Gardening problems
Thirsty garden
bleak, just not thriving, apparent dryness, no matter how much one waters ?
I advise people with gardening problems like lots of dead, desiccated plants, with reddened leaves, or a bleak tatty lawn surrounded by tall eucalyptus trees, not to irrigate more, but to pay attention to garden ecology. A garden like this has highly likely undone the garden's ecology in many ways, firstly with what I call the "scorched earth" maintenance policy.... remove all unwanted plants or weeds until there is only naked earth and then water a lot... this will guarantee you a wasteland of sand, with low levels of nutrients in which plants struggle and die. Unrealistic tastes can also contribute to garden failure. If you believe an African garden with African plants has to be "ugly" you may need to educate your own eye. Visit a national botanical garden with a guide who can open your eyes to the beauty around you. Wanting an English country garden in a mediterranean climate with particularly harsh hot, dry summers, will mean you will be using precious drinking water, water that the city is swiftly running out of, and poorer people need to survive, to make the lawn green and keep all your plants chosen under the guidance of an unrealistic fantasy (aren't they all) that dislocates plant and location, and your ill chosen plants, from dying. Look at some pamphlets on water-wise gardening. We live in a widely acknowledged botanical paradise, it is anything but bleak and ugly, botanically speaking. If you educate your eye and mind to appreciate indigenous plants they will thank you. If you hanker after the gardens of our ex imperial powers, the garden will fight back. The dissonant taste in gardening or in anything else for that matter involves a move away from authenticity, think palm trees and casinos....think fake tuscany on the edge of the mine dump. It always involves more effort to maintain, as it is declaring war on what is given, by the abundance of nature. What is nature ? for a philosopher it may be a construct, for me it is the local climate and the plants which have evolved to do well in it, and look good in it without tampering. Nature - dissonant taste leads to a thirsty garden. Imitate nature in terms of the ecology of your garden and your effort will be reduced and the reward increased. And all my Madagascan plants ? Well they have very low water demands. At the moment their incredible diversity and availability for culture free of charge and with great ease, is what I is needed for the succulent garden I'm building. I suppose people who agree with me on my plant choices will agree, and I hope that those who do not will think about what I'm saying. Perhaps for you what I say is not true in all its aspects, and you have a successful "french" garden which requires no watering. My plant choices mean I don't water my garden at all. Sensitivity to garden ecology, to maintaining the soil and its life, will always reward you, even if you'd like to recreate Versailles here in Cape Town
Thirsty vegetable patch
Another area where these nature imitating principles work magic is in growing vegetables, which are almost without exception, not indigenous and usually from much wetter regions of the world. We are forced to plant exotics because of the global patterns of plant domestication (read Jarred Diamond: Guns, Germs and Steel for an interesting take on this), but sensitivity to garden ecology helps a lot to cushion the strange match of plant and climate for food plants. Vermiculture also is a great asset to a vegetable grower. For the best website I know of, head to worm_composting_help.com.
Thirsty garden
bleak, just not thriving, apparent dryness, no matter how much one waters ?
I advise people with gardening problems like lots of dead, desiccated plants, with reddened leaves, or a bleak tatty lawn surrounded by tall eucalyptus trees, not to irrigate more, but to pay attention to garden ecology. A garden like this has highly likely undone the garden's ecology in many ways, firstly with what I call the "scorched earth" maintenance policy.... remove all unwanted plants or weeds until there is only naked earth and then water a lot... this will guarantee you a wasteland of sand, with low levels of nutrients in which plants struggle and die. Unrealistic tastes can also contribute to garden failure. If you believe an African garden with African plants has to be "ugly" you may need to educate your own eye. Visit a national botanical garden with a guide who can open your eyes to the beauty around you. Wanting an English country garden in a mediterranean climate with particularly harsh hot, dry summers, will mean you will be using precious drinking water, water that the city is swiftly running out of, and poorer people need to survive, to make the lawn green and keep all your plants chosen under the guidance of an unrealistic fantasy (aren't they all) that dislocates plant and location, and your ill chosen plants, from dying. Look at some pamphlets on water-wise gardening. We live in a widely acknowledged botanical paradise, it is anything but bleak and ugly, botanically speaking. If you educate your eye and mind to appreciate indigenous plants they will thank you. If you hanker after the gardens of our ex imperial powers, the garden will fight back. The dissonant taste in gardening or in anything else for that matter involves a move away from authenticity, think palm trees and casinos....think fake tuscany on the edge of the mine dump. It always involves more effort to maintain, as it is declaring war on what is given, by the abundance of nature. What is nature ? for a philosopher it may be a construct, for me it is the local climate and the plants which have evolved to do well in it, and look good in it without tampering. Nature - dissonant taste leads to a thirsty garden. Imitate nature in terms of the ecology of your garden and your effort will be reduced and the reward increased. And all my Madagascan plants ? Well they have very low water demands. At the moment their incredible diversity and availability for culture free of charge and with great ease, is what I is needed for the succulent garden I'm building. I suppose people who agree with me on my plant choices will agree, and I hope that those who do not will think about what I'm saying. Perhaps for you what I say is not true in all its aspects, and you have a successful "french" garden which requires no watering. My plant choices mean I don't water my garden at all. Sensitivity to garden ecology, to maintaining the soil and its life, will always reward you, even if you'd like to recreate Versailles here in Cape Town
Thirsty vegetable patch
Another area where these nature imitating principles work magic is in growing vegetables, which are almost without exception, not indigenous and usually from much wetter regions of the world. We are forced to plant exotics because of the global patterns of plant domestication (read Jarred Diamond: Guns, Germs and Steel for an interesting take on this), but sensitivity to garden ecology helps a lot to cushion the strange match of plant and climate for food plants. Vermiculture also is a great asset to a vegetable grower. For the best website I know of, head to worm_composting_help.com.