When gardener Wanda Wilson weeded the front yard of her Vancouver home two years ago, she uprooted an estimated 600 pounds of weeds. Something had to change, she thought.
Things did change, and on Sunday, Wilson’s garden was highlighted as an example of keeping weeds at a minimum without using harsh chemicals. Her garden was one of 10 stops on the Earth-Friendly Garden Tour presented by Clark County’s Environmental Services Department.
Wilson had two main pointers for gardening enthusiasts who strolled through her yard that afternoon: don’t be afraid to place plants close together, and cover the ground with mulch.
“The best thing that I have found is chopped up leaves. Save those leaves,” she said. She has her leaves run over with a lawn mower, just to chop them up a bit. Then she places the leaves about 6 to 8 inches deep on the ground of her gardens.
Also, “a lot of gardeners like to have space between their plants, but the plants really like each other,” she said. Planting them close together, and using mulch, blocks sunlight from reaching any weeds trying to grow underneath, Wilson added.
Hundreds of plants filled Wilson’s front yard and backyard. Veggies, including asparagus, garlic and tomatoes, grew mightily in the backyard. An arbor covered in grape vines and leaves shaded her back porch. In the front yard, Kenilworth ivy — which doesn’t take over a garden like English ivy can — provided even more ground cover and weed control.
“I like my yard to be a jungle,” she said. “I’m very fond of (plants) that multiply.”
Longtime friends Dawn Iveane-Curell of Vancouver and Valerie Madison of Portland toured the earth-friendly gardens to gain inspiration for their own yards.
“The flowers are just unreal,” Madison said, pointing out Wilson’s purple passionflowers on a maypop plant. It was their third garden of the day, and the friends said they planned to stop at two more.
Elsewhere in Vancouver, the garden of Susan Sanders provided a lesson in attracting beneficial insects and growing a garden without the use of pesticides. She also has four rain barrels to help her collect natural water.
Saturday’s rain brought about four-tenths of an inch of precipitation to Sanders’ yard, she said. The rain running off of her roof and down her gutters filled all four barrels. The rain from her barrels isn’t enough to water every plant in her yard, but it helps supplement her watering.
She added that her plants seem to “love the natural water much more than the chlorinated (city water).”
Sanders also grows her plants close together, filling nearly every inch of unused space in her yard with something green or flowering. In the alley behind her house, she grows a vegetable garden, where she uses nylon socks to cover her apples, blocking out pests.
On the back of her house, she’s hung a bee block, which essentially is wood drilled with holes that attract nesting mason bees. The bees help pollinate the garden. At her tour stop, information was available about attracting the right type of bugs to prey on pests.
Beekeeper Anna DuDash stopped by Sanders’ garden to see which plants Sanders was using to attract bees. She said it’s especially important to create habitat for bees because they are dwindling in number.
“They’re in trouble, and we need to help them,” DuDash said.
Another visitor to Sanders’ garden, Anita Wright of Vancouver, said she already considers herself a good gardener, “but I don’t know everything.”
She sat down next to Sanders on a bench in the shade and peppered her with questions.
Wright smiled.
“This is so much fun,” she said.
