Maintenance is key

Part of the charm of a garden is the illusion that has been around forever with little effort in maintaining it.  Ha!

For most gardens, you have to get a running start and prune, transplant or buy for seasons ahead of time. Timing is everything in gardening. You and Nature work together for optimizing growth habits of plants, getting plants watered when needed by rain, and letting vines and plants take off to look natural rather than hacking away when they are out of control.

A mature garden should look like the garden came first, then the house was built; or that the water feature just bubbled up from a hole in the ground; or that the small boulders built into the terrace retaining wall were pulled out of the nearby stream.

The garden can have clear bed lines and wafts of plantings, but should include an odd ball plant like a Siberian iris or a columbine that has drifted from another area of the garden. A loose somewhat random look can be relaxing but it can’t look weedy.

Take a look at these pictures to see how timely maintenance makes a difference

This three year old clematis was cut to the ground in early March.  Here it is in late May with the help of an almost invisible guide wire.

This red leafed smoke bush can stay close to this pool house. Its height and breadth can be controlled with proper pruning.  In the spring red leaves and the plume of smoke bloom are striking.  In the fall the leaf color is a golden yellow.

What else do you need in the early spring? The yellow Lady Banks rose has a very loose evergreen growth habit which has been supported with thin guide wires.  Right after it blooms we will prune it hard, and again in the summer so it does not get gangly.  Like many climbing plants. You want it to go up narrow and then go wide at the top.

Perennial gardens are everyone’s favorite when they look good.  They need to be reworked every few years as this one was this spring.  Things were split, pulled out, moved and new plants purchased according to their bloom time, growth habit and color.  It will look pretty this year, but explode next spring.