Category: Gardening

What a Permaculture Garden Is and How to Create it

Permaculture gardening is a great choice for anyone who wants to grow their own food while having a sustainable system in place. The principles of this gardening method let you build a garden that relies solely on natural processes to promote growth, and you get a host of vegetables and fruits each season in return.

Defining Permaculture Gardening

This gardening design comes based on the concept of using your local environment to design your garden. It considers the needs of the local climate and natural ecosystem while meeting human needs. This gardening style also focuses on gradually building up the soil quality to help rejuvenate it as you make your plants stronger by adding nutrients. The basic ethics of this gardening style are to take only your share and return the surplus, care for people, and care for the Earth.

Steps to Start a Permaculture Garden

There are a few basic steps you take to start this sustainable garden, and we’ve outlined them below.

1. Learn About the Environment
   Learn the native insects, plants, and predators that live in the area where you’ll create your garden. Find out which parts of the garden get the most sun, and look for slops that could cause rainwater pooling. Do you see any unique features that you could use? For example, you could use taller native plants as natural trellises for some vegetables.

2. Pick Plants Based on the Environment
   Do a little research and find out which annuals and perennials will do best in your space. Set up companion plants by picking crops that deter pests, attract good insects, and fertilize the soil naturally. Green manure crops increase your soil’s nutrient levels over time, flowers attract butterflies, and certain herbs keep insects away.

3. Design a Layout
   Once you have your plants and understand your surroundings, plan your layout. Consider your water sources, light requirements, and the existing landscape to place each plant in an ideal location to encourage healthy growth. Try to grow herbaceous plants as your ground cover, shrubs in the middle layer, and trees at the top layer.

4. Build Up Your Garden Beds
   Raised beds work very well for this gardening method because you won’t till the soil. The raised beds should be between 6 and 12-inches above the ground. You can also incorporate sheet mulching by layering compost materials like wood chips, cardboard, stray, and leaves over your grass without tilling anything.

5. Plant the Garden
   Start planting by growing the taller plants first, so they provide shade for your shorter plants. Also, make sure that you group plants that have similar water and light needs together. This way, you can reduce how much you have to water to keep everything healthy.

6. Add a Layer of Mulch
   You won’t use chemical-based weed killers in this gardening method. But, you can suppress weeds and keep the soil moist by adding a layer of organic mulch over your newly planted items. Some options include newspaper, leaves, wood chips, straw, grass clippings, and shredded bark.

7. Add Compost
   Use natural compost over chemical-based fertilizers. Kitchen scraps and manure are both common natural compost ingredients. Worm tea and worm castings are also great because they have a high nutrient content.

8. Use a Sustainable Watering System
   Try to use the minimum amount of water to keep your garden healthy. A drip irrigation system is a good start to help prevent evaporation and keep the soil moist. You could also collect rainwater and use it to water the garden.

Contact Evergreen Landscaping

If you’d like to know more about this sustainable gardening method, contact us. We’re happy to help get you on the right track to get a healthy and thriving garden.

Foodscaping Planter Ideas For Edible Aesthetics

Take a good look at your neighbor’s landscaping in their front yard. What do you see cleverly hidden between their hydrangea bushes? If your neighbor started foodscaping, they could be using the hydrangea bushes to camouflage their tomato plants. The hydrangea bushes have stiff branches that nicely hide the tomato plant’s lumpy fruit and floppy stems. The goal is to mix ornamental plants with edibles in the same planting space so you only really see the ornamental plants.

It’s possible to foodscape if you only have a small yard. Trendy foodscaping is planting edible crops throughout your existing landscape or available area. It’s a nice strategy to help you grow healthy, fresh produce while making the most of your current landscape design.

How to Mix Edibles and Ornamentals

To start, you want to look for a space to start planning your foodscape. For people who live in an area that has a HOA, you should get in touch with a landscaping professional to help you put together a viable plan to determine your exposure and scale your area. Food crops will usually need more sunlight exposure than shade each day. You can make this area as large or small as you want, depending on your space. Maybe you have 10-square feet, or you’ll plant between your existing shrubs.

