This is a question most of us pros have come to dread. Not because we dislike answering questions, but because the subtext is so often, “I want a particular tree, but I don’t have room for it. May I have your professional go-ahead to hack the holy hell out of it to keep it to size?”

The answer is no. We love you and want you to be happy, but no.

If you have to hack the holy hell out of something to keep it a reasonable size and shape for your garden bed, then nobody is going to enjoy the process.

Not you, who needs to get out there to prune every eight months.

Not your plant, which will begin to create crazy long shooty growth in response to being hacked, and will eventually get aphids or just develop a terrible form from being pruned in such an unfortunate fashion.

And not your friendly local gardening professional, who will cringe every time they drive by and see the poor plant struggling unsuccessfully to fit our human expectations of how big it should become.

Rant over. Now here’s a helpful rule of thumb:

In general, you can keep a plant pruned 1/3 smaller than the tag says it will grow.

So if the plant tag says:

• 10 feet tall by 6 feet wide, read that as a minimum mature size of 6.5 feet by 4 feet wide
• 12 feet tall, read that as minimum 8 feet tall
• 15 feet tall, read that as 10 feet tall
• 20 feet tall, read that as 13.5 feet tall
• 25 feet tall, read that as 17 feet tall

That is truly the limit on how far down you ought to prune, and even then you’ll need a modicum of pruning skill to make that happen in a graceful way (check out this book if you need help and advice). But yes, in general, you can keep a plant 1/3 smaller than it wants to eventually grow, without sacrificing the flowers, growth habit and character that made you want to plant it in the first place.

If your plants don’t fall within that 1/3 limit, I’d definitely advise that you select a different plant for the spot, or even be willing to remove a plant if it becomes clear it’s wanting to grow far larger than the space you have for it.

It can really ruin the feelings you have for your garden when you are tied to an endless cycle of too-often pruning, or when you have to look at a shrub that vacillates between overgrown and heavily pruned. Particularly if it’s a plant you have a special affinity for.

There are so many gorgeous plants in the universe, it’s way better to get creative and choose one that will thrive in the space you have for it.

Further reading:

How far apart do I plant things?

Does your fern have shriveled, brown fronds or a bleached, discolored appearance? We know that people are susceptible to sunburn, but we don’t think of plants as being able to get sunburned as well.

It’s a common problem. When shade-loving plants like ferns are put into a sunny situation, their fronds shrivel around the edges, and their leaf color may become pale and bleached. This may be because you misjudged the amount of light the location gets, or it could happen as a result of a tree being pruned and letting in more light than the plant is used to.

This can also happen with new plants. If a plant’s been under cover in a greenhouse and hasn’t been properly “hardened off”, it can get sunburnt, even if that variety would ordinarily do well with that amount of light.

Here are some photos so you can compare and contrast healthy with sunburned ferns:

Happy tassel fern:

Tassel fern with sunburn:

Happy autumn fern:

Autumn fern with sunburn:

Now, this browning due to sunburn isn’t to be confused with the normal shedding of leaves. Ferns usually retain their leaves for 1-2 years, and then the oldest leaves usually turn brown and die back. You know you have a problem if your fern fronds start looking funky sooner than that. The new growth should stay looking green and attractive for at least a year.

Normal browning of fern fronds usually occurs on the oldest fronds that are closest to the base. When dealing with sunburn, the fronds that are browning are the ones at the top of the plant that are exposed to light. If you shift a brown frond, the ones beneath it are usually nice and green.

You can see in this photo of sword ferns in the wild, that the natural die-off of fern fronds happens on the lowest fronds only:

So, what do you do if you suspect your plant is sunburnt?

First, make sure it’s not a watering issue. Too little water as well as too much can cause the same issue of leaves going brown before they are supposed to or shriveling at the edges. Is the soil soggy, or very dry? If so, fix that issue before assuming sunburn is the problem, and wait to see whether the new leaves that unfurl over the next six months or so develop the problem as well. If they do, it is likely sunburn and the plant will need to be moved to a shadier location.

Second, if it’s a newly purchased plant, sometimes just giving it time to settle in and get acclimated is enough to solve a mild case of sunburn. While the plant can’t repair any leaves that have already been damaged, any new fronds that unfurl should stay healthy and green. If they too become damaged either right away or over the course of a few months, you probably need to move the plant.

Once you move the plant to a new location, it should settle in quickly. After the first month, any new fronds that unfurl should come out looking healthy and green, and should stay that way for at least a year.

Ferns are low-maintenance, easy-care plants that rarely suffer from pests or disease. If you give them the light and water they prefer, they’ll perform well for you for years to come.

Read about my favorite ferns here.

Check out a great book about diagnosing garden problems easily, What’s Wrong With My Plant? by Deardorff and Wadsworth.

This time of year, my landscape maintenance company is busy as anything, pruning and helping all the gardens recover from months of wild blooming abandon.

