Other Great Lessons From the Heart of Nature

In Wisdom Gleaned from Nature, I shared with you some of my observations and understanding of the environment in which the plant world evolves. I used everyday language to make the phenomena that surround us, the constant interactions of living beings and the functioning of the ecosystem in our gardens and landscapes, more accessible.

Understanding the Needs of Plants

There’s a difference between learning a growing technique and understanding the needs of plants. Observing nature has helped me understand the limits of different growing techniques. In my 50 years of playing in the earth, I’ve noticed that many of the techniques I’ve been taught run counter to environmental logic. Every time I strayed from the eight major environmental principles (which I’ll share with you below), I had to manage a growing condition that, normally, should have been managed naturally by the surrounding ecosystem.

Why are plants in nature self-sufficient in food and water? Why aren’t ours? It’s because we don’t foster the right ecosystem for the type of plants we want to grow. Instead of growing the plants we want, we should be creating, encouraging and building the right ecosystem for the plants we want. By taking care of the ecosystem, it will do the job it’s been programmed to do for millennia: promote the presence of plants in a vast system where everything flows naturally.

Key Environmental Principles

In an earlier article, I gave you three of the eight major environmental principles that have helped me garden effortlessly for the past twenty years. Nature’s shepherd’s pie, the garments of the earth and the oil lamp are the most important, at least, they are the basis for understanding the importance and relevance of the other 5 below:

• Survival of the fittest;
• Light, the source of plant life;
• A leopard can’t change its spots;
• Live and let live;
• Patience is a virtue.

Survival of the Fittest

In nature, life is always given to the strongest animals. The strongest male will dominate the herd and mate with the females, passing on good genes to the offspring. If a female is weak, she’ll produce offspring that are more vulnerable to disease, and it’s these that will fall prey to predators. This is what we call natural selection. This process ensures the continuity of the species.

In the plant kingdom, it’s the same thing. A sunny plant that is placed in the shade will be frail and susceptible to disease, and will produce small flowers (if it produces any at all), so it won’t be able to multiply. It will perish and, automatically, because it has not been able to create seeds, will not be able to ensure its survival in that location. Natural selection will do its work, and only plants adapted to the area will proliferate.

Circular Consumption Process

As nothing is lost in nature, stressed plants won’t disappear without being used for something in the cycle of life – a cycle I call the CCP, the circular consumption process. These stressed plants will therefore be consumed by other living beings, such as insects or fungi we deem harmful (caterpillars, aphids, molds). These vectors are present, in the environmental logic, to recycle unsuitable plants, composting them so as to ensure the establishment of plants adapted to this environment. In this way, a plant that is not adapted to an environment will give up its place while nourishing other life. In nature, if we understand this principle, we can see that everything serves a purpose, and that waste is never produced.

Causes of Stress

All plants under any kind of stress will tend to disappear in favor of better-adapted plants. By any kind of stress I mean:

• Inadequate lighting;
• Inadequate soil humidity;
• Pruning done at the wrong time;
• Injuries;
• Unbalanced fertilization (too much or too little);
• Inadequate ambient temperature;
• Too high or too low relative humidity;
• Genetically modified plants;
• Hyper-hybridized plants;
• Grafted plants;
• Transplanted plants.

There’s no shortage of causes of stress. But it’s easy to take them into account. For some stresses that are more difficult to identify or control, don’t worry, the law of natural selection will take care of sorting out what’s well adapted and what isn’t… but sometimes we have to accept losing a few plants to learn that they didn’t go where we planted them.

There’s no shortage of causes of stress. But it’s easy to take them into account. For some stresses that are more difficult to identify or control, don’t worry, the law of natural selection will take care of sorting out what’s well adapted and what isn’t… but sometimes we have to accept losing a few plants to learn that they weren’t going where we planted themIf we don’t respect this, we’ll have to put certain plants under “artificial respiration”, as we might say, to keep them alive. Fighting against this truth means continually consuming products and spending an inordinate amount of time on your crops.

The Sun, a Source of Life for Plants

It’s no secret that plants need light to live and grow, in varying degrees of light intensity. In practice, this light intensity is referred to as “sunny, semi-shady or shady”. We never use the term “total darkness”! And with good reason, because without light, no plant can live.

