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  The basics of getting your garden to grow

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The basics of getting your garden to grow

Mother Nature provides nutrient-rich soil, sunshine and rainfall, the essentials for a healthy garden, but without regular maintenance such as pruning, watering, weeding and fertilizing, your gardens can soon fall victim to the elements, losing its vitality and beauty. You can maintain the upper hand against disease, pests, and weather extremes by providing a regular maintenance schedule. As a general rule, gardens should receive an average of 2.5 centimeters of water per week. Of course, measuring this is difficult so approximating will do the trick. When the gardens are very dry, water thoroughly to the full depth of the roots. This may be required more often in gardens that are in a hot, sunny area. Remove weeds whenever you spot them, as they can steal essential nutrients from your plants. Consider mulching your gardens as this will help keep down the amount of weeds as well as retaining moisture which will reduce the amount of watering you will have to do. To keep your soil enriched, consider a compost pile. Here are a few more essentials for keeping your gardens beautiful,

Fertilizer
Consult with your local nursery to determine which is the best fertilizer suited to your gardens. They may recommend using an organic amendment such as compost, manure and/or peat moss. Otherwise, you can use a liquid or dry fertilizer. To mix and apply, follow the manufacture’s instructions. For liquid fertilizer, pour onto the soil or mulch around the base of the plant, avoiding contact with the foliage. For dry fertilizer, push aside any mulch and sprinkle a thin band around the base of the plant at least 10 centimeters away. Work into the soil using a cultivator, then water to distribute the fertilizer into the plant root. Replace any mulch you may have moved.

Mulching
Wait until the gardens are well established and plants are about 15 centimeters tall before applying. You can purchase by the yard and have it delivered to your home, or you can buy it by the bag from your local nursery, depending on the amount that you need. It is usually recommended that you apply 5-10 centimeters in depth. As the mulch decomposes and compacts, reapply to maintain a constant depth. Usually once a year, in the spring, is sufficient.

Removing Weeds
Try to remove weeds as soon as you notice them. The younger they are, the easier they are to remove. Watering to soften the soil the day before weeding will help. You can use a tool to remove the weed, or simply pull them out. The main thing is that you get the entire root to prevent them from resprouting. If you have trouble removing a weed because it has deep spreading roots, cut it off at ground level and repeat whenever it grows back. Then at the end of the growing season, dig out the entire root system. If the roots are entwined around the root system of a perennial plant, you will have to dig up the plant and manually disentangle the weed roots and replant the perennial.

Grooming Annuals and Perennials
To promote fewer but larger flowers, you can use a technique called disbudding. Simply pinch off the side flower buds and leave the central flower bud intact. If the stem of a disbudded plant may not be strong enough to support large flowers, stake the plant to keep the stem from bending.

To promote bushy foliage and large flowers, you can use the technique called thinning. Remove all but four to six of the healthiest stem shoots in spring. This causes all the energy of the plant to be diverted to the production of more leaves and larger flowers. When the plant reaches about 12 centimeters in height, use pruning shears to cut the shoots of the plant at ground level. New foliage will fill these spaces for a more bushy plant.

Dead-heading is a procedure used to prevent the plant from going to seed and to encourage annuals and some perennials to blossom more than once during the normal growing season. Simply remove any spent flowers as soon as they begin to fade. Even those plants that will not produce more than one crop during the growing season will benefit by growing stronger. Pinch the base of the flower stem just above the leaves. If the plant has thick stems, use pruning shears and sever in the same manner.

Pinching is a procedure that will help increase growth. To promote branching and flowering, pinch off the growing stem tips in spring. For an annual, wait until the plant has produced 3 or 4 sets of leaves, then sever the growing tip just above the uppermost leaves. For a late blooming perennial, wait until the plant has reached about one quarter of its mature height, then start pinching off new shoots until midsummer, then stop.

To help prevent annuals from growing leggy and weak looking, cut it back in the spring. Simply cut off the upper half of each stem, making sure that the remaining stem has several leaves on it. Follow with fertilizer.

Thinning and Heading back Shrubs
When a shrub is overgrown, thinning will help groom the plant and promote new healthy growth. Remove the least healthy branches first, being careful not to thin the plant by more than one third of the healthy ones. Use pruning shears to remove the stem at ground level and angle the cut in the same growing direction of the nearest branch.

When a shrub becomes straggly or thin, heading back will promote denser growth. Simply cut each branch back to a new leaf bud, ensuring you cut each one to maintain the shape of the shrub. For a light looking shrub, cut the branches back to leaf buds that are growing outward. For a more dense shrub, cut the branches back to buds that are growing inward. Using sharp pruning shears, make a clean cut angled in the same direction of the growing bud.

Although this may seem like a lot of work, once you have done it a few times and you know what to look for, it really only takes minutes at various intervals. When you go to admire your gardens, have pruning shears in hand and thumb and forefinger at the ready and simply cut and pinch as you are admiring. Weeding and watering may be a little more time consuming and I recommend doing this in the morning hours when it is not too hot. It’s all worth it because the end result will be beautiful and envied gardens. •

Evelyn Timmons is an avid gardener in Halifax.