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General Gardening

Landscape Design: Foundation Planting?

August 16, 2022

Every house—even your townhouse or condo—has a foundation! Landscapers traditionally plant shrubs, trees, and sometimes annual and perennial plants in front of the foundation, most obviously for “curb appeal.” Foundation plantings can serve many other purposes, such as moderating environmental conditions by reducing indoor temperatures through shade or providing a windbreak. What is yours doing?

Overgrown foundation plants

Take an honest look at your foundation planting

  • Are the plantings looking good?
    • Many established foundation plantings are overgrown:
      • Are trees or shrubs too close to the house?
      • Are views from windows and doors obstructed?
    • Other plantings are failing! Are any plants struggling to survive or are already dead?
      • If one or more shrubs or trees hasn’t prospered, there may be obvious gaps in the existing landscape.
      • If a design that is meant to mirror or repeat hasn’t done so, the planting may look lopsided!
    • What do you want your planting to do for you?
      • Does your foundation planting harmonize with your home and your lifestyle?
        • Do your plant choices complement the home’s building materials, color palette, size, and architectural style?
        • Consider what maintenance your planting needs–If you won’t have time to prune fast-growing or very formal shrub plantings, weed extensive flower beds, or edge the interface between foundation planting and lawn, consider lower maintenance choices.
      • Are there any other benefits different foundation plants could add in providing four-season interest, privacy, shade, or enhancing views from inside the home?
Before…
After!

Changing landscape traditions give you new ways to update your foundation planting

  • If you are thinking about reducing or replacing your lawn, consider integrating your foundation area into your new landscape design.
  • Using native plants in your landscape is another trend—and one recommended way to replace your lawn! Even if you keep your lawn, including natives in your foundation planting can help attract birds and pollinators to your yard.
Edible foundation plantings

Edible landscaping is becoming more popular, too. Are there opportunities to incorporate edibles into your foundation planting?

    • In addition to fruiting trees or shrubs, there are many attractive herb and vegetables that can double as ornamentals.
    • Don’t plant edibles in contaminated soils or chemically treated areas—termite treatments are often applied around foundations—check to ensure the treatments used are safe for edibles.

If you are installing a new foundation planting or revamping an existing one, examine the planting beds as well as your plant choices! Poor soils, construction debris, and drainage issues may all affect your success. See the links below on designing and planting your foundation beds. Do a soil test!

Garden inspiration is a year-round opportunity. Enjoy!

Article written by Debbie Green, Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteer

For more information:

Landscape design: https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/extension-gardener-handbook/19-landscape-design#section_heading_6158

Designing and planting your foundation beds: https://lsuagcenter.com/articles/page1640179592192

Using native plants in foundation plantings around townhomes and single-family homes:
https://extension.umd.edu/resource/landscape-designs-native-plants

 

 

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Categories General Gardening, Landscape Design Tags Foundation planting, landscape planning, native plants

Take Your Job Skills into the Garden

July 24, 2022

I am a teacher. I love teaching! I’m also a gardener. I love gardening! A few years ago, I retired from full-time teaching of art. Today, I find myself continuing to apply many of the skills I learned on the job to my garden. Guiding a student or nurturing a plant—how are the jobs similar?

Be prepared. Just as my classroom instruction must be organized and prepared, so must my garden. Before planting anything, I consider both the plant and the environment. Will there be enough space? Enough sunlight? Do I need to enrich the soil and provide a water source?

Get attention. To learn, students must be quiet, focused, ready to listen, and follow instructions. Seeds and plants must also be ready to take advantage of their environment. Some seeds benefit from overnight soaking or scarification. To thrive, seeds should be planted at appropriate depths and distances from each other. Seedlings may need hardening-off before planting. And newly selected garden plants should be healthy and pest-free.

Consider the long-term objective. Just as there’s an overall goal for a unit being taught, there’s also the big-picture goal of a healthy and productive garden. This involves replants as necessary, ongoing weeding, and multiple actions for pest management.

Set intermediate goals. There’s always a goal for the day. In the classroom, it’s that doable amount of work when we take small steps forward toward larger accomplishments. In the garden, in much the same way, we’re either planning, planting, weeding, watering, thinning, replanting, fertilizing, managing pests, or harvesting—but not all on the same day. It’s one challenging and rewarding step at a time.

Allow time for work. In art class, we call this studio time—the hands-on time of physically working on a project. For both artists and gardeners, this creative, physical involvement with the elements is like play. We become so involved that we lose track of time and don’t want to stop. In class, students receive words of encouragement from each other and from the teacher. In the garden, the gardener is rewarded with flowers, produce, color, butterflies, and fresh air.