You also have to decide what you want and like to eat. One of the biggest oversights people make when they grow vegetables is that they don’t think about what they like to eat. Start by writing down the top five vegetables that you plan to use on a weekly basis. For example, if you like to eat cabbage or eggplants, they can be pretty enough to mix right into your foundation landscape.

You should also plan to build your soil. Once you pick out your area to plant, you want to top dress a layer of compost over your existing mulch. You can contact your state or county extension service agent and ask them to test your soil. This will give you a good idea of what you’re working with. Learn what your nutrient ratios are, your soil’s pH levels, and what type of fertilizer you should add, along with how much. Don’t overfeed the area, or you risk killing some of your plants.

Once you get your soil ready to go, you can start planting. Plant tomato plugs, seeds, eggplants, peppers, or other edibles in your newly built-up soil. Generally speaking, it’s better to start with direct-sow small seeds to ensure you get a good crop. This means you have to plant sooner in the season rather than later.

Next, add a layer of mulch around your plants. Use a very light layer because you don’t want to attract voles, and they like organic, loose materials. You’ll only need a 1/2-inch of mulch. If you plan to sow seeds, you want to use 1/2 to 1-inch of mulch for warm-season crops and cut back to 1/4-inch of mulch for cool-season crops. You will get some weed growth, but you can take care of them as you see fit.

Foodscape Ideas

There are several ideas you can use to set up your first foodscape. These ideas include but are not limited to:

• Plant strawberries as a groundcover for your foundation. They go well around existing shrubs below your window.
• Consider adding blueberry plants around the border of your property, or they can work to help disguise your air conditioner. Adding peanuts around them will add nitrogen to the soil, and the cover will help keep your blueberry plant’s roots cooler.
• Lettuce, garlic, arugula, and greens go well into edges or your small available spaces, as do herbs like basil and parsley.
• Vining plants with bigger leaves like sweet potatoes, squash, or pumpkin work well as groundcovers. All you have to do is pull them up at the end of the season.

Contact Evergreen Landscaping

If you’re ready to come up with foodscaping planter ideas for your yard, we can help. We invite you to reach out and get in touch with our talented staff to design a viable foodscape to mix ornamental and edible plants.

How to Combine Ornamentals & Edibles in Your Garden

You don’t necessarily have to lock your vegetables, herbs, or homegrown foods into neat, straight rows. Instead, you get a host of exciting new options when you start tucking edibles into your landscapes, and they can go right around and in your ornamental plants without stealing nutrients or competing.

Edible landscaping is fondly called foodscaping, and it’s the process of using edible plants as part of your overall landscape design. By expertly adding edible plants into your landscape, you can easily enhance how pretty it looks while still getting large harvests and gorgeous flowers. There are several ways you can do this, and we’ll outline a few below.

Containers and Pots

Ornamentals and edible crops blend very well in pots or containers. If you want to get a Mediterranean feel, grow lavender, salvias, and Santolina, with sage, rosemary, and thyme. Annuals also work well, and you can mix fiery chili peppers with colorful chard.

Raised Garden Beds

Putting a mixture of ornamental plants with edible ones in your raised garden boxes can transform them from a very controlled look into a productive, eye-catching centerpiece. You can dot bedding plants amongst your crops for a pop of color, and they all thrive in the rich soil that the vegetables need to grow.

Underplanting

Underplanting is an easy way to combine your ornamental and edible plants. If you’re working on a larger scale, it works very well if you have fruit trees and underplant them with a range of many plants. It works well with lavender, spring bulbs, or native wildflowers. If you want to plant on a smaller scale, you can fill in the gaps in your containers with lettuce, herbs, or mizuna.

Vegetable Plots and Borders

In your garden border, you shouldn’t be afraid to plant vegetables and fruits with your dahlias. Along with getting a nice harvest, they can make elegant, architectural, and colorful additions. In your vegetable plot, edge it with a mixture of wildflowers. This can make it more appealing to pollinators, and it’s a great option to grow calendulas, fennel, and borage.

