Watering is so critical at this time of year. Too much or little can wallop a plant so its beauty and strength is diminished for the season. In the

Important Points:

Observe the plant in the early morning.  If the plant’s leaves are droopy in the early morning you are usually not watering enough.  If they are droopy on a hot day at noon or in the evening don’t measure it by that only. You droop too if you are in 90 degree heat at noon.

Watering times and amounts vary according to soil conditions and shade or sun. The less an area drains, the worse it is to water a long time, because water just sits in the bottom of the hole and takes a while to percolate.

Measure the amount your system is watering by placing a pan out in its path.  You want to measure 1” of water in the pan and then set your timer according to 1” increments.

Conserve water and help your plants and lawn. Don’t overwater or spoil your plants.  Less water forces their roots to go deep. Shallow rooted plants are less hearty in the long run. I had an established flowering shrub garden I watered once in last August’s drought. It was lovely and bloomed heavily.

Watering pots- You need to know if the plants in your pots like it dryer.  Try to put plants that like it dry or wet in the same pots.  Try not to mix them up even if they are pretty. You really should try to water pots every other day in the hot summer.  See if that works as a general rule.

Types of Watering
Sprinkler systems

• Check your system to see if water is being wasted in the street or cross watering. If it is overshooting call your company to adjust unless you have a straight head screwdriver and want to try it yourself.
• Read the instructions on your controller and try to operate it for yourself, for your own sanity, to save money and to shift watering times according to the weather.
• Set system – For lawns=1” -3 times a week and For beds- 1” or about 20 minutes – 3 times a week in the sun and 2 times a week in the shade.

Soaker hoses or Drip systems.

• After you water walk along the line of the drip house to see if water is seeping out everywhere somewhat evenly.  Stick your finger in the ground near it to see how deep the soil is saturated.

Using manual sprinklers

• Use the same watering guides as with the irrigation system but choose only those areas that need it.  You can buy a timer from Home Depot for $14.00 that can turn off on its own.

Hand watering

• This is the best for your plants.  You can look at each plant and give it what it alone needs. Kind of custom watering. The plant gets the water saturating the root system with little evaporation.
• Use it as a meditative time for you being outside.

There is a certain lightheartedness of the garden which is important to respect when planning, planting or even weeding.  I have found in my wanderings that the more gardens are analyzed, controlled and forced, the less they inspire. The human tendency to exact a garden to the nth degree can lead to a stiff and uninspired feeling.

It’s kind of like the soufflé where you keep opening the oven door on and it goes flat; or the gardenia that you touch over and over turning the leaves brown; or the docile sweet puppy that you pass around and pet over and over til it’s exhausted and nervous.  The garden does not like to be worried over and picked at.

The garden just wants to be met with a light heart. We work from space and the natural affinity for plants to grow where they are happy and in the space they need.  We ask for the poetic license to shift a plant a foot or two, tap around the smaller plants here or there or add or take away one or two depending on how it looks. If a lovely columbine pops up in a stone wall or under a bench, the leave it. What’s not to like? If a kousa dogwood doesn’t like the clay soil even amended and won’t leaf out- fine let’s pick another tree. We try to listen, and not fight Natures “City Hall”.

So my attitude is when working in a garden just follow your intuition.  Do it with a happy heart, and with the thought that the plant just likes being with you, however you plop it in the ground.  Use tender hands and tell it how happy you are to have it with you. Pick that lovely flower. Pull that random weed. Water the plant you think is dry.  Get your hands dirty.   Blend your soul with Nature’s and enjoy its gifts.

One of the joys of summer is seeing the different blooming vines on people’s mailboxes, fences and arbors.  There are many kind of long blooming vines available in all colors. The trick is training them or helping them climb, and in knowing how to cut them back in the winter to get the best climb for your money.

I have outlined a few tips which I have learned through my years of maintenance in the field.  Hopefully this handy guide  will help those or you those of you who want to try to grab the small window left in training your vines this season before they turn into a jumbled glob of plant material.  I have tried to choose 3 of the area favorites.

Trumpet coral

This is a semi woody vine that comes in orange, blue pink, red or yellow.  The trick with this vine is to intertwine it between its support every week or so and show no mercy in cutting back any outward growth which does not follow the line of the fence.  This will sucker down along the ground if you let it.  Cut back extra tendrils to encourage it to grow width or height wise.  The trick for early spring pruning is to cut it back tightly to the wall or fence with very short nubs.  If you don’t, when it does start growing (vigorously) it will pull off its support. This plant does not have natural grabbing on to the wall. You need to give it something to climb on.

These vines like hot conditions and somewhat dry soil.  The drawback is at times tit gets powdery mildew and aphids.  Treating it with a systemic – one hat you can buy for roses before it gets any bight is recommended.

