There's the belief that ecological landscapes are zero maintenance. You plant them and let nature do its thing. This sounds great. But it isn't true.
Ecological landscapes still need you. There's no such thing as a self-maintaining garden, however much we wish it.
If you're someone who is tired of fighting with their landscape – weary of the never-ending mowing, the annual trimming, the constant weeding – then the idea of a zero-maintenance garden sounds like heaven.
It's true that a planting that's aligned with its place does require less work, especially after it establishes. The effort does go down as the landscape becomes more stable. But decreasing isn't the same as disappearing. What changes is the type of attention required. And it's a type of attention that feels friendlier.
Here's what happens if you plant a garden and then ignore it. The weeds take over. You've disturbed the soil, exposing hundreds of seeds to sunlight. They leap into action, exploiting the open ground and out-competing what you planted. Some plants you added might be more aggressive than you thought, overwhelming the community and turning your landscape into a monoculture. An invasive species might arrive, maybe from the neighbour's garden or from the mulch you added, taking over because you didn't notice. The deer move in, attracted by young, soft leaves.
These are all failures of the hands-off dream.
With an ecological landscape, you're responding to what you notice. You're guiding the land's direction. You encourage what wants to be there and edit what's out of balance. You're working with succession – listening, responding, collaborating.
But responding requires discernment. Controlling a lawn is easy – when it's long, you cut it; when it's looking sick, you fertilize it. Make it green and keep it neat. Ecological landscaping is more fuzzy. There are right and wrong answers, but telling them apart isn't always easy. Is that a weed that doesn't fit in or is it a volunteer that's found its ideal home? Is that spreading plant a threat or is it what you planned? Do you intervene or do you wait?
Knowing these answers requires presence, it requires attention, and it requires learning. You've got to return enough to notice what's changing, and you've got to know enough to interpret what you're noticing. You don't need to be there all the time, just as part of your cottage visits. But you've got to be comfortable with not knowing, with living with uncertainty. Discernment is the humility to know there are unknowns.
Maintaining a conventional landscape is like cleaning because the work is to restore order, remove what's messy, return the garden to the original vision.
Caring for an ecological landscape is like gardening in the old sense – a cultivation based on close observation. It's a partnership. You're tending to something that's alive and is going somewhere.
To some extent, cleaning is easy. If you're comfortable with this, it's a reasonable choice. But the work of partnership – of caring – leads to the rewards of a relationship with something alive. You have a deeper connection with where you cottage. You have a landscape that fits its place and supports life bigger than you.
But do you know if it's working?