While a lot of what we’re doing right now is pruning to keep things at the right size in relation to their surroundings (we don’t want the plants leaning boorishly on their neighbors all winter long), we’re also starting to cut back a few plants that are finishing their blooms or going into dormancy.

While this isn’t an exhaustive list by any means, here are a few of the most important tasks we’re doing right now:

Planting winter veggies:

Now’s the time to set out starts of broccoli, cabbage, kale, Swiss chard, lettuce, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and other winter veggies.

If you aren’t sure what grows well for winter, Peaceful Valley has a great online calculator which gives suggestions for planting what when. Their suggestions are based around planting seeds, so if you’re using starts from the nursery you can plant a bit later.

Or, you can pick up this book, which is a spiral-bound week-by-week guide to what to plant when based on your anticipated frost dates. This was recommended to me recently by a garden magazine editor as one of the best new edible books of the year, and I have to agree – my copy’s already muddy from use (that’s how you know it’s good, right?).

Another great book for winter veggie gardening is The Winter Harvest Handbook by Eliot Coleman. All the people I know with envy-inducing crops in winter swear by this book.

Planting spring bulbs:

Yep, it’s that time again. Daffodils, crocus, hyacinth and grape hyacinth, Calochortus, Tulips (I’m partial to the lily-flowered ones), and more.

Feeling impatient? You can force bulbs, or you can hurry up and plant my very favorite bulb ever, fall crocus. The glowing cornflower-purple ones make me so happy.

If you have gophers but want to have bulbs in the ground, you can sink those flexible Smart Pots into the ground. While it’s possible the gophers will be smart enough to climb out of the ground and over the top of them to eat your delicious bulbs, the company has never heard of a gopher chewing through the pot, since it’s made of a synthetic polymer material that isn’t fun to eat.

If the rain always knocks your tulips over, try planting them under eaves so they’ll have a chance to shine for you.

Planting shrubs, trees, and hardy perennials:

Yep, the nurseries are clearing out old stock and giving some great prices, just as the best time of the year to plant arrives.

Fall planting is the best, even in gardens that use drip irrigation, because the dampness of the winter allows the plants to grow strong roots before trying to grow lots of foliage or bloom for you.

And while drip irrigation is great for keeping plants alive, the fact that the tubing usually only soaks a small area around the plant means that it’s better for keeping established plants happy than for getting new plants going. The rain gets good coverage every time (well, except under the eaves).

Here are some great things to plant this time of year:

Golden conifers

Winter interest ornamental grasses

Unusual rhododendron varieties

Heathers

Winter annuals

Perennials for winter

Aaaaaand… pruning. Lots and lots of fall pruning:

This is what most of our time is taken up by. Deadheading, shaping, small-ifying and making presentable all those sprawling beauties that have so lavishly decorated our summer gardens.

Here are tutorials, some with video, on what to prune now:

Heaths and heathers

How to deadhead Hydrangeas

Alstroemeria

Hardy cranesbills/ geraniums

Mexican bush sage/ Salvia leucantha

Summer-pruning exuberant Miscanthus

Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’

Cane berries and raspberries

Astilbe

And, here’s a list of frost-tender beauties that I take care NOT to prune right now!

Phew! Well, I’m tuckered just thinking about all of that.

In between all of that good gardening activity, be sure to take the time to enjoy the bounty of peaches, and kick back with a drink in the last days of summer.

And in case you’re looking to cut a few corners in your garden maintenance, here is some food for thought on which fall garden tasks you might safely skip.

What are you guys tackling now that fall is near? Let me know in the comments below.

Lawn care, at first glance, seems pretty straightforward. Mow, water, apply various bagged items, and take the time to frolic playfully on your fancypants expanse of greenery.

But after owning a lawn for any period of time, most of us start to ponder the deeper questions surrounding lawn. Questions like, “dang, why does my water bill double every summer?” and “why does the pull-cord on my mower have to be such a pain?” and, “geez, where are all the birds and bugs around this joint?”.

Issues like these are enough to harsh anyone’s lawn mellow.

The standard rallying cry in response to this is “ditch your lawn!”. While minimizing and replacing your standard American lawn with front yard food or native plants is an awesome goal, it can be an expensive and time-consuming task to tackle all in one go (though this month, my fellow Roundtable members have some options to inspire you to do just that).

Is there an alternative to the American lawn that doesn’t involve outright removal? I’d offer an emphatic yes.

Here are six ways to hack your lawn care routine and have an alternative lawn, without ripping it out:

Skip the blue pelletized big-agribusiness lawn fertilizers and scatter some clover seeds instead

According to Sue Sweeney, old-fashioned lawns used to have about 1/3 white Dutch clover added to the seeding mix, because clover is a nitrogen-fixer – it adds nitrogen to the soil just by growing there. Since nitrogen’s in charge of the green growth side of things, clover’s a perfect lawn companion.

