Wisdom Gleaned from Nature

In When Old Age Rhymes With Laidbackness, but Above All With Intelligence, I brought up the serious subject of loss of physical capacity with age, which very often forces gardening enthusiasts to make choices. Sometimes these choices are heartbreaking, as we have to curb our enthusiasm for all the landscaping or gardening projects that are still bubbling away in our heads… but passion never gets old!

My Observations

Garden Maintenance: The Number One Enemy Of The Ever-aging Gardener introduced you to the major environmental principles that enable plants to be self-sufficient in nature. I became aware of these a little before the year 2000, after many years of practicing horticulture and gardening as I had learned it in school and in the horticultural community at the time. Through observation, I realized that many of my practices did not take into account the environmental logic I had noticed in nature.

Let me give you an example: there was a time (readers of my generation will remember) when it was fashionable to create a landscape by covering the surface with a geotextile on which white or other colored stone was placed. At the same time, a more eco-friendly trend recommended that horticultural enthusiasts use compost to improve soil structure and fertility. So, as a landscaper and owner of a garden center, how could I recommend compost when I had just blocked access to a customer’s landscaping soil with geotextile and crushed stone? Frankly, in terms of environmental logic, this landscaping method was ridiculous.

I realized that these were horticultural techniques that, by moving away from or not taking into account environmental logic, brought me a host of tasks, because I had to manage problems one by one instead of allowing my plants, as in nature, tothrive on their own!

So this is what I recognized from observing nature, and since then gardening has become easier for me.

Mulch or ground cover: O. Humus layer: A. Soil layer: B – subsoil, C – substratum, R – parent material (bedrock). Photo: Tomáš Kebert & umimeto.org.

Nature’s Shepherd’s Pie

The principle of “Nature’s Shepherd’s Pie” is the fundamental structure of the plant kingdom. Soil or rock supports plants and provides water and minerals, nutrient-rich humus supports soil life, and mulch or ground cover protect and nourishes the ecosystem. This structure harmonizes the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms. All life can benefit in this way. This structure, always built up in the same order, will be manufactured differently depending on the type of plant. The natural shepherd’s pie differs depending on whether you’re in a coniferous, deciduous or herbaceous environment. These are three different ecosystems, and the players in these ecosystems differ, but the structure, the three layers of the shepherd’s pie are always present and in the same order.

Garments of the Earth

The second major principle I recognized is the one that manages the top layer of the nature’s shepherd’s pie. In fact, this layer is fundamental and initiates all the rest of the ecosystem. I call it “Garments of the Earth”. It is the protective layer of soil and life. What’s more, this layer is the food source for the entire ecosystem that inhabits the soil. If this layer is non-existent or inadequate, you’ll have a host of recurring, backbreaking maintenance jobs. This great principle made me realize that if I don’t protect the soil with plants of my choice, nature will inevitably do it with plants of its choice.

Weeding, hoeing, frequent watering, soil temperature stress, erosion by rain and wind, etc., are all tasks that arise from not understanding this great principle and especially from ignoring it.

People are often left with weeding chores.This is because, when creating a flowerbed or garden, perennial weeds that have already established themselves have not been completely eliminated from the outset and prevented from returning. These perennial weeds then become weeds because they are unwanted. What could be more exhausting than constantly having to remove these weeds through our good plants in the garden or landscaping!

Perennial or Annual Weeds

It’s important to distinguish between perennial weed already in the ground and germinating weeds. These two forms cannot be managed in the same way. The easiest way of eliminating the established form is by occultation. Four months in the growing season are needed to kill off quackgrass, dandelion, plantain, ground ivy, clover, vetch or many other plant occupying the coveted space. This method makes the most of weeds, allowing the ecosystem and insects to transform them into compost, decompacting the soil. To avoid contamination by the perennials surrounding your landscaped area, you must first install a vertical underground barrier. This will prevent rhizomatous plants from penetrating and gradually contaminating the garden or landscaping.

Four months into the growing season, when you remove the blackout fabric, you have a surface free of perennials and a rich, aerated soil thanks to the work of the ecosystem. All that’s left to do is plant or sow and, above all, cover the soil with a suitable mulch, otherwise Mother Nature’s intolerance of bare soil will soon cause seeds to germinate and cover the ground with weeds. If you don’t follow this recipe, don’t expect to reduce your weeding efforts!

