General Maintenance Gardening.
Maintenance gardening is essentially looking after what you already have. At its core, this might mean feeding, weeding, pruning, mowing. This could be a one-off session or sessions to get an overgrown garden under control or could be a regular session (for example every week, every couple of weeks, every month, every couple of months) to maintain the space through the seasons.
Spending extended time in a garden allows the opportunity to observe, get to know and understand the space - what grows well where; what doesn’t; where there is space and potential for more plants... This could allow for the development of ideas of how to improve or enhance the space in a variety of ways, such as how to make a garden more wildlife friendly or how to incorporate the growth of plants that may be useful such as for food or creating structure in the garden.
There are numerous ways in which to maintain a garden. I tend to follow a variety of ecologically friendly principles when maintaining the gardens that I work in, with the aim to help not just the cultivated plants, but the soil and other living things to thrive.
Feeding.
Like us, plants need nutrients to survive. Whilst the majority of plants make their own energy by converting the sun’s light into sugars, all must feed on organic matter to obtain necessary nutrients for growth, flowering, fruiting and maintaining their general health. These nutrients, by and large, come from the soil. Generally, a healthy soil will mean healthier plants.
There are a number of ways to maintain soil health, but in the context of maintenance gardening this will generally mean feeding the soil. My method of feeding the soil does not involve digging in fertilisers, but takes the form of mulching the soil with some type of organic matter such as compost or woodchip, depending on the requirements of the plants growing there and the time of the year. Mulches are added to the surface of the soil and the life within the soil, such as worms, bacteria and fungi carry nutrients down below the surface to the realm of the plants’ roots.
Crucially, I do not use any artificial or chemical fertilisers as these are most often produced in an unsustainable way, mined from finite resources and produced in energy intensive ways. Such fertilisers are also very limited in the scope of nutrients that they bring to the soil and are often unnecessarily highly concentrated, meaning that much gets washed away and wasted. Essentially, they simply do not provide anywhere near the benefit to the soil and your garden as an organic mulch would.
Mulching can provide all necessary nutrients to a garden. It can take the form of compost (there are numerous types and sources), woodchip (either raw or composted), green manure (a cover crop specifically grown to accumulate nutrients which is then chopped and/or dug into the surface of the soil before flowering) or from other nutrient accumulating plants growing in our gardens. Whether we grow this fertility ourselves, make our own compost or buy it in from a garden centre, it is far better for our planet if we feed our gardens from organic and renewable* sources.
*It’s important to recognise that whilst organic, many composts that come from garden centres contain peat, although this practice is gradually being phased out. Peat is a water-retentive soil medium that in recent years has been used ubiquitously in the horticultural industry. Peat is also one of the biggest (if not the biggest) natural sink of carbon in the UK and by digging it up to use in our gardens we have released huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Peat takes many, many years to regenerate and in that sense cannot really be considered renewable.
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Weeding.
Weeding is an important part of maintaining a cultivated garden. Competition with weeds can mean that the plants that we want to grow don’t get sufficient access to light, water and nutrients and don’t thrive as we would hope.
‘Weeds’, however, can add a whole lot of value to a garden. Many plants that are traditionally considered weeds can provide food and shelter to insects and other life that is beneficial to the wider garden ecosystem. Some are particularly good at improving or maintaining soil structure and fertility either through fixing nitrogen or by growing deep roots which can help to accumulate other important minerals and break up compacted soil. They can also provide a great, low-effort ground cover which helps to prevent soil erosion and leaching of nutrients. If that wasn’t enough, many are also edible or can be used to make teas with numerous health benefits. One such ‘weed’ that ticks all of the above boxes is the humble dandelion!
My approach to weeding tends to be to ‘chop and drop’ - an approach that is widely used in forest gardens, but can most definitely be applied to more conventional gardening. The idea of ‘chop and drop’ is to chop weeds without digging and leave them as a mulch on the surface of the soil. Given a healthy soil, this cut plant matter will decompose and feed the soil (and therefore our plants). In addition, by avoiding digging and leaving the roots in the ground we are helping to maintain soil structure and sub-surface life, such as the networks of mycorrhizal fungi that are so beneficial to our plants. Roots of annual plants will decompose over time, releasing nutrients to other plants and perennial weeds can be left to grow back to be chopped and dropped again.
Of course, chop and drop also isn’t appropriate for all types of weeds (notably bindweed and grasses) and some people find that the end result can look more messy than neatly mulched, weed free soil. However, if this is not your cup of tea, I’m also very open to digging weeds up (especially the more vigorous ones such as bramble) or taking a more nuanced approach to weeds that works for you!*
*My only non-negotiable is that I absolutely don’t use any weed killer or any kind of pesticide and I really prefer not to work in spaces where these are being used.
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Pruning.
If you have shrubs, trees or hedges in your garden, chances are you will want to maintain them at a certain size, shape, to promote flowering, fruiting, disease resistance or otherwise. I am happy pruning most things as long as I am able to access them - please note that I won’t be able to work on trees taller than around 6 meters and this will vary from garden to garden.
It is good to be aware that there may not be one specific way to prune any one plant. I endeavour to check in with all clients about what they would like from the plants in their garden and if necessary will research what is considered best practice in regards to timing and approach for each species before working on the plant. I try my best to inform you of this so that you can make decisions about how you would like me to approach pruning in your garden.
When pruning, my tendency is towards using person-powered hand tools (ie secateurs, loppers, shears and saws). Personally, I feel these allow me to get up close and personal with the plants I am working with, enabling me to interact more with the way that they are growing whilst being more sensitive to any other life that may be residing within. Powered machinery is also noisy and can be disruptive to neighbours as well as wildlife. Whilst a hedge trimmer might get the job done quicker, hand tools such as shears are generally far easier to maintain and tend to have a lower environmental cost than either petrol, mains or battery powered tools.*
*I also don’t own any powered garden tools aside from an old lawn mower that hasn’t been used in years! If you have a hedge trimmer that you are happy for me to use, I am happy to use it provided that it has been well looked after and is safe to use.
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Mowing.
When it comes to lawns, I most definitely sit on the messier side of the fence. I have to be honest - if you are looking for an immaculate, weed free lawn then I am probably not the gardener for you!
Lawns don’t have to be short cropped grass with stripes mowed into them by any means. I can most definitely appreciate having a lawn as a space to relax, sunbathe and as a space for children to run around and play. I simply feel that lawns can be all of these things and more, whether that is being supportive of pollinators with low growing meadow flowers or a diverse and luscious meadow left largely to its own devices aside from being cut once a year. It is totally possible to have a mix - at home we nurture small patches of meadow left to grow long whilst hand-shearing paths and seating areas.
If you’d like help mowing, maintaining or establishing a life-sustaining lawn, please feel free to get in touch!*
*Please note that I don’t own a reliably working lawn-mower. I am happy to use those that you own as long as they are in good working order.
I will soon be able to offer scything of lawns and meadows, so if you are happy with a rougher cut and are looking for a less frequent and more sustainable way to manage your garden grassland then please do get in touch.
