Create nature garden yourself Planning, design and plants

Design and create a natural garden

A natural garden models the natural environment locally and does not fight it to create a pure art world. Therefore, first of all plants are taboo, which can only be preserved by slightly soluble mineral fertilizers, soil exchange or constant watering, and secondly we adapt the type of garden to the conditions. In an open landscape there is a meadow garden, at the edge of the forest a forest garden, in humid areas a water garden. A water garden is also a good choice if we are dealing with a barren earth. Large plots make it possible to design several such miniature biotopes: a pond landscape, a small forest and a flowery pasture.

contents

• Design and create a natural garden
• The forest garden
• Size, dominance and claim
• Closed habitats
• The floor
• small trees and shrubs
• Create the edge of the forest
• hedges
• Tips for a beautiful flower meadow
• Create and design water gardens
• The marsh bed
• The moorland

The forest garden

In a forest garden, the focus is on bushes and shrubs. As always in the natural garden, native plants should make up the majority. They often settle by themselves, checking the condition of their property. If you take over a garden, or transform a traditional, but already overgrown garden, there are always sprouts of the plants that have their habitat here.

In a forest garden there are a lot of bushes and shrubs. (Image: reichdernatur / fotolia.com)

They can resort to existing plants and help nature by buying bushes and shrubs. Local shrubs can be purchased cheaply and usually have a certain size.

Size, dominance and claim

Three or four large trees or shrubs provide the right wind protection. When you plant new plants, first pay attention to the size that the newcomers can achieve, secondly, whether they dominate visually and, third, their special demands.

Trees that bear fruit, such as sweet cherry, rowan or hawthorn, are generally suitable. Smaller trees and shrubs fit well in hedges, in garden corners or as delimitation in the rear area.

The spectrum of native species is immense: hazel, blackthorn and willow are, so to speak, must be. In the first weeks of spring, hazel and blackthorn enjoy kitties, blackthorn and hawthorn dipping the garden into white flowers.

Closed habitats

A "real" wild garden is a closed habitat, because in nature, plants cover every inch. If you "imitate" a clearing in the forest, thimble, monkshood, mullein, milkweed, woodruff or bulbous plants will work well.

Mullein, Eisenhut and Thimble grow straight and vertically creating a structure together with the shrubs and groundcover.

Climbers provide a mysterious atmosphere: The forest honeysuckle is wild in the woods and is also good for hedges. The clematis belongs to a forest garden, but it needs a limestone soil and should only tend to thick trees.

Fens have heart-shaped leaves that turn from green to red. Knotweed and wine quickly surround large trees.

If there are no big trees in your garden, then concentrate on the undergrowth and practice patience. If you wait a few years to plant the big trees, you can keep up with the natural phases in which a forest develops.

Foul wood provides an excellent breeding ground for fungi, mosses and lichens. (Image: Patrick / fotolia.com)

The floor

For a clearing, you can cut back existing shrubs to the ground. Now you can settle groundcover. As a mulch you should use a mixture of leaf litter and shredded tree bark. This roughly corresponds to the humus of a "real forest", and they ensure that woodlice, beetles and insects find a home.

If there is rotting wood in your yard, do not dispose of it completely. It provides moisture and provides an excellent base for lichens, fungi and mosses. Ferns love to settle here and they can plant you.

A forest soil is covered by deciduous and liverworts, the more shady and moist, the more the mosses grow. Over it lies the herbaceous layer, followed by shrubs and bushes and finally the trees.

Take this structure as a model, and her garden is harmonious. They should cover the soil with flowering and foliage plants.

What grows on the ground is also related to the big trees. For example, an oak sticks straight up and creates a shade. Their deep roots do not compete with the small shrubs and herbaceous roots rooted close to the surface.

In the course of the year in the cabbage layer the first forest ladybug and celandine bloom, then come anemones, Günsel and wild garlic (in damp soil). Tip: If you have a swamp bed or a garden pond, you should plant wild garlic near the riparian zone. In April violets, primroses and Hasenglöckchen follow.

