Establishing a garden in your property is one of the best ways to improve the latter’s overall appearance. And to make the most out of your garden, it must, of course, be established properly. The best plants for your region must be planted in your lot, and must be supported by a small rainwater tank. The plants you’ve chosen should also be planted at the right spots and should be maintained in accordance with instructions given on the tag or label. Winterizing the garden should also be done either late in fall or in the earliest days of winter, depending on your location.
There’s also the need to avoid the mistakes highlighted below.
Allowing any Self-Sowing Plants to Go Wild
Certain plants which sow their own seeds can create amazing splashes of colours in your garden. However, when left on their own, self-sowers can easily and quickly take over your desired plantings, even those established perennials.
Therefore, they need to be kept under control, and to do this, you need to pull plants before the seeds mature. Care should be exercised when you toss them to the compost pit, since you might spread seeds around the garden inadvertently in finished compost.
Not Paying Attention to Soil Improvement
Healthy soil is one of those secrets to a healthy and beautiful garden. As such, it’s important that you devote enough time and energy in improving soil conditions on the regular (each time a plant is tucked into the soil or after every crop finishes in the vegetable garden). And the best way to improve soil conditions is by adding organic matter like bark fines, composted manure, or compost.
Organic matter helps in improving drainage, water retention, and soil fertility. It also can help in fighting diseases and pests which live in the soil.
Omitting the Use of Mulch
You shouldn’t underestimate mulch. While a simple type of ground cover, it’s able to provide numerous benefits, which include the suppression of weeds, aiding in the retention of water by soil and ensuring that soil as well as plant roots stay cool when summer comes. Organic mulches such as shredded bark, fine forest mulch, or compost also are slow to decompose and are helpful in building healthy soil.
For best results, aim to create a mulch layer that’s two to four inches thick. Make sure to refresh mulch when it breaks down so that you can maintain consistent covering on the soil.
Not Staking Plants
It’s essential to stake plants prior to the arrival of high winds. Certain plants, such as tomato, Oriental lily, and peony, require staking to ensure that their top-heavy stems stay upright.
When choosing a stake, make sure to select stakes which are strong and tall enough that they can do the job right. Stakes too short can cause plants to topple and break.
When inserting a stake to a plant, make sure to do so before the plant has reached a third of its final height.
Underestimating Highly Aggressive Plants
When getting plants, it’s imperative that you read tags and consider looking up plants online in order to confirm their potential widths and heights when they grow, and how aggressively a plant grows in your area. In the case of living groundcovers, it is also important that you consider how far they are able to spread. This is most especially true if you are choosing living groundcovers for use as bed edging—such plants require a lot of attention to ensure that they stay in bounds.
Leave A Comment