Roses--are they high maintenance?
While deadheading some roses last week I starting thinking about what constitutes a "low maintenance" garden. Those thoughts were prompted by the sound and fury and hydrocarbon fumes of a neighbor's weekly mow-n-blow crew, machine-shearing shrubbery and power-mowing lawn. The noise and fumes drove me indoors, where I picked up a book:
Cass Turnbull's Guide To Pruning
It's a book I dip into now and then. I have the second edition; there is a third. While it is mainly detailed, hands-on how-to about pruning specific types and species of shrubs, it also includes an exceptionally good chapter called "The Most Common Design Errors". The author was a hands-on trained arborist and landscape maintenance professional who wrote this book based on many years experience maintaining landscapes. If you want to know how to create a good design, ask the person stuck with maintaining what you've designed.
The chapter lists several common errors. I focus on three of them.
1. over-planting, which includes too many plants, as well as plants that will grow too large for the intended space
Plants too large for this area end up sheared. Because shearing is fast and typical mow-blow crews are good at shearing and they have to work fast because they don't get paid enough to work good. (Fast, good, cheap: pick two.) Sure, it looks neat and tidy, but what is the point of Bougainvilleas if they can't flower because they are constantly sheared? Just wondering. Yes those are Bougainvilleas and Abelias, which don't get to flower, either.
Another over-planting example. Originally, the Raphiolepis shrubs by the street here were a foot or two tall and wide, and were surrounded by Agapanthus. The Raphies flowered pink, the Agapanthus flowered blue, it looked fine for a few years. Then the Raphies root systems were fully established, and the plants grew. All the Agapanthus but one, challenged for space, died, and now there is an edging of weedy Alyssum volunteers around one lone surviving Agapanthus and sheared Raphiolepsis, a shrub that does not look all that great sheared. The original design was totally lost due to plant growth.
Previous owner planted a Prunus caroliniana (an eventually 30 tall, 25 foot wide tree) in front of the window on the right, a foot from the house, and 'Little Ollie' dwarf Olives (mature size 8' tall and wide) under the windows on the left. Shearing is their future.
There's another Prunus, within five feet of a Magnolia grandiflora, and out of the photo frame are two more directly adjacent to the Magnolia's trunk...
...a Magnolia that is planted three feet from the property line, my property line, as it happens. Magnolia grandiflora grows sixty to eighty feet tall and fifty to sixty feet wide, and the previous owners of the previous owners planted it three feet from the property line.
Arrow indicates Magnolia trunk. the retaining wall is the diagonal line on the left, the foliage is another Prunus a few inches from the wall. Sigh.
A nice disrespect to their neighbor from them, but more than that, a profound disrespect to the tree, which must always be at most half a tree, until its shallow roots ("Root Damage Potential Rated as High.") buckle the walkway and driveway and undermine the retaining wall, and what could have been a gorgeous mature tree must be cut down. Half a tree:
Putting those three common errors in terms of maintenance, you end up with what my neighbors pay a crew to come every week to ameliorate. All of my neighbors wanted "low maintenance" gardens. None of them have figured out that having a crew come every week is not "low maintenance".
The conclusion of the chapter is "Good planning is by far the cheapest and best way to ensure a low maintenance landscape."
Yep. Good planning. It's not just landscaping. How much money (not to mention lives) would our country have saved if the Covid-19 response had been better planned?
My own plant choices have been far from perfect, but I'm doing my best to think through plants and design based on ultimate size, maintenance, fire potential, pruning requirements, water needs, the green waste produced and how it can be composted on site, food and habitat for native song birds and insects...there's a lot. However, ignorance is not an option.
Shearing not required:
Great post! I am guilty of mistake #1 because I am like an addict and feel that I have to have one of everything. I am working on that. I do realize that I will eventually reach an editing phase and some things may to come out. This reminds me to look up the author you mentioned. I've heard from others that her books are excellent.
ReplyDeleteActually one of the errors listed in that chapter I did not mention was one-of-everything, which I am certainly very guilty of, but that one was not something to do with "low maintenance" but rather to do with the look of the garden--too many competing focal points.
