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1.
THE SATURDAY MORNING SYNDROME
SYMPTOMS: The
urge to venture forth on weekends to the local nursery, to
seek out new, mysterious and cheap plants, to bring them home
and to look for a place to put them. This leads to a mish-mosh
of plants that has no purpose, no appeal and cannot be maintained.
The technical term for this is a "mess."
CURE: Plan
before you plant. Consider that the whole must be the sum
of its parts and the parts must serve the whole. Choose a
look, a color scheme and a form for your planting. Use plants
thematically, weaving them in and out of beds, repeating as
music repeats. Never buy a plant unless you know what purpose
it will serve in your garden. This also applies to garden
furniture, plaster ducks and gazebos. Avoid impetuousness.
2.
THE
ONE-OF-EACH SYNDROME
SYMPTOMS: Related
to the Saturday Morning Syndrome, this is the urge to grow
every plant on planet Earth, all at the same time and in the
same two thousand square foot garden. This, too, leads to
a mess.
CURE:
Limit the diversity of your plantings. For any given area,
use one kind of tree, two or three kinds of shrubs, four or
five kinds of perennials. Simple is beautiful.
3.
THE SIXTY-SECOND SYNDROME
SYMPTOMS: A
sense of overwhelming urgency about the need to get it all
done as soon as possible, resulting in action without prior
contemplation, lots of expensive mistakes and nothing good
to show for the efforts expended. Comes from watching too
much television.
CURE: Spend
time with your garden. God put together the Earth in less
than a week, but then he's a pro. Let your garden evolve.
The best ones have been developing for decades, some for centuries.
Slow down.
4.
THE INSTABILITY SYNDROME
SYMPTOMS:
A murky understanding
about what makes a garden really work. Bad decisions are made
that haunt the gardener for years afterwards. Nothing ever
settles down. The garden becomes more difficult to maintain
rather than easier, as it should.
CURE:
Take a lesson from
nature. A natural plant community reaches a "climax"
condition in which it remains stable and self-maintaining
until a disturbance. Gardens should do the same; they can
do the same. Most of the work of gardening comes from poor
design.
5.
THE KUDZU SYNDROME
SYMPTOMS: Planting
plants that are invasive, too big for the space they're in,
susceptible to pests and diseases, thirsty, maladapted to
the climate or the soil. The never thrive, or they thrive
too well or they just plain die. This is no fun for anybody.
CURE: Choose
plants carefully. Believe what the books tell you about their
ultimate size, bad habits and needs. Don't assume that a plant
is easy just because you've seen it growing all around town
- it may be a nuisance all around town.
6.
THE SAVANNA SYNDROME
SYMPTOMS: Planting
vast swards of lawn in a dry climate, most of it serving no
useful purpose and all of it consuming enormous quantities
of water, and needing constant mowing, fertilizing and fussing
with.
CURE:
Reduce lawn areas to no more than 800 square feet for an average
residence. We need the water for other things. We Americans
put more fertilizer on our lawns than is used in the entire
third world to grow food. Shame on us.
7.
THE GROUND COVER SYNDROME
SYMPTOMS: Assuming
that there is some law that mandates the use of unbroken sheets
of herbaceous, creepy plants everywhere there is not lawn
or foundation plantings, and irrigating it with an overhead
sprinkler system. Weeds poke through, bald spots appear, water
bills strain the pocketbook and tempers fray. All for a boring
expanse of one kind of dumb-looking plant.
CURE: Use
individual woody plants on slopes; they hold the soil better,
are tall enough to keep weeds down and can be drip irrigated.
They're cheaper to put in, too. Try Carmel Creeper, Bougainvillea,
Baccharis, Lantana. Mix a couple of kinds for variety and
a more natural look.
8.
THE PARCHED EARTH SYNDROME
SYMPTOMS: Faithfully
raking up all the fallen leaves, stuffing them into plastic
trash bags and sending them to the dump. This leaves the soil
exposed to drying wind and sun, overheats the root systems
of plants, permits the topsoil to blow away, and makes it
necessary to water constantly.
CURE: Use
a mulch. Mulches help keep weeds down, keep the soil cool,
are nicer to look at, and reduce water needs by as much as
80 percent. Shredded bark is a good choice, or crushed rock.
9.
THE
SPRINKLER SYNDROME
SYMPTOMS: Using
sprinklers to water flowerbeds, borders, the walls of houses,
passing cars and innocent children. Water runs off into the
street and never soaks into the soil. Plants suffer, sidewalks
become slippery, water bills go up.
CURE: Convert
to drip irrigation wherever you have individual plants. Sprinklers
are for lawns only. For ground cover areas, see syndrome 7.
10.
THE SUCH-A-DEAL SYNDROME
SYMPTOMS: Hiring
the cheapest person to do landscaping, assuming that any derelict
with a pickup truck and a shovel is good enough to do the
job. Almost always results in serious regrets and wasted time
and money.
CURE: Hire
qualified, licensed contractors. They're tested and licensed
by the state and are the only people legally permitted to
do landscaping. They have insurance in case somebody gets
hurt. You have recourse in case something goes wrong. Choose
carefully, relying on references as well as the charming personality
of the contractor. Never hire the lowest bidder. You get what
you pay for.
11.
THE BUILDER'S EMPORIUM SYNDROME
SYMPTOMS: Related
to Syndrome 10. The compulsion to buy the cheapest materials
to do the job. These are put in at great effort and break
down/die/stop working soon afterwards. It costs four times
as much in the long run to remove the offending materials
and replace them with something of quality.
CURE:
Buy the best, forget the rest. Shop where the pros shop. Pay
top dollar if you must? it's far cheaper and more satisfying
in the long run.
12.
THE PLASTER DONKEY SYNDROME
SYMPTOMS: After
the job is finished, adding gratuitous tacky knick-knacks
and incongruous plants that have nothing to do with the original
design. These touches ruin the intended look and functionality
of the garden and serve no purpose other than to trumpet the
bad taste of the perpetrator to all who visit.
CURE: Think
of your garden as if it were a fine work of art. Suppose you
owned a Van Gogh ? would you get out your paints and add a
few flowers here and there to jazz it up a bit? Of course
not!
13.
THE BAYOU
SYNDROME
SYMPTOMS: Watering
every day, or every Tuesday, or when the surface of the ground
is dry, or when it's hot and you just feel like watering.
Bad for plants, bad for the water supply.
CURE: Watch
plants for signs of water need - loss of shine, slight wilting,
yellowing of older leaves, then water. Not before. Everyone
overwaters ? it's unnecessary, wasteful and inconsiderate.
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