Landscaping brings homeowner back to nature … creatively

By Karen Donato
Staff Writer
    Landscaping and gardening are becoming popular activities for families. In years past, yards were mostly a free-for-all. Older homes had popular flowers such as, old-fashion phlox, hollyhocks, sweet peas, golden glow, lily of the valley, day lilies, lilac, honey-suckle, spirea and old-fashioned rose bushes. The flowers and bushes were planted around the house and occasionally in a special flowerbed. People didn’t use mulch; much less buy it in a variety of colors.
    Times have changed even in gardening. Today, homeowners are expanding their horizons and creating beds full of color from early spring to late fall. Many of them look like something from a magazine. Rather than planting flowers and bushes in a row, gardeners are becoming more creative and designing beds with more depth and interest.
    When starting your bed, use a little spray paint to design the bed on your grassy plot, giving it lots of curves rather than straight lines. Depending upon the size of the bed you will need either a shovel or a rototiller to remove the sod and loosen the soil. Once the soil is easy to work with, lay down a layer of weed block to prevent unwanted weeds. Then using a mixture of topsoil, peat moss, quality compost, and manure to create healthy soil for your plants and bushes.
Sprucing up the outside Houlton Pioneer Times Photo/Karen Donato
ELBOW GREASE — Improving the outside of your home can bring pleasure to the homeowner as well as the neighbors. Pull a few weeds, do some edging and add some mulch.
    If you are unsure of the richness of the soil, soil testing is available through the local Cooperative Extension Service. There are kits available to test the soil at home or take a sample of your soil into the Extension office in Presque Isle and they will analyze it for a small fee. The results will be mailed to you. The soil should be tested in the fall every three years. By testing the soil, a gardener finds out what natural fertilizer is in the ground, the ph balance, and optimum range for crop growth or whether the soil needs other additives.
    Mounding the soil up in the middle of the bed will give height to your finished project and create depth to the landscape if you are locating the bed in the middle of the lawn. It also helps with drainage.
    To finish the bed, use a half-moon edger to create a gully all around the bed giving it a good separation from the edge of the grass to the bed itself.
    The first year the bed may look a bit sparse, but each year it will fill in as the plants mature. The mistake beginning gardeners make is planting too many, too close and within a few years the plants are overgrown and will need to be divided and thinned out.
    Andrew Plant, general agriculture educator at the Houlton office of the UM Cooperative Extension offers helpful tips and good advice to the beginner gardener.
    Plant recommends planning your garden on paper first, paying attention to the heights the plants will be when they mature. If the bed is a focal point from the street put your taller plants in the back and the shorter ones to the front.
    Plant said, “Start small, don’t overdo it the first year, it should be fun.”
    The location is also important. How much sun or shade will the garden receive during the day? With such a wide variety of plants available today there are plenty to plant for a shady garden or those that thrive in the sun. If you are buying plants look for ones that are healthy, avoid spindly stocks and yellow leaves. Watch out for bugs.
    One last bit of caution for planting is to wait until all danger of frost has passed. Plant says wait until Memorial Day to plant seedlings, and then watch the forecast. Do not plant during the heat of the day. It is best to plant late in the afternoon or on a cloudy day.
    When the planting is complete the final touch is the mulch. While some prefer the natural look using dark brown mulch, others like the contrast with the red cedar bark. Whatever you prefer mulch gives a nice appearance, helps retain moisture and prevents a multitude of weeds.
    Be creative, your gardening doesn’t need to be all about flowers. If you have children and want to involve them in a family activity plant a theme garden such as a “pizza” garden.
    Linda Trickey, also with the Extension suggests planting tomatoes, peppers, onions, basil and oregano, all ingredients used in making pizza.
    Gardening can be educational for children. They will learn about the growth cycle from a seed to the plant to the vegetable or fruit, to distinguish a weed from a plant and about insects. This project may lend itself to a visit to your local library or research on the Internet from home. Children will also learn responsibility and how to care for the garden to have a bountiful harvest.
    The UMaine Cooperative Extension Service is offering gardening classes in Houlton, Presque Isle and Ft. Kent. Contact your nearest office to sign up.