Leave Your Garden Alone - It's Summer!

There was an interesting article in the Daily Telegraph recently, by Germaine Greer, someone not normally noted for her green fingers, in which she suggests that in this lovely summer weather, instead of gardening, we go off walking or doing something else and leave the garden to itself.

She suggested that if plants are left to their own devices it soon becomes apparent which plants actually suit living in your garden which will save lots of cosseting and hard work.  


I had never thought about this concept until we moved to this garden and found the soil so difficult, so it was good to find my idea backed up by Ms Greer - and if you think about it, it makes absolute sense.


For instance: our house is built on a quarry.  So under the soil in many places it's just bedrock, also we are pretty near the sea, have lots of sunshine and less rain than many other places and on top of that it's quite windy.  


Therefore, we have a particular soil and habitat which some plants absolutely love and many which I've grown successfully in the past in other locations don't like living here.  


Because of this, anything which thrives I either divide and spread all round the garden or if that's impossible, go and buy more.


Several summers recently have been extraordinarily dry and we've just had a (comparatively) cold winter.  This has killed off several plants and so I don't see much point in replacing them.  


Another factor here is the inordinate number of slugs and snails.  In the past year, on average, I've killed at least 1,000 a year - and still they come.  They love living in the ivy, which encroaches on all sides and because the ivy comes from other gardens it's impossible to keep it out.  (See my new article on how to deal with snails, else I shall ramble on for ever on what to do about them!)


It would be interesting to hear what others think of Ms Greer's ideas and what people have discovered ...


27 August 2011
Well, have given in and started pruning/weeding, taking stock of what's died over the dry summer, what's been crowded out by either 'thugs' or plants that just love their situation.  These poor souls who've been crowded out have now been moved to new situations, there to have more of a chance to survive.  The garden's taking on a whole new look and once this tranche of pruning/weeding/relocating has taken place the garden will be left to itself again - giving me time to tackle the allotment.  But that's a different story as leaving things to 'take their chances' isn't such a sound idea.