Summer is upon us, and it’s time to hunker down. The weather onslaught is in full swing and this Southern gardener isn’t too proud or determined to admit that it’s nearly impossible to toil like normal under this heat and suffocating humidity.
After decades of failure and frustration I finally learned to ready things ahead of time to lessen the worst of garden upkeep. Before I leave my garden on its own for months at a time, with no one to drag hoses across it all summer, I do what I can to ensure everything survives, even thrives, with little direct input.
To this end, balancing my desires for a beautiful garden with my lack of nurturing inclination plus being gone for weeks at a time, I try to take care of what I have as best I can without burdening myself unnecessarily. Which means learning to just say no to taskmaster plants, no matter how alluring; to put it in foodie terms, my eyes are not bigger than my stomach.
Before you think this is terribly limiting, look at the dozens of high-performance beauties that thrive around old homes and even cemeteries with little or no summer care. My fav summer-performing stalwarts include althaea (rose of Sharon), abelia, daylily, canna, coneflowers, salvia, okra (even as a flowering plant), basils and oregano, iris for foliage, purple queen Tradescantia, zinnias, crinum lilies, cemetery roses, silvery gray artemisia, lantana, gardenia, liriope, flowering abelia, nandina, and vitex with its electric blue spires.
I especially enjoy an astounding array of succulents - both cascading and upright sedums, yuccas, hen-and-chicks ghost plant (Graptopetalum), thornless prickly pear, and the like - in all their strange shapes and foliage colors; all can go weeks without water and take our heat.
By boldly combining these with accents like an urn, birdbath, or other personalized ornament, I can admire a flower show-worthy scene from indoors while they duke it out with the weather.
One of the hardest things for me is to simply leave some pots and garden spots empty through the worst of the summer weather, and plant them later when it’s cooler for a fantastic show with less effort. I have nothing to prove, see enough in botanic gardens and even just visiting neighbors and friends, so I can enjoy the successes of others, while being more frugal at home.
When plants do need watering, I do it twice, a few minutes apart, to really soak them down deep, then let the plants reach for it. This way I don’t have to drag a hose around all the time, and when I am gone for weeks at a time I can have someone come by just every now and then for a good soaking.
Oh, and I completely cover all exposed dirt, including in containers, with bark to reduce weeds to keep things neat until time to plant in a couple or three months (yeah, Autumn is that close already!).
Lastly, and I know I sound like a broken record on this, there really is no actual need for kowtowing to the Sisyphean attempt at lawn perfection, when the mow-what-grows approach works just fine. A smaller “throw rug” lawn close to the house can be easily mowed, watered, and edged apart from the larger lawn, and look putting-green perfect, especially offset with grouped trees, shrubs, groundcovers, mulches, chipped slate, and decks or other paved areas.
That’s it. Now I’m ready to hunker indoors during coming Dog Days. One more good mulching, and I’ll wish my plants luck and expect to see them when I venture back out.
Felder Rushing
“The Gestalt Gardener”
Felder Rushing is a Mississippi
author, columnist, and host of the “Gestalt Gardener” on MPB Think Radio. Email gardening questions to rushingfelder@yahoo.com.
