Thrifty Gardening

ALSO BY MARJORIE HARRIS

Thrifty: Living the Frugal Life with Style

How to Make a Garden

Botanica North America

The Canadian Gardener

Seasons of My Garden

Marjorie Harris’ Favorite Garden Tips

Pocket Gardening

Ecological Gardening

In the Garden

Favorite Annuals

Favorite Flowering Shrubs

Favorite Perennials

Favorite Shade Plants

The Canadian Gardener’s Year

In the Garden: Thoughts on the Changing Seasons

Better House and Planet: Ecological Household Hints

Copyright © 2012 Marjorie Harris

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This edition published in 2012 by

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LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Harris, Marjorie Thrifty gardening : from the ground up / Marjorie Harris.

eISBN 978-1-77089-054-1

1. Gardening. I. Title.

SB453.H38 2012 635 C2011-904018-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011929950

Cover design: Alysia Shewchuk

Cover images: Top: © kalimf/iStockphoto; Bottom: © fotolinchen/iStockphoto

Interior illustrations: introduction, chapters 1-3, 9, 10, appleuzr/iStockphoto; chapters 4, 5, 7, bubaone/iStockphoto;

chapter 6, jameslee1/iStockphoto; chapter 8, browndogstudies/iStockphoto

We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.

INTRODUCTION

THE THRIFTY

GARDENER

When I first set out to make a garden there was no disparity between my being a gardener and being thrifty. I was as frugal in the garden as anywhere else in my life, so it was a habit right from the beginning. Little did I know that I would become an obsessed gardener with profound needs for rare or unusual ( ergo expensive) plants. It didn’t take very many years to get there.

At first, I made a vegetable garden, not to be thrifty but because I wanted my kids to taste vegetables straight from the garden. I was under the illusion that this would encourage them to actually eat a vege­table, a notion they disabused me of pretty quickly. But we all had fun planting every year until we were swamped by the brooding shade of a neighbouring weeping willow. I became a perennial shade gardener by default and by then the kids had weaned themselves away from home.

There is something about making a garden that goes way beyond the intense pleasure of the act itself. And when you start to get compliments, you are doomed. You long to become more accomplished, to discover better ways of growing plants, or to make your surroundings even more delicious. Then, the minute you realize you couldn’t care less if anyone else likes what you are doing and that you do it for yourself alone, a seismic shift takes place. You’ve become a crazed gardener and for that there is no cure.

This breed of gardener is a curious mix: A person who will travel miles to get a free plant and then turn around and spend what seems like a fortune on one that is not guaranteed to survive, even with lots of attention. There is no logic here but it’s one of those endearing qualities about gardeners.

There are two extremes of the species: Those who say, I’ll spend anything I have to on my garden, damn the expense. And the others who say, I’ll spend as little on the garden as I possibly can and get the most bang for the buck. The thrifty gardener stands right smack in the middle of those two extremes. The thrifty gardener will think of ingenious ways to save money on the garden and then blow the budget buying a plant that is more than likely to die in a year because it is so rare, or is not hardy, or it’s so new nobody knows what it will do. The thrifty gardener dreams very large dreams.

Neither extreme, however, precludes making a great garden. Just like oodles of space or deep pockets can’t necessarily produce the perfect garden. I’ve seen plenty of gardens that have had buckets of money thrown at them, and they still look as miserable as their unhappy owners. Gardening has become more expensive and no wonder. The price of fuel has skyrocketed, plants come from greater distances, and the demands we place on nurseries have gone from get me the new and unusual to give me a deal.

Over the decades, we have become much more adventurous gardeners and it’s reflected in how many glorious new plants we can find in nurseries each year — and such are the huge temptations flung at the thrifty gardener. I know all this because I’ve talked to gardeners of all stripes for the past thirty-odd years. I’ve prowled around their gardens, interviewed them, photographed their favourite plants, written about them, and designed some of their gardens. And I’ve learned a lot from all three aspects of my life: doing my own gardening; researching and writing about gardens; looking at what other people start with and what they do, and the attitudes they have toward the space they are confronted with.