What you should know: clover’s slippery to run on, so it’s not good for  too many racings-about, and since clover is also great for attracting pollinators like honeybees and your local native bees, if anyone in your home has a bee allergy of some kind it might not be the best. But to me, it seems like one of the simplest ways to reduce your footprint and bring life to your lawn.

Vegetarians: quit feeding animals to your plants

While organic fertilizers are the best choice for our gardens (they’re slow-release and nourish the worms and beneficial microbes in the soil), unfortunately the blood meal, bone meal, feather meal, and fish meal are made of exactly the ingredients they sound like. They’re waste products from meat operations.

Even as a meat-eater, I try to buy from small, organic local farms that raise pastured animals, and I’m not convinced there is a fertilizer option that supports that. So how can you give your lawn a boost without sacrificing your values? Try these animal-friendly options:

Alfalfa meal has nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus, plus a natural growth stimulant called triacontanol that gives plants some superpower growing mojo.

Kelp meal is high in micronutrients and has both gibberellins and auxins, more of those natural growth hormones that plants make for themselves.

Compost is low in nutrients but encourages all the beneficial microbes and worms to do their thing and produce natural fertilizers. So it’s great for helping your lawn become more self-reliant.

And even if you opt for a normal organic fertilizer, find an OMRI-listed one, which has organic and non-GMO ingredients.

Grow your own on your lawn

As countless people in my hippie-town have found, growing food on your lawn is pretty dang easy. You construct a raised bed on your lawn (8″ or taller), put some cardboard down at the bottom of it to keep the lawn from growing up through, fill with soil and plant!

Keep in mind that if you have some lawn around it, you’ll want to leave easy mowing access on all sides. But this is one of the easiest ways to make your lawn a place you visit and use and not just a dead zone of green monoculture.

(Read The Edible Front Yard for tips on making this pretty rather than farm-like. The photo shown is from her book, illustrating a hellstrip planting with an industrial-cool corrugated metal raised bed.)

Ditch the corded electric mower and the retro-style push mowers

For a while, the latest trend was electric mowers. The problem with a corded electric mower should be obvious to anyone who has ever run over the cord while vacuuming. A mower has blades down there. And while the ones with batteries sound good in theory, my landscaper friends scoff at their performance, and the eco-peeps say the (mostly lead) batteries they use are pretty harsh on the environment.

Then those old-style push mowers came into fashion. Which is cool, except they’re heavy and don’t work that well. I have a friend who bought a push mower, lasted about three rounds with it, and hired a lawn service. And she works out!

That’s why my latest love is the Fiskars Momentum Mower – kind of a new-skool take on the push mower that solves the issues the old ones had. It’s been one of the top-selling mowers on Amazon for some time, and has gotten incredible reviews. (I’m giving one away this week to a lucky commenter!) I tested it out on a few stunt lawns, and in my opinion it’s far and away the best option out there.

Have a green lawn without watering much

Have you ever noticed that when you don’t water the lawn, the only thing that stays green are the weeds? Well, why not take advantage of the fact that some other types of plants can co-mingle with your lawn and stay green with less juice?

Wooly thyme, blue star creeper (in shade), Roman chamomile, dwarf yarrow, and English daisy (shown) are all things that can be seeded or planted in your lawn come fall (plant or seed with some compost and time it with the first fall and winter rains) so that next summer, your low-water lawn has some color and scent to enjoy. Two sites to check out: Hobbs and Hopkins Lawn Flower Mixes, and Ecolawn.

As a bonus, a lot of these lawn companions attract the happy bees and pollinators that make your garden fun to be in.

Dodge the lawn peer-pressure thing

If you have ditched your lawn, my local friend-in-the-dirt Donna Wildearth came up with a clever prop to sidestep the haters.

Just plant up a cool little pot of grass and set it within your landscaping. Anyone wondering why you don’t have a lawn can be deftly reassured that indeed, lawn is a vital part of your design scheme (and hey, a small patch like that is a lot easier to maintain!).

(Thanks to Donna for letting me show off her bit of lawn!)

Want to read more?

