Nam Nidhan's Fool Proof Gardening in NM

August 26, 2006

Nam Nidhan Kaur presented

FOOLPROOF GARDENING IN NEW MEXICO!

What lovely, full gardens Nam Nidhan Kaur has created, along with a most handsome and intriguing design for the front garden, two very large shade elms, lush green lawn, and beautifully shaped wall and statuary. Plus super plans for many more gardens and buildings to come! And she provided the most delightful British cucumber sandwiches as well! And she is open to giving advice to anyone who asks!

Here are some notes from her very well thought out presentation:

PLANNING A NEW GARDEN

Select a manageably sized space to start, one that you will regularly enjoy, perhaps by your main entrance
It is too discouraging to do the whole landscape all at once.
Keep in mind that once you get it in, your garden will require regular weeding and watering.
After a few years of adding gardens to your property, you will have a beautiful large landscape!
Once you plan your entire garden layout, put in drip irrigation. You can start with the main mechanism and irrigaton for you first garden, then add on lines later on.

PLAN YOUR IRRIGATION FIRST

Make your watering easy. She absolutely suggests drip irrigation.
The easier the watering, the more successful you will be.

PREPARING THE SOIL—Do all this BEFORE you buy your plants.

First water the soil thoroughly a few days ahead of your planned digging.
Loosen the soil with a digging fork or spading fork. This looks like a pitch fork but with heavier tines. Just put the fork in the ground, push the dirt up, but don’t turn it over. Do this all over your plot.
Then till the soil—make it fluffy with a powerful little Mantis tiller! They are light, small, powerful and even easy to use for someone who has back problems. And if you hold it in one place, it continues to dig deeper. New, they probably cost $299, on sale about $225. Guru Nam Kaur offered hers for use by Garden Club members last April. GuruNamKaurKhalsa@SikhDharma.org.
Put all your soil amendments on top of this loosened soil.
Then till everything together again to thoroughly mix it together.

AMENDMENTS FOR THE SOIL

Back to Earth composted cotton burrs. She puts 3’’ on top of the soil and mixes this to a total depth of 12”, making the mix be 1 part compost to 3 parts soil. (For roses, she used half and half.) Available at Hacienda.
Grow Power Plus fertilizer (about 5-2-1). Use the instructions on the bag for a new garden, about 15 lbs. for 100 sq. ft. Available at Newman’s, and sometimes on sale.
Yum Yum Mix is expensive, but you don’t use much. It doesn’t give quick results, but it builds soil organisms. From Santa Fe Greenhouses and Newman’s.
High-Yield Super Phosphate, about 2 lbs. per 100 sq. ft. for roots and blooms.
Iron—Ironite is not good (15% iron). Instead use high yield iron (40% iron) to help with yellowing leaves. A small bag goes a long way. Also you can use Fertiloom on a garden hose sprayer.
If she re-plants a section of a garden such as an annual bed, she re-does the amendments at that time.
She mulches with cottonseed burrs, which is a good soil conditioner as it works its way into the soil.

TIMING

You can prepare your gardens anytime, and especially in the fall and spring, or early or late in the day in hot weather when it is cooler. Nam Nidhan takes her vacation in April-May to get her garden started and flowers in before Solstice.
Our average last frost in May 15, and average first frost is Oct. 15.
Don’t make any major investments in putting out plants that you don’t want killed before May 15.
Fall is a great time to put in perennials because they will be better established and bigger by the spring. But try to get the gallon size pots so they can better survive the winter. And be sure to water them and your other perennials regularly—every couple of weeks during a dry winter.
Now—late August is a good time to plant.

CHOOSING YOUR FLOWERS:

Pick plants according to whether the label says shade or full sun. Sometimes, “full sun” plants can do OK in partial shade in NM.
Be aware of your “micro climates.” In Nam Nidhan’s front yard, she has two large, beautifully shady elm trees that give dappled light and protect some moisture retention. She can plant some things that usually require full sun such as snap dragons there, and colorful impatiens thrive here if she waters them everyday. Sometimes, planting under the protection of house eaves overhang can give the same effect. But the marigolds that she planted against her sun collecting stucco wall withered from the heat—although the ones in the next rows out thrived.

