When many people think of gardening, they immediately start to consider soil amendments, they think of watering their plot with the garden hose, they plan for the garden chemicals that will be necessary to keep their plants healthy. But what if we could design gardens that wouldn't require any of these inputs? What if, rather than change our site to match the needs of our plants, we selected plants that were already suited to our site? Maybe this would mean more gardens in our communities. Maybe it would result in cleaner water and a cleaner Earth. Maybe, just maybe, this could be the basis for a complete overhaul of residential properties and farmland across the nation.
Select Plants for your Soil
We hear so much about the affect soil has on the health of our plants, and this is completely true. Our gardens derive most of their nutrients from the soil in which they are grown, and when the soil provides all of the minerals and nutrition that our plants require, the plants will, in turn, be more resistant to pests and diseases. What makes "good" soil though? This term is thrown around loosely without any regard to the ecosystem of which we are speaking. People say, "I am lucky to have good soil in my yard" or "I can't have a garden because my soil isn't very good". Good soil for what plant? What do these vague statements even mean? Usually people call soil "good" if it is well suited to a tomato plant. But what if you are hoping to grow a cactus? Or a Bayberry bush? Soils vary as greatly as the plants that inhabit them and aside from soils which have been poisoned in some way, there is no soil that is inherently "bad". Sometimes comes down more to the designer's failure to select appropriate plants for their site.
We can certainly amend our soil and try to improve its ability to support the species that we are attempting to grow, but this can be a long process. The soil will also have a tendency to revert back to its original state if we do not keep up with our inputs. When designing a low-maintenance garden on our property, or a garden that is designed to perform a very specific function such as a rain garden, we should take the time to get to know our soil and then select plant varieties that are already well adapted to that habitat. When we match the soil to the plant, we will create beautiful spaces that thrive without fertilizer or other amendments.
Don't Overdo it with the Water
Watering the garden every day with your hose could be doing more harm than good! When nature waters the garden for us, it uses rain which tends to be slightly acidic and also contains dissolved nitrogen. We don't often think of rain as containing fertilizer, but it most certainly does. If our soil is already moist with hose water during a storm, we may lose much of the rain to surface runoff if it is unable to soak into the ground.
Hose water typically comes from two sources, city water and well water. City water contains chlorine which kills the microbes and fungi living within our soil. When we run the hose with city water, we are adversely affecting the soil biome that supports our plants. In fact, when growing mushrooms, it is extremely important not to use city water which can kill the very organism you are trying to grow. Well water also has its downsides. Well water comes from deep underground and typically has a large amount of dissolved minerals. The water can raise the pH which could be good or bad depending on the garden, but it also contains salts. Excessive use of well water in a garden will cause salt buildup which is a major problem for many species of plant.
Plants are highly adaptable to their growing conditions. When we baby our plants by lightly watering them every day, they will develop shallow root systems in order to best access the sprinkling of water they receive from your hose. When we water deeply, no more than once per week, we can encourage the root systems to reach deeper into the ground where they can access the underground aquifers. Even many annuals can develop impressively deep root systems. A sunflower, for example, can have roots stretching 10 ft deep! Believe in your plant's ability to adapt and thrive and cut back on the water soon after they have gotten established.
Focus more on recharging the aquifers than on adding water to the surface of your soil. When we "slow, spread, and sink" the rainwater that falls on our property, we can store the water in the ground where it will still be available to our plants, days or weeks after the rain event. Swales, rain gardens, and dry wells are all examples of structures we can add to our properties to help achieve this collection of rainwater.
Grow perennials and group plantings around "anchor" plants such as a small tree or shrub. When we add larger perennials to our gardens, they will develop a root system underground that can help retain moisture and preserve soil structure. I have gardens which receive no supplementary water throughout the summer, and even during the severe drought we experienced this year, they continued to thrive. This is due to the plant's abilities to adapt to their environment and find solutions to accessing the resources which they require.
Reap the Benefits of a Resilient Garden
By choosing plants based on the habitat in which they will be grown and by trusting in their ability to adapt and thrive in their site's conditions, we can take some of the work out of gardening. Resilient gardens can thrive through droughts and floods, they can grow in rocky, clay or sandy soil. When we struggle to keep a garden alive, we are likely either trying to grow plants that are not suited to the site, or we are managing them incorrectly. As more and more people design resilient landscapes, we will all enjoy the benefits of beautiful and thriving ecosystems on private properties, in commercial settings and in rights-of-way that will support the great diversity of life that in turn, supports all humans. We can cut our water consumption significantly and we can completely disregard the garden chemical section of the store. It's a garden revolution!
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