Planning The Garden...

Press, Volume C, Issue 29499, 28 April 1961, Page 8

Planning The Garden...

[No. 1 of a Series] How many gardens have actually been planned? A very small proportion of those in existence—that's my estimate! The majority of them have just happened. And yet the planning of a garden is the best way of making the most of what you have. No-one would build a house without considering all the details, and thus ensuring that the various requirements dovetailed neatly together. If you want a garden that's going to meet your requirements it requires thought, too. Thought on the type of plants to grow, the sizes of beds they are to go in, their general disposition, the amount of labour you can spend, and even the presence of children in a family. Garden planning is a big subject, and if its going to be done properly it needs a certain amount of technical knowledge. So this article is intended as the first of a series on the why and wherefore of garden planning. If you want a series of ready-made plans then they won t give them to you. They will give suggestions and, it is hoped, enable you to apply them to your own particular problems. All gardens are different. The soils, slopes, aspects are distinct, as well as the persons who live there, with their different salaries, aspirations, likes and dislikes. So readymade, cut-and-dried plans just don’t work. You’ve got to start from first principles. Gardens don’t take care of themselves. They’ve got to be maintained. But the amount of maintenance depends on two things—the sort of planting you carry out, and the amount df money you can spend on labour-saving ideas. Most persons want to cut down labour in the garden—but remember that maintenance is part of the pleasure in gardening to the keen gardener. It allows him to uncurl mentally after the week’s work has rolled him into a ball. There are advantages as well as disadvantages. Different Kinds of Planting What sorts of different planting are there? Lawns, trees and shrubs, roses, bedding, perennials, rock gardens are but a few. They all require differing amounts of labour. If you’re a lazy gardener—or one who is interested, but can’t afford the time—then you choose the plantings which require the minimum of labour. Trees and shrubs instead of bedding plants; areas of paving instead of lawn. You’ve got-to sort out at the start what you intend to include in your garden and what has to be excluded. There’s a point to notice here —labour saving tricks usually cost money to begin with,

although they may save it later on. Let's have a look at some of the pros and cons of the different types of planting. Lawns are an essential part of any garden, for their greenness acts as a foil, and a softener for other colours. They help to “pull together” the other parts of the garden design. They’re useful play areas for children. But too much lawn is wasteful in labour repetitive labour, that is, for the twice weekly mowing. I strongly suspect that one reason we see such large lawn areas in some gardens is that they're easy to put down compared with other forms of planting. Look after today, and tomorrow looks after itself—perhaps! Labour-saving Lawns A labour-saving alternative to extensive lawn is to put some of it in paved courtyard—not poured concrete which looks hard and harsh in a block—but concrete paving slabs, some, perhaps, with pebble or brush finishes instead of the trowelled finish; or brick paved courtyard, or paving stone. Expensive, perhaps, but it’s going to cost you the minimum of maintenance, so what you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts! Edge trimming is expensive in time, and can be reduced in two ways. Run the lawn right up to your concrete path, and have lawn and path at the same level. When you mow the last strip the mower has one wheel on

the concrete, and the edge of the lawn is automatically cut by the mower without additional side trimming. Where lawn abuts on to beds you can use the identical principle—make a narrow concrete lip which acts as the limit mark to both bed and lawn. The lawn doesn’t need edging and the bed edge doesn't need truing up each year. If you grow herbaceous plants some of the dwarfer sorts that are used at the front of the border tend to sprawl over the grass. Il we carefully lift each plant to cut beneath it it takes extra time; if we don’t, then grass and plants form a tangle at the border’s edge. Use a six or nine-inch strip of concrete slabs at the bed edge, and such plants as catmint, veronica, lamb’s ear and bergenia can hang over and cause no-one any work. Trees Can Save Labour. Too One of the most useful plantings for economy of labour is trees and shrubs. Types are available for sun and shade; your first planting is the last planting, and the first expense is the last expense. The maintenance work is slight—pruning once a year, perhaps an occasional spraying, hoeing over the soil three or four times a season —or less if you mulch with sawdust—and that’s the lot. And if you chose your selection well you get all-the-year-round attraction, too. Bedding plants, on the other hand, need twice a year replacement, with cost on each

occasion, although your .nitial cost is certainly less than that of trees and shrubs.

You are involved in digging over the ground between seasons—and your “offseasons” are naked seasons, with bare earth alone. The labour factor, and the inability to produce an all-the-year-round effect are two sound reasons why a. garden should not be devoted to bedding alone. The best approach lies between the two. Bedding to give colour; shrubs to give colour, structure, all - the - year - round effect, and reduce the labour. Bays amongst the shrubs can be devoted specifically to bedding in due season whilst interplanting of shade-loving bulbs can be carried out amongst the shrubs. You get the best of both worlds Rock Gardens Not For The Lazy Some forms of gardening require more labour than others, and rock gardening is one example. Yard for yard it costs far more in effort. But it also gives greater returns, for there is rarely a week of the year when there isn’t something of interest to be seen. If you are busy—or lazy—then this form of horticulture is not for you. But if you want to cram the maximum of interest into the minimum of space it is. If you have small j children, however, it is wise to defer action until they are older. I speak with the voice of experience learnt the hard way! Incidentally, don’t position a rock garden under trees—it’s a bad place for it. Herbaceous borders and rose gardens are alike in one respect, if not others. Ideally, they should not be situated when they can be seen from the house in winter, for their interest is at a minimum then. They require a reasonable amount of labour—herbaceous plants for staking and tying, and roses, for spraying and trimming. But you can cut down the labour if it is necessary to do so by growing those sturdy herbaceous plants which require little support, or by using fioribunda roses or species roses, which do not need quite the same attention as the hybrid teas. These are some of the preliminary considerations that should be turned over in our

minds before the planning stage is reached. It’s like planning a house. You’ve got to decide on the number of rooms and what they're to be used for, before you consider their arrangement for the maximum convenience and pleasure.

[A further article in this series will appear in “The Press” next Friday.]