For a small forest garden are, for example, rowan, hornbeam and snowball. (Image: Christine Kuchem / fotolia.com)

small trees and shrubs

A large forest garden is almost a small forest. In a small garden, we have to pay much more attention to the garden character, that is, to the human intervention. We should not plant big forest trees: when they are fully grown, there is not much left of the garden.

The upper forest layer should rather take small trees or larger shrubs. For small forest gardens, for example, hornbeam and snowball, as well as rowan, blackthorn, field maple, birch, buckthorn or lime tree are also suitable.

Hawthorn, Elderberry, Elseberry, Privet, Holly or St. John's wort complete the plant.

Under these small trees, significantly more plants of the herbaceous layer unfold, as they are slimmer and do not have such a closed canopy, such as chestnuts. The more trees they plant, the more different is the relationship between light and shade, and the more varied the flora on the ground. They can grow newly planted tree seedlings into each other as they do in nature.

In the shrubs, they should take into account the different demands; they can allow species that are naturally present here to spread. For example, hazel like clay soil, snowball prefers moisture and shade, as well as the buckthorn and the buckthorn, boxwood, bird cherry, man's blood, privet, yew and juniper.

If the trees used as shrubs become too big, they can cut back massively. As a result, the trees are not damaged and many ecologically valuable biotopes have only been created through such interventions - for example orchards or pollard willows. Climbing plants quickly take on the forest character, because they green the "bare" trees.

With evergreens, her garden looks like a green forest all year round, even if the deciduous trees shed their leaves. The variety of native plants is great: yew, ivy and holly are available in countless variations.

Climbing plants such as ivy provide a forest atmosphere all year round, even when the trees are long gone. (Image: kobra78 / fotolia.com)

Create the edge of the forest

Willowherb, foxglove and mullein, silver leaf, ferns or carnations are suitable for the margins of their shrubs. Depending on your taste, you can create an atmosphere with slate tiles, strikingly shaped roots or a rustic garden bench.

A tip: A plant with a delicate structure should stand in front of a leafy foliage, groundcover like ivy look good in front of plants that grow in the air.

"Waldrand" is also the best solution for "problem areas". This may be a barren wall or an ugly garden house facade that overgrows ivy, or the neighbors tree that juts out over the fence overshadowing their garden.

Ferns are best used in the shade, they also grow on walls when a thin layer of humus is present. These include striped fern, bladder fern, spotted fern and stag tongue.

hedges

To create a hedge, you should mainly plant densely. By regular pruning you get a compressed thicket, for example, with dog rose, buckthorn, privet, snowball or holly.

Tips for a beautiful flower meadow

Each monotonous lawn can be transformed into a floral way. You can also leave grass and lawn alternately by mowing one part regularly and not another.

Flower meadows are suitable for low-nutrient soils. Instead of scattering tons of fertilizer here, you can also use the existing soil.

If you are not in a hurry, you can let nature take its course. Just do not mow a corner and see what wildflowers grow. You can remove overly dominant plants such as dandelions, and make sure that blackberries do not spread.

From a boring lawn can be made without great effort a beautiful flower meadow. (Image: alexandersw / fotolia.com)

Typical species that come by themselves are daisies, honorary prize, piglets or horn clover. You can also buy seed mixtures from these meadow flowers and thus promote the natural flower meadow.

Once the flower meadow has established itself, you mow at these sites only once a month or even twice a year. The cutting height should be at eight centimeters, and in June you do not mow.

To sow, use a rake to remove the grassy surface. They sow in the autumn.

In nurseries you can get dressed plants or seed mixtures. For a meadow are in addition to the mentioned: meadow marguerite, knapweed, meadowfoam, sand bells, cowslip, plantain, red clover, sorrel, brown hellebore, cuckoo flower and musk mallow.

Create and design water gardens

You can create water gardens in various forms, as a pond, as a swamp or moorland, along a stream flowing through their land.

Creating a large garden pond with tarp or clay costs effort. However, there are plenty of simple alternatives and their creativity is in demand: from old cattle drenchers to mortar troughs to buckets and barrels, you can use countless containers in which the water builds up.

It is best not to lay the pond under deciduous trees. First, a sunny pond is better than a shady one, secondly, gasses develop from the foliage when it rotted in the water, which in turn are harmful to many living things.

