Several years ago a friend asked me to give her advice about her garden, which she said was out of control and too much work.
When I visited, I could see an immediate problem — her paths were too narrow. Wider paths would make it possible to walk through the garden, side by side, with a friend, and even provide better working space when it was time to weed or divide the collection of lovely perennials that comprised her garden.
She could see the wisdom in my suggestion; however, when I asked if she had considered shrubs, she threw up her hands in horror and cried, “I’m too young for shrubs!”
Shrubs have been my response to the desire for a low- maintenance garden — one that would be different from my gardens in Heath, but would still give me beauty and pleasure.
When Jan Coppola Bills sat down to write her book “Late Bloomer: How to Garden with Comfort, Ease and Simplicity in the Second Half of Life” (St. Lynn’s Press $18.95) she knew there were more and more gardeners who were in my position — loving gardening, but without quite the stamina they once had.
Happily for me and other readers of this book, with its useful and beautiful illustrations, Bills has more than one answer to creating a low- maintenance garden.
“Late Bloomer” is divided into short, illustrated chapters that begin with “Simplicity and Sustainability” and go on to “Garden Styling,” “Orderly Chaos,” “Veggies, Fruit and Herbs” and more.
All the information and suggestions are useful to gardeners at any stage of their gardening career, but particularly valuable when a gardener sees the need to reduce the heavy labor required in their garden.
Bills has a chapter devoted to different ways to handle weeds. She includes a section on what I call “lasagna gardening,” which calls for lots of cardboard.
One version of this begins with digging up and flipping the sods, grass to grass, then laying on the cardboard and topping it with soil for planting and mulch.
Bills also lays lots of cardboard right on the lawn where a new bed is needed, and then covers the cardboard with a few inches of mulch. Then she says, “Wait.”
Wait for the cardboard to decompose for a few months before you begin planting.
When we moved to Greenfield and discovered how heavy and wet our clay soil was, I could not wait. I needed to plant right away. I began my own version of cardboard gardening. I worked in one section of a proposed bed at a time. I collected all the cardboard I could (thank you, Manny’s), and I ordered yards and yards of compost and mulch from Martin’s Compost Farm.
First, we skinned off as much grass as possible with a weed wacker and watered that section.
Then, I planted the shrubs I had bought — hydrangeas, lilacs, roses and viburnams. I dug big planting holes and used a good measure of compost when planting. I gave all the newly planted shrubs a good watering and then lay out one or two layers of cardboard around the shrubs, filling that section of the bed. The cardboard also got a good watering before it was covered with several inches of soil and mulch, which were then watered again.
I feel all that watering is essential, because it helps the decomposition process get started, as well as providing moisture for the newly planted shrubs. Once the beds were created, I planted perennials and groundcovers between the shrubs in the soil and mulch.
Those first plantings happened in June 2015, and I am happy to say that the shrubs and perennials have done splendidly, even though we had a dry summer and fall.
I give a large measure of credit to the rich compost-soil mixture and compost-mulch mixture I got from Martin’s Farm.
With all her advice, Bills does not forget the issues that are important to all gardeners — the desire to support our pollinators and butterflies, which have been threatened by the use of many insecticides and herbicides, and the benefits of using native plants in the garden.
Native plants, trees, shrubs and flowers provide the specific food that pollinators need to survive and propagate.
As we created our new Greenfield garden, we had two main goals: to choose plants that were tolerant of wet soil (right plant in the right spot) and that were native cultivars, supporting some of the 300-plus species of native bees, butterflies and many other pollinators.
One of the useful lists Bills provides, is a list of plants that will support pollinators one way or another.
Dill does not provide nectar or pollen for butterflies, for instance, but it does supply food for the swallowtail butterfly caterpillar. Once I realized the importance of supporting all stages of the butterflies, I was happy to plant extra dill and parsley to share.
Bills’ final encouraging words are to resist the desire for perfection.
“I believe when you take unrealistic expectations out of gardening, new possibilities emerge,” she says.
At my house, my husband and I are apt to finish the project of the day with a “sigh,” and the statement that what we have accomplished is “perfect enough.”
We often remind each other that the weavers of beautiful Persian rugs always put a deliberate error in the design. According to Islam, only Allah can make something perfect, and to make something perfect is an offense to Allah.
There is not much chance my garden will be perfect, but I will care for it, love it and share it. That’s enough perfection for me.
Pat Leuchtman has been writing and gardening in Heath at End of the Road Farm since 1980. She now lives in Greenfield. Readers can leave comments at her website: www.commonweeder.com