GardenHelp.org

Yesterday, I worked with a client to install shrubs along his foundation. When he bought his new home earlier this year, the sellers had left a mishmash of polka dot plantings along the south side and a grassy mess of spiraea along the west side foundation. The polka dots were clearly the result of a “what’s at Home Depot? Let’s buy a bunch of stuff to fill in some blanks”. The spiraea was probably somebody’s summertime idea of a fun hedge that went wrong when it met winter and the grass moved in. In any case, my client had cleared the beds fairly well for us to put in the new plants, but we ran into a couple of common issues that slowed us down.

• Grass Weeds in the Planting Beds: My client had hired a “clean up” crew to clear out the weedy, overgrown beds. Unfortunately, in some areas they didn’t do a great job. The west beds were fully infiltrated with running grass weed. In parts of the beds, the clean up crew cleared out a lot of grass. Anyone who has fought grass in beds knows that this can be an ongoing battle. The smallest segment left behind can result in a fresh crop of annoying weed. In other areas the clean up crew had essentially mowed over the weedy grass and left large growths of it fully intact in the planting beds. So, what to do in situations like this?
  • Clearing out the weeds now will save you later. Working together, we finished clearing as much of the loose grass weed as we could and followed up each section with planting the new shrubs. In the areas where the grass is thick and was “mowed”, my client is going to completely dig out the grass before planting. Getting the grass cleared and the bed re-edged is going to make his life a lot easier down the road.
• Hydrophobic Soil: In western washington, the fall rains have started to return following our natural summer drought cycle. Unfortunately, many soils are still fairly dry in the planting root zones. In foundation planting beds this often is the case at any time of year as the house may create a drip zone “rain shadow” that keeps the soil from getting well saturated. And, some soils like my client’s fairly sandy soil, the water just runs through the profile. Plus, once soils get dry, they can seem difficult to get wet again. The water pools; the soil floats in it. In these cases, it can take a while to get the water to penetrate the soil to keep it moist. This is what we rain into yesterday. So, what did we do?
  • My client’s soil does have some clay and some organic matter. Together these will help the sandy soil hold moisture — once it gets wet. I suggested that we water the beds ahead of planting (and water the rootbound plants at the same time). It seemed strange to get out the hose while we were working in the rain, but we did.
  • Don’t turn the hose on full blast and try to get the soil moist. Instead, be patient and use a slow drip or light rainshower spray to moisten the soil. If you use a big jet stream, the water will pool and run off.
  • Water slowly and intermittently. Water one section slowly, move to the next section and repeat a few times. Let the water drain between each watering. Check the soil moisture depth periodically. Remember, you want the soil moist down where the roots are going, not just in the top few inches.
  • Plant after the soil is moist and the soil has drained. Make sure the plant roots are moist going into the soil. Water each plant on a slow drip after planting.
  • Check newly planted plants occassionally, even if you think they’re getting rain. You may need to add supplemental water to ensure they do well.

A couple of final notes on fall planting. We did not add fertilizer to the new plantings. This time of year we don’t want to encourage the plant to put on a lot of top growth that might get zapped if we have a freeze. Instead, we want the plants to do their work underground until spring. So, add a good couple inches of composted mulch to the top of the finished planting beds. As this decomposes through the work of rains and microbial activity, slow release fertilization will be available to the plants by spring when they really want and can use it.

Fall is a fantastic time to transplant and renovate gardens. It’s just important to stay in tune with the environment in which you are working.