The Oil Lamp

The third major principle relates to the water needs of soil and plants. I call it “The oil lamp”. This is the phenomenon of capillarity, which allows groundwater to rise to the surface to irrigate plant roots. If you’re not familiar with this natural principle, here are some examples to help you understand that it’s present and essential to plant life. When you water a flowering pot by putting the water in the saucer, what happens to the water? It soaks into the soil and moistens the root ball from bottom to top.

Staying with a flower pot or potted plant in the house, do you notice that whitish or yellowish salts appear on the surface over time? How do they accumulate on the surface of the potting soil? It’s due to the capillary action of the soil. Water constantly seeks to rise to the surface, and since fertilizers are dissolved in the soil, the water that reaches the surface by capillary action evaporates, leaving fertilizer residues that crystallize and accumulate on the surface.

One of the most obvious ways in which plants are watered by capillary action of groundwater is to see how much more they need to be watered when grown in raised tubs and pots. Being totally deprived of a natural source means you have to make up 100% of your plant’s water requirements by watering, whereas a plant growing in the ground will generally find that its water needs are more than 80% met by groundwater rising by capillary action.

Capillarity

Capillarity is the ability of a liquid to move upwards through a porous material, from one particle to the next, thanks to the surface tension it possesses. Surface tension is what makes water molecules (H2O) attract and hold together. This is why water forms drops, and if there’s a moist, microporous material like soil, water can soak upwards and across. Bear in mind that the finer the soil particles, the better the capillary action and hence the upwelling of groundwater. Clay soil has a higher capillarity than sandy soil. This is why a clay soil will take longer to warm up in spring than a sandy soil, because there is more water rising up from the subsoil and, of course, it’s cold because it’s water from melting snow.

Two Rules to Observe

Underground water is free and requires no effort to enjoy. All you have to do is respect these two rules:

1. Always cover the soil permanently with dead (mulch) or living (ground cover) plants to prevent water from evaporating and rising to the surface;
2. Encourage the supply of water to your plants by watering under the soil, so as not to stress your plants and also to avoid wasting water that forces you to water more often, and therefore have to put more effort into managing the problems this brings.

When heatwaves arrive, and also when our plants are in full growth and producing flowers and fruit, water consumption eventually exceeds the amount of water that can come from the subsoil by capillary action. This is when the soil dries out. Capillary action is less effective, as soil particles need to be moist for water molecules to connect with each other. Unfortunately, the habit of surface watering doesn’t induce this capillarity, because surface watering never provides enough water to reach the critical depth of the soil where capillarity is slowed down. The roots of your plants will no longer be able to water themselves effectively, and surface watering won’t do the trick.

Useful and Ecological Watering

In a context where you want to simplify your life, it’s not by watering on the surface that you’ll win. Let’s just say that I understood this quite quickly when I recognized the law of the “Oil Lamp”. So, ever since, I’ve been watering underground and I’ve set up a system that makes my life easier. After years of trying out different ways, different patents, to bring water underground simply and efficiently, with an aesthetic but simple installation, I came up with the Logissol-O system.
No more hours spent watering! No more wasted drinking water or rainwater! No more growing problems due to too much surface moisture, and welcome to optimal yields in the vegetable garden and an abundance of flowers in the landscaping! What’s more, it doesn’t get much greener than this system!

Watering should not replace the natural capillary action of plants! With the exception of raised containers and pots, watering should only play the role of reinitiating capillary action, otherwise you’ll increase your workload! Watering should be like the match that lights the wood-burning stove. The match starts the fire that heats the house. Your watering must therefore serve to the wick that will allow groundwater to reach the roots of your plants once again. That’s what a system like Logissol-O does. It takes very little water, but it puts it in the right place!

Gardening Without Effort

Less effort for watering, less water consumption, more free time between waterings, higher yields, fewer diseases and slugs, less weeding because the soil will stay dry on the surface, what more could you ask for in effortless gardening! Isn’t that what Laidback gardening is all about?

In an upcoming text, I’ll introduce you to other natural principles that make gardening easier when understood and, above all, applied.

Happy gardening, my dear young-at-heart enthusiasts!