Recently presented to a local garden club.

Weeding Your Shrub Beds

Recently, a good friend mentioned the amount of time she was spending in her garden pulling weeds. So much time, in fact, that she and her husband were not really enjoying the garden!

Robin is a thoughtful and experienced gardener. She is also my yoga teacher,so certainly I want her to be peaceful and content when she comes to class

http://www.postures.com/

And her situation is certainly not unique.

Ever wonder why people need to pull weeds from the garden all the time? If you watch any television at all on Saturdays in America, (and if you are not in your garden pulling weeds), you would think that weed killers are a necessary and incumbent companion of a successful garden. Products like Ortho's Roundup (TM)

http://www.roundup.com/

sell millions of gallons of a chemical which consists, essentially, of concentrated salts. If you are old-fashioned, you probably eschew such conveniences, depending instead on a hoe and shovel or, dare we say it? the quick flick of a wrist to pull those varmints out of the ground and into a hand bag slung over the shoulder.

The introspective gardeners among us, however, thinks ahead, preferring a variety of techniques to beat the weeds. Mulch is a favorite: 4" of thick mulch, it is said, will retain soil moisture, and keep the weeds down. Regrettably, though, mulch all-to-often simply provides a moist, fertile environment for seeds of all sorts, and soon you have a plant out of place: a weed springing up in the midst of your mulch.

Pre-emergents are also used. The thinking here is to get the little rascals while they are still seeds, and to some extent this is quite effective; products such as WeedBan

http://www.fertrell.com/weedban.htm

are known to be safe in lawns and in shrub beds; you mix the granules into the top few inches. The chief disadvantage of these is the need for re-application, and, if you prefer not to use chemicals, striving for an organic garden, well, this is not your product.

What to do, what to do?

At MSADesign, we have developed some simple ways to control weeds in the mature garden. New plantings, or maturing plantings, will require weeding, but in a mature shrub bed, weeding can be an occasional affair.

How?

Let's learn from nature. Plant communities thrive through a simple process of competition. A plant community protects itself by creating an environment that is not suitable for germination of seeds from other communities. Here in Florida, for example, we find a natural community called Pine Flatlands, that is comprised of Pine trees (Pinus elliotii) as the canopy, and Saw Palmetto (Serenoa repens) on the ground. Now, the interesting thing about this association is that the Saw Palmetto is so thick that it very nearly forms a mono-culture: other, competing plants simply cannot gain a foothold. Why not? Because the Saw Palmetto creates a dense, shady environment on the ground, denying seeds the sun they need; additionally, the Palmetto effectively competes for water, and the necessary nutrients carried by water.

The result? Saw Palmetto effectively protects itself from invaders, other plants that could harm it by shading or competition. Weeds.

How can we apply this to our gardens? Simple! Two rules to follow:

• Make certain that your plants are properly spaced;
• Make certain that every part of your shrub bed is covered by plant material.

In a later article, I'll cover plant spacing. What is important here is a firm understanding of the mature size of a shrub: simply place new plants in your bed at about 80% of that mature size. Remember: the size of a plant when you install it has nothing to do with the spacing!

And, I'll discuss how to handle the edges of your planting beds later, in more detail. Remember that the edge of your bed is where you change materials: where your grass or sidewalk starts, for example, or where your bed is limited by a building. So, be sure the distance from your first row of plants to the edge of the bed is about 60% of the mature spacing.

The result of these two simple rules? A mature planting beds with few weeds, and with happy, healthy plants!

Good gardening from MSA Design, Inc.


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