The big issue is always budget. Most people can’t even bear to think about a budget when it comes to the garden. It’s the last thing on the list in a renovation, usually long after the money’s been gobbled up by expensive doodads in the bathroom.

You may think you have a budget because you’ve saved up a few hundred or even several thousand dollars. But it isn’t a real budget until you’ve figured out what that money is supposed to buy. If it includes new fences, paths, pergolas, and lighting, you are looking at big bucks. And notice there’s no mention of plants there. Rather than have a costly, time-consuming gavotte when you hire a designer or landscaper, it’s best to know what you need and then what you want to spend. And it’s critical to be realistic about it.

Two principles are a must to create a thrifty garden with style:

Know what you want the garden to do for you.

Know what you can realistically spend on the garden.

These two principles demand a fair amount of self-examination. Though the garden is often at the bottom of the list of what you feel you can afford to spend on your whole property, there is a false economy here. Gardens are too often treated as a bit of frippery rather than the life-saving aesthetic they really are. There is no longer any argument about the fact that gardening will improve your health. It is a creative outlet open to anyone with a trowel. Stick a depressed person in a garden and within a few hours those deep blues will lighten up. A lovingly tended garden can make you a healthier and probably happier person. Apart from anything else, it is a good investment since it will enhance your property’s value.

Gardening is, in a funny way, one of the thriftiest of all hobbies because it’s easy to do and you don’t need a lot of fancy equipment. Relatively speaking, the returns are huge. But to make a new garden, whether you’re starting out in a condo or moving from a large to small garden, it’s critical to do it properly from the beginning. That is the only way to save a lot of money — to be thrifty — in the long run. The frugal adage, Buy well, and you buy once, applies as much to gardening as it does to all other aspects of life.

We change house a lot in contemporary society. The nature of those moves can be traumatic or they can be a lot of fun. What I want to cover in this book is just how essential gardens are to all aspects of the thrifty life and how, through the garden, we can adapt to, and even enjoy, the massive changes life throws at us. A garden is an extension of your home. It can be another room, or an extension of a room, and it can be an enormous comfort whether you are young or old.

In the following pages, I will present my own ideas about thrifty gardening, as well as those of some of the best and most interesting gardeners I know. We’ll share our tips based on years of experience, and pleasure, working the soil.

The intellectual quality of gardening can never be overestimated. This is a pastime that requires a lot of reading and study, as well as physical labour. The paramount aspect of gardening, however, is that it reconnects us with nature, an innate bond that the brilliant American biologist Edward O. Wilson calls biophilia — love of nature. (If you want to hit the intellectual side of gardening, you have to read Wilson’s work. He will change the way you look at everything around you.)

You don’t need a lot to create a garden that will have an impact on everything else in your life, no matter where you live or how old you are. But you do need to make an effort. And being a thrifty gardener means scaling your dreams to your resources. It means recognizing precisely what you can do physically and how much you can afford in time and money — and having a glorious time doing it.

CHAPTER 1

BUYING AND RENOVATING

A GARDEN

To my knowledge, few people in the market for a new home look specifically for a house that has a lovely garden surrounding it. I know a few garden mavens who have bought a house on a big lot because they had space envy, including one maven on my own street. She’d been looking longingly at a house on a double lot for years and, when it went on the market, she struck a deal as fast as she could. It was the land she lusted after and she’s still there decades later.

Most people, however, consider interior needs far more important than their exterior wants. Most of us know how to cook so we look at the kitchen before we take into consideration the surrounding yard. But as Toronto real estate agent Gil Goldstein says, "It’s really a combination of the architecture and the planting that sells the house. A lot of people are intimidated by gardens because that’s the last bit of expertise they’ll acquire. I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard, ‘How am I going to take care of all of this?’ "

There are a lot of things to be wary of when buying a new garden. For instance, in our neighbourhood, a hugely expensive front garden was installed strictly to sell a semi-detached house for over a million dollars. A mishmash of trees (Japanese maples, a honey locust, and a redbud), a huge hydrangea, a large thorny barberry (along a walk), several grasses, and some hostas had been stuffed ineptly into expensive stonework, which the new owners will eventually have to remove because inevitably the plants will die. A simple and elegant design would have been just as good and less work down the road for the new owner. This was not a good investment on anyone’s part.

