Digging In: Avoiding Extremes

By Jennifer Smith, Garden Designer

I tend to avoid extremes. I find extremes in anything be it politics, sports, diet, even gardening less than helpful. Remember the cabbage diet? That didn’t work out too well. To my surprise, or perhaps my naiveté, I learned that extremes exist in the gardening world. Before I delve into this month’s topic, let me preface by stating my role as a gardener and garden designer is to encourage homeowners to relinquish part or all of their lawn for a pollinator garden.  

I’m working with those new to gardening and those new to the idea of planting with nature, not against her. Removing half of a client’s front lawn and planting a garden with plant diversity greatly improves the beneficial quality of that site.  When planting a new garden, I use a mix of native and non-native plants. For example, Karl Foerster grass is a must, in my opinion, and it’s often keeping company with native grasses such as little bluestem, prairie dropseed and purple love grass.

 The extreme approach to planting with nature would be to use only native plants. A very fine goal I grant you, but one that may not be inviting to new gardeners. To ease homeowners from a reliance on expanses of lawn to a diverse garden, I like to call upon native and the tried-and-true cultivated plants that I know will likely offer success to these new gardeners. And success begets more plants, often more native, pollinator plants. 

One of my favorite cultivated plants is Caryopteris “Dark Knight:” It’s been batting a 1,000. Nepeta, a failsafe plant if there ever was one for new gardeners, is a bee magnet, as is the easy-to-grow annual blue salvia. Agastache “Blue Fortune” is a winner, too. It blooms for a long period of time, stands through winter and is easy to grow in sunny soil that’s well draining. Most importantly, it’s also a constant hub of bee activity. What’s not to like? Why eliminate these plants from a new gardener’s plant offering when we know the pollinators love them and the gardener will find success?

The truth of the matter is once new gardeners find their rhythm with their garden, they’re always open to adding more plants, and most often, those new plants are native. If I had insisted from the start that they only use native plants, perhaps they would have passed on adding a new garden and stuck with the sod. What a loss that would be.

Extremes are found in soil, or lack of soil preparation, too.  I firmly stand in the “amend if you can” camp when it comes to the soil. I want the soil for my new gardeners to be as easy to weed and work with as possible.  If weeding and planting become chores, drudgery in the garden, chances are slim they will add more plants not to mention expand their gardens. 

When I’m removing sod to create a garden, disturbing the soil below is not a concern.  If anything, removing the sod, tilling and adding amendments has vastly improved the quality of the soil.  But should I be asked to plant in a rich, healthy woodland garden, I would not till the established soil with its fine structure and healthy microorganisms. I would take great pains to disturb such soil as little as possible. As with plant selection, the right plant for the right space, so too is to prep or not to prep the soil, a case-by-case decision.

If I were to admit to an extreme when it comes to gardening it would be planting with unabashed abundance. The more plants and plant diversity a garden has, the more resilient it is to pests, disease, animal damage and general plant loss. The success of the garden doesn’t hinge on a few plants, nor does its ability to attract and support pollinators rely on just a few scant plants.  If you were to adopt an extreme stance on gardening, let it be one of extreme plant abundance! You will have a lot more fun in the garden and the pollinators will thank you.

Jennifer Smith is an award-winning pollinator garden designer with Wimberg Landscaping.