Check out the rest of the Garden Designers Roundtable posts on lawns, and welcome our special guest-posters this month from The Lawn Reform Coalition:

Susan Harris : Garden Rant : Takoma Park, MD

Susan Harris : Gardener Susan’s Blog : Takoma Park, MD

Billy Goodnick : Cool Green Gardens : Santa Barbara, CA

Evelyn Hadden : Lawn Reform.Org : Saint Paul, MN

Saxon Holt : Gardening Gone Wild : Novato, CA

Ginny Stibolt : Florida Native Plant Society : Green Cove Springs, FL

Tara Dilliard : Vanishing Threshold: Garden, Life, Home : Atlanta, GA

Susan Morrison : Blue Planet Garden Blog : East Bay, CA

Shirley Bovshow : Eden Makers : Los Angeles, CA

Scott Hokunson : Blue Heron Landscapes : Granby, CT

Rochelle Greayer : Studio G : Boston, MA

Rebecca Sweet : Gossip In The Garden : Los Altos, CA

Pam Penick : Digging : Austin, TX

Lesley Hegarty & Robert Webber : Hegarty Webber Partnership : Bristol, UK

Laura Livengood Schaub : Interleafings : San Jose, CA

Jocelyn Chilvers : The Art Garden : Denver, CO

Ivette Soler : The Germinatrix : Los Angeles, CA

Douglas Owens-Pike : Energyscapes : Minneapolis, MN

Debbie Roberts : A Garden of Possibilities : Stamford, CT

And, check out my post today over at the Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens blog, entitled: Chipping Away at the Lawn.

Photo credits: clover by steve p2008 on Flickr, front yard raised bed by Ivette Soler from her book The Edible Front Yard (copyright Ivette Soler and courtesy Timber Press), English daisy by Hobbs and Hopkins.

***We’re giving away a Fiskars Momentum Reel Mower to one lucky reader – comment below to win!***

EDIT: HUGE CONGRATS TO OUR WINNER, NICKY of DIRT AND MARTINIS!!

Lately, I’ve been realizing just how much I hate mowing my lawn with my old gas mower. It’s stinky, it’s noisy, and the vibrations from the mower make my arms feel weird for some time afterwards. And you know how I feel about garden tools that disturb the neighbors.

It was obviously time for a new approach, but when I borrowed a friend’s push mower, it was insultingly hard to use. I mean, mowing should be fun, what with the smell of freshly-cut grass, the birds chirping, and the beautiful surroundings. Yet the traditional mowers make it anything but.

That’s why I was so excited to see that Fiskars had created an updated version of the old-skool push mower, to bring it into the new millennium. If you’ve been reading awhile, you’ll know Fiskars makes a ton of my favorite tools, like this pole pruner, geared hedger, and dandelion weeder. So I was keen to see their take on a push mower, especially once I saw the crazy-good reviews on Amazon.

The best part? When I mowed my lawn, my cats and chickens barely woke from their naps. Usually it’s a four-alarm sprint to hide from the mower monster!

Here are the geeky details:

• It’s lightweight and easy to push, with an adjustable ergonomic handle
• A simple adjustable knob changes mowing height from 1″ to a generous 4″ (the highest mowing option of all the mowers that I researched)
• Has a “floating” blade design so the blades don’t scrape the metal casing, like with other push mowers. This means with good care, the blades need sharpening very, very rarely (every 5-10 years)
• Reel mowers with their scissor action get a much cleaner cut than rotary mowers, which cut by tearing. No more brown grass tips!
• Grass clippings were smaller and disbursed into the lawn rather than staying in unattractive clumps on my lawn.
• Throws cut grass forward, rather than backward onto your shoes or sideways into your garden beds and sidewalk.
• Optional grass-catcher bag available.

Besides the fact that it’s actually enjoyable to use, my favorite thing about the Fiskars Momentum Mower is that it makes those organic and low-water lawn techniques actually do-able.

For one, mowing your grass high helps reduce weeds and keep the lawn from drying out in summer, because the grass blades shade out weed seedlings and keep lawn roots shaded and cool. Yet the vast majority of mowers top out at a shameful 2.5 inches. It’s no wonder we’re all addicted to Weed ‘N’ Feed. We wouldn’t have nearly the weed problems we do if all mowers had the Momentum’s 4″ capability.

Then, it’s best to leave the lawn clippings on the lawn, so they can break down and enrich the soil, keeping the lawn roots moist and adding nutrition to the soil. But rotary gas mowers spit out these yucky clumps that don’t seem to break down very gracefully. The way the Momentum mower sends an airy stream of teeny clippings in front of the mower means that I can hardly see the clippings on the lawn once I finish mowing. Score!

By now, I’m guessing you’re all wondering how to get one of your own. Luckily, not only does Fiskars love me enough to send me a mower, but they also love you too. One lucky reader will get their very own Fiskars Momentum Reel Mower. Leave a comment below, and I’ll draw a winner randomly on Friday August 26th at noon PST. US only. EDIT: Congrats to our winner Nicky at Dirt and Martinis!

And if you want to catch up with Fiskars, you can like them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter.

Lenten roses, Helleborus orientalis, are gorgeous in winter. They’re gorgeous in spring, too.

But if you don’t deadhead them once they’re done blooming, they stop being gorgeous and start looking ratty.

Then, they turn into spawning hellcats, dropping masses of seeds that sprout into masses of tiny, slow-growing, hard-to-remove seedlings that, yes, could theoretically turn into fresh new hellebores if you wait ten years, transplant them into better locations, and coddle them, but practically speaking, will look like weeds and use up the water and nutrients meant for your parent plant without giving anything substantial in return.

