RE: Low Maintenance

Erik van Lennep-Hyland said:

>A half-way measure towards natural landscapes is "editing" the landscape.
>Here, without attempting to introduce anything new, the naturally occuring
>plant community is selectively thinned, retaining important elements and
>inter-plant associations, while opening up or closing view lines, 
pathways,
>etc. Areas you wish to remain open for frequent use can be paved with flat
>stone, for instance, pathways laid to prevent erosion, and the native
>ground covering allowed to flow back to meet the hard surfaces. Only after
>this level of adjustment has been made, does the gardener consider very
>cautiously introducing locally ocurring native plants to augment the
>design.

This is how I have spent the last few years gradually turning the wild and 
untamed parts of the garden into something to delight the eye. In my case, 
the first step has been to remove all of the non-native interlopers from a 
given area, then cut out and remove dead, diseased, overcrowded or 
malformed native plants, plus those that are in the way of any pathways or 
tracks that I want to establish. After that I usually find that the first 
storm will blow down a few more of the natives that are no longer protected 
by the plants that have been removed. I plant new natives into any gaps 
that have been created. This has certainly resulted in low maintenance 
parts of the garden, as all I have to do is remove fallen branches after 
occasional storms. Over the years the native trees have grown several 
metres and the feel of the whole area has altered markedly from how it was 
originally. I would not want the whole garden to be like this, but so far 
it has worked very well for around 20% of it, and as a result I only have 
80% to 'maintain' on a regular basis.

Tim Dutton
"Raindrops", Main Road North, Kaitoke, Upper Hutt, New Zealand
(Latitude 41? 5' South, Longitude 175? 10' East)
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