Window Boxes

If you don’t have a garden and you’re short on space, a window box is a great idea. You can grow lettuce, tomatoes, strawberries, and herbs for edibles. For the plants, you can use nasturtiums to keep pests away while attracting beneficial hoverflies that prey on aphids.

Container Combinations for Edible and Ornamental Plants

• Basil and fennel
• Fuchsia and sage
• Gazania and black-eyed Susan
• Kohlrabi and daisies
• Lavender and thyme
• Pansy, thyme and olives
• Rosemary and pansies

Planting Edible Flowers

You can plant and grow edible flowers to garnish your salads or plates or freeze into ice cubes for drinks. A few great options include:

• Chive blossoms
• Elderflowers
• Marigolds
• Nasturtiums
• Pansies
• Snapdragons
• Violets
• Zinnias

Contact Evergreen Landscaping

If you’re someone who is interested in combining ornamental flowers with edible ones and you’re not sure where to start, contact us. We’re happy to give you recommendations to help you create a stunning space while ensuring you get a bountiful harvest.

Three Tips for Regenerative Gardening

Regenerative gardening is a garden management style with planting that keeps waste and emissions in mind. The practice gets specially designed to nourish the garden soil naturally instead of depleting it and refilling the space with fertilizers. Many of these fertilizers can damage plants and the microscopic life in the soil.

Soil and any plants, vegetables, or herbs you grow it in are generally healthier when you take steps to nourish and preserve the fungi, invertebrates, and decomposers. There are a few ways you can try out this specific gardening method, and we’ll outline them for you below.

1. Don’t Till the Soil

Digging is very labor-intensive, and it can break down the soil’s structure as it releases built-up carbon. Instead, you can use landscape cloth to help control the weeds and a broad fork to turn the soil without digging in. Mowing is also a safe way to get rid of any unwanted plants before seeding.

Digging up the soil isn’t simply just labor-intensive; it can also break down the structure of the soil and release built-up carbon. There are a few options you can use to prepare for planting without disrupting your garden bed. Sheet composting is also very helpful, and you lay down cardboard, stray, or other safe materials that will degrade over time in your chosen space in the fall months. It’ll revitalize the ground before spring.

2. Attract Helpful Wildlife

Many garden plants and crops use pollinators like flies, bees, and butterflies. Planting borders around your garden and adjacent areas with native grasses and wildflowers will give these beneficial insects a nice habitat so they can help with your landscape and garden.

By setting up this habitat right around your garden, you’re creating more places for the local wildlife to gather in. Promoting this healthier ecosystem can also mean you have fewer destructive pests and better yields. Doing this can save you resources and effort that you’d usually spend clearing out these areas.

3. Feed the Soil

Regenerative gardening requires that you nourish the soil and give back to the land. Treating your garden patch with a thicker layer of compost will help inject nutrients that could be depleted back into the soil. It can also encourage the natural communities of micro-organisms because it returns organic matter into the soil and reduces erosion by improving the soil’s structure.

Spread a one to three-inch layer of compost during the fall or spring months over your garden patch. You can make your own compost, or you can look at your local farms or vendors and see if they’re selling any. Several plants like legumes can add nutrients back into your soil. So, leave the plant matter into the garden instead of removing it to keep these nutrients in the soil.

Evergreen Landscaping Can Help With Regenerative Gardening

If you’re going to dive into regenerative gardening, it’s a good idea to talk to a professional company. Evergreen Landscaping has experienced and professional staff who are ready to answer your questions or help with this process. You can contact us for more information.

How to Use Leftover Egg Shells and Coffee Grounds in Your Garden

One of the best things you can do for your garden is to create a healthy compost to add to the soil. Many people consider the ingredients in compost to be trash, but they can give your plants a host of nutrients to help them thrive. Two common ingredients are leftover eggshells and spent coffee grounds. They have decently high amounts of calcium and nitrogen. They also work well as mulch. To get the most out of these ingredients, you have to know how to prepare and store them after you use them, and we’ll outline this below.