Deadhead them.

It’s simple: if a stalk has a bloom on it, cut the whole stalk down to the ground. You’ll be left with a lovely mass of foliage.

Then, in winter, when the blooms come up, you do the opposite: cut out any stalks that are obviously last year’s leaves (there may be a few brand-new leaves coming from the base, but those are easy to spot and leave be). Your Hellebore will then look like this:

Easy, right?

If you’re a Humboldt County local and you need help getting to all of this, give me a call. My pruning and fine perennial maintenance crew is happy to take care of all of these things at the right times of the year, so that all you have to do is relax and enjoy your space.

More about Hellebores here.

A couple weeks back, I reviewed this deliciously funny and extremely useful guide to sustainable landscaping by Owen Dell. You can check out my video and written review here.

I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to share an excerpt with you, so you could get a feel for Owen’s writing style, which is useful, practical, and off-the-cuff. Without further ado, here’s:

Ten Projects That Pay You and the Environment Back Big Time (an excerpt from Sustainable Landscaping for Dummies):

“In this chapter, I introduce some projects you can tackle right away (for
relatively little or no money!) that make a big difference to you and the
environment. They’re all easy, and most of them don’t require the use of
heavy equipment, chiropractors, or bad language. Enjoy.

Make Your Lawn Smaller

Most lawns have parts that are never used for anything other than giving the
lawn mower its weekly workout. Do what savvy sustainable landscapers
everywhere are doing: Cut that lawn down to size! (Refer to Chapter 19 for
the scoop on lawns and lawn alternatives.) Make a lap lawn — a phrase
coined by a gardener I once met. Long and narrow, this type of lawn is still
perfectly suited to hosting a friendly game of catch or a chase with the family
pooch. After its midriff bulge has been whacked away, your svelte new lawn
is ready for sustainable action. Consider a maximum size of 20 by 40 feet —
a total of 800 square feet. If you can do with less, great.

Tip: In making the lawn smaller, you create new borders. Plant these borders with
useful, beautiful, climate-appropriate plants that need less care, water, and
fertilizer than the original lawn did. Drip-irrigate and mulch the borders to
save water. Don’t forget to move your sprinkler heads to the new edges of the
lawn to save more water (and money).

Tune Up Your Sprinkler System

Out-of-whack sprinklers result in water waste and poor lawn performance,
so you need to give the system a tune-up every so often. Turn the system
on one valve at a time so you can test it and get everything working right.
(See Chapter 10 to find out how to maintain your irrigation system.)

Reprogram Your Irrigation Controller

Conventional irrigation controllers have no idea how much water your plants
need. They’re just timers, faithfully carrying out whatever instructions you
gave them the last time you programmed them. Umm, you did adjust your
controller at some point, right?

If you haven’t, now is the time. Get out the instruction book for your controller
so you can make sense of the simple-yet-often-obscure ways of programming
these pesky beasts. Then read Chapter 9 of this book to discover
how to make seasonal adjustments to your controller. Reprogramming your
irrigation controller isn’t terribly difficult, and it saves you a bunch of money.
Your plants will thank you, too.

Install a Smart Irrigation Controller

If you don’t want to reprogram the controller you already have (see the
preceding section), yank that old clunker off the wall and put in a smart
controller. A smart irrigation controller receives signals from — get this —
outer space. These signals reset the controller’s program continuously,
based on current meteorological data taken from local weather stations.

To install and program a smart controller, you just have to answer simple
questions about your soil, plants, and so on. You tweak it a bit over the first
few weeks, and when you’re done, you probably never have to touch it again.

These units have generated water savings of 25 to 50 percent, which means
that your water bill will go down. Even better, you can gloat when the
neighbors come over. Sustainability is just the coolest thing. See Chapter 9
for more on smart water management.

Tip: Many water districts offer rebates for installing smart controllers.

Axe Your Overgrown Plants

Take note of how many hours per month you spend keeping plants from
growing too big for the space they’re in. You could’ve spent that time
enjoying a nice, sustainable activity, such as loafing.

Plants don’t ask you how big you want them to be. If they’re programmed to
get 100 feet tall, they always try to do so. So if you want an 8-foot-tall plant,
you need to choose one that grows to 8 feet at maturity. Then you’ll never
have to trim it. Plus, it looks better and is healthier when left alone. (And
you’ll look so relaxed in that hammock.)

Pull Up Sissy Plants

Go around your yard with a shovel and perhaps a digging bar, swiftly and
mercifully eliminating namby-pamby plants of whatever kind. Or at least
move them where they’ll perform better, if location is the problem. Probably
80 percent of gardening problems are caused by 20 percent of plants. You
know which ones they are. Go get ’em.

