The Garden Art of Doing Nothing

Sometimes the path of least resistance is the more difficult one to take. Circumstances change, not always for the better, and the easy way out doesn’t show its face until it’s too late to change course. This is true particularly when making a garden, and I’ve made six of them over so many years I don’t want to count. Each one was lovely in its way, but never quite what my wildest dreams had hoped for; I know I’m not alone here.

Meadow sage, Salvia x ‘Blue by You’ is aptly named, freely seeding itself around my garden adding clusters of deep lavender blue flowers just where they’re needed to add eye-catching pops of brightness among more subtly tinted native plants.

This garden season in my current Front Range garden has been a stinker; if you’ve read my past couple of newsletters, you’ll understand that Super El Niño has been as cruel to gardens in my corner of the southwest as it’s been to just about everywhere else. Add to that supporting my husband through a series of life-threatening illnesses and my own dramaramas with a wonky knee and faceplant tumble on toe-catching pavers…well. That it could’ve been worse is small comfort.

All that, however, did focus my mind sharply on how reduce my labor burden, with particular attention to how to deal with an area of the garden where nothing but weeds will grow – a major failing since the space was intended to be a peaceful green carpet offering visual relief from the surrounding beds of native trees, shrubs, etc. Buffalo grass, clover, you name it, I tried it. Turns out the topsoil had been scraped away by a “gardener” I hired early on in the creative process (lesson #1: pay attention to what the guy with the skid loader is actually doing).

Gradually, a bit of blue grama ‘Blonde Ambition’ seeded in along with Salvia x ‘Blue by You’, two indefatigable, drought and heat-tolerant perennials, from their homes in the borders. And, naturally, all sorts of actual weeds, too numerous to bother naming, blew in … not helpful.

In his ‘Paradisi in Sole, Paradisus Terrestris’ (1629) author John Parkinson describes purslane in the chapter on Kitchen Gardens as being “sowen in Aprill, in the alleyes of the Garden betweene the beds” or in the greenhouse on the hotbeds after the cucumbers and melons were harvested, so that the still warm beds would give a crop of purslane through the winter. It was a cooling herb much used in salads during the summer, but Parkinson advised that “afterwards if only for delight, it is not good to bee too prodigall in the use thereof.” In this illustration from the Herball of various salad leaves, purslane is shown in the top left corner.

What to do? Tired of fretting during middle of the night wakeups, I took a hard look at what was growing in the surrounds that met my main goal of not mowing, not hand-pulling or spraying with vinegar, not carpeting with gravel or mulch, in short something not just low maintenance, but NO maintenance. The answer? Learn to love the purslane, Portulaca oleracea, that juicy-leaved, red stemmed, sprawling, yellow-flowered annual plant that no amount of hand-weeding could ever eradicate, because its seeds snooze in the soil just waiting for the high-maintenance gardener to come along with a hoe to stir up the soil and BINGO! Rather than eradicating a ‘weed’, the green sward I longed for was gestating quietly and I just had to leave it alone. A smattering of rain and by mid-July, when other things were gasping in the heat, the purslane erupted into the emerald island I’d dreamt of. As it turns out, leftover sleepy seeds will be augmented by the seeds forming in the teeny yellow flowers just beginning to pop as I write this; I won’t even have to sow seeds for next year’s magic carpet to arrive on schedule.

The deeply seated taproot of a mature purslane plant supports long thick branches of juicy leaves studded with tiny yellow flowers that bear the seed of next year’s crop. This growth habit makes purslane a durable, seasonal groundcover that fades from early season vibrant emerald leaves to dusky green tinged with red from the stems

In closing and the spirit of full disclosure, there’s a debate about the value of purslane with its giddy behavior, throwing its seed where it’s not wanted. And yes, I will probably spend time yanking it from the borders and between pavers. But on the bonus side, purslane shrugs of heat and drought as it grows from a long taproot that’s easy to pull, which actually helps aerate compacted garden soil and so aids water absorption. The ground-covering, carpeting habit makes it a living mulch, and if that’s not enough, pollinators are drawn to the tiny yellow flowers, (thinks, I could scatter some seed of perennial wild arugula, Diplotaxis tenuifolia, among the purslane; it too has tiny yellow flowers much favored by bees and it delivers a spicy punch in salad).

I can imagine introducing clumps of perennial wild arugula as a border around a “lawn” of purslane. The flowers appear along with purslane’s and the leaves of both are good in end-of-summer salads.

To top it all, purslane is edible; the narrow, juicy leaves taste lemony and are best used in salads; health-wise, among leafy greens it is among the most rich in omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins A, C, E and minerals like magnesium and potassium, (nb: it does contain oxalates so people liable to kidney stones should avoid eating it or only in moderate amounts, just as Parknson recommended).

For once in my garden life, practicing the rule of least resistance, aka, not doing anything, pays off. I hope!

Salvia x ‘Blue to You’ is available mail order from

https://www.highcountrygardens.com/

For fuller coverage of wild arugula, I recommend:

https://www.groworganic.com/blogs/articles/exploring-wild-arugula-varieties-flavor-and-cultivation-differences

And to learn about purslane as a physic, see https://www.almanac.com/purslane-health-benefits-and-recipes