There is nothing more beautiful than a mature landscape. As plantings grow and fill out over the years, the landscape becomes lush and verdant. Gone are the empty spaces between small shrubs; and formerly tiny, twiggy trees cast cool shade all around them for you to enjoy.
As plants reach maturity they will look better and better until they peak. Then? All living things have a natural lifespan that will eventually draw to a close. As beautiful as your garden is this summer, parts of it will slowly but surely begin to fade. However, with expert care, maintenance, and periodic updates your landscape and gardens will continue to age gracefully.
Exploiting Opportunity in a Mature Landscape
Unless you live in a newly built home, chances are your landscape has a history that goes back through several previous owners. Now that it is in your hands, you can exercise some control over what happens next.
This is an opportunity to get together with a garden management professional to assess what is working well and what might benefit from a “refresh”. Since you aren’t starting from scratch, you are in a perfect position to introduce enhancements and selective corrections to bring your landscape up to the next level. Once you get used to the idea that a garden is never “done” and that perfection is not an endpoint, you’ll discover that moving things around, making replacements, and trying new things is the fun of it!
Correcting Age-Related Issues in Mature Landscapes
1 Declining Soil Health
Plants are living things, and like all of us, they need feeding. In nature, a healthy soil maintains its nutrient-richness thanks to the undisturbed decomposition of plant and animal life in the environment. That does not happen in a curated home landscape, where fallen branches and leaves are removed to keep things tidy. As plants grow and reach maturity, they will eventually deplete the soil, leading to stress, poor health, and early death.
Solution: Careful Use of Organic Fertilizers and Soil Amendments
Your landscape professional will ensure your mature landscape and lawn gets the right type and quantity of soil enrichments at the appropriate time in the growing season. The best approach is to use a balanced combination of organic material (composted material and mulch) and some manufactured fertilizers that are 100% organic. Most lawns benefit from fertilization in the fall, while annuals, perennials, and potted plants will require more frequent applications throughout the growing season.
2 Changes to the Surrounding Environment
A mature landscape (even when perfectly planned, installed, and maintained) can be subject to the unexpected influence of environmental factors that are impossible to control. If a neighbor installs a swimming pool, for example, the ground water may flow through your yard differently, causing some areas to be chronically dry or constantly wet where they were fine before. Removal of a structure such as a fence could result in increased wind exposure that causes an area to dry out or experience more force from the elements. Conversely, if breezes are blocked by a newly installed structure, an area may become hotter.
Solution: Go With The Flow
As the environment inevitably changes, your landscaper may suggest moving plantings to more suitable locations in your garden or replacing them with species that will flourish in the new conditions. A newly wet area of lawn may be the perfect place for a weeping willow tree, and a suddenly sunny bed could play host to a cutting garden. This is part of the fun—and art—of garden management.
3 Plants Reach the End of Their Natural Life
We tend not to think about it, but plants do have a lifespan. Small, flowering trees and shrubs have an average lifespan of just 25 or 30 years. Some ornamental trees may continue to live beyond their prime, but may no longer look their best. Their flowering patterns may change, or they could lose their symmetrical look as they drop large limbs. Bulbs will flower for one to ten years, and then no longer. Even your grass will die, and as mowing prevents it from going to seed, it will not replace itself. So, other grasses and weeds will move into the bare spots.
Solution: Reseed and Renew Your Mature Landscape
Your garden professional should aerate and overseed your lawn each fall to mimic the natural perennial lifecycle and prevent thin patches from forming.
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4 Too Much Water or Not Enough
Most homeowners assume that when a garden starts to look a little sad, it just needs a good drink, but that is usually not the case. Mature landscapes need less irrigation. This is particularly true with turf. Overwatering can lead to fungal disease during hot humid conditions. Elsewhere in the landscape, overwatering can cause roots to rot and plants to decline.
Solution: A Consistently Managed Irrigation Schedule
Most plants need frequent, deep watering when first installed and throughout the first season, but they require less water as they establish themselves in the landscape. Your landscape professional will recommend the appropriate watering schedule for your mature landscape to prevent over-watering.
5 Incorrect Plant Spacing in the Original Installation
Some issues that crop up in a mature garden start way back when the landscape was first installed. A plant’s location in a landscape has a big impact on its health and longevity. Large shrubs and trees need plenty of space above and below ground to develop healthy root and branch structures. A plant without sufficient root space will struggle to absorb water and nutrients, and crowded plants will compete aboveground for sunlight. This stress makes them more susceptible to insect infestation and disease.
Landscape designers always plan for the eventual size of the mature plants, but homeowners are often anxious for the full, lush look of a mature landscape, and so they may insist on additional plantings to fill in the empty spaces. As everything grows shoulder-to-shoulder, the problems associated with crowding will begin.
Solution: Create Some Elbow Room
Your landscaper can work with you to identify areas that would benefit from thinning out. The selective removal of a bush or tree can help the remaining specimens thrive. Repotting plants that are root-bound in containers into larger planters can keep them healthy and beautiful for much longer. When the time comes for replacement planting, work with your landscape professional to ensure everything has the space it needs for the long run.
Ageless Beauty Means Going With the Flow
Your landscape is a dynamic living system and in a continual cycle of change. Our work as landscapers is moderating that change over time to meet aesthetic expectations. But the forces of change are relentless and we can’t hold it back. So we make adjustments each season. Enhancements will need to be installed from time to time to deal with these changes. Anticipating change and “going with the flow” is central to the art of gardening and garden management.
“The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.” — Chinese proverb
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