Just add rainwater: Two who use natural approach
Ten years ago, Virginia Elsenhans and her husband inherited a "wild tangle" when they bought their home near Marshfield's Rexhame Beach. But rather than cut everything down and start over -- the approach many homeowners take -- the couple started excavating to see what was there.
They discovered native plants such as oaks and highbush blueberry which thrive in local conditions and require no watering. To those they added a perennial border of low-maintenance plants, such as bleeding heart, that also require little watering, and spread on their own.
The result is an award-winning landscape -- the winner of last year's Greenscapes program garden contest -- that stands as a model for what green-minded gardeners can do.
The Elsenhanses did "all the right things," according to Julie Uhler of Greenscapes. They created a lush, vital landscape on sandy soil by relying on native plants, home-generated compost, and by allowing some of their property to remain in a semi-wild state.
The couple also cut their water bills by placing barrels below the roof gutters to collect water for plants. They used a soaker hose last summer, requiring less water than a sprinkler, to help new plants get established.
And they cut a smaller lawn area with a mulch mower that leaves the grass cuttings on the lawn to replenish the soil. In the fall, they use the mower to pulverize fallen leaves for winter mulch, instead of raking and removing them. That gives perennials extra protection over the winter. In the spring they rake off leaves (adding them to the compost pile) to allow new growth to emerge.
Linda Kakulski of Hanover also relies on varied native plantings, drought-resistant grass, rock gardens, and extensive patches of ground covers to minimize water use. The combination helps keep her property attractive and healthy. To add color, she plants annuals in containers.
Like Elsenhans, Kakulski, a self-described "believer in recycling," also uses recycled water from barrels. She spreads manure from a local horse stable, and recycles wooden pallets from husband Larry Quinzani's bakery business for compost bins.
She grows Black Beauty tall fescue grass on her lawn, and uses milky spore powder, an organic material that kills lawn grubs, instead of a chemical pesticide.
She advocates allowing clover to grow in the lawn, because it adds nitrogen to the soil.
Kakulski said she's been steadily reducing the size of her lawn by expanding rock gardens and ground cover each year. And like Elsenhans and other green landscapers, she and her husband left part of their yard to flourish in a "woodsy" state.
The "way of nature," as Elsenhans puts it, turned out also to be the way to a beautiful yard.
ROBERT KNOX 