ANNUALS

These only last one growing season, but they will bloom the whole season, give great color, and be fabulous!
She plants these guys half the distance apart from what is recommended on the label. This gives a full, lush garden!
She prefers large six packs of plants to the small six packs because the larger plants seem to survive better.

PERENNIALS

These grow year after year, although some will live only a couple of years.
Some plants, such as snapdragons are “tender” perennials, which means they may or may not come back the following year. Snapdragons would come back both from the roots and from re-seeding.
They are the foundation of your garden, but they only have a 3-6 week blooming period.
Plant your perennials so that you have something blooming all during the growing season. As some quit blooming, others will begin.
Plan the colors of what is blooming at each time period to mix and coordinate with each other. Then fill in between with colorful annuals.
Plant them with plenty of room between them—follow the instructions on the label, because they will grow larger. If you plant them too close together, you will need to dig them up later and re-space them. So, for the time being, you can fill in the spaces between young perennials with annuals!

CONINUING CARE

She may fertilize them once a year with a mixture of iron, Grow Power and Yum Yum mix. She mixes all these together and applies them to the plants with a hand spreader.
Liquid fertilizers such as Miracle Grow and granular fertilizers are good, but you have to apply them every few weeks.
So, she mostly depends on her amended soil with yearly fertilizing as above.
Water continuously! Trees need regular deep soaking.

OTHER TIPS

She doesn’t use usually use seeds because you can’t keep them continually moist during germination in this very dry atmosphere, so she mostly uses bedding plants. Although next year, she will try planting marigold seeds.
She uses nolo bait for the grasshoppers a few times in the spring, then plants enough for “everybody.” She has not had a huge infestation this year.
Put bulbs in the ground in the fall for spring blooms—daffodils, grape hyacinths, crocus, tulips.

COMPOSTING

A few years before they plan to start a garden or a lawn, they spread several inches of saw dust or cow manure solidly over the earth. Then when it decays, they turn it into the soil, giving the soil a better texture with organic matter and more nutrition.
When you are going to use your area of composted material soon, be sure that your steer manure or other material is well composted first. Otherwise, the process of composting makes the material very hot and it will burn your plants. If you put your finger in the material, you can feel if it is hot. When composting, it is good to put extra nitrogen on the material because the composting process uses nitrogen. This will speed up the transformation process, and also the composting process will leech nitrogen out of the soil if the material is mixed into the soil.
You can get sawdust delivered free from the saw mill. And they picked up year old steer manure at a dairy.

GARDEN TOUR:

SHADE OR DAPPLED SHADE

Plumbago—perennial ground cover, spreads like mad, dark periwinkle blue flowers, green leaves that turn red in the fall.
Jupiter’s beard—perennial, hardy here, blooms in the spring and then again in late summer.
Impatiens—annual, bright colored flowers, needs good watering every day, good in garden and in container.
Coleus—bright leaved annuals
Pansies—in the fall, she plants these in her protected micro climate and they bloom all winter.
Snapdragons—perennials that are sun loving doing fine in dappled shade.

SUN AND SHADE

· Vinca minor—perennial ground cover with periwinkle blooms in the spring

· Sun hardy ice plant—succulent leaves with bright purple daisy-like flowers

· Coral canyon disaca

· Cosmos—from last year’s seed

· Echinaecia—purple cone flower

· Purple verbena—annual that is prolific

· Pentimon—Red rock.

· Blue mist spirea—Blue beard, long bloom time shrub

· Some type of honeysuckle—tall shrub with attractive bare grey limbs, with small leaves and orange berries on top

· Osage orange trees—large shiny leaves, lumpy large light green “fruit”

· Dalhia—annual

· Phlox—perennial, tall, sweet smelling purple flowers

· Rose of Sharon shrub

· Shasta daises—spreads well

· Florabunda roses—roses last about 2 years for her. These were a large bush with lots of roses, many on a stem. She finds these more hardy than tea roses.

· Climbing roses—“Improved Blaze” red, she cuts it back to a shrub when the forsythia blooms.