My favorite sissy plant to weed out is the rose. I know the term may offend
some people, but hybrid tea roses aren’t so great at taking care of themselves.
It hurts me to ponder the rust, the leaf spot, the bugs, and all the
other ills and ailments that plague these pitiable creatures. I consider it a
public service to replace them with something a little more durable.

Dump Your Chemical Arsenal

Exactly what excuse does anyone have for holding onto that noxious-smelling
collection of insecticide, weed killer, and fert-’n’-hurt? C’mon — you know
you’ll never use that stuff again. You’re a sustainable gardener now! Put
your old chemicals in a sealed container and then take them to your local
hazardous-waste collection center for safe disposal. Then go home, perform
a cleansing ritual or two in your garage, and get on with your life. Feel good
knowing that you’ll probably never have to make the trek to the toxic dump
again.

Warning: Some of this stuff is truly treacherous to your health, so be sure to wear
protective gear and be very careful not to spill anything.

Trade Your Power Tools for Hand Tools

Shop around for some truly good, lifetime-quality hand tools, and leave the
power ones out at the curb for some other fool to struggle with. You’ll be
glad you did.

Power tools actually don’t save much effort. First, you have to work pretty
hard to earn the money to buy them. Then you have to store them somewhere,
do tune-ups and repairs, fuel and oil them, wipe them down and
sharpen the blades, and adjust the dang carburetor over and over because
nobody but the high priests of internal combustion can get it right the first
time. Besides all that, think about the number of times you’ve pulled the
starter cord with no result. Must be in the thousands, right? You could’ve
had the lawn mowed with a simple push mower by the time you regained
your composure and got that wheezy old mower running.

Mulch Your Beds

Naked beds don’t work. The soil dries out too quickly, root systems suffer
heat and cold, weeds come up everywhere, rain washes earth away,
beneficial soil microorganisms suffer, drip tubing shows, mud sticks to
your boots . . . I could go on and on. In nature, organic material rains down
from plants constantly, creating mulch and returning valuable nutrients to
the soil. The sustainable landscaper mimics this elegant system by practicing
chop and drop pruning (refer to Chapter 20) and by spreading some form
of organic mulch on the surface of the soil. For more on mulching, see
Chapter 16.

Grow Food

What better use can you have for your land than growing your own food? The
list of advantages is a mile long (but I won’t bore you with the details). Plant
a few crops that are easy to grow in your area and then devote a little time,
money, and effort to reap the rewards. Flip to Chapter 18 for more information
about sustainable veggie gardening.”

Want to read more from Owen Dell? Check out these recent blog posts:

Do Rain Barrels Really Work?

Adversarial Horticulture

The Attack of the Designosaurs

Or, check out Sustainable Landscaping For Dummies on Amazon.com.

***Giveaway below! Comment to win one of SIX sets of slug shields!*** EDIT: Winners have been chosen and contacted. Thanks everyone for entering!

I’ve written before about how nasty the usual snail and slug baits are. In fact, here in California, metaldehyde snail bait is the #1 poisoning agent of dogs. Hmmm…. Fido or slug-free plants? Not a hard choice. Luckily, there are a lot of excellent organic options available, and the Slug Shield is one of them.

You’ve probably heard that copper repels snails and slugs, and you’ve probably also read that snails and slugs don’t like to glide across scratchy surfaces. The Slug Shield works by combining both of those actions into one control.

It’s basically a scratchy, tangled mass of copper that you wrap around the stems of plants to prevent snails and slugs from crawling up. It works on anything where you can totally encircle the base of the plant with it, and on plants where you can keep the plant’s foliage from hitting the ground.

It’s even purported to work on lettuces and cabbages, which is awesome, because I just dug up a delicious lettuce the other day only to find the center of it overrun with slugs. Um, yeah – the chickens got to eat my lovely buttercrunch lettuce after that. You just wrap the slug shield around the bottom of the head, touching the soil, and as long as no leaves flop to the ground and form a leafy bridge for the snails and slugs to travel safely onto the plant, you’re good! No bait needed, even the organic kind.

Now, obviously this doesn’t work on every type of plant. My artichokes, for example, seem like a good candidate but have a terrible habit of flopping onto the ground every time a breeze ruffles them. But I think dahlias, citrus, lettuce, peas, chard, cabbage – even hostas would be good bets to try it on.

(Despite Mackerel’s obvious enjoyment of his Slug Shield, I’m not sure they should be used as kitty toys!)

If you have a thicker-stemmed plant, you can tie multiple slug shields together to make a longer wrap. They do expand with plant growth, so they won’t hurt your plants as they grow. You can even put a slug shield around the bases of freestanding trellises, for vines or climbing veggies that are disturbed by snails and slugs.

