Getting Started - Soils & Landscapes |
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Planning a Low-Maintenance Landscape
Planning a Low-Maintenance Landscape
Landscapes that require minimum time and money to maintain require thoughtful planning and installation. Invest early in planning and structures, and you'll pay (and work) less later. Choose structures, plants, ground-coverings, and systems that will help to reduce watering, weeding, trimming, painting, and mowing. Tools and Materials • Paper and pencil • Reference books on landscape plants and projects Consider your available time. Determine how much time you spend maintaining your yard at different times of the year. Consider mowing, planting, pruning, weeding, watering, raking, snow shoveling, and other seasonal chores. What do you want to change? List your needs. How do you plan to use your yard-for barbecuing, vegetable or flower gardening, kids' play activities, or simply viewing from the windows? Various activities require different ground surfaces, structures, or plantings. Assess your landscape. Make a rough map and list of existing features, such as fences, trees and shrubs, buildings, and paved surfaces. Note problem areas, such as poor views, noise, lack of privacy, steep slopes, or places where plants grow poorly or water accumulates. Choose timesaving systems and surfaces. Consider lower-maintenance alternatives to solve landscape problems, such as an automatic irrigation system for watering the lawn and garden; a deck, paved patio, or ground-covering plants instead of a mowed lawn; and a fence or vine-covered trellis instead of a clipped hedge. Choose brick or stone instead of wood surfaces to eliminate painting chores. Group shrubs and trees into mulched beds to reduce mowing, trimming, and watering. Mulch gardens to prevent weeds. Select low-maintenance plants. Choose only plants that fit the space available. We all tend to underestimate how quickly and how large a small nursery plant will become. To reduce planting time, plant flowering shrubs or perennial plants that grow back each year instead of annuals that only last one season. Pick plants that thrive in your soil, sun, and climate. Tips Plant perennials that die to the ground in autumn, instead of shrubs, in places where snow accumulates or slides off the roof. Choose plants with features that look good in more than one season, such as flowers in spring, handsome leaf color in fall, and attractive bark in winter. Reduce or eliminate your lawn. If you have children or enjoy lawn games, about 600 square feet of turf is usually sufficient. Photography by Suzanne DeJohn/National Gardening Association
Testing Soil Drainage and Texture Your soil's texture and drainage determine the kinds of plants you can grow most successfully and influence how you care for your plants. Texture describes the relative amounts of large, medium, and small particles — called sand, silt, and clay — in the soil. Water and nutrients move quickly through soil that has a sandy texture because more space exists between the larger soil particles. Small clay particles, on the other hand, pack together tightly so water does not drain as quickly through them.
Tools and Materials • Shovel • Water source Squeeze a handful of soil. Grab a handful of moist soil and squeeze it. Clay soil is slippery and oozes between your fingers. It holds its shape when you release it. Sandy soil feels gritty and falls apart easily. Loam soil holds together, but falls apart when you poke it. Make a ribbon in your hand. Soils that won't form a ribbon when rolled between your thumb and fingers contain at least 50 percent sand and only a little clay. Ribbons that break before reaching 2 inches long contain about 25 percent clay. If you can squeeze out a ribbon 2 to 3-1/2 inches long, your soil contains at least 40 percent clay. Dig a hole. Another way to determine the texture of your soil is to check how fast water drains through it. Dig a hole 1 foot deep by 1 foot wide. Fill the hole with water and record how long it takes for the water to completely drain. The ideal time is between 10 and 30 minutes. If it drains in less than 10 minutes, the soil is drought-prone and most suitable for plants that need dry or well-drained soil. If it takes 3 to 4 hours, your soil is poorly drained, due either to a large percentage of clay or an impermeable layer of minerals below the surface that blocks water movement. Tips If you live where rainfall provides most of the water plants need, choose trees, shrubs, and perennial plants that thrive in your particular soil. If you live where irrigation is a necessity, apply water to clay soils very slowly but long enough for the water to soak in deeply. Then withold water until you're sure it's needed again. Conversely, if your soil is sandy, water for less time but more frequently. Add organic material, such as compost, manure, or shredded leaves to sandy soil to improve its ability to hold water and to clay soil to help it drain more quickly. Photography by Suzanne DeJohn/National Gardening Association
Drawing a Landscape Map Before you design or improve your landscape, the first step is to inventory what you have. The best way to do that is to draw a base map of the site, accurately recording the size and location of permanent features.
Tools and Materials • Notepad or paper, at least 8 1/2 by 11 inches • Pencil and eraser • Ruler • Compass • Tape measure, at least 50 feet • Wooden stakes and string • Mallet to drive stakes • Protractor or steel carpenter's square • Graph paper, 11 x 14 inches or larger, 1/4 inch grid • Masking tape • Tracing paper, available in rolls Draw a rough map. On a large notepad, sketch out your yard, including buildings, large trees and shrubs, property lines, fences, utility lines, paved areas, patios, pools, and other permanent features. Don't worry about accuracy yet. Using a compass, find the direction of north and mark it on the map. Measure permanent objects. Measure the features, such as house and pool dimensions, tree drip lines, spreads of shrubs, and lengths of fences. Add the measurements to the rough map. Also measure and locate windows and doors, as well as outside faucets, lights, and electrical receptacles. Establish accurate locations. Using stakes and string, mark a straight line along a property boundary, starting at one corner. Keeping the tape measure at a 90 degree angle from the boundary, measure the distance from the boundary to the nearest corners of the house, trees, and other objects on your map. Measure from other boundaries, too, to confirm accuracy. Transfer measurements to graph paper. With a ruler and pencil, transfer your measurements accurately to graph paper. Use 1 inch to represent 4 feet for small yards, 1 inch to 20 feet for larger sites. Make tracing paper overlays. Tape the base map to a table or board. Lay sheets of tracing paper over it and make additional maps, each with a different theme, such as sun and shade patterns, slopes, views, gardens, and traffic patterns. Each map becomes a layer that adds detail to the base map but remains separate for clarity. Tips Use tracing paper overlays and a soft pencil to sketch new landscape ideas and plans over your base map. Start with loose scribbles and add accuracy as your plans take shape. Make small circles, called registration marks, in the corners of your base map. So that the base map and overlays can be accurately aligned, add corresponding marks on each sheet of tracing paper. Photography by Suzanne DeJohn/National Gardening Association
Preparing a New Garden Plot Eliminating weeds and getting the soil ready for your flowers and vegetables are important first steps in growing a successful garden. Time spent in preparation reduces the time you'll have to spend maintaining and weeding your garden over the course of the growing season.