This fundamental principle helps us understand how to effectively get rid of unwanted plants, commonly known as weeds. Since light is essential for plant growth, depriving certain plants of light will cause them to die.

The Method of Darkness or Occultation

We’ll call this method tarping or occultation. This method, which is completely natural, consists of covering a surface occupied by undesirable vegetation with canvas or other opaque materials. Note that this method will eliminate not only annual weeds, but also established perennials, as it is the latter that are the most difficult to control and which we often don’t take the time to fight properly. Weed seeds, for their part, will be controlled by appropriate mulches or compact ground cover plants, respecting the “ Garments of the Earth ” principle.

A Concrete Example

For example, if you want to remove the weed-filled lawn from an area on your property to make a clean surface for growing a vegetable garden, here’s how to do it with this method:

In practical terms, this means depriving unwanted plants of light for a minimum of four months during the growing season. In the interests of both ecology and cost-efficiency, we recommend using recycled canvas or opaque materials through which the plants can’t penetrate during this period. These can be old swimming-pool liners, old carpets, polyethylene, newspaper, cardboard, wood panels or used sheet metal, etc. The idea is to be able to reuse materials that would otherwise end up in landfill sites and create waste, to give them a second life. You’ll see that it’s not hard to find, given the resources that are thrown away in our beautiful society of over-consumption.

Total Darkness

Once this has been done, it’s very important to check that the perennial weeds already planted are immersed in total darkness. If the materials available are not opaque enough, you can cover them with mulch to complete the opacity. At the same time, the aesthetic appearance of the plot of land you’re preparing will be improved, both for yourself and for your neighbors, who will probably not understand what you’re doing or the purpose of your installation.

For the light-deprivation method of eliminating established perennial weeds to be effective, you need to ensure that total darkness is maintained for a minimum of four months during the growing season.

Editor’s note: While 4 months of occultation is generally enough to eliminate common lawn plants, the time required can vary according to the species present. Some particularly resistant plants, such as Japanese knotweed (Reynoutria japonica), may require prolonged cloaking of up to three years to be completely eradicated. To guarantee the effectiveness of the method, it is essential to use opaque, resistant materials, to check regularly for light penetration and to intervene rapidly in the event of regrowth. Periodic monitoring and adjustments are often necessary to prevent any re-growth.

A Simple, Effective Method

With this method, you’re guaranteed to eliminate unwanted plants completely, right down to the smallest underground rhizome, no matter how deep. This method makes it possible to control weeds planted through a low stone wall without having to dismantle the wall. No effort, no shovelling, no digging! What more could you ask for! It’s the ideal method for recovering soil under trees, since we don’t break any roots.

This method is so simple that some people will hesitate to put it into practice, believing that it’s too simple to be effective. But there are a few important details to bear in mind if you want permanent results, because if you do it right, you’ll never need to do it again. I therefore invite you to take note of all the details, because, as with a cake recipe, if you don’t follow the recipe, the cake won’t be a success.

But That’s Not All!

In addition to all the advantages listed above, there are many more! The fact that you don’t have to remove the turf means that you keep the organic matter on your soil, and the undesirable plants that die under the opaque fabric become compost for your next crops. What’s more, like “nature’s shepherd’s pie”, this compost will be in the right place, on the soil. And that’s not all! Dying plants are the perfect food for earthworms and other soil insects. All these little creatures wander under the opaque fabric and dig tunnels, aerating the soil in the process. When it’s time to remove the covers after the 4-month period of darkness, the soil will be loose and ready for planting, without ploughing or rototilling. It’s a real little miracle!

Working In Harmony With Nature

In reality, it’s simply that we use the CCP (Circular Consumption Process) which values everything, saving us a lot of effort and expense. Nature is generous when we take the time to understand her and allow her to do what it needs to do!

I’ll leave you to digest these ideas and see how you might benefit from them in your gardening projects in the most Laidback way possible! I can’t wait to reveal the rest and the end of this exploration into the world of environmental logic!

Happy gardening!