Re: What is "low maintenance?"

paul@nevco.k12.ca.us wrote:
> 
> The fall edition of "Pacific Horticulture" contains an intriguing
> article by a licensed landscape architect titled "The Low Maintenance
> Garden: Fact or Fiction?" He and his client individually and mutually
> thought they had come to an understanding about the maintenance needs
> the 1-acre garden the author installed in Saratoga, California. This
> garden was designed to be "low maintenance," with a lot of ornamental
> grasses and dry "creekbed" areas, plus some perennial plant areas.
> Unfortunately, after a few years, it was evident that the garden needed
> more maintenance than expected, which caused the author/landscaper to
> question and re-examine the meaning of "low maintenance."

Paul
I have got terribly behind with my mail, but still think I would like to
make a few comments.

I think that in aiming for low maintenance one has alway to be aware
that nature simply will not tolerate bare ground. The only way screes,
dunes and river gravels manage to remain bare for any length of time is
by constantly moving, thus frustrating efforts by all but the most
determined or specially modified plants to get a toehold.

There is no way as I see it that one could for instance maintain dry
creekbed areas as open pebbled or sandy ground without either copious
applications of weedkiller or regular merticulous stirring and weeding.

There was a time (long ago now) when pebble gardens were toted in NZ as
the ultimate in easy gardening. As originally conceived they employed a
base of continuous sheet plastic on which was laid a layer of pebbles
(often scoria) at least two or three inches thick. Crossed slits were
cut in the plastic for plants and the plastic then pushed back against
them.

It is not hard to imagine what happened next. The continuous plastic
excluded air so effectively from the ground that the soil soon became
sour and anaerobic. At the same time water, which could not penetrate
the ground took the help of any slight tilt to the ground to run out on
to paths and drives, making them impassible after heavy rain.

The main losers were the wretched plants, the most determined of which
tried to avoid total suffication by growing a new set of roots in the
pebbles above the plastic, thus  often becoming destabilized. Smaller
soft-wooded kinds simply succumbed. A cynical nurseryman friend remarked
to me that pebble gardens had been a great way of increasing his sales!!

Ironically, the last stage was the breakdown of some of the scoria,
which in conjunction with wild-borne soil eventually made a seedbed
among the pebbles where all sorts of annual weeds could flourish on top
of the plastic. it was a great place to grow weeds and the real
sufferers were the plants.

There is a modified version still around involving porous weedmat and
bark chips. Interestingly, pentration of air and water can't be too
effective even with the weedmat, as I have found gardens in which the
plants were still climbing out of their straitjacket and producing roots
in the mulch above it..

For inspiration about how to keep out weeds the better model is an area
of scrub or forest where either the plants are crowded together so there
is almost no way an interloper can get toehold, or the ground is too
shaded for young plants to get going and probably also covered in a
thick natural mulch. A thickly planted and/or mulched garden will never
be totally weed-free, but I doubt it would ever require the high level
of maintenence of the garden described.

Moira
-- 
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata, 
New Zealand (astride the "Ring of Fire" in the SW Pacific).
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