{"id":2826,"date":"2017-05-22T00:17:49","date_gmt":"2017-05-22T00:17:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ongardening.com\/?p=2826"},"modified":"2019-03-07T05:38:26","modified_gmt":"2019-03-07T05:38:26","slug":"resilient-plant-communities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ongardening.com\/?p=2826","title":{"rendered":"Resilient Plant Communities"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a recent column, I referred to a book by Thomas Rainer and Claudia West: Planting in a Post-Wild World: Designing Plant Communities for Resilient Landscapes<\/a>. <\/em>Rainer and West present landscape design ideas that are worth applying in home gardens, and indeed in all kinds of gardens. Their ideas are intended to result in gardens that are \u201cmore robust, more diverse, and more visually harmonious, with less maintenance.\u201d<\/p>\n

To review that recent column, visit ongardening.com, click on \u201cEssays 2017\u201d and then \u201cDesigning Naturalistic Landscapes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ideas presented in this book ring true to nature and good sense, and require planning and knowledge of specific plants to put into practice.<\/p>\n

This column cannot replace reading the authors\u2019 thoughtful review of familiar landscaping practices\u00a0and groundbreaking recommendations, but w can consider their essential messages.<\/p>\n

Rainer and West indicate that good planting design results from harmonious relationships of plants to place, plants to people, and plants to other plants.<\/p>\n

The first of these relationships recalls the \u201cright plant in the right place\u201d axiom, which often refers to locating the plant where it will have the soil, exposure, and moisture that it needs to thrive. To these aspects of place\u00a0the authors recommend locating plants in the grassland, woodland\/shrubland, or forest environment that is their natural home. A garden, as a built environment, should look and function like a \u201cdistilled version\u201d of one of those archetypical landscapes.<\/p>\n

Consideration of the relationship of plants to people addresses the visual appeal of the landscape. The authors state that plant communities need not be limited to a naturalistic style and can exist within any other style. There are too many garden styles to list, but the basic idea is that the gardener can develop any preferred style and still maintain the plant\u2019s relationships to place and other plants.<\/p>\n

Rainer and West feature the relationship of plants to other plants\u00a0and write about the \u201clevels of sociability\u201d of plants. In nature, some plants grow as individuals, or in groups of various sizes, or in large areas. For example, plants that tend to grow separately from other plants would be candidates for containers, and some plants propagate across vast numbers in large fields (see photographs of this year\u2019s superbloom of wildflowers).<\/p>\n

The authors recommend combining plants in interlocking layers, as they occur in natural plant communities. This approach allows plants to support each other, form a diverse and lush garden (as distinct from swaths of a single variety), and provide natural mulch that retains moisture and blocks entry of weeds and invasive plants. They categorize plants in four layers:<\/p>\n