Tools and Materials • String and wooden stakes • Spade • Glyphosate herbicide (optional) • Hoe or mattock • Steel garden rake • Soil testing sample kit • Soil amendments, as required • Garden fork or rototiller Choose the spot. Vegetable gardens and most flowerbeds require at least 6 hours of full sun each day. Choose a level spot -- either natural or terraced -- that has well-drained soil, if possible (see Testing Soil Drainage). Thick grass or vigorous weed growth usually indicate soil drainage and nutrient levels that will support healthy garden plants. Mark the boundaries. Outline the new garden plot with string and stakes, a hose, or a line of powdered limestone. Eliminate the competition. Remove existing lawn by slicing under the sod with a spade and cutting it into manageable pieces. Add the pieces to your compost or use it to patch bare spots elsewhere. Kill weeds with glyphosate herbicide, pull them by hand, or chop them with a hoe or mattock and rake them up. If time permits, you can smother grass and weeds with old carpeting or black plastic anchored to the ground. For best results, leave the covering in place for several weeks of hot weather. Test the soil. Send a sample of garden soil to a private or cooperative extension office soil-testing lab for nutrient and pH analysis. Call the lab or a local garden center for a collection kit and instructions on how to collect the sample. Test results will tell you which minerals and pH amendments your soil needs to grow healthy vegetables and flowers. Add amendments. Adjust the soil pH -- its measure of acidity or alkalinity -- by adding ground limestone or sulfur as recommended by the soil test results. Improve the soil fertility, clay soil drainage, and sandy soil water-holding capacity by adding organic material, such as compost, well-rotted livestock manure, or composted fir bark. Apply a 1- to 2-inch layer of organic material over the garden. Turn the soil. Work the amendments into the top 6 to 12 inches of soil with a rototiller or garden fork. Break up large clods and remove rocks and roots. Work the soil only when it is dry enough to crumble easily after squeezing — never when it is saturated with water. Tips The best time to eliminate weeds and grass is the season before you plan to plant your garden. You can do it just prior to planting, too, but may have more weeds pop up throughout the growing season. Do-it-yourself soil test kits work best for detecting the soil pH, but give only a rough idea of the nutrient levels. Professional tests provide more thorough and accurate information and recommendations. Photography by Suzanne DeJohn/National Gardening Association
Making Compost Compost — or humus — is decomposed or well-rotted organic material, such as vegetable waste, leaves, grass clippings, and livestock manure. This crumbly, soil-like material improves soil texture by increasing the drainage of heavy clay soils and the water and nutrient retention of light, sandy soils. To get started, choose a spot. Find a place for your compost that's convenient to your kitchen or garden and has well-drained soil. Although not required, a wire, wood, or plastic container keeps your compost pile looking neat and prevents animals from scattering food scraps. Choose a 3- to 4-foot-wide container that comes apart easily and allows plenty of airflow through to its contents. Tools and Materials • Compost container • Brown plant materials, such as leaves and straw • Green plant materials, such as grass clippings and kitchen waste • High-nitrogen fertilizers, such as blood meal and cottonseed meal • Hose and Water • Garden fork or shovel Add a Brown Layer. Lay a 4-to 6-inch-thick layer of brown material on the bottom. Carbon-rich dried grass, peat moss, straw, shredded leaves, and other brown plant material make a good base for the pile. Moisten. Dampen the bottom layer so that it's moist but not soggy. The moisture will help acccelerate the decomposition process by providing the right environment for microbes to break down the material. Add a Green Layer. Make a second, 2-to 4-inch-thick layer of nitrogen-rich green materials, such as fresh grass clippings or vegetable kitchen scraps. Alternate adding layers of brown and green material until the pile is 3- to 5-feet high (or container is full). Moisten each layer before adding the next. Cover the Bin. Once all the layers are in and moistened, cover the bin to prevent animals from getting inside or wind from blowing loose material away. During rainy periods, you can cover the top of the bin with a rain-proof tarp to prevent the pile from getting too wet. As the material begins to decompose, the pile heats up, but not evenly. To ensure that all materials break down, mix the pile and keep it moist. After the center heats up and then cools down (after one to several weeks, depending on the time of year and size and composition of the material), turn the pile. Use a garden fork or shovel to mix the contents, blending the inside and outside materials. Repeat turning the pile once or twice. The compost is ready to use when it's dark and crumbly — usually in a month or two.
TipsPlace open-bottom compost containers on a sheet of galvanized wire hardware cloth to prevent rodents from burrowing into the pile. Avoid adding herbicide-treated grass clippings, meat scraps, pet feces, perennial and seed-bearing weeds, and diseased plants to your compost pile. If you don't have enough green material for your pile, add a few cups of fertilizer such as cottonseed or alfalfa meal instead. Photography by Sabin Gratz/National Gardening Association
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