…Well, not entirely, but as you wander around your garden, enjoying your trees, shrubs, perennials, etc., you will notice some which have become leggy, straggly, woody, unkempt or diseased. It is the nature of such things at some point.
When a plant is struggling for the right conditions, it will show that battle by reaching for the light or shade, or water. It will develop black spot, rust or some other affliction. Leaves will curl, turn yellow or drop off. Some will continue to fight, but will never reach their full potential and that will be displayed in their size, lack of blooms or berries, or general air of sadness. Others will simply give up and expire. Of course. the answer may be as simple as giving a boost of fertilizer, iron or some other nutrient, or treating with a form of pesticide.
There are other solutions, however: it is a good thing (I sound like Martha – not a bad thing!) to move plants around at times, or simply to discard and replace them. Even small trees can be moved if the roots are carefully attended to – but do dig a huge hole around and under them, and an even larger one to re-site them in order to accommodate the compost and top soil you will be planting them in. Don’t make it too rich, however; research suggests that the roots will spread farther if it is necessary to spread out to find nutrients and this movement will thus strengthen the base of the tree. They will become lazy if a banquet sits right underneath them. Remember, tall people usually have the right size foot to balance on… though while my own grew on with great promise, the rest of me didn’t keep pace. However, they do keep me down in a high wind…
If something you want to keep appears to need some serious help, ask for guidance at a nursery, or better still, look it up in the best book you have (you do have a comprehensive one, don’t you?), and treat the poor thing accordingly. Check the new area carefully for the plant’s needs: water coverage, soil acidity, the amount of hours it might spend in the sun or shade, shelter from high winds, and for space. Roses, for instance, like room to breathe; if they have good air circulation, there is less likelihood of disease.
I have sometimes kept an old plant, which I had never particularly liked, out of a sense of misguided loyalty, I suppose – though it might also have been denial, desperate hope, laziness or a lack of courage to discard. Whatever, trying constantly to make something work which is simply not going to is a waste of time and energy. Throw it out, or at a friend who might resuscitate it, and potter around a nursery, finding something new and exciting.
Some neighbors once cut down a tree that had been giving deep shade to an area in my garden; this meant that my rhododendrons, pieris, hydrangeas and several other shade-loving shrubs were exposed to all the wrong conditions and some were too large to be moved. I was able to plant a fast-growing tree, a Pittosporum eugenioides, to take care of the main problem, rigging up a shade in the meantime for the first year. It meant reshaping my garden, of course, but that was an intriguing exercise and I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge and the new look.
Try putting in some raised beds for your fruit canes and vegetables – I found this so much easier to farm – and some berms (heaped mounds) to help some plants reach the light more easily; berms add an interesting element to the garden, also. And don’t forget to group moisture-loving plants closer together, leaving those preferring drier conditions to the more arid areas.
Constant change, no matter how small, is one of the delights of gardening. Draw joy from slight variations, even if they’re only new birdhouses or feeders.