DeleteYes, editing phase. I'm getting to that point lately. The garden is the better for it.
This is great! I bought the book on Kindle. It's perfect to read right now. Who in their right mind is going to go outside and garden when it's 110F? (Not that I'm always in my right mind.) But it (the reading) solves a big problem I have with my older yard: constant pruning. Aha! Now I think to just cut out the most bothersome plants and that will reduce the green waste as well. Something I am trying hard to do.
ReplyDeleteHappy you found it of interest. Thank you! Can't even go outside, let alone do anything out there. I take the pups out for their bathroom break and we all rush back indoors as fast as possible. It was lethal out there today.
DeleteHope you find the book helpful. I did.
The time thing ...after watching mow-blow crews in my neighborhood go to town with the gas hedgers I can state with no hesitation that I could do 80% of those jobs faster with my extra-sharp Japanese hedge shears. No fuel and no noise . Working from home this spring and summer really was a rude awakening at how many people in my neighborhood hire these companies to turn their yard into a corporate park landscape. Loropetalum bon-bons, Lantana cubes et.al. And the blowers ! Dust flying everywhere.
ReplyDeleteOh, don't get me started...ok, I'm starting...so many of the crews here not only blow off the pavement, but all the dirt, too. Cant have fallen leaves laying on the soil?
DeleteRidiculous waste of fossil fuel--and leaves.
Great lessons. I think the desire for instant landscapes drives many of these mistakes. I've been guilty of ignoring the mature size of plants myself with the thought that the strongest will survive and thrive and I'll remove what doesn't. Unfortunately, that doesn't always mean the best of what I plant survives.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to experiment though. Each garden is unique, and those hand-crafted by the gardener reveal a personal vision.
DeleteYes, yes and yes! People do like to cram-scape when plants are small not bothering to research mature sizes. Where I live huge blue spruce and upright junipers are planted in front of the house, along driveways and sidewalks as tiny little specimens only to completely consume the house in 20 years. "I won't be here to worry about it" is a consistent comment from the planters.
ReplyDelete"I won't be here to worry about it" is so sad. There's a lot of that going around, and not only in regards to plants.
DeleteNot thinking about cram-scapes so much as impatience--cram-scapes I think of as avid gardeners trying all sorts of plants out. Impatience is wanting an "instant" landscape--plants as furniture not living things.
Oh my, I am guilty as charged. My DB is always reading up on what I plant. Ha... I am trying to do better. I like to experiment and use different plants here and there. Some plants think they are furniture they get moved so often. ha... Good advise here.
ReplyDeleteNothing wrong with moving a plant if you can. Sometimes it takes several moves to get it right! One of my roses in location #3 finally took off--in #1 and 2, it never got more than 8" tall, in location #3, it is as tall as I am.
DeleteI agree with Phillip - great post on a great topic! I am guilty of a lot of these poor practices. I realize that I do so knowingly, though. I often acquire plants because an idea I might have about a combo, and I want to try them out. You know, just to see if they are compatible. I already know they look stellar together, so now I need to try them out to see if it's one for the books. It's a terrible addiction to have, and very much one-of-each-itis, but can be SO rewarding. This spring, I got a 400 sf community garden plot to play in, and it's been great fun- and educational! (Don't tell anyone, but I signed up for a second plot for next year.) But yes, in my own garden, I'm most definitely at the editing stage. Which is always nerve-wracking, as taking one mature thing out always messes with the balance - color and otherwise. Wish me luck with that one, would you please?
ReplyDeleteI wish you oodles of good luck--you can do it!
DeleteDoing so knowingly is different--experimenting, trying new plants, and making changes is a big part of creating a gorgeous garden. We need to do that!
I think what the book was referring to was the non-gardener homeowner who didn't know enough about plants, and the professional who did not, or for various reasons could not, help them learn.
So good that your community plot has been fun for you. And next year maybe even better.
THIS. I get so frustrated with people doing stuff that causes maintenance problems down the line, you nailed it. Well done.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I was just out this morning trimming back some of that Magnolia, feeling sad that it can't grow as gloriously as it should. Ignorance kills.
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