Low-Maintenance Landscaping
 (Read 500+ times)
By Glory Lennon
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We all know the benefits of gardening. It relieves stress, it’s good exercise, it’s good for the environment, if done organically, and there’s nothing more fulfilling then eating a meal you not only cooked yourself but also using the fresh veggies straight out of your own garden, the fruits of your labor. But I hear some grumbling out there. It seems that some of you are letting the garden stress you out. This I can not allow!
First off, deep breath in...deep breath out...now, chill. If the garden is causing the stress, if pulling all those weeds is making you pull out your hair you might want to plow it under, cover the yard with black plastic and dump a truck-load of decorative stone on it. Problem solved. No, I don’t recommend it but I also don’t approve of stress nor anything that causes it so I suggest you rid yourself of whatever stresses you. I realize I may have just prompted several folks to consider divorce and sending their kids to a boarding school but that is hardly my intent. Let me tell you that my garden (even the weeds) is the place I go to get away from all the stressors in my life and I’m here to show you how to do this. What you need is low-maintenance landscaping.
Because I know you like the idea of a garden but also want to actually enjoy it I suggest you simplify. I have a friend who simplified by yanking out half her Iris bed and half her Daylily bed and giving to me bushels and bushels full of these lovely plants. (Thank you, Geri!) As much as I loved getting those plants from her I still don’t consider that the best alternative. My suggestion to those of you who hate weeding (Gosh, isn’t that all of us?) is my lazy garden method which has proved invaluable to me. This entails using mulch everywhere and if you think playing with mulch is too much trouble consider the result I got this past year when I neglected to follow my own lazy garden method and ended up pulling weeds for the entire summer and still I’m not done. An ounce of prevention, or rather mulch, is worth a pound of weed-free garden space.
You may think I’m nuts but I actually like to weed. It gets me outside in the sunshine, gets me up close to buzzing bees, fluttering butterflies zooming hummingbirds, I smell the flowers around me and it leaves my mind free to "write" a chapter to my next novel or a short story. Time to think is good. It also is a good time for meditation, reflection or just zoning out. All that mindless pulling on weeds gets stress out of my system. Truly, it's great.
So, now I hear you saying we cannot actually achieve this. A weed-free garden? No way! You are definitely right. Life cannot be denied especially to tenacious, sneaky weed seeds. But that’s where the right attitude can help. I mean to say, what is a weed but a wildflower that may have out lived its welcome. My autistic son Justin loves Dandelions probably because he can always find one. He brings me tiny bouquets every day during the summer. Yes, they fade within seconds of my getting them in water but it’s the thought that counts.
One of my friends makes dandelion wine with this weed. She can never get enough pesticide-free dandelions so she comes to my house. I don’t mind! And though it used to annoy me every spring when the dandelions really made their presence known and my father-in-law used to exclaim at the top of his voice “Your lawn’s got the measles!” now that he’s no longer with us when I see my lawn polka-dotted in bright yellow “chicken pox” I remember him and smile.
No, these things don’t make me like the dandelion but it makes me hate them less. That’s a start. I also don’t freak out every time I see a Queen Anne’s Lace, Milkweed, Doll’s Eyes or Joe Pye Weed sneak into one of my gardens. Some of these are important food sources for butterflies and who can stress out watching butterflies? Only my cats perhaps, but I think they actually like chasing them around.
But I hate weeds! I don’t want any in my gardens, you say. Okay, chill. I told you I can get you as close to weed-free as possible and that’s pretty darn good. So, grab yourself some mulch and follow me. You need to cover the soil around your plants with thick layers newspaper and then cover this with one of the many things available as mulch; wood chips, straw, pine needles, hay or grass clippings. For something permanent use landscape fabric or black plastic sheeting and decorative stone. This is particularly good in a mixed shrub border. Your garden will be so weed-free you’ll be kissing the ground I walk on.
Another method to my madness for less weeding is packing the plants in my beds so tightly that weeds don’t have much of a chance to sneak in and even if they do they kind of blend in with everything else so it’s not such an eye sore. Only the dreaded Thistle gets my ire up. The bane of my existence, it is but I even tolerate that because my golden finches like to nibble on the seeds. I’m a sucker for wildlife. Watching them flutter about while drinking an iced sun tea with fresh mint from my garden takes away more stress than the thistle gives. A fair trade, I’d say.
I suggest you adopt my laid back method. Stress kills, you know, and the world with one less gardener is a sad thought. I want you around for a while. If after all this you’re still stressed, hire a gardener and try Yoga. Deep breath in....deep breath out....now, chill.
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Author Bio Box: Glory Lennon
To find more on gardening among other things visit
http://www.helium.com/user/show/32782.
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