By Larry Hodgson
If you’re lucky enough to have a section of forest on part of your lot, don’t complain. It’s the lowest maintenance landscape of all!
The beauty of a natural forest for the laidback gardener is that it requires essentially no intervention on your part. Finally, a landscape you don’t have to mow or weed or hoe, one that you never even have to leave your hammock to enjoy! You don’t have to do anything at all … or so very little.
If a tree starts to decline, let it die! If another threatens to fall, let it topple! A dead tree or a trunk lying on the ground in a forest is part of a healthy ecosystem. Where do you think forest birds and animals nest if not in dead and hollow trees? And a trunk lying on the ground will quickly be invaded by a host of animals and plants, stimulated by its slow decomposition.
Of course, if a tree threatens to fall on your car, you will have to take action (maybe you could move the car?), but otherwise, when it comes to a natural forest, you have the perfect landscape for the laidback gardener: strikingly beautiful and yet totally self-sustaining!
Article originally published on June 9, 2015.