Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: Social network for the garden – 2018
What’s trending? Ever get tired of these new digital phrases? I do, but I’m a bit old school! That said, plants have been “social networking” for, well, just about forever.
They recognized early the importance of each other. Social networking is now a term for the garden as well. It’s a 2018 trend, according to landscape architect Thomas Rainer.
I’m always curious to give something a go! Instead of seeing your plants as objects in a sea of mulch, think of them as a social network. Take the forest floor where plants are completely intermingled. Is this flying in the face of making sure plants have space around them to reduce powdery mildew? It depends on what’s planted.
Plant communities work together and offer you LESS work. An example would be planting a green mulch such as sedge grass. Plant it once, let it go and it’s your mulch. It will not compete with your other plantings but WILL keep weeds down. They’re just not going to have nearly the same chance at growing as they do with your wood mulch or even that fabric you put down which winds up with soil on top of it and, you guessed it, weeds.
I suddenly realized that sedge would be sort of like the “caretaker” of the group. The friend that looks out for you by pointing out the spinach in your teeth.
Other helpful plants include golden groundsel, a cheerful native yellow flowered perennial.
And there’s woodland poppies and self-sowing columbine. There are LOTS of varieties of sedge too. Learn more at Hoffman Nursery. Be sure to note your climate zone, type of soil and sun/shade conditions!
Oh and wild strawberry and pachysandra and… well, check out Thomas Rainer gardens!