How to Use Eggshells and Coffee Grounds in Your Garden

You don’t want to throw your eggshells or coffee grounds straight into your compost pile without doing a little work first. For the eggshells, you want to give them a good rinse right after you crack them. Once you rinse them, shake them dry. You can also leave them to dry on your counter on a towel. When they’re dry, you’ll crush them as much as you can with your hands. Put the crushed eggshells in a container and set them in a sunny location to dry out. This can be indoors or outdoors.

Coffee also requires a few steps before it’s ready to go. When you brew coffee, you have grounds leftover. Instead of throwing them out, place them in a small bowl and let them dry out for a few hours. When they dry, you can put them in a sealed container with a lid.

You want to repeat these steps until you’ve managed to compile enough of both components to give a moderate amount to every plant. Before you feed your plants, combine the dried coffee grounds and eggshells together. Try to crush the eggshells down even more and sprinkle the whole mixture across your soil bed.

Continue to stockpile these two ingredients because you’ll want to repeat the process every few months to refresh the soil. Always add coffee grounds and eggshells before you start a new growing season. However, you want to ensure that you don’t overdo it. Adding too much compost or fertilizer can overwhelm your plants.

Add Coffee Grounds and Eggshells to Mulch

If you don’t want to add these two items to your compost for whatever reason, you still have another alternative. Instead of adding them to compost, you can mix them into your mulch. Mulch is a great thing to add to your garden, flower beds, or other landscaped areas in your yard.

Mulch can help regulate the soil temperature to keep it cooler when the scorching summer temperatures and humidity levels come around. Mulch is also great for locking moisture into the soil to help you reduce how much you have to water. All you have to do is get mulch from your local garden center and mix your coffee grounds and eggshells in. Once you do, spread a thick one to three-inch layer around all of your plants or vegetables.

Contact Evergreen Landscaping

If you’re not sure how much eggshells or coffee grounds to put in your garden, contact us. Our dedicated and experienced staff are ready and willing to help ensure your plants thrive all season long.

How to Choose Dog-Friendly Plants for Your Garden

Gardens can be stimulating, wonderful spaces for your dog to roam. But, it’s easy for dogs to cause havoc by digging up plants. Gardens can also contain hazards in the form of plants that are potentially toxic to dogs. So, unless you plan to ban your dog permanently from the garden, the following tips will help you pick out dog-friendly plants for your garden.

Tip One – Plant Dog-Friendly Plants

You can start by doing a little research and looking for plants that are beautiful and safe for your dog to be around. A few of these plants include camellias, snapdragons, sunflowers, roses, impatiens, cornflowers, Michaelmas daisies, and calendula. For vegetables and herbs, you can plant dill, purple basil, carrots, spinach, kale, green beans, beets, celery, rosemary, peppermint, parsley, and oregano.

Tip Two – Make the Garden Stimulating

If you want the dog to come in the garden with you, you have to make it stimulating for them. You can set up clearly defined digging or play areas away from your plants. Another option would be to create different routes through the space. Ornamental grasses and plants like salix provide texture and entertainment as they sway and dance in the wind.

Tip Three – Get Hardy Plants

Your dog may have the time of their lives running through the garden, but they can easily damage young plants. They may dig or run through your plants, and this can damage any with delicate stems. Try to plant robust, large perennials in your garden. Astilbe, nepeta, and hardy geranium are all good picks. Avoid the Pelargonium species of geranium as it is toxic to dogs. Shrub roses and viburnum can form a sturdy backbone for your garden.

Tip Four – Avoid Known Toxic Plants

Although this one sounds simple, you may be surprised at how many plants are toxic to dogs. Aconite, chrysanthemum, daffodil, buttercup, delphinium, daphne, hydrangea, foxglove, oak, wisteria, tomato, and yew are all examples of potentially toxic plants. Don’t court danger and plant them, hoping your dog stays out. It doesn’t take much for them to get sick and you to have an emergency vet bill to worry about.

Tip Five – Elevate the Plants

Strategically placing or elevating your garden bed is a great way to restrict your dog’s access to it. You can build raised plant beds, or you can make them by planting your items in large pots or sturdy horse troughs. Plant shelves or hanging baskets are other good ideas. If all else fails, you can fence in your garden to ensure your dog doesn’t get in and damage something or get sick.

