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 detail
above: a dietes
gets a new fresh look after I cleaned it of debris
and dead leaves.
below: a ‘Chocolate Soldier’ aquilegia
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fresh and clean
consider this...
What would happen if you never gave your car a tune up? Sure, it would
function, but not at its best. The same holds true for a garden, and because a
garden is a living thing, not detailing your garden is like not getting your
teeth cleaned or not getting regular physicals.
What is detailing? It's like detailing a car and getting a manicure
for your garden. Getting in there and cleaning out debris that others missed,
tackling a nasty looking pruning job, removing weeds, reshaping old hedges,
refining, refreshing, renovating. It's giving your living garden some loving
attention.
Light and air are the immediate benefits of detailing. Sunlight
stimulates new growth and helps beneficial animals find pests for food. Air
circulation discourages pests and diseases that thrive in damp, stagnant
conditions.
Edging helps define your garden, just like putting your favorite
photograph in a frame. Create a border and the wildest patch starts to look
like a work of art. Sometimes you want to highlight a gate or statue, a
birdbath or a favorite plant, edging helps guide the eye to what's important.
Blurring is the opposite of edging, and can extend your garden beyond
its edges, making it look bigger or part of the surrounding landscape. You
can also blur between indoors and outdoors, making your garden an extension
of your home. Both blurring and edging can be used in the same garden.
Vines offer many solutions in the garden, but too often they don't get
the attention they need and become large tangles harboring lots of dead
material that blocks light and air, traps moisture that feeds decay, which in
turn attracts pests. It takes time to untangle, clean and retrain vines, but
the benefits- healthier plants that perform better- are worth the effort.
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