The Hard Task of the Edit

As winter settles in and the garden slips into dormancy, its true structure comes into focus. Without the distraction of blooms, we can finally see the bones, and begin the hard, necessary task of editing. In this week’s blog we reflect on what it really means to steward a landscape over time. Gardens are never “finished.”  Winter is the perfect moment to pause, observe, and decide!

The Hard Task of the Edit
 
As we stare out at the fading light of our landscapes, eyes flitting over the dancing grasses and fluffy buttons of aster seedheads, we can take in the garden's final act as it moves through winter. Winter is a wonderful resting period. It is a time when you can see the bones of the garden, no longer distracted by the lush color. Stepping in time with the rhythms of the season, the cold months are an excellent time to review the garden and to edit a mature landscape.
 
Just as you wouldn’t want to read an unedited book, so should all creative endeavors be reviewed. A recipe can be improved, a word choice altered, or a stronger brushstroke applied in a painting. Gardens are a unique creative endeavor because we are not the only participants in their design. The plants grow where they will, by seed or by rhizome, moving around the garden bed. The animals decide if they like something too much or not at all - either by completely devouring it, removing it from the planting scheme, or leaving it alone so it becomes the last one standing. Even the weather has an opinion, with strong winds knocking over some plants or hot days burning others. A garden is never “finished”. If one wishes to faithfully follow a design in perpetuity, the gardener must constantly edit. Hedging shrubs to keep them in scale, dividing perennials to maintain size and vigor, ruthlessly removing weeds and errant seedlings to keep the original legibility of the design in focus. If a garden owner wishes to be more laissez-faire with the garden, to let it wander where it will, the competitive nature of some plants will swamp others, and changing weather patterns will kill off some selections while encouraging others. Choices will be made, either intentionally or unintentionally, and it’s the responsibility of the garden designer to decide which path the garden will follow.
 
Even in “low-maintenance” planting schemes, long-living plant material will require thought and care. Do we cut back old growth in the late winter? Leave it standing for wildlife? Will the seeds spread around? The grasses die out in the middle as the clumping steadily grows out? The mature growth of one plant swallows another, killing it in the process. These are all common questions the garden maintenance staff must contemplate in the off-season - spotting where plants are devoured, where they are flopping onto pathways, or where they are seeding too aggressively and need to be thinned.
 
We have maintained our trial gardens for years, and they have undergone several iterations. At one point, our hillside was full of all the Eupatorium varieties we offered, and another part of the garden was large block plantings of our warm-season grasses. But new offerings, changing customer demands, and matching care practices to maintenance staff availability have all affected the gardens. Even areas that are “natural”, like our managed wetlands, have dramatically shifted. Originally planted with a large range of wetland species in the early 2000’s, the wetland has matured into large stands of Acorus, Carex, and opportunistic cattails that flew in on the breeze. The shallow pond has filled with soil washout. Now, the team contemplates what the future of this wetland pool will be - will it be dredged and replanted to boost species diversity, or will it continue as it is now? All this to say - we have firsthand experience with dealing with the question of what to leave, what stays, and what is the intention of the site.

The intention of the site
 
All decisions should stem from this question. What are the client's goals for this location? Have they changed? As obvious as this may seem, editing a garden to reflect evolving goals is different from realigning it with the original plan. Does the space still meet the client's needs? Always, maintenance and care needs should come back to this question. In meditation practices, this is called re-centering. In sports, it’s the why that keeps you focused during grueling training sessions. Some may say, “Well, we wish to restore the landscape to be useful to wildlife and the ecosystem.” In that case, the ecosystem is your client. Others may have clients who needed the garden to be one way when they had children and no longer need the trampoline or the wide expanse of lawn to play in now that the children have grown up. Always return to the landscape's goal and intention before you begin editing the site.
 
Deciding on what goes or what stays
 
Say you’ve asked all the hard questions about the intentions of the site. Now, we need to gather more data before we make an action plan. Look at what plant materials are hampering or helping our ability to meet these goals. Has a plant outgrown its space? Has it left its original planting area and popped up somewhere entirely different? Was the plant selection larger or smaller than anticipated, and throwing off the scale? Are the plants impeding accessibility for walkways or sight lines? After several seasons, have the plants realistically met the challenges posed by the site conditions? Do they require support such as irrigation or staking? Is it within the client’s desire to give extra support to the plant, or does the plant need to be replaced?

