Inside this edition of Natural Garden News
- Time and song
- If you want a Grounded garden…
- Fitting in or forcing out
- When did the cottage become work?
- In ecological gardening, density is the point
- Haliburton native plants explained
- New book – The Unfinished Cottage Landscape
- The Grounded native plants ideas generator!
- My Haliburton Native Plant Database
- Planting the shoreline
- Downhill work
- Lawn begone!
- Today’s recommended reading
- Today’s VIP (Very Important Plant)
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
Time and song
I’ve just started reading a book about the sabbath.
The author’s main argument is that we should honour time instead of place.
So instead of churches, temples – even woodland glades – we should make space for time.
Hence the sabbath – the day of rest.
I say in my book, The Unfinished Cottage Landscape, that time is a design material.
If we take into account the seasons and years to come, we have an easier landscaping job. Your planting doesn’t need to be instant, HGTV-style, if we’re OK working to nature’s timetable.
Nature will design for you, if you work with it.
But more than that: spending time in your landscape is where the fun is, whether it’s weeding or watching butterflies. That’s more “alive” than having a garden that’s “done”.
I know this to be true. When I was tending a client’s landscape this week, I found myself singing.
Simon
If you want a Grounded garden…
I’m currently booking garden and shoreline installs (and management services) for late summer and fall 2026, as well as spring 2027.
We start by having a quick call to see if it makes sense for me to come look at your site in the spring.
To see some of my recent work, please see this page.
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Fitting in our forcing out?
Invasive plants are just doing what invasive plants do. But is that what we want? Read more.
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When did the cottage become work?
When we start a landscaping project, it pays to think of maintenance from day one. Read more.
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In ecological gardening, density is the point
If you plant like nature plants, you make your life easier. Read more.
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Haliburton native plants explained
An in-depth look at the benefits of native plants, how we decide what’s native to Haliburton County, and a list of plants considered native. Read more.
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Now Available:
The Unfinished Cottage Landscape
I’ve written a short book about my way of landscaping.
The Unfinished Cottage Landscape is about what happens when you stop fighting the land and start noticing what it’s already doing.
It’s for anyone who has ever sighed getting out of the car on a Friday evening, looking at what still needs to be done. And for anyone who suspects there might be a different way.
Click the button below to read more and order the book. Price is $15 with free shipping.
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