrients to deliver, we are less apt to consider old leaves as trash to be removed. Leave the leaves to rot and the garden soil will be improved.
\nIf big, coarse leaves are involved, mow them a few times to chop them up a bit, then let them rot where they lie (even on the sacred lawn). Naturally, diseased foliage and weeds in seed are not included in the chop-and-drop program, but most healthy plant parts can easily be shredded in situ.<\/p>\n

As a final touch, you can add a layer of mature compost over the chopped stuff to give the garden beds a more finished look. The composting process will progress faster, the garden will look tidy, and your plants will love your kindly treatment.<\/p>\n

Easy Care Perennial Beds<\/strong><\/p>\n

If a perennial bed needs more attention than we have time for, we may blend in easy-going evergreen herbs (like lavender and rosemary) and shrubs (like hebes and ceanothus) as well as ornamental grasses. To keep maintenance to a minimum, be sure to choose evergreen, clumping grasses instead of running grasses.<\/p>\n

Swapping out needy and short-blooming perennials for long term performers will improve the garden’s looks in all seasons while reducing the time you spend on it.\u00a0 Now, there’s a deal that’s hard to refuse.<\/p>\n

Reducing Turf Saves Time and Resources<\/strong><\/p>\n

We may also decide to replace unused parts of a thirsty lawn with beds of drought tolerant native shrubs. In shadier areas where grass does not thrive, consider swapping out turf for paving stone paths and sheets of groundcovers that don’t need coddling. Each time we make such choices, we free up a bit more time and energy for enjoying the garden instead of slaving in it. Doesn’t that sound tempting?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Simple Sustainable Gardening Over the past few months, I’ve offered you several posts about simple and effective sustainable gardening techniques. Here are a few more ideas for you to consider as the great fall cleanup time arrives. Pinpoint Problems First … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[96,131,91,130],"tags":[136,137,133,134,135,138,132],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1lB7f-3q","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.loghouseplants.com\/blogs\/greengardening\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.loghouseplants.com\/blogs\/greengardening\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.loghouseplants.com\/blogs\/greengardening\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.loghouseplants.com\/blogs\/greengardening\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.loghouseplants.com\/blogs\/greengardening\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.loghouseplants.com\/blogs\/greengardening\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217,"href":"https:\/\/www.loghouseplants.com\/blogs\/greengardening\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212\/revisions\/217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.loghouseplants.com\/blogs\/greengardening\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.loghouseplants.com\/blogs\/greengardening\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.loghouseplants.com\/blogs\/greengardening\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}