Want to try the Slug Shield for yourself? They’ve donated a whopping SIX sets of Slug Shields for you guys to win. Just leave a comment below, and I’ll hold a random drawing in one week. EDIT: Congrats to the six winners! I’ve sent you each an email.

There are two schools of thought on pruning Lenten rose, or Helleborus orientalis. One side says to prune off the old foliage to the very base just as the Hellebore is starting to flower.

The bloom spikes start coming up in the center of the plant, and the old foliage lays down obediently:

If you prune it at this time, your new flowers will unfurl with the naked, innocent look of a woodland bulb – all stem and bloom:

And if your Hellebores are really plump and happy, you might not even miss the foliage:

Of course, some people don’t like the minimalist look on their Hellebores, and prefer to leave the foliage as long as possible:

If that’s you,  just keep an eye on things and prune out the old foliage when new leaves start to come out, about two months after bloom starts.

If you miss the boat and let the new foliage emerge among the old foliage and the flowers, you get a mess, and it is hard to prune out the old stuff without harming the new:

Hellebores are lovely, easy-care plants that rarely get a disease, but they do not like being crowded. Plants that look like the photo above often suffer snail damage, sooty mold, and whitefly, none of which will kill the plant, but sure isn’t attractive.

The winter cold can kill off these pests, so if you do prune off the old foliage right away as the flowers are emerging, it takes away the hiding place of any garden snails and kills off any whiteflies or mold that may be hanging about, ready to get a foothold.

Whichever way you choose to prune, you should take off your Hellebore’s old foliage between January and April, and also prune out the dead flowerheads when the flower color becomes dull and the seed pods in the center of the bloom begin to enlarge.

Hellebore flowers make a lovely display in a vase, even when they’re fading, so if you’re having trouble taking the plunge, just cut them and enjoy the last couple weeks inside.

They spread at an almost alarming rate via seed, coating the ground quickly with shiny baby Hellebore sprouts that are a terrible pain to remove. Unfortunately, it takes a really long time for Hellebores to do anything from seed – many years, in my experience, and the seedlings are random colors, so they may not be just what you were hoping for. That’s why I usually deadhead mine and just buy new Hellebores when I want them, so I can choose which colors and styles I actually want.

Want to read more about pruning Hellebores? Frances at FaireGarden prunes hers every year and shares the process with us.

More pruning tutorials here.

All gardeners evolve. There is something about being outside and working hard in nature that inspires learning and growth.

The issue of fall leaves is one I’ve been struggling with lately. Last year I wrote about why you shouldn’t let your fall leaves stay, and all of those reasons are still true, but…

This year as I’ve learned more about the importance of insects in our ecosystem (they feed the birds, pollinate, eat other “bad” bugs, and generally play an important part in the natural cycles that keep our food growing and our world pleasant), I’ve also learned that many insects overwinter in our fallen leaves.

If you use plants to attract birds, or put out a feeder, but you rake your leaves up, you are kind of sabotaging your efforts to care for wildlife, because the birdies love to eat bugs! In addition, leaves add nutrients and softness to the soil, and can be good protection from the frost in cold climates.

The problem? Leaves can also rot perennials, shade out sections of lawn or groundcovers, and can overwinter BAD bugs too! Not to mention, the wilder aesthetic of leaving the leaves where they fall isn’t right for every garden.

So what’s the conscientious gardener to do? I do think it’s possible to care for wildlife and the environment while still having a clean-looking garden and taking care of our ornamental plants. Here’s some of the middle ground I’m finding in the to-rake-or-not-to-rake debate:

Pro: Good bugs overwinter in our leaf litter.

Con: Bad bugs do too.

A number of garden plants are really susceptible to disease because they’ve been bred heavily for flowers or fruit instead of for disease resistance. Roses get all kinds of bugs and fungus, Camellias get petal blight (brown mushy flowers), Rhododendrons can get thrips, and fruit trees can get any number of insect and fungal diseases.

All of these issues can overwinter in the warmth and protection of leaf litter. In addition, if you have snails and slugs in your garden, they love to lay eggs in fluffy fallen leaves, particularly in fall.

The solution?

I rake up fall leaves from around anything that I have experienced pest problems with or that I know is susceptible to problems like that (Roses, Rhodies, Camellias, hybrid Fuchsias, peach and apple trees, citrus), and I take that leaf litter to my city’s compost, which I know will get hot enough to kill any diseases.

For snail reduction, you can remove the litter around susceptible perennials and compost it on site, or just spread the leaves around trees and shrubs.

With other areas of the garden, leave things as natural as possible to promote the overwintering of salamanders and “good” bugs , both of which eat garden pests, and the native insects that so many birds love to eat.

If I need to rake in some areas, I try to compost it myself to avoid the gas, time and expense of taking leaf litter to the compost site and then bringing purchased compost back from there at a later date.

Pro: Leaves are great protection from frost.

Con: In wet climates, matted leaves can shade out sections of groundcover or lawn, and can rot sensitive perennials.

