Many people spend a lot of their spare time fighting to remove moss from their garden lawns - but actually if you think about it, moss is a great alternative to a traditional lawn, especially for shady gardens.
In fact mosses tend to thrive in areas where traditional lawns suffer. They love compacted soil. As nonvascular plants they do not possess true roots and they get their nutrients and moisture from the air by capilliary movement. Mosses also seem to prefer poor quality soil with low nutrient levels - they really are wonderful plants.
Before you head straight off to buy some moss, one word of caution: mosses love acid soil, so this is one of the rare occasions when it is actually worth testing the acidity of your garden. A ph of 5.0 to 6.0 is ideal
Moss forms dense, low growing mats in the garden. I can see why they are so revered in Japanese gardening - and think it's time we caught on to their potential...
The best moss to use as a lawn alternative in shady areas is Fern Moss (Thuidium delicatulum). This moss will tolerate dappled sunlight and morning sun but not direct afternoon sunshine. For an instant effect, these moss plants are available by the square metre to be laid like turf.
Alternatively you can use smaller plants or plugs which will grow and knit together over time.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON MOSS
Join the Japanese Garden Society
Visit the Garden at The Bonsai Nusery in Cornwall which has a great moss garden (along with other fantastic traditional japanese elements)
Check out George Schenk's brilliant book on Moss Gardening
MOSS SUPPLIERS
Moss Acres USA
Friday, 22 February 2008
ALTERNATIVE GARDEN LAWNS - MOSS
Monday, 11 February 2008
DROUGHT TOLERANT AUSTRALIAN PLANTS - LILLY PILLY
One of the drought tolerant Australian plants I am currently trying out in my garden as an alternative to traditional topiary is the Lilly Pilly.
The lilly pilly is one of the most popular plants in Australian gardening, particularly for topiary and hedging. Lilly pilly is the common name for a range of separate genera of what are basically evergreen rainforest plants with glossy green leaves.
Once lilly pillies were all known as eugenias. In recent years botanists have divided them into several genera, including Acmena, Syzygium and Waterhousea. They are very adaptable because they can take it dry or wet for long periods at a time but they do like it best where there is some good summer rainfall and deep soil.
They supposedly don’t tolerate frosts, but according to Di Johnson of the Garden Vineyard, they are undamaged by the mild frosts she recieves. I'll let you know how they fare here in the Midlands UK.
The most commonly available form here in the UK is Syzygium australe which has more pendulous red tipped new growth than many.
If anyone has tales they want to share of growing lilly pillys outside of their native lands - or suppliers outside the UK, please contact me through my garden design studio website
UK SUPPLIERS (according to the RHS!)
Syzygium australe
• Deelish Garden Centre, Ireland
• The Romantic Garden, Norwich
• Shrubland Park Nurseries, Ipswich
Tuesday, 5 February 2008
DROUGHT TOLERANT PLANTING - LEARNING FROM THE AUSTRALIANS
Monty Don's new Sunday night BBC programme 'Around the Garden in 80 Days' was focussed on the gardens of Australasia last week.
What I found most interesting about the show was Di Johnson's Garden Vineyard (on the Mornington Peninsula near Melbourne) and the way that she was clipping and topiarising drought tolerant Australian natives into columns and domes - much as we do here with box and yew.
Finding hardy drought and flood tolerant alternatives to our favourite garden plants is going to be more and more important as we continue to garden in the changing climate.
Although Taxus (Yew) is pretty drought tolerant, it is famously averse to waterlogged soil and flooding which can easily kill off even established specimens.
Buxus (Box) can cope with moist to dry conditions but will not survive a drought and the sheared leaves can scorch in hot weather. Add to this potential problems with box blight and there is going to be a real gap in the garden designers planting palette if an alternative is not found for this plant.
The two main Australian plants used for clipping are lillypillies and westringia, also known as coastal rosemary. I'm off to order some so that I can see how they fare here in the UK.
I'll let you know how I get on...
Friday, 1 February 2008
ALTERNATIVE GARDEN LAWNS - CHAMOMILE LAWN
Chamomile lawns actually pre-date lawns of neatly clipped fine grasses and have a long tradition in English gardens. The most famous chamomile lawn is the one at Buckingham Palace which dates from the reign of George V although they were also very popular with the Elizabethans.
Camomile is a low-growing aromatic herb which is tough enough to be walked on an looks very much like a grass lawn.
Providing you use the low growing flowering variety ‘Trenague’ your lawn will never need mowing and it releases a sweet fragrance when walked on (especially strong fragrance after rain).
Another advantage of a Camomile lawn over a grass lawn is that it does not turn brown in dry weather!
ALTERNATIVE GARDEN LAWNS
Large, expansive lawns can be beautiful if they are well maintained but the cost to the environment can be high.
Fuel for power mowers, fertilisers and pesticides but most importantly water consumption make traditional lawns the resource squanderers of the gardening world.
Reducing the size of your lawn can benefit the environment - and it gives you loads of extra room for plants!
Various groundcover alternatives to grass are being trialed at the moment which we will analyse over the next few months
If you use alternatives to traditional rye grass lawns in your garden, we would love to hear from you...
Monday, 28 January 2008
USING WATER WISELY - GREY WATER RECYCLING AND RAINWATER HARVESTING
Rainfall is becoming less predictable in our changing climate and so an important part of sustainable garden design relates to the way we manage of rainwater.
Hosepipe bans have become a common occurrence in the UK and can last for well over six months in times of drought - whilst flash floods continue to terrorise the nation.
When it rains, water from buildings and hard surfaces is directed through downpipes, drains and gullies into the drainage system. Some downpipes from the roofs of domestic properties are directed into a soak-away and so return to the water table naturally. However, in urban areas the water is taken away into drainage systems.
The current water management system makes our bills more expensive - with the need for constant repairs and new drainage systems to cope with peak rainfall. It also causes groundwater levels drop as the water doesn’t return to the water table, and so we all suffer from water shortages.
The average house roof apparently sheds 45,000 litres of water per year! This means that nearly 25% of the water we currently use could be harvested from our roofs.
WATER BUTTS
The simplest way to capture rainwater is to use diverters on your downpipes and feed this into water butts or rain barrels – but on a large scale this can look unsightly.
GREY WATER RECYCLING
A better, but more expensive solution, is the storage of grey water and rainwater in an underground tank. This is a far more practical solution as the water can be pumped directly from the tank to flush toilets, feed the washing machine and irrigate the garden.
These companies are specialists in grey water recycling:
With careful planning, gardens can be designed to include sustainable solutions for managing rainwater and drought.
