Three Things You Need to Know Before You Begin Planting Your
Landscape
You don’t need a degree in horticulture,
to understand conditions in your garden. You just need to know three
easy, basic things before you begin placing plants into your landscape.
They involve your soil type, your hardiness zone, and the amount of sunlight
each area receives.
Know your Soil Type
This
is much easier than it sounds. You don’t have to buy a chemistry
set. Grab a shovel and dig up a tiny little chunk of your yard.
Look at the soil. It will generally fall into one of three basic
categories:
- Sandy: It’s grainy--looks like a child mixed in some
contents of his beach bucket.
- Loam: It has the consistency of rich, moist chocolate cake
mix. Ideal. But don’t eat it.
- Clay: It’s dense and tempts you to fashion a piece of
pottery.
Although loam soil is ideal, many plants--but not 100 percent of them--will also
thrive in sandy or clay soils. There are some plants that are very
picky about their soil type. If you live in an area with clay soils,
don’t purchase a plant whose tag says, “prefers sandy soils.” The
plant will not thrive.
If you go to a garden store to buy plants and the 60-year-old master gardener
with a Ph.D. in horticulture starts asking you whether your soil is alkaline
or acidic, politely explain that you have no desire to test your soil--you
just want to buy hardy, carefree plants that naturally thrive in your
area.
What is Your Hardiness Zone?
My what? Your
hardiness zone. In other words, what area of the U.S. do you live
in? The country is divided into different hardiness zones. As
you may have guessed, certain plants thrive better in warmer, or more “hardy” southern
climates. Many weather factors in your local geographic region
affect your hardiness zone: average annual temperature, average
minimum temperature, elevation, rainfall, prevailing winds, the
jet stream, the last frost date in the spring, and the first frost date
in the fall. You can view a U.S. hardiness zone map here: http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/ushzmap.html
You
can click on your state, and a color-coded map key corresponds to the
average annual minimum temperature. Figure out what your zone is. And
why is this important? Because there are certain plants that will
thrive--and will not--in your zone. In other words, this can save
you a lot of money from purchasing plants that would just end up dying! Not
to mention the time and effort to plant them.
When
you go to the garden store to purchase plants, they will have tags that
say what zones they thrive in. If your zone is not listed on the
tag, don’t buy the plant. But if you’ve noticed that
the plant is thriving in your neighbors’ yards and you really
like it, then talk to the garden store owner to get his or her opinion
about whether it will thrive.
Shade, Sun or a Combination Thereof
The
next thing you need to know is which parts of your yard have full shade,
full sun, or a combination of sun and shade. When you’re
home all day on a sunny day, periodically inspect all the areas of your
yard throughout the day. Certain shady spots may migrate across
the yard as the sun moves across the sky. In late April is a good
time to do this, after the spring equinox in March. That’s
because the sun is getting closer to its peak in the sky, which occurs
at the summer solstice on June 21; this may affect certain areas in your
yard. Plus, it’s close enough to planting time, which is
early to mid-May--very generally speaking.
Some
spots may be in the sun all day; this is called full sun. Some
spots may be in the shade all day; this is called full shade. Some
spots may be in the sun for part of the day, then in the shade for part
of the day; or, some spots may be very lightly shaded yet dappled with
sunlight. In either of those cases, the spot is called part-sun,
part-shade.
This
is important because again, the plant tag will specify whether the plant
requires full sun, thrives in shade, or does well in part-sun, part-shade
areas. Whatever you do, don’t buy a plant that requires full
sun, then plop it in the shade. It will die. There are a
few shade-loving plants that may withstand a little sun, but if there’s
too much sun, they will fry.
This
is as complicated as it gets! That’s all you need to know. You
don’t have to be an avid gardener to know the basics and to choose
plants that will thrive in your area. These three things will help
you purchase the correct plants that will naturally thrive in your landscape. This
can save you a lot of money, time and effort!
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