In my climate, we get a ton of rain and some frost. I’ve seen maple leaves mat down over large areas of groundcover or lawn and totally shade and kill an area in a month. In addition, so many perennials can be smothered and rot from a nearly impenetrable mat of fall leaves.

The solution?

Gently remove leaves that are directly on top of any plant, whether that’s lawn, groundcover, perennials, or even shrubs if you get a clump of leaves matted on them! Then shred the leaves, either in a shredder or by running on top of them with the mower a few times.

Because shredding the leaves makes sure they can’t form a thick, killing mat on top of plants, you can then toss the  finely shredded leaves back into your garden beds, or just compost them for next year’s use.

Pro: Leaves are one of the best types of compost available for improving your soil.

Con: Landscape fabric and wood chip mulch don’t allow the composted leaves to contribute to the soil.

If you have wood chip mulch or landscape fabric in place to prevent weeds, the leaves will break down on top of the mulch or fabric and form a delicious growing medium in which new weeds will love to sprout. That makes landscape fabric in particular worse than nothing.

The solution?

If you want the soil-building benefits of your fall leaves, you can rake them up and compost them, then once it’s all broken down into actual non-bulky compost, you can move your mulch aside and spread it, then move your mulch back on top for weed prevention.

If you have landscape fabric, you can move the wood chips aside around the holes in the fabric where plants are, get a good grip on the edge of the fabric around those holes, and lift it up so you can tuck handfuls of compost under the fabric to feed the plants.

If you do this, you’ll need to be careful to spread the compost evenly under the fabric and reach as far out under the fabric as possible so you don’t just dump soil on the base of your plants (plants don’t approve of that). It’s a bit of a pain, but slipping fresh compost under your landscape fabric can really help your plants thrive.

If you want the wildlife benefits of leaving your leaves, I’ve found it’s fine to just rake them in spring and compost them then. I’ve never seen a significant buildup of compost on top of chips or landscape fabric from leaving whole leaves through one winter.

Pro: I love the benefits of leaves.

Con: I hate how messy they look!

Our personal aesthetics vary so much. The contrast between our garden and a neighbor’s, more crisp lines of architecture vs. the softer style of a country home, and the style of planting we do in our gardens all have an impact on whether or not fallen leaves fit in with our garden’s style.

The solution?

If fallen leaves currently look out of place, you can help your garden and your own eye evolve to make them a better fit, or you can just do what you can to reap the benefits from them without having an impact on how things look.

If you want to go the design route and help your garden be a place where you don’t notice fallen leaves, there are a few things you can do:

• Plant year-round, evergreen plants in the foreground of your garden beds so that fallen leaves towards the back aren’t so visible.
• Plant in larger groups so that the overwintering plants make a bolder, more intentional design statement. If your eye is drawn by a stand of red-stemmed Dogwoods or a drift of Hellebores, you’ll be less likely to see the drifts of leaves as a messy element and more likely to see the poetry in the way they fall.
• Draw the eye upward with hanging bird feeders, structural or sculpture elements, and taller planting elements that bloom in winter, like the evergreen Darwin’s Barberry (Berberis darwinii) shrub, a Hardenbergia vine with purple or white flowers, Silk Tassel or Garrya elliptica with its hanging white tassels, or a Coral Bark Japanese Maple for tall stem interest.
• Spend more time in nature and notice how the palette of browns and greens in winter has a relaxed sense of calm. Visit natural gardens and start to intentionally find the beauty in a garden left naturally.

If you love your garden as it is and prefer the neater appearance of fewer fallen leaves, but still want to help wildlife and get the benefits of healthier soil from your fallen leaves, here are a few things you can do to find a middle ground:

• Rake up leaves from high-traffic areas and places that you can see easily; leave any leaves you can’t really see and let them compost naturally where they fall.
• Try to avoid the gasoline-intensive cycle of using a blower or vacuum to pick up leaves, setting them out for the city to take, then going to purchase finished compost from them later on. Instead, rake by hand, compost on site, and re-use your compost in your garden in spring.
• If you won’t be growing winter vegetables, you can layer leaves on your vegetable beds to hold down weeds all winter while supporting native bugs and improving your soil. In spring, the leaves will be mostly composted and you should be able to plant.
• Plant a few natives in your garden to help support wildlife in other ways. Peter Haggard has some tips on the best wildlife-supporting native plants for coastal Northern California.

Where do you fall in the Great Leaf Debate? Let me know in the comments below, and be sure and check out what other gardeners are saying on this topic:

Kylee Baumle, The Problem with Leaves

Beautiful Wildlife Garden Who Lives in the Leaves?

Heather Holm, Leave the Leaves

Carole Brown, I am the Lorax I Speak for The Leaves

Debbie Roberts,  Weighing in on the Great Leaf Debate