Tip 1: read first, then buy
Right Plant, Right Place: The motto of the famous English gardener Beth Chatto is more important today than ever.
You can save yourself a lot of unnecessary maintenance and frustration by choosing plants that suit the conditions in your garden - and the size!
A rhododendron that needs cool, moist air and an acidic soil will never feel comfortable on limestone soil in the heat of Central Franconia.
Pay attention to the growth behavior - and don't let yourself be tempted by cheap offers.
Otherwise it can happen that after the bamboo has grown with long runners it will set out to conquer the garden (and the terrace substrate and the cellar and the neighboring garden).
Before you start planting, find out whether the plants will fit your garden and your garden.
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Tip 2: Don't be afraid of progress
Technical progress does not stop at gardening equipment and tools either.
Traditional spades with a forged blade are fine, but have you ever tried a stainless steel spade with a fiberglass handle?
There are now a lot of ergonomically shaped and sometimes quite futuristic tools that make gardening easier.
Or do you just try a size smaller?
In view of the cement-hard marl marl in our garden, I don't want to be without my easy-going “lady's spade” any more.
Tip 3: stay upright
Raised beds are really a must-have for anyone who wants to grow vegetables and herbs today.
They are practical and convenient in several ways.
The plants grow almost at eye level (more precisely: at hip height, but at least).
In addition, the soil in the raised bed warms up faster in spring (the sun also shines from the side and not just from above), so that you can sow, plant and harvest earlier and longer.
Tip 4: never water again
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Almost.
Because no plant can do without water in the long run, and since the garden is a human-made living space and not free nature, you can help out from time to time.
Instead of making life difficult with thirsty, therefore maintenance-intensive seasonal plantings like pansies or hydrangeas, it is more practical to rely on plants that give the cold shoulder to heat and drought - thanks to deep roots that extend several meters into the ground .
Roses are the big winners of climate change.
New, modern varieties are not only resistant to diseases such as star soot and powdery mildew, they also bloom from May more or less without a break until the first frost.
What more do you want?
Tip 5: Stock up instead of pouring marathon
Balcony flowers are real high-performance athletes because they should be in full bloom all season.
To do this, they need a regular supply of water and nutrients.
In view of summer temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius, this means, especially with small containers: watering (several times) a day.
There is also an easier way.
Large balcony boxes - preferably in light colors, since the earth does not heat up as much then - with a water reservoir reduce the watering effort enormously.
And you can also go away for the weekend without being greeted by a dry steppe landscape when you return.
Tip 6: vacuum cleaners instead of brooms
Tile and slab coverings on the balcony and terrace can be cleaned in no time with a vacuum cleaner.
This saves the hassle of sweeping, with dust and dirt being shifted more from one side to the other.
Tip 7: biotope instead of weeds
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"This is a biotope for insects" - with this you can chill out every picky neighbor who looks critically at the somewhat untidy corners over the garden fence.
Instead of making life difficult by constantly plucking weeds, you can also give nature a place in garden corners, where it does not disturb, and allow something laisser-faire to prevail.
You don't wipe the basement with a damp cloth every week.
Butterflies, wild bees and hoverflies are happy.
Tip 8: Bye-bye, English Lawn
Who would come up with the idea of laying a white high-pile carpet in the entrance area of the apartment?
Probably nobody, because the daily cleaning is more than a nuisance.
The garden counterpart to the white carpet is a perfectly trimmed English lawn.
No other garden element needs more care and attention and suffers so much from heat and drought.
Anyone who does not want to do without a walkable and playable area is better off with an easy-care flower lawn - Günsel, yarrow, micro clover and Co.
It's just as green, resilient and can hardly be impressed by climate change.
By the way: Anyone who thinks that a "gravel garden" in the form of a gravel area is easy to maintain is mistaken.
Apart from the fact that heat builds up on the surfaces and makes staying in the apartment behind it unbearable, leaves, dust, rubbish and seeds collect between the stones - which are guaranteed to germinate after a rain shower.
And are difficult to remove between sharp gravel edges.
The better alternative: mixed planting of shrubs that is appropriate to the location.
It is cut back once in February and otherwise needs practically no maintenance.
And looks a lot better.
Tip 9: frighten snails
The tenacity of gardeners is actually admirable.
For decades they have been waging an increasingly hopeless fight against the slimy garden dwellers due to the Spanish slug's urge to spread.
Instead of throwing the shotgun in frustration, it is better to pull your vegetables in the raised bed - they are easier to keep in check with copper tape and slug pellets than in the bed.
And to rely on plants in the flowerbed that are spared even starved mollusks: columbines, peonies, spherical thistles and many more are not even on the list of plants that are endangered by snails.
Then you can do it just like the grand master of the perennial grower, Karl Foerster, who when asked what he does against snails, replied: "Scold".
Tip 10: healthy pragmatism
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Gardening can be humbling at times, but failure is no reason to make life difficult for yourself.
When something arrives or is frozen in winter, there is room for something new.
If you cut back your shrubs at the wrong time, the worst case scenario is that they will not bloom for a year.
The following year it is all the more exuberant.
Annual summer flowers, which simply overgrow the annoying root weeds, are more environmentally friendly than the chemical club and are more back-friendly than constant digging, help against couch grass.
Relaxed gardening also means adapting to the existing conditions and planting other plants if what you want constantly falls victim to snails.
By the way, the best planting time for perennials, roses and trees begins at the end of August. See you in the garden center or in the nursery?
Folko Kullmann is president of the Society of Perennial Friends, author of gardening books and editor-in-chief of GartenPraxis, a specialist magazine for plants and gardens.
Planting and watering, plucking and weeding, tying up, fertilizing - and waiting: working in the garden makes you happy. This year even more people experience that than usual.
Here WELT editor-in-chief Ulf Poschardt explains why gardening makes us euphoric:
You can read here where the most beautiful gardens can be found:
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This text is from WELT AM SONNTAG. We will be happy to deliver them to your home on a regular basis.
Source: WELT AM SONNTAG
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This article was first published in May 2020.