Tip Six – Do Your Research

There are thousands of different flowers and plants you could choose for your space. If you have perennials in place already, take inventory of them. Take your list and do your research to see if any of them are poisonous. You can do a quick Google search, or you can take your plant list to your local nursery or garden center and ask if they’re safe to have around dogs.

Contact Evergreen Landscaping

Do you have questions or concerns about your plants and want to know if they’re safe for your dog? If so, contact us. Our friendly and professional staff will help you pick out gorgeous plants that are safe for Fido to play around.

Front Yard Landscaping: How to Turn Your Yard Into a Garden

Although you may like the look of your lawn, you have to admit that it can easily be much more work than a typical garden. So, a lot of people are turning their lawns into gardens. Not only can they be easier to upkeep, but they can also provide your family with food that you can dry or can to have fresh vegetables or even fruit throughout the growing season. If you’re wondering how to turn your lawn into a garden, there are a few avenues you can take. We’ll outline them for you.

1. Sheet Mulching

One of the easiest ways to make the conversion from lawn to a garden is sheet mulching. Cut the grass as short as you possibly can to start. Get a thick layer of newspaper or cardboard and cover the newly cut grass. Make sure that your newspaper or cardboard overlaps, so you don’t accidentally let any sun through. You’ll cover this with at least four inches of compost or mulch. Cut holes through the newspaper or cardboard for your plants. You can also wait a season for your newspaper to decompose to add plants.

2. Raised Garden Boxes

If you want to keep patches or your lawn or paths, you can install raised garden beds. Spread a thick layer of cardboard or landscape cloth on the ground to help suppress the grass and build boxes on top. The boxes can be in any shape. Fill them with organic garden soil, and they’re ready for your plants. It’s a great technique if you have back problems and can’t bend to reach a traditional garden. You will need to amend and refresh the soil in the boxes each growing season.

3. Sod Tilling or Cutting

One of the oldest ways to make the switch from a lawn to a garden is sod tilling or cutting. You can cut strips of sod away with a sharp tool or till the ground to turn up the soil. Once the grass is gone, cover the exposed soil with a 6 to 10-inch layer of newspapers. Add another four to six inches of compost and three to four inches of mulch on top of the newspapers. This will enrich the soil to provide nutrients while preventing your grass from growing back. Plant whatever you want in the new space.

4. Solarization

This is the process of keeping light from reaching your lawn to kill it by covering it with a sheet of black plastic. It works best in areas that get a lot of sunlight with hot summer weather. Cut the grass as short as possible and cover the area you want to convert into garden beds with polyethylene plastic. Add garden stakes or rocks to hold it in place. The plastic will trap heat in the soil to kill weeds, grass, and some plant diseases. It has to stay on for four to eight weeks to kill the grass. Once it does, you can remove it and add mulch and compost before planting whatever you like in your new garden.

Contact Evergreen Landscaping

Do you have more questions on how to turn your lawn into a garden? Maybe you’d like professional help with this project. Either way, contact us at Evergreen Landscaping. We’re ready to help you grow a thriving garden in your yard this season.

How do Self-Watering Gardens Work

Over or underwatering can cause your garden to fall below its potential yield. You could end up with curling leaves, fewer vegetables or flowers, yellow spots, and a droopy appearance if you’re not careful. It can be tricky to know how much water your plants need at any one time, and this is where self-watering setups come into play. They essentially allow your plants to hydrate themselves, so you have less maintenance.

Consequences of Over or Under Watering

When a plant gets too much water, the water can collect and sit around the root system, and this causes oversaturation. When this happens, capillary action is impossible. This is why giving your plants too much water is the leading cause of plant death and root rot. A self-watering system separates the plants from the water, so it can’t drown the roots.

If your plant doesn’t get enough water on a daily basis, the water it manages to get usually sits on the top of the soil. This can cause the roots to dry out. As long as you make a point to refill your self-watering planter periodically, you won’t have to worry about the roots drying out.

