Inside this edition of Natural Garden News
- Feeling better
- If you want a Grounded garden…
- Designing natural gardens with a more formal look
- Transforming your landscape bit by bit
- Up close at Lucas House
- New here? Start with these articles
- Today’s recommended reading
- It’s Joe Pye season!
- Today’s VIP (Very Important Plant)
- A shaded shoreline
- It made my day when…
I hope you enjoy the newsletter! If you have any questions or feedback, please reply to this email.
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Simon Payn
Grounded
Email: hello@groundedgardens.ca
Web: groundedgardens.ca
Feeling better
In the 20 years I’ve been in Haliburton County, I don’t remember a stretch as dry as this.
Normally we’d have a few storms to give us a soaking. Not this time*. Instead, it’s dry and there’s wildfire smoke in the air. It feels wrong.
Turf grass is a European cool-season species, which naturally goes dormant in this kind of weather. That’s why lawns are turning brown.
Lucas House, meanwhile, is doing fine, more or less. It’s mostly green (because the grasses are warm-season grasses that thrive in this weather) and it’s utterly alive with pollinators.
Young plants are suffering, however. If you’ve planted this spring, please, please check on your babies and give them a deep watering. You cannot water too much in this weather. The soil should be moist when you stick a finger deep inside it – a shallow watering will just evaporate in a sunny spot. These young plants don’t yet have the roots they need to find water.
I can’t help but get sad when I see this unusually dry weather coupled with the haze of wildfire smoke.
But it also spurs me on. When we put a native plant in the ground, we’re doing something to fix the biodiversity and climate crisis.
Yes, it’s a drop in the ocean. But it’s a drop that’s needed.
And it makes me feel better.
Simon
*Yeah, I know there was a quick dash of rain in some parts of the county yesterday afternoon.
If you want a Grounded garden…
I’m currently booking garden and shoreline installs for fall 2025 and 2026.
My pipeline is filling up, but I still have some space for fall installations and for spring 2026.
We start by having a quick call to see if it makes sense for me to come look at your site.
To see some of my recent work, please see this page.
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Designing natural gardens with a more formal look
How to bridge the gap between formal, traditional landscaping and naturalistic designs using native plants. Read more.
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Transforming your landscape bit by bit
How traditional landscape maintenance services could have an ecological twist. Read more.
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