So if you are a buyer with gardening ambitions, avoid a place with this type of expensive hardscaping unless you are madly in love with the design. It’s costly to undo, and it’s much easier to start out with a tabula rasa, a clean slate. Consider it a greater opportunity to be creative.

If you buy a house with a garden, do your best to keep it tidy until you can get around to making it your own. Give yourself a year — at minimum, three seasons — to see what’s been planted, what is thriving, and what has to be tossed. Then get cracking on a garden renovation. If you can’t do it yourself, hire someone with fresh ideas to come in and make suggestions. You’ll probably save money in the long run.

When it comes to drawing up any kind of real estate/renovation budget, the major mistake people make is to leave garden considerations to the very last or, worse, out of the mix altogether. The anthem is: we’ll fix up the house and then get to the garden. This usually happens during a time of chaos when all the fancy new appliances are in place but the budget’s shot. And what’s surrounding the house/reno is an unholy mess — hardly a garden, and certainly not soul-enhancing.

When you buy or renovate a house, don’t leave the garden planning until last. It’s far too depressing to pick your way through junk for months on end. Fixing the garden even in a minor way can lift your spirits and give you hope that it isn’t going to be what you suspect: double the time and money before everything is finished. Even the hint of a garden gives a feeling that the whole upside-down mess might end soon. A garden always gives a sense of promise and, with most construction or renovations, you need that — and a mass of hope.

Start with a garden budget right off the top. It can be just a tiny percentage of your total budget. If, say, the renovation is $40,000 just set aside $400. I would love to say put aside 10 percent, which would be more realistic. However, let’s go with the lowest possible amount and know that it’s not much but it will buy a few yards of good soil.

THE THRIFTY GARDENER'S HOUSE-HUNTING TIPS AND TOOLS

The true frugalista will do a lot of research before buying a house, keeping an eye out for what is do-it-yourself and where experts should come in and do the work (and save money). Here are the essential house-hunting tools:

A trowel for soil check

Small carpenter’s level to check the grade

A screwdriver to poke holes in very hard ground

You can easily stick these small items in a bag and keep it with you when you go toodling about looking at different properties. Have no shame. You are about to make the biggest investment of your life.

The thrifty gardener will also look carefully at what’s surrounding the house, certainly before making a commitment. Here’s what to watch out for:

Puddling water might mean there’s a sewer break or a source of underground water (a faulty watering system comes to mind) that will have to be fixed. Find out the source, see if it’s affordable to repair the leak, and try to use it as a bargaining tool in your negotiations.

Be very careful that the land is graded away from the house. If it slopes toward the house, it can bring damp and moisture into the building itself. This will have to be remedied before you can be confident that the house is high and dry. A home inspector should be able to explain this but a lot of first-time buyers don’t pay attention.

If you are looking at a condo, the same principle applies: Make sure the terrace or balcony is graded away from the living area. A lot of construction, even in really expensive buildings, is being done by inexperienced workers. Take your carpenter’s level with you and check it out, because a badly draining balcony or terrace can be prohibitively expensive and complicated to mend.

Find out if there are spring floods. You could be on a floodplain or you might have the neighbours’ gardens draining into yours. It will need fixing, preferably not at your own expense.

In a buyer’s market, real estate agent Gil Goldstein says you could negotiate a really terrible yard into a lower price.

Be careful of buried oil tanks. A pipe coming up near the house might signal the potentially huge expense of treating this hidden problem.

Check the local laws about fence heights. Disagreements with neighbours over shared elements can be a major source of expense and irritation, so know what you can expect. Can you cope with having neighbours living right on top of you, or will you want more privacy? Can you install a fence