Flower Garden And Alpine Slide - For The Lazy

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Read the previous part. ← How to create an informal garden

Landscaping for "lazy" gardeners

Many perennial flowers are also a time-saving group of plants. They grow from year to year in one place and may well be (although, of course, not all) very unpretentious and frost-resistant.

It is better to plant flowers and ornamental plants in romantic groups, and not to build a border out of them - it’s too much trouble with it. And so, in a free composition, perennials will be quite effective, and they will practically not take your time.

Just try to successfully combine ornamental plants with each other, for example, red-leaved forms are incredibly effective with silvery ones, and yellow-leaved ones with green ones.

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A separate topic is ground cover species of perennial plants. This is generally a real find. They are beautiful, unpretentious, and even play the role of a kind of "live mulch", displacing and suppressing weeds. By planting them in a flower bed, you free yourself from mulching and loosening its soil! They quickly tighten unsightly places, forming an elegant carpet, and the presence of a large number of paths, platforms and other paved elements on your site will not allow them to grow too much.

An idyllic picture can be supplemented by undemanding annuals and biennials. Precisely undemanding ones, like alyssum, lobelia, pansies and nasturtium. It is better not to mess with other plants of this group, since they bloom for a very short time, and almost more cucumbers and tomatoes combined are required to hassle and care. It is better to place them in bright informal curtains, planting flowers in part of the flower bed or filling in the gaps between perennials. But it is better to avoid clear geometric patterns and geometric flower beds - ideal outlines require constant and painstaking care, and at this time you are unlikely to find.

The basic laws of creating a "flower garden for the lazy"

1. Plant preferably perennial plants (preferably those that can grow in one place for many years). It is advisable to supplement them with a small number of unpretentious and fast-growing biennials and annuals.

2. Give preference to the most unpretentious plants that do not require frequent watering and feeding, and are not affected by diseases and pests.

3. When choosing plants for a flower garden, consider the time of their flowering. Ideally, during the entire summer season, at least something on it should bloom or just look spectacular (many interesting plants bloom inconspicuously, however, they have very beautiful foliage that remains such from spring to autumn). Try to plant those plants whose flowering period is long enough.

4. In order not to waste time weeding, be sure to mulch the soil between the plants with peat, small pebbles, brownish decayed wood (this is easy to find inside rotten stumps) or needles. This is not only beautiful, such an operation will save you from weeding, and from loosening, and from additional watering. It is very beautiful to mulch the soil in flower beds with cedar husks and shells, which, by the way, are sold in specialized stores at a solid price, and you may be wasting it.

5. Do not try to immediately decorate the entire area with flower beds - it is not easy. It is better to decorate it with new small flower beds as free time appears, and over time you will already have several areas that delight your eyes.

6. It is very important to fence off the flower garden with a border. Ideally, it should be slightly raised above the ground. This can be achieved by digging in so-called curb stones (tiles) around its perimeter. But you can do it even easier by replacing them with pieces of slate, bricks or at least boards. If you don't have the time and energy for this construction, but you have money, buy what is called a "garden designer". These are special (usually plastic) fences in the form of a wide band or a small solid fence.

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Ordinary moss is also planted as a border - on the edges and gas routes you can find many very spectacular forms of undersized moss, from which it is easy to make beautiful borders that can be formed very quickly and at no cost to your wallet. Only such curbs are best done along a complex curve, and not in a straight line - it looks much more interesting. I came up with the moss curbs a year ago and do not regret it - the soil around the flower beds does not crumble, weeds do not grow, and in addition, a fabulous effect of a velvet carpet is obtained.

By the way, if you think that moss will interfere with other plants, this is not so - I have it growing in the company of junipers, heathers, ground cover and ornamental shrubs. There is no need to take care of the moss curbs, just water it from time to time, and on the garden soil the moss becomes simply luxurious. By the way, as it turned out, he is indifferent to acidity and grows calmly not only on acidic, but also on neutral garden soil.

"Lazy" alpine slide

Most likely, you have already read a lot of various instructions on the construction of alpine slides and have understood an important point for yourself - it will take a lot of time and effort to build it.

And the most disgusting thing is that the alpine slide initially presupposes complex structures made of stones, which, not only with gentle female hands, but also with courageous male hands, are difficult to drag to your site and hoist in the right way. These stones only look spectacular in photographs, and when you try to drag even one, you will immediately feel that you lived well without a slide.

I wondered for a long time how to make this notorious alpine slide without harming my own spine. And the way out turned out to be quite simple - heavy stones can be replaced with stumps, which are quite lifting and there are sufficient quantities in the nearest forest. Hemp will be able to create the necessary volume and structure, and the free space between them can be easily filled with soil and thus get a sufficiently strong structure.

You just need to choose more effective hemp, strong enough and from conifers so that they do not quickly rot, and your structure could exist for several years, and then you will come up with something else. In addition, it is important to find a good position of the stumps in relation to each other so that the structure turns out to be effective and reliable.

Thus, you can create interesting alpine slides with gentle slopes, on top of which you will then need to lay beautiful mossy stones, spectacular driftwood and plant a variety of alpine plants, diluting them here and there with fragments of low moss. By the way, such alpine slides, built not on stones, but on stumps, have an important advantage - the plants on them will not freeze in winter, while some of them may freeze on stones in the Urals.

"Lazy" feeding

Alas, most plants do not want to grow on insufficiently fertile soil, and ornamental plants and flowers do not look so impressive, develop poorly, and there are not so many flowers. And the soil in the Urals, frankly, cannot be called fertile. Therefore, not only vegetables and apple trees, but also ornamental plants and flowers have to be fed, and this takes precious time.

There is a solution, and it is very simple - it is enough to transfer them to long-acting fertilizers - APIONs. And then fertilization and feeding will not be required, and you will finally be able to admire your flower beds. Just when laying a flower garden, or in general at any time (if you have created a flower garden for a long time and are not going to re-plan it) put APIONs of the necessary brands under the plants, and then just water if necessary.

The picture will change dramatically in 10 days. The decorativeness of plants will increase: they will be distinguished by greater foliage, brighter and thicker foliage, more active growth, and subsequently a larger number of flowers. On APIONs, even slow-growing ornamental plants such as junipers, thuja, cypress, yews and the like will grow much faster.

It should be noted that APIONS are especially good for ornamental shrubs, conifers, climbing plants (lemongrass, actinidia, hops, clematis, etc.) and large flowers: peonies, chrysanthemums, hosts, etc. Under each adult bush of chubushnik, barberry, clematis in spring or early summer, you need to put two APION-100K at a depth of 20-25 cm and at a distance of 20-30 cm on both sides of the bush. Under lemongrass and actinidia, which, as a rule, are planted with a narrow ribbon, it is worth bury one APION-100K along the entire ribbon after 50-60 cm to a depth of 20-25 cm.

Under spirea, Kuril tea, junipers, thuyu, stefandra, etc. under each adult bush in spring or early summer or when planting, it is worth putting one APION-100K at a depth of 20-25 cm. If the shrubs are small, the size of Japanese quince, then one APION-50K is enough for the bush. For flowers - chrysanthemums of peonies and others - it is enough to bury one APION-60 each. As a rule, the introduced APIONs are enough for one season, but maybe for one and a half, if you introduced a larger brand of APION for a not so large plant.