Naturegarden - Creating A Natural Garden

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

Humanity, having reached a certain degree of urbanization, finally came to its senses and began to intensively correct its own mistakes. The word "ecology" has firmly entered our lexicon, even at the everyday level. We all want to drink clean water, build a house in an ecologically clean place and, finally, set up an eco-style garden near it.

A garden in an ecological style or otherwise naturegarden is a term that has recently entered the encyclopedia of garden design. Explaining briefly what this style is, we can say the following: in a garden planted according to the canons of the ecological style, all connections between plants are most natural, and the species list itself does not contain any exotic specimens and almost completely coincides with those flowers, herbs and trees that may grow in a nearby forest.

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In a word, compositions on the theme "the nature of the native land". In addition, in such a garden, accents are very important, taking into account the natural grace of plants, their unpretentiousness, durability, resistance to diseases and how good are sometimes young shoots, opening inflorescences, how interesting and factual are the bark of shrubs and trees, which are different in shape, there are fruits in plants that seem to be familiar to us.

In a word, halftones "sound" loudly in the ecological garden, something that we often pass by, looking at the bright, double flowers in regular parks or huge colorful flower beds of landscape gardens. And all this exists with minimal effort to maintain the health and natural beauty of such a garden. The "parents" of the naturegarden style are considered to be German gardeners, who once, just a few years ago, decided that classical gardens were too laborious and expensive to maintain; their enchanting beauty is achieved at a considerable expense of money and time, and everything that requires excessive efforts is not natural and not environmentally friendly.

The desire of German gardeners for naturalism arose as a result of the satiety of cultivation of gardens of various forms and styles, which the old Europe was fond of for more than one century. In fairness, it should be said that the first eco-style gardens appeared in the 1920s in the Netherlands.

At the same time, in some countries, for example, in Finland, it seems that no other approach has ever existed: even the estates of the modern Finnish aristocracy, whose age has passed two centuries, look like a single whole with the surrounding landscapes. No one uproots trees on the site, does not try to remove huge boulders, carefully "playing up" the landscape elements provided by nature and planting conifers or discreet perennials nearby.

The most common plant in Finnish gardens is by no means a rose, not a peony, not a dahlia or gladiolus, but an uncomplicated inhabitant of humid and shady places - a thick-leaved, unpretentious, winter-hardy perennial with beautiful wintering foliage. With the complete absence of fences in Finland, perhaps only mown lawns indicate that a private garden area begins here.

Small corners of the garden, where a hazel grouse gently bows its head among the grass or an absolutely wild-looking corridalis is growing, of course, does not change the overall impression. Perhaps a garden in Finland is an extreme manifestation of eco-style in landscape design. Modern Europe and America, happily picking up the concept of a natural garden, are unlikely to go to the fact that on their site, in addition to two or three birches or trees, only berry mounds grow.

Some gardeners believe that only wild plants should grow in such gardens, others quite rightly believe that plants may have long been included in the culture, but, as they say, "natural sounding", i.e. garden forms of wild plants, more decorative and yet very much reminiscent of their forest, field or rock ancestors. And in fact, and in another case, the list of plants for an ecological garden is quite extensive.

Preference is given to perennials, which in their appearance do not differ much from their wild ancestors. For example, saxifrage, primroses, gentian, forest geranium, veronica, Chinese carnation are very good in such a garden, many representatives of the Umbrella family are relatives of the well-known dill. Compositae are not represented by asters or dahlias, but much more modest, but very impressive-looking thistles or varietal yarrows.

Among the naturgarden plants are many spicy and medicinal, such as valerian, foxglove, a variety of wormwood or thyme. Fern gardens, consisting only of these ancient plants of various species, are one of the main options for an ecological garden, used mainly in shady and well-humid lands. Today, these "fern forests" are incredibly popular; the variety of species of this department in the kingdom of Flora literally amazes and makes the fern garden diverse and not boring at all.

Ornamental grasses are a separate line in ecological gardens - you can often see them as the basis for a variety of garden compositions; they can be assigned the role of ground cover plants, plants creating a background or planted as an attention-grabbing curtain. Creating a garden made entirely of cereals is the dream of many landscape designers. In naturgarden, cereals become dominant, provided that the site is well illuminated and there is no stagnant soil water.

It is possible to achieve a feeling of naturalness in an ecological garden not so much due to what is planted in it, but mainly due to compliance with the requirements of plants for illumination, moisture, acidity and soil composition, for their "geographical homogeneity". Eco-style "legs" in many respects grow from geobotany - the science of natural plant communities, their "compatibility" and getting along together under certain growing conditions.

Literate ecological compositions are considered to be authentic imitations of a site of steppe or heather wasteland, broad-leaved forest or spruce forest, wet or dry alpine meadow, made of horticultural crops. An ideal eco-style garden would be a garden that mimics the nature of the area in which the garden plot is located. What else should you remember when planning to create a natural garden on your site?

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Firstly, you should avoid any hint of the regularity of the garden design - even flower beds with geometric patterns, neat lawn edges, symmetrically planted single plants. You should not start in such a garden paths made of polished stone, smooth brick borders - here natural materials of natural tones are more appropriate. When planting plants, they do not create clear tiers, placing large specimens scattered throughout the site.

In an ecological garden, grasses must be spacious so that they can develop freely. It is preferable to confine ourselves to a small set of species, creating separate and rather large groups of them, as it happens in nature. If century-old pines have survived on your site, you should not create artificial decorative flower beds under their crowns.

Heather will look much better here, supplemented by representatives of the same family - eriks, magnificent flowering rhododendrons, cassiopeia lymphoid, podbele and natural companions of these plants, also loving light and acidic soils, for example, junipers.

As German researchers have shown, who have compiled detailed lists of "good neighbors" for an ecological garden, mock orange, spireas and birches get along well with each other. In areas with moist soil, along the banks of water bodies, irises (Siberian and yellow), Asian bathers, swamp forget-me-not, yellow basil and the previously mentioned thick-leaved bergenia will be appropriate. In sunny areas, you can plant a variety of bows, alpine armeria, rock beetroot; a flat erythematosus will look very impressive here. In the shade, saxifrage, liverwort, lily of the valley and ferns feel great.

The professionals whom you entrust to create a garden in the naturegarden style are well aware of all the features of ecological compositions. For the owners, it should be important that in the future, caring for such a garden will be very easy, in contrast to the hassle in an ordinary garden plot.

When creating decorative flower beds in traditional gardens, first of all, the spectacular flowers are taken into account, ignoring the main features of the development of plants, and dense planting of perennials leads to drying out and depletion of the soil. In such a situation, the need for regular watering, fertilizing and weeding is obvious. In communities, organized in an ecological garden by analogy with natural ones, each species has a number of adaptations, which together lead to natural prosperity.

For example, with a competent imitation of the meadow community, weeds will not grow on the site, since they cannot withstand the competition; Plants of the legume family (for example, rank or mouse peas) will play the role of "getters" of nitrogen; veronica and creeping clover will form a ground cover that prevents the land from drying out, which will significantly reduce the amount of water for irrigation, and so on.

Often, while gardening, we forget that the garden is primarily a place to relax, where we must gain strength and, breathing in the fresh scent of greenery, once again feel how good life is. Naturegarden is a good way to bring the natural course of events back to life without becoming a slave to your own garden and lush, exalted flower garden.