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I want to look out the windows of my home and the garden views, each and every one, are, "Oh wow." More, I want to enjoy myself in my garden. You know, "Come for lunch this Friday, we'll have lunch in the garden." In a few days it will be Saturday. Zero thoughts contemplating garden chores, instead, "Should be a good Saturday to sit in the Adirondack overlooking lake, woodland, chickens, and begin reading my new book that arrived last month."
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About garden chores. The few I do have are not 'chores', instead they are the gift of stewardship in partnership with Nature. Best metaphor-come-to-life, to me, for washing-of-the-servant's-feet. 'Gift' is too small in scope, an honor.
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Back to low maintenance gardening. A garden to be enjoyed, below.
Pic, above, here.
Colorful annuals have their place. Somehow they've become the go-to-must-have landscape design ingredient. Before epiphany, stewardship-not-chores, I knew if a residential landscape design 'needed' annuals, the design was a failure. Commercial landscape design is another beast entirely. Yet, thought thru, even they don't need annuals swapped 2x yearly.
Pic, above, here.
If you want annuals in your garden, above/below, fabulous method to make it easier. Before eco/sustainable, having worked professional propagation for years, I knew how toxic the annual flower industry is to Earth. Packaged soil, wooden pallets shrink wrapped with goods, plastic plug trays, plastic hoop houses, heating/cooling, fungicides, insecticides, pre-emergents, trucking/transportation, mulching. Nope, nothing eco/sustainable there. Instead, self-seeding annuals are my choice, if needed at all.
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Pic, above, here.
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Annuals could go into the garden, below. But they don't 'have' to.
Pic, above, here.
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And the conceit of low maintenance, above, in this garden flows around the entire property, below.
Pic, above, here.
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Great use of colorful annuals, below. You are in charge of adding the color, as needed, not the garden with a swath of dead annuals due to a change in season.
Pic, above, here.
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I'm giving a garden talk in April, they requested a certain title, Color in the Garden for Sun/Shade. Sure I'll do some annuals, don't want to alienate any newbies. Remember, stewardship. In addition, I will include plenty of color used historically, green. My hope is to widen horizons.
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Garden & Be Well, XOT