Clematis

Probably one of the most loved vines in Virginia is the clematis.  This comes in all shades of pink, purple, white and even blue/reds.  The trick with the clematis is to give it something it can climb that has a vertical and horizontal support.  I used to try to tie this on birdhouse pose, mail box posts and picket fences.  It inevitably would slide down these vertical supports and bunch up at the bottom.  Finally I bought some black very lightweight netting and tied it to the post or fence.  I loved it.  Even though you think it may be unsightly as a support in a few short weeks you don’t see it because the vine has taken off.   Maintenance of this vine is to chop it to the ground in the late winter.  If you don’t you are fighting the woody stems which criss cross and tangle.  When threading the clematis through the netting use the leaves of the vine not the bloom to thread.  If the leaves are caught around something that you cannot untie just cut one leaf stem to untangle and then thread another leaf available.

This plant likes its head in the sun- feet in the shade.  IF for some reason your clematis dies where you place it, don’t fight it- just find a different location or switch plants.

Morning glory

Of all the vines this is the one that surprised me the most when I purchased a 4” high morning glory for 99Cents.  I t looked pathetic.  Within in am month it had reached the top of my arbor and by the frost it was 6 feet height by 9 feet wide.  IF I had had a bigger trellis it would have been bigger.  Every morning it seemed to say wake- up and see me! This vine takes hot sun and likes some water. I had mine near a spigot which made it easy to water.  The trick here is to guide the vine trendless daily if you can.  It grows so quickly and will grab hold wherever it wants. Just daily attention for about 30 seconds does wonder. It will freeze when the first frost sets in and is a mess to cut own but well worth the spectacular and multiple blooms your get for less that a dollar.

When people asked me what I would do if I had a million dollars I would always say, “I want to help kids in an afterschool program. I could pay for it because I would be rich.”

The funny thing about that is that once a got rid of the block that money allows our dreams to come true, the answer was right down the street.

In a brief inspired moment, I used all my talents as an English major and whipped out a proposal for the local YMCA for a series of events called “Growing up Green”. And what do you know…“Bam” they jumped at it!  Not only did they jump at it, but we all talked about it as a pilot program if it didn’t tank in the first go ‘round. The first class in a series of 4 – 1 for each season- was Mother’s day Marigolds” (in which, by the way we did not plant 1 marigold).

Events occurred and the next thing I know I am a an elementary school  with 34 six year olds staring at me as I describe how I am a landscaper and how we all can more closely connect with Nature.

Well,  if you have ever worked with 6 year olds, you know that they last about 2 seconds when you talk at them; that they can’t  read cute signs you make for a skit  (Pretend you are a plant!), and when they are asked a question they could come out with a totally different slant on the topic at hand.  (“ My mother once had a shrub that died and…) So I went with the flow and with the help of the kids and counselors pulled about 20 different annuals onto the tailgate of my truck, and told them to pick one and go back to their picnic tables. They sat with them in front of them, petted them, smelled them (a truly tactile experience I learned as a special ed teacher in the 80’s)  while their classmates acted out with minimal props planting concepts like wet vs dry: sun vs shade; deep roots vs.  shallow roots.

The highlight of the day was when I pulled an asparagus fern out of the pot and dissected the root system showing them the tuberous root and how it holds water.

By the end of the hour each of them came up and told me which plant they wanted to pot up for their Mom. They had specific colors they wanted, some wanted roses and shrubs (can’t do it kid – it’s on my budget) but each one explained what they wanted and made me spell their name correctly with the thick magic marker and lined paper one of the sharper kids in the class was kind enough to lend me.  I explained to her that I had come unprepared.

So how did it work out?  We have 3 more days to go in this series – the painting of the pots- the planting- making a card.  But as I looked up from my writing one little guy’s name (it was the third time he’s spelled his name for me to get right with his quiet lisp..“ No it’s G-A-G-E”), and see the consternation through his thick glasses,  I wonder if the outcome of this event about us getting closer to the plant, or about us getting closer because of the plant.

I have come to hear in my requests from customers that they want a “maintenance free” garden.   They talk about their jobs and schedule and say they have no time for gardening, but want things that flower and smell nice and look pretty all the time.

My reaction used to be, “Oh sure! No problem. We can work out a plan.”  Then I would go down the mental list of plants that needed no care and couldn’t think of one.

So now I pose the question. How did Americans come to use this term so widely and freely?  What does it mean…?” Maintenance free. “Does it mean you have the plants and let someone else water, mulch and clean up? Does it mean you have no plants at all, or plastic plants? Or does it mean you ignore the plants and declare them maintenance free.

I remember reading a management book once when they were discussing the best way to fire an employee .  It was not by giving them tough assignments.  It was not by constantly berating them.  It was by ignoring them completely.  So how does the maintenance free garden flourish? It’s going to have to have something to do with me.