Common challenges to evaluate during a garden edit and potential solutions

• Plants have aggressively spread
  • Decide whether the plant still meets the design needs of the original plan and, realistically, whether managing an aggressively growing or seeding plant is worthwhile to the client. If not, remove the plant and replace it. If yes, for aggressive rhizomes, take a spade and cut roots to the size of the perennial clumps that work for the spot. Remove rhizomes outside of the clump outline - best performed in early spring with moist soils and newly emerging greens. For self-seeders, trim back seedheads before they mature to eliminate future self-seeding. To help with wildlife, leave these trimmed seedheads near the compost area so birds and small creatures can pick the seeds in the winter.
• Dead centers of mature plants
  • For perennials, plants can be lifted and divided in spring or fall. For warm-season grasses, they need at least 6 weeks of warm soil before winter if dividing in fall. It’s best to divide warm-season grasses in spring, once new grass blades emerge, to prevent winter rot. Either gently tease crowns apart or, for more robust clumps of mature plants, use an old, serrated blade to cut the clump or a spade to cut it down the center.
• Plants have self-seeded towards the garden bed edges
  • Dig up plants and redistribute them through the beds in accordance with the design. Remove extraneous self-seeders to maintain garden design legibility. Too many seedlings can overwhelm the garden design - it is difficult to compost plants, but roguing out the extras is the difference between a beautiful garden and an overgrown one.
• Plants have flopped onto pathways midseason
  • Decide whether staking the plants is an option or if moving them away from the pathway is more preferable. It is preferable to move plants in spring or fall. If plants can receive an early summer cutback to reduce height and lessen the chance of flopping later in the season, add the cutback to the maintenance schedule.
• Plants are having a higher incidence of disease pressure
  • Three different tracts: either accept the presence of disease later in the season as a consequence of having this plant or remove this variety and replace it with a more disease-resistant variety or remove this plant altogether and replace it with an entirely different species. Generally, we don’t recommend fungicide treatments unless the plant is of sentimental value. The cost of the treatment, the man-hours, and the environmental costs are more than most are willing to bear.
• Original plants have died or been grown over
  • Usually, we give a plant 3 tries to be replanted at most. If it does not compete well or dies out repeatedly after replanting, it is time to consider replacing it with another plant.

• Plants are larger or smaller than anticipated
  • Are the site conditions more or less fertile than originally anticipated, which would explain the differences in expected mature size? Fertile sites will encourage plants to grow larger and floppier than what’s specified in the plant tag, while lean site conditions can stunt growth. As this is the reality of the site, is the plant’s growth pleasing? Is further support needed (irrigation, staking, compost), or should the plant be replaced to match existing site conditions?
• Plants regularly require irrigation during the summer to handle drought
  • Does this increased care match maintenance staff availability and resources? Are the plants that require irrigation essential to the design, or can they be replaced with less water-intensive materials? Is drip irrigation or other methods feasible with the client’s wishes?
• Plants are rotting due to heavy soil or hard rains
  • Is this a blip of a seasonal occurrence? If we can try again next year, cut back rotting materials, take insurance cuttings or division, and replant. If this becomes a regular occurrence, plants may need to be reevaluated and replaced.
• Plants need different light conditions
  • As trees grow taller or new buildings are constructed or torn down, light conditions may change. If the plant is stretching towards the light, can it be transplanted to adapt to changing light patterns, or should the plant be reevaluated? Is the plant being fried by too much light? Yet again, transplanting, increasing supplemental irrigation as the canopy matures, or reconsidering the plant selection may be in order.
• Plants are devoured by local wildlife
  • Whether it's a vole, rabbit, deer, or insect, some plants are excellent food sources for wildlife. Do you wish to prevent damage by implementing a routine spray program (i.e., deer spray or neem oil) or building a physical barrier (deer fencing, chicken wire enclosures around roots)? If neither of those solutions meets time or financial constraints, do less delicious new plant materials need to be selected?
• Plants have fully matured, and now there are too many in the bed
  • When first installing a landscape, there is great pressure to jump-start the appearance of maturity by planting densely. Sometimes, plants solve this issue by smothering their competition, resulting in nature’s preference for its plant density. Other times, plants struggle with too close spacing, resulting in spindly growth or high disease prevalence due to a lack of airflow. If this is the case, select the strongest specimens and remove the rest. Extra plants can be kept as insurance stock plants or be used to bulk up displays elsewhere in the garden if needed.
• The groupings of plantings have meandered and no longer look like the original drawing
  • This is quite common, especially with self-seeding plant materials or running perennials. To stay true to a garden design, plan on annual edits of trimming rhizomes to stay in a space or roguing out self-seeders. Even with our best efforts, the design may get hazy. In this case, plan to reevaluate the design every 4-5 years, with appropriate budget allocation for the maintenance of lifting, dividing, minimizing, and replanting the site to refresh and stay true to the design concept.

Plan then → Execute
 
After we ponder relevant questions, prepare an action plan and dust off those boots. We’re about to get to work. Some people make checklists, others make mind maps ala Fergus Garrett from Great Dixter. As the days get longer, the soil warms, and the plants awaken, it's a great time to get out there and implement those changes. It’s not an easy task to rejuvenate a garden. It can feel daunting to take on something, not as a blank slate but as a beautiful completed composition that requires discernment to make minute adjustments. The choice of what stays, what goes, and what requires tweaking is never simple. However, it’s a task worth doing, and as with most things in life, it gets more intuitive with practice. A garden is a living piece of art - it will never be still. It will always require the gardener. As the saying goes,
 
“The best fertilizer is the shadow of the gardener.”
 
Consistent attention, observation, and timely care from the gardener are more effective for a garden's success than any product. As we enjoy the winter rest period, the gardener plots and plans for the coming year.

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