Bean tunnel in the Ramsey garden

Choose a stopping point. It’s necessary. We frequently cannot finish an assigned task, but that task will be waiting for us to tackle again tomorrow.

Conclude. This is important. Following our final cleanup, we refocus on our goals for the day and acknowledge our successes. We think about how far we’ve come and what we plan to do next. We take an important moment to look at the garden—those growing, budding, flowering, producing plants. There’s a feeling of challenge mixed with satisfying accomplishment. It’s when we pat ourselves on the back and smile.

Evaluate. Will we try a different method next time because what we did today didn’t work as well as we had hoped? Is there more research to do? Do we simply need more time and practice? Are we enjoying the process? Evaluation is that final moment to pause, look, and enjoy.

I have learned as a teacher and as a gardener that it’s wise to be prepared for surprises and detours along the way, that optimism is essential, and that it helps to have a sense of humor. I have found, academically and horticulturally, that there’s always more to learn. Both on the job and in the garden, we expect the best, enjoy the growth, and anticipate bounty. Perhaps most importantly in both arenas, we love the process and see the world as a better place for our efforts.

Article written by Mary Alice Ramsey, Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteer. 

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Categories General Gardening Tags soil-full musings

Kids Post: Are You Happy to See Worms in Your Garden?

July 15, 2022

Earthworms in your garden can do some amazing things, but not all worms are good guys, and even the good guys may cause trouble! Learning what earthworms look like and where they
belong can help your garden grow.

What good are worms?
Earthworms are great decomposers—they tunnel through garden soil, eating and breaking down a lot of dead leaves, tiny plant roots, and the fungi and microbes that grow on them. Their
tunnels let air, water, and many important nutrients move through the soil to help keep plants healthy and create the moist places that keep worms happy.

Good guys and bad guys
Earthworms in your garden are usually good, but there are a lot of different kinds of worms! Most worms came to Western North Carolina from other parts of the world. We call these worms
non-native or exotic and some can cause damage.

  • Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
    An invasive Asian jumping worm is seen at the bottom next to a common nightcrawler.

    Earthworms: There are both native and non-native earthworms, but even our common
    nightcrawlers (Lumbricus terrestris) came here from Europe!

    • Earthworms that help your garden are not as welcome near streams—where the nutrients they bring can cause pollution—or in forests—where they might break down too much of the leaf litter that forest plants and animals need!
    • Non-native jumping worms (Amynthas agrestis) do serious damage because they live closer to the soil surface and eat a lot of leaf litter and mulch. They don’t help get nutrients into the soil like other earthworms and can take over because they grow and multiply faster. Called jumping worms because they may jump or move very fast, they also look different from other earthworms.
  • Hammerhead worms (Bipalium spp.) and terrestrial flatworms are other non-native worms that may do damage. Because they especially like eating earthworms (as well as snails, slugs, and other small insects), they can decrease the number of “good” earthworms that are better for your garden. These critters look very different from earthworms!
    Close up of the head and neck region of a flathead worm, Bipalium Kewense. Note the broken collar around the neck.
    Terrestrial flatworm, Microplana terrestris from North Carolina.

What can you do?
How do you keep the good earthworms happy and keep the non-native worms of all types out of your garden?

  • Photo by Marie Johnston, University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum.
    Cocoons of jumping worms.

    The most important thing to do is check the soil of all plants you buy—or get from friends—to make sure there aren’t any unwanted worms or cocoons in the soil. Cocoons are extremely small and may be difficult to see.

  • Use gloves or tweezers to handle any worms until you can identify them.
    • Flatworms or hammerhead worms can be toxic in certain circumstances, so wash your hands if you accidentally touch one! Put them in a jar with rubbing alcohol or in a bag to freeze them before you put them in the trash.
    • You can also dispose of jumping worms after leaving them in soapy water or in a sealed bag in the sun.
    • Be sure not to cut-up any non-native worms to get rid of them because some cut-up parts can grow a whole new worm!

Article written by Carol Anne Reynolds, Extension Master GardenerSM Intern.

For more information:

Earthworms:
Earthworm FAQs for Teachers
National Geographic Kids – Earthworm: https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/facts/earthworm
NCSU – Earthworms in Turf: https://www.turffiles.ncsu.edu/insects/earthworm-in-turf/
NCSU – Jumping Worm Fact Sheet: https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/jumping-worms
UNH – Extension – Plant Sales and Jumping Worms:
https://extension.unh.edu/resource/plant-sales-and-jumping-worms

Terrestrial Flatworms, Land Planarians, and Hammerhead Worms:
NCSU Extension: https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/terrestrial-flatwormshammerhead-worms

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Categories Gardening for Children, General Gardening Tags earthworms, hammerhead worms, invasive worms, jumping worms

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