The Macaroni Method

by Bee Mohn

Once upon a time there was a little modular home and suburban yard fraught with problems. It looked like every one else-on-the-street's almost-barren plot. It had hard bad soil. It was next to a county highway with the whir of car noise all day and night. There were no tall trees. It had lots of macadam in the road and driveways that held hot temperatures, and in the summer all the plants baked.

When someone looked at the plants in the yard, they almost disappeared ¬ sunk, right into the ground. But that was at every house, and the lady in this particular house wanted something nice to look at. When she entertains in summer she wants people to venture off the little patio and go look at something pretty in the yard. She wants them to spread out and have fun with her flowers and plants. She also wants the plants to be sturdy and need only minimal attention. The Lady of the House works all day, so needs to see the garden after dark. And she doesn't want to pay a lot for it.

What can be done?

Get Gina Samarotto! ¬ a whirl of a gardening whiz who operates a complete landscape design/install company, Samarotto Designs in Poughkeepsie, NY. She handpicks plants for every job. Everything is custom. But that's not all ¬ this Master Gardener is also a special occasion floral designer, judge, lecturer, instructor and sometimes student, and radio talk show host. She has her dynamic green finger on the pulse of the garden world.

"My A-type personality kicked in. I was never a tomboy. I was always a girlie-girl. You just learn to deal," she says as she scoops mighty mounds of soil with her bare hands and just-done nails.

This garden groupie grew up in New York City and moved to her very first house in 1994. Up till then, she was never a gardener. “All of a sudden I'm in a house on an acre, so I joined a garden club and started taking courses." Her hobby turned to lust for all things lovely in the garden.

Samarotto Solutions:
To save the Lady of the House money, Samarotto planted on top of the existing marble chips in the front yard beds and on the decomposed pine bark in the rest of gardens. That way, she didn't have to haul it out or dig into the rocky soil ¬ big savings in labor.

She brought in five yards of topsoil and seven of finely shredded organic mulch. She amended the soil with compost and peat and spread it around to create berms everywhere. Soon the shape of the beds came together, the front bed reaching out to grab the lamppost, then curving around the house to join the side beds. Everything flowed.

“Bringing the bed out opens the front of the house. The garden wraps around and gives the sense that it's larger than it really is. There's no static point,"ť says Samarotto.

The Macaroni Method:
Mound up a bunch of soil and make a well about eight inches deep (“Like you're making pasta dough."). Tease the roots out of the root ball and place the plant in the well. Bring the topsoil up and over so the plant is encompassed in good rich soil. Dump a wheelbarrow load of mulch near the plant and scoop and pat it into place all over the mounded soil. “The mulch will help the top soil stay up around the root ball. It's wonderful for berming. It stays put."

Although the berm is above the plants' original soil line, Samarotto says that the shape of the berm and erosion will eventually smooth it out to a soft flowing form. And no weeds will grow here for a while with the added pre-emergent herbicide. “By the time the roots get through the top six inches of amended topsoil, the roots will be strong and will grow into the earth."

Front Yard:
Out went existing foundation plantings of barberry, Euonymous Manhattan and small spruce, and in came four types of hydrangea - LaceCap that blooms in May through late June, then variegated ones that bloom from June through July, and Nikko Blue and Pee Gee that bloom from late July into August, and a few plants of Russian sage. She chose Cornus kousa to embellish the front garden and placed it front and off-center to draw attention to the recessed front door.

Samarotto put a spotlight on the dogwood and a few other places so the owner could enjoy the garden. An electrician will install outdoors outlets.

Side Yard:
The crew dug out and lined a small 60-gallon pond with waterfall that runs on a re-circulation pump and planted its shore with co-bloomers Siberian iris and Salvia, and monarda that blooms later. This unexpected feature will attract guests, offering something different to enjoy, and the sound of the waterfall distracts from traffic noise.

Next to the patio, along the house, exists a garden full of shrubs removed from the front beds. At its edge, Samarotto planted two Russian olive trees to soften the corner and provide some privacy from the highway. Planted closely, they'll grow together to form a soft hedge. “It's the new deer-resistant tree for the garden with killer thorns." The trees are columnar, compact, and will grow to 20 feet.

She'll add Munstead lavender (good in Zone 5) in a few spots, and a trellis a few feet in front of the meters with raspberry-colored Zephyrine drouhin, a fragrant, thornless climbing rose. “It's a wonderful application as a screen where anyone passes."

Back Yard:
The crew planted five Green Giant Arborvitae, which handle winter's highway salt and grow 12 feet wide. “I was assured I could expect three feet of vertical growth out of them the first year."

Finally, the homeowner gets instructions that the tree needs 5 minutes of hose laying on the berm every day for the first two weeks. The shrubs get half-hour every other day for the first two weeks. “The important thing is to work with somebody as an ongoing project," Samarotto advises.

“It's an interesting project given the size and scope. It's a substantial garden for a modest home without looking shabby or affected. With small properties, you can really do more because you're doing less of it."

Samarotto's Tips:
1. Find someone who will share the vision of what you want it to look like.
2. When working small scale, go high end in your plant choices because you're doing small doses.
3. If you don't do anything else, buy one piece of big horticulture that's in scale with the house and go from there.
4. Use no edging except for a ditch between lawn and garden. Run the mower wheel in the ditch and eliminate weed whacking forever.

www.samarottodesigns.com/pages/906934/index.htm

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