How Self-Watering Beds or Planters Work

It’s common to water your plants from the top-down, even though plants actually absorb water from the bottom up. Self-watering setups usually come with a water reservoir that sits at the bottom of the planter or bed. The water gets drawn up from this reservoir as needed through a capillary action process.

The plant’s root systems will attract water from the reservoir and pull it upwards using cohesion, adhesion, and surface tension of the water. Once the water gets to the plant’s leaves, the plants can use the water in the photosynthesis process and for other essential functions.

Using Self-Watering Planters

There are two main types of self-watering systems that you can get. One comes with a removable water tank at the bottom of the setup, and the other setup has a tube that runs alongside it. There are also self-watering inserts that could turn traditional garden beds into self-watering ones. They all work in the same way, but the aesthetics will be different for each one.

The only thing that you need to do to keep them running at peak levels is refill the water chamber when it starts to get low. The number of times you refill it will depend on the sunlight levels, types of plants, and the time of year. However, you can plan to refill it every two to three weeks.

In between refilling the reservoir, you can keep watering the top of your plants with a light mist every few days. This will help raise the humidity levels around the plant’s leaves. If you’re growing an indoor garden, you’ll want to mist the leaves and wipe them down to get the dust off. If you don’t, the dust can stop the plant’s ability to photosynthesize. Other than this, the setup should handle all of your plant’s watering needs with minimal input from you.

Evergreen Landscaping Can Help with Self-Watering Setups

If you’re interested in getting a self-watering setup in place for your garden, contact us. We’re happy to walk you through your options and pick the one that is going to work best for you.

Understanding Sun Levels and the Seasonality of Shadows

The key to getting a lush and beautiful lawn or garden relies heavily on sun levels and how every plant has different needs. Some plants do wonderfully in bright and full sun while others burn, and some plants need shade and cooler areas to thrive. How the sun changes throughout the day and during the season also factors in, and we’re going to give you a quick breakdown of the most important points below.

Understanding Sun Levels

When you purchase plants or even pick out grass seed, it’ll have a preferred sun level listed on the package. You want to get as close to this sun level as possible when you plant them to ensure they get enough but not too much light and heat. The most basic sun levels include:

• Full Sun – Six hours at a minimum of direct sun every day
• Part Sun – Three to six hours of direct sun every day
• Part Shade – Three to six hours of sun every day, but they’ll need protection during the middle of the day from the most intense sun
• Full Shade – Less than three hours of direct sunlight a day

Unless the plant is full or partial sun, you want to put them in an area where shadows shield them from the direct mid-day sun. This is too hot for them to be in the direct light, and it’s very easy for them to burn or wilt. Once they do, it’s difficult to get them back to full health unless you immediately take steps to fix how much light they get and at what time of day they get it. Also, water in the early morning or evening hours to avoid magnifying the light and burning your plant’s leaves.

What is the Seasonality of Shadows?

When you think of the seasons, shadows come into play. Spring and summer are the seasons where the days get longer, and there are fewer shadows. Once fall and winter hit, you’ll get less direct sunlight and much longer shadows. So, an area that was perfect for your part sun plant may now be too shaded for them to continue to grow well. If this is the case, you may find yourself moving your plants to continue giving them the correct light amount.

The season with the shortest shadows starts during the Spring Equinox in March, and it goes until the end of August in the Midwest climates. Then, the days slowly start getting shorter and the shadows longer. This will change, depending on your location. However, almost every part of the United States will notice shorter days in the fall and winter months over the spring and summer months. You want to plan accordingly, especially if you have plants out all year-round.

Doing things like planting things in containers where you can easily move them from space to space or putting up temporary shade structures in the warmer months that you can take down in the cooler months can help your plants thrive.

Contact Evergreen Landscaping

Are you not sure which plants will work best with your sun levels? Maybe you have questions on how to optimize your garden or landscape level, so they all get the correct amount of light. Whatever the reason, you can contact us at Evergreen Landscaping. Our staff will answer your questions and help you find the perfect balance of sun and shade for your plants.