Avant Gardener: Low maintenance landscaping allows more time in the garden

  • By Kyle Valentini
  • May 16, 2011
  • 276
                        
Summary: Choose fast-growing, low maintenance plants for the landscaping so you can spend more time in the herb and vegetable gardens tending to the plants that will feed you later in the season. Applying practical concepts like location and succession planting will insure a healthier garden and less work for the gardener. In the vegetable garden I learn patience. There will be no food for quite some time. This I know the moment I plant the first seed and begin what seems like an endless cycle of weeding, watering and trouble shooting. In the landscaping, however, I have yet to learn patience. I am not a landscaper. I’m almost appalled at the very thought of manipulating plants to form unrealistic displays of color and texture around the foundation of the house. In the garden, I prefer to watch my carrots pop up in rows but around the perimeter of the house I go for a more natural look, a wilder look if you will. I want fast growing plants that need little care and better yet, no care. I get caught up in the vegetable garden and forget about the ornamentals that camouflage the 144 year old foundation that includes lots of that foamy stuff you can spray in cracks. This year I am a practical gardener. The landscaping is going to include ornamental grasses, roses, hydrangeas, lemon balm and my newest favorite plant, the sweet potato vine. The sweet potato vine is, how shall I say, sweet. It comes in a variety of colors from chartreuse to purple. It grows faster than most weeds and offers a wow factor you simply can’t beat. It does well in sun or part shade and can be planted in the ground or in containers. Although a perennial, sweet potato vines do not over-winter well in our region. The tubers can be dug up and saved for replanting but this does not always work. I suggest composting the spent vines in the fall when you are cleaning up the yard and garden. Lemon balm is one of those plants that will take over an area if left to its own devices. I want that. I want it to creep and crawl all over the bed so I never have to worry about bare spots that will certainly sprout weed seeds. Lemon balm will reappear each spring; even in places you don’t want it. It spreads rapidly. A member of the mint family, lemon balm can be used to flavor food or drink. It has calming and anti-viral effects when used in a medicinal form. I was recently told by someone lemon balm smells like furniture polish. I quickly corrected him and said furniture polish smells like lemon balm. Further attempts have been made to simplify the care of the yard and garden this year. The herb garden has been moved and is now a few steps from the kitchen door. Why I did not do this sooner is beyond me. The herb garden is visited daily, even in the early part of the season, to gather fresh herbs for cooking. I am no longer planting that which I do not eat or use in some herbal capacity. I hate sage and yet I have been growing the stuff for 25 years. What was I thinking? I use lots of Italian parsley so I planted enough where I can harvest some every day without diminishing the supply too quickly. I used the stone planters on the back porch for lettuce. The lettuce flourishes in the morning sun and afternoon shade and by the time it is spent, the sweet peas, English daisies and more sweet potato vines will fill the space nicely. With simplified landscaping, an herb garden closer to the kitchen and more room in the vegetable garden I hope to grow more food but do less work.


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