One Gardener’s Maintenance Strategy
The View From Tallabama
By Mark Wilson, Master Gardener, Haralson County
Late winter and early spring are the busiest times of year at Tallabama. And with our very early spring (and summer for a while) it has been that much busier. My goal of encouraging native plants to be a significant part of the landscape here has been a huge challenge and this is the year that it is all coming together after ten years of work (and a lot of learning things backwards or the hard way!).
The primary challenge has been learning which natives and introduced non?natives “take over” and when they do so. Areas that in late winter look cairn can (,and used to) burst forth with such speed at the first hint of warm weather that often parts of the yard become completely engulfed in unwanted plants by the time I could get to them. Even parts of the packed 4?6" deep stone driveway aren't immune. I marvel that just two years ago there were areas that became choked with incredibly tenacious 4' tall growth shading out all other plants struggling below. By the time that happened, I had to start all over in that particular area. I have now learned which grasses and forbs go to seed early on or, once rearing their heads, will rapidly take over.
My goal has been a "controlled maintenance" landscape, one where you can weed selectively and occasionally, not a constant annual battle. To do that without chemicals has been, as I mentioned, a challenge. Some of the biggest invaders that start out so benignly are ground geranium, European vetch, Asiatic day flower, tropical morning glory (which for years I always threw seed around - I've been battling it ever since!), fireweed, horseweed, sneezeweed, and everlasting. They're fine along right?of?ways, but not everywhere. The non?native vetch, though a nitrogen?fixer, wraps itself around and sends its roots under everything in its path and is problematic after only a couple of weeks of warm weather. (I've learned these common plant names as I've gone along; there are thousands of native plants I don't know.)
Among the grasses that rock and roll early on are the non?native microstegium and what Debra Thomas told me years ago is called "po anna" grass, a very low (at first) bunching grass that produces prolific seed in a matter of days on the tiniest clump.
I have another nemesis whose name I do not know, but I know it from ten paces away! It starts out so prettily with small white flowers on low-growing foliage (among the earliest to flower which makes it valuable to the earliest bees and butterflies). It almost immediately goes to seed on tall thin stems that, with the slightest touch, spring volumes of seed in all directions.
With years of consistent removing of these various plants early on, these invaders appear less and less, which is fascinating to me. I know too that there is no point in spending hours "weeding" if you don't get all the roots of each plant out ? tedious, but in the long run the only way to manage a chemical?free landscape. Using a weed?eater in areas where there are plants you want to keep won't work, either. You tear up everything (a weed?eater has its place at times, but it is not a selective tool!); you only hit foliage and stems, not roots, so you'll only have to do it again (and again!) and often you simply disperse seeds of the plants you're trying to remove. Mulching has been a huge help in suppressing unwanted growth, but also can help it too if not maintained.
I leave violets, clovers, wild strawberries, mosses, spurges, clumping native grasses and nameless (to me) shallowly?rooted, low flowering and trailing plants and try to keep the Japanese honeysuckle at bay near areas I don't want it to take over. Native mints, which also love to take over, are now relegated to containers where there is little chance of them spreading like wildfire. Now, once the initial selective weeding is done, you can pull a few invasive plants out here and there because you can readily see them and it is no longer a monumental chore. That’s been the missing piece of the puzzle here that is at last in place (to a greater or lesser degree, anyway!)
The strategies for survival and the immense energy to thrive of all these plants amazes and inspires me. All the removed plants (and pruned material) become mulch and so are still a useful part of the landscape (part of my "biodynamic" approach to the landscape). And on what used to be bald knobs of red clay on my road frontage before I toted rocks and logs to their bases, vetch, etc. thrive happily. One would never know by looking at the center knoll now that it will be engulfed in beautiful native yellow?flowered partridge pea by summer's end. An area along the driveway near the front of the house I also leave over to partridge pea. They are a huge drawer of bees in late summer, a host plant for several butterflies, an important quail food source (just in case any quail might return to this region), and a wonderful lively show of color and foliage in late summer through well into the fall. They're easy to control because you just pull up the entire plant by the roots with most seed pods still attached during the winter. Enough seed is left behind to ensure their coming back every year.
There is much to be said about this adventure in balance, but I'm pooped enough from the physical labor of these past few weeks to keep going and I need all the energy I can muster to finish all the chores that need to be done that haven't been done yet!
Editor’s Note: A version of this article was originally published in the Haralson County Master Gardener Association Newsletter, “As the Garden Grows,” March/April 2007 issue.
