Almost time to plant daffodils and tulips bulbs for next spring, clean the beds before winter. And even if it was only a short time, responsible gardening is a great challenge.
If bio gardened this weekend?
In their guide, "I do the gardening weekend" (Living Earth editions) Sandrine Boucher and Alban Delacour deliver us "Zen and effective" techniques to achieve a beautiful garden, a few Sundays.
Meeting with Sandrine Boucher, always passionate by gardening "easy and organic."
What are the virtues of a few hours in the garden?They are many ! And particularly valuable for urban, sedentary, stressed, more generally, all those who work especially their heads, some their fingers (not to exceed the scope of a keyboard!).
The garden provides a healthy tiredness at the end of the day with a varied sports activity, soft and without constraints: it helps maintain muscle tone, maintain joint flexibility (see these acrobatic postures taken by gardeners go pluck a nettle in the middle of the massif without trampling bellflower)!, to unclog outdoor lungs to get back in tune with the seasons. It encourages observation (small animals, seed germination ...), stimulates thinking (the mind escapes and brain releases when working the earth), and offers space for creativity constantly renewed.
Gardening also helps to relearn contemplation, silence, modesty and patience ... some virtues endangered in our world ... hurry! It forms an effective barrier against technological slavery (go so tap on your touch screen hands full of earth).
Finally, gardening offers the pride of seeing her blossom flower beds and gourmet pleasure to consume fruits and ultra-fresh vegetables, organic and good: we have rediscovered the taste of zucchini is not only something full of water and the happiness of eating even picked tomatoes still warm from the sun. Thus the first step towards self-sufficiency.
What are the characteristics of a garden which can handle only the weekend?It is perfectly possible to dispense "the daily round the garden" is said sometimes unavoidable. Just as the garden is as independent as possible since it has to live his life "only" three quarters of the time ... This is, in the words of Gilles Clément, great landscape, "father" of the principle of the garden in motion ( who designed including garden Branly Museum, the Parc André Citroën, or the domain of Rayol between Lavandou and Saint-Tropez), to "do as much as possible with as little as possible against" delete everything ultimately useless even against-productive for the benefit of a few simple techniques. Not only creating a garden that is its harmony and balance, but in addition it seriously reduces the burden!
In short, the goal is to take advantage of knowing the forces of nature, inviting them to work for us (earthworms, insects, critters minuscles dead leaves that turn into humus, etc.)
If one were to keep only three principles?- Do not let the bare soil, mulch (straw, cardboard, leaves, grass clippings ...), which helps keep moisture and reduce watering, be traced back to the surface the earthworms that aerate the soil and prevent weed growth.
- Wait and see what happens before working: a first attack of aphids will soon be eradicated if you leave on ladybugs, hoverflies, etc. These beneficial insects will not come if you spray with all goes well and you deprive them of their pantry! Remove as much as possible and the treatments they do not make the difference between good and bad insects.
- Keep spaces fallow: brambles, dead wood, piles of stones or branches, wild meadows, wetlands, steep slopes, etc. Besides the fact that you do not have to deal, these places offer food and shelter to thousands of useful animals, which are the first allies of the gardener.
I also like this phrase: "It's when we start to abandon the garden becomes more beautiful," this is not a gardener from the Sunday but said Pierre-André Lablaude, chief architect in charge of historic monuments and the park of Versailles!
What advice would you give to beginner gardeners?- Measure your efforts, especially not to see too much too soon, you would discourage. Get hold of a small mass or a small square vegetable garden near the house, plant some aromatic and thanks to this first experience, gradually aggrandissez your playing field.
- Run away like the plague works and tips that suggest that gardening is an activity reserved to experts and retirees, that promise you the galleys, the ruin of leisure and war against nature: list of complex equipment and ruinous, long list of diseases and predators (with pictures of the devastation in support!) that will inevitably fall on your butt, yard chores lists supposed to be essential for any hope flower ... This is not true! So you can relax ...
- Observe your garden: where there is a lot of sun or shade on the contrary, dry or cool, they will define the choice of plants that you will install. Observe also how you move, the places where you like to go, sit down, daydream, what you see from your windows, they will determine the design and organization of your garden (vegetable garden, flower beds, paths, resting places ...).
- If you need to plant a hedge: Choose shrubs and small trees varied, preferably typical in your area that will reach maturity a reasonable height without needing to be trimmed. Especially not hedge cedar! (appearance "green concrete" zero biodiversity, dry shade where nothing grows at the base, and shears chore roundtrip waste collection twice a year ...)
- Some easy for beginners vegetables: tomatoes, courgettes, beans, salads, potatoes, onions, garlic.
- A little compost is enough: too much fertilizer promotes disease.And Choose plants adapted to your garden (see below).
- Getting to the Gate: even if you think you do not have a green thumb, you'll be quickly surprised by your first success.
Are there flowers are easier to maintain than others?
All those close to the wild type or "botanical" are the strongest and most useful (insects, birds, etc.). Prefer "perennial" flowers do not die at the end of the summer but to grow, multiply and embellished over the years. Choose plants adapted to your garden (soil, climate, exposure), which will never need to be watered after the first year where the plant is installed. Find and read the culture tips!
Some flowering plants that delight me continually All bluebells, violets, hellebores (or Christmas roses), the nepétas (much more durable and flowering as lavender and attract mass butterflies), all perennial geraniums (nothing to do with the "geraniums" balcony which are pelargonium), the sages officinal, the thyme, irises, all euphorbias and heuchères for their beautiful colors and foliage that persists in winter, daisies, yarrow, the grasses, so pretty in the wind.
And finally, the flowers of "Grandma's Garden", which have largely proven themselves: the stachys (rabbit ears or bear ear), the coquelourdes, hollyhocks, currencies Pope, worries gardens which self-seed all over themselves. For shrubs: dogwood, elderberries, single-flowered roses and "rugosa" roses (without disease and that make beautiful fruit), small apple flower.
Turn away plants that will poison your life permanently: invasive plants (bamboo, pampas grass, sumac), shrubs or too large trees (fir) or it will cut continuously, the chilly plants (that will have to protect in the winter), pine (which attract armyworms) or boxwood (borer decimated by now).
You give recycling tips for the garden, should be resourceful when you have little time to garden?No, just be pretending! Ie choose to avoid spending time, money and energy to go buy materials in garden (soil, label, tutors, fertilizers, etc.), then spend time, money and energy to evacuate the "waste". The best known example is compost, great soil amendment, made simply with kitchen peelings, cut or torn herbs, etc. Cardboard, grass clippings, old crates, cut tree branches, stones, spun sticky ... there are a thousand possibilities with what was on hand for free!
You talk in your book network, why is it important to share his passion with other gardeners?Because we do not own rocket science ... Gardeners are generous beings who are willing to share their stuff to give you a bean crop too much, a packet of seeds, a cutting. Your neighbors also know what grows best in their garden is also to say what has the best chance to prosper in yours.