For a small pond, you should put the pond plants in containers, for example in wooden boxes or wicker baskets. Their interior they fill with earth and cow dung.

Water plants, which grow deep down, are especially suitable for larger water surfaces. These include water lilies, pondweed and hedgehog flasks.

As a container for a small garden pond, for example, an old zinc pan can be used. (Image: Edda Dupree / fotolia.com)

The marsh bed

A swamp arises when the water overflows at one point. Swamps are humid, but without open water surface. Here grow very decorative plants such as the marsh marigold, the irises or the Gilbweiderich.

The moorland

If your natural garden has acidic soil, a moorland is possible. Typical plants, which they also get in fermentation, are swamp root, leg crunch, royal fern or butterwort, which can be easily drawn from seeds.

Acid soil can be replaced by moor birch, sour torn, yew, gray willow, Scots pine, aspen, sallow willow, privet or elder.

Heide also loves acidic soil. You can plant heather around the bog bed. The young herbs are best planted closely together, then they develop best. Directly on the damp moor-bed, the bell-heath feels good.

Book tip on plants, animals, minerals, microorganisms and fungi

"Nature - The Visual Encyclopedia of Plants, Animals, Minerals, Microorganisms and Mushrooms" from Dorling Kindersley Verlag (www.dorlingkindersley.de) is ideal if you really want to know everything about the relationships between soil, light and heat, water , Rocks and creatures. It does not belong in the bag, but in the bookshelf of her gazebo, because it has several kilograms of weight. The visual encyclopedia shows not only examples from all groups of rocks and living beings in excellent photographs, it also goes from the origin of the earth on the conditions of life to the inconspicuous microbes on fungi and plants to the living beings that we commonly as Perceive animals - and that with over 5000 species, which are presented in the portrait.

The lyrics are written as scientifically as they are catchy. Overviews show the subgroups and page numbers, particularly interesting pages are presented on special pages.

It starts with the living earth, the evolution of life to the individual life forms, minerals, rocks and fossils, microorganisms, plants and fungi to animals. Despite the sheer mass of forms, the individual species are presented in a portrait, so that their characteristic features become clear. It's too much to read from the first to the last page. This is a unique reference book.
If you have a question about a plant in their garden, how to classify it, what their relatives are or what their habitat is, simply refer to this encyclopedia.

Before the individual rocks and creatures are treated, an introductory chapter explains in detail why life could arise on Earth - from the earth's layers with their extremely hot metal core, a liquid outer core, a hot mantle, and the brittle crust.
Then follow the sun and the moon, the solar energy, without which no life would be possible, as it gives light and warmth and thus creates climate zones. Since the solar energy is distributed unevenly, the amount of light and heat and thus the living conditions vary.

It deals with the sensitive atmosphere of the earth with its thin ozone layer, which absorbs the ultraviolet light, gases in the atmosphere and the water balance.
The various forms of rock discuss "nature" from the ground up, magmatic rocks that were originally melted over metamorphic rocks and sedimentary rocks. This is already about the inorganic foundations of life.
The active earth, ie plate tectonics, mountains and volcanoes, weathering and erosion, soil formation and landslides, climatic changes, climatic cycles, warm and ice ages are the next topics.

In the extremely extensive chapters on the plants of the world are particularly the photos to highlight, which show the typical flowers of flowering plants such as lupins, red clover or broom, in trees and shrubs like buckthorn or the genuine fig the leaves. For gardeners, the clarity of the encyclopaedia is crucial here. All in all, a standard work of enormous volume, which deserves a fixed place in the bookshelf.

Nature / The visual encyclopedia of plants, animals, minerals, microorganisms and fungi. Dorling Kindersley ISBN 978-3-8310-1986-1

(Dr. Utz Anhalt)

Literature and Internet sources:
Violet Stevenson: The Natural Garden. Munich 1995.
http://www.gartendialog.de/gartengestaltung/gartenanlage/naturgarten-anlegen.html
https://www.nabu.de/umwelt-und-ressourcen/oekologisch-leben/balkon-und-garten/naturschutz-im-garten/03581.html
http://www.naturgarten.org/
http://region-hannover.bund.net/themen_und_projekte/naturgarten/