Gardening in Alaska : Review: The NEW Low-Maintenance Garden

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Review: The NEW Low-Maintenance Garden

Posted by talkdirt

Posted: November 22, 2009 - 5:20 pm

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The NEW Low-Maintenance Garden: How to Have a Beautiful, Productive Garden and the Time to Enjoy It, by Valerie Easton with photos by Jacqueline M. Koch.When Valerie Easton's husband of 30 years threw down the shovel and quit as her yard boy to have more time to do the things HE liked to do, Valerie realized just how weary she was of tending her quarter-acre yarden. Soon after her youngest graduated, Valerie and husband downsized to a smaller home and a MUCH smaller yard.

She called it a garden intervention.

The challenge was to create a space that was friendly and inviting with room to entertain, still grow flowers and edibles, yet was not an energy hog. Easton came up with a plan after much thought and professional consultation. Then she wrote a book about what she'd learned.

Fruit trees and lettuces grow in the galvanized metal raised beds. Strawberries cover the ground. Photo by Jacqueline M. Koch.The NEW Low-Maintenance Garden: How to Have a Beautiful, Productive Garden and the Time to Enjoy It by Valerie Easton with photos by Jacqueline M. Koch (Timber Press, paperback, $19.95) advocates minimum lawn, easy-care perennials with a long bloom period, and no plants that require fussing, spraying or staking. This kind of a garden is not just born. Easton stresses planning, discipline and relentless editing.

Architectural focal points, hardscape and the right piece of art are important. Raised beds and gardening in pots are part of the equation. Here's a mantra she advocates: "Design before plants, think geometry and invest in infrastructure."

A garden of various succulants. Big on texture, easy on watering and care. Photo by Jacqueline M. Koch.Gone are the days of lush cottage-style borders around large expanses of water thirsty lawns. Gone are the days of endless weeding, deadheading, dividing, staking, bug killing and lawn mowing. This is one of the new trends in gardening.

The NEW Low-Maintenance Garden starts with a chapter describing the low-maintenance garden manifesto and is followed by sections with names like, "Make it Work," "Nature's Rythms" and "Eat Your Garden." The last chapter, "Smart Choices," contains lists of recommended plants and resources though you can find Easton's picks in each section throughout the book. Not all plants are Alaska-hardy, though that's hardly the point at all.

Easton's own garden where her favorite color, orange, is a dominant color theme. Photo by Jacqueline M. Koch.Easton's book abounds with tips, good ideas and practicalities and it's a good read. Profiles of gardeners and their spaces make the lessons of the book real instead of preachy.

Lush color photos of gardens (private and mostly in the west) illustrating the main ideas anchor the book thoughout. (In fact, the photos were deeply inviting and renewed a strong personal plant lust for aeoniums and just about all other succulents.)

As we gardeners of a certain age look for ways to simplify our lives but still keep our fingers in the dirt, I can see Easton's book being referred to again and again.