The other day, a young landscaper friend of mine posted on Facebook before and after pictures of a job he had done. Done in one day, it completely transformed the area. It reminded me of the first landscape job I was on almost thirty years ago.
I was a new grad with no clue as to what I wanted to do in life. Plastics was definitely out, but I had hoped to stay off the question of what I was going to do by joining the Peace Corp. Unfortunately, they refused to cooperate, and rejected me because of my asthma. With no Plan B in hand, I ended up signing up “temporarily” with a landscape company that just happened to be next-door to where I was living at the time. Best commute I ever had.
My first morning on the job, we drove to a dreary house in Bexley, an old suburb on the east side of Columbus. It was dark…dark red brick…dark green taxus and a large dark shadow hanging over it from a gnarly old street tree.
In one day, we tore out and replaced that sad landscape, and it was as if a light switch had been turned on. The things we planted, the bed edges we cut, the mulch we had put down, had totally transformed the house. I realized that day, as my friend Patrick did recently, that here was a job where I could “change the world.”
The problem with changing the landscaping world is that the worlds which we create are not static. From the time of their births to that day where another landscaper removes them, they are constantly changing. And we as gardeners are constantly reacting to that change.
For many, it is a burden, and the unfortunate result is a landscape under lock and key: nice and tidy, no surprises. Nothing wrong with such landscapes, and I often admire them.
It’s not my style though. To me, it’s a lot of work, and too many plants are never allowed to reach their full potential, literally cut down before their prime because they dare to grow within the fifteen foot wide “No Grow” area which seems to surround most houses.
When moving to the area, Barb and I inherited a neat and tidy landscape. Every shrub was sheared, and except for a few daffodils and tulips the ground level was bare of vegetation. Having been burdened as a mere child with the chore of shearing my Mom’s thirty foot long privet hedge, I chose to take out the privet hedge and not to continue the maiming of the Kolkwitzia and Viburnum.
For some reason, I continued the painful shearing of the taxus in the front. Probably planted in the 50s, they required ladders and gas-powered shears taller than me. Finally, I decided to turn them into trees and pruned out the bottoms. No hedge, no need to shear, problem solved.
I also stopped edging and mulching in March. I never seemed to find the time until June, and once the dogs started eating mulch, I never mulched. Weed sprung up, but so did scores of flowers. Initially it was larkspur, Consolida ajacis, a beautiful annual that comes in blues, whites, and pinks.
Cosmos was another flower we were rewarded with by not mulching. We had bought them as plants our first year here, but we were deeply disappointed when they flowered out by mid-July. Deadheading may have helped but that is not something Barb or I tend to want to do with our spare time. For me, I think I would rather stick my hand into the middle of a barberry bush than deadhead.
As a result, seeds developed and dropped. The following June brought tiny little cosmos seedlings scattered all around. Though they didn’t bloom until mid-July, they weren’t really needed until then to help brighten up a garden beaten down by the August sun.
Other annuals that happily reseed themselves given the chance are violas, amaranthus, talinum, foxgloves, sunflowers, and nicotiana. Letting them go to seed can be an ugly affair, but just remind yourself it could be worse. You could be waiting for your daffodil foliage to yellow.
Don’t expect them to come back in the same place each year either. That’s not part of the bargain, and I’ve discovered that Mother Nature is often a better designer than me anyways. If they do happen to pop up where you don’t want them, they’re usually easy enough to hoe out or move.
One that is not so easy is Chasmanthium latifolium, Northern Sea Oats. It is actually a beautiful perennial grass that is tolerant of shade, and grows to around three feet tall. It forms lovely pendulous stems of “oats” that are great in arrangements.
Given the opportunity its seedlings will colonize an area, and even the smallest seedling tenaciously resists removal. Though the seedheads remain ornamental well into winter, I recommend cutting them back in early September.
I am still trying to find a spot where Chasmanthium can grow free and to its full potential. A meadow of it beneath a large tree would be wonderful. That is why I’m eyeing the large Norway maple in the back. Beneath it is a rampant cover of English Ivy. Perhaps, it and the shade could tame Northern Sea Oats prolific nature. Barb is skeptical and wonders why I bother. “Just trying to change the world”, I say.