You’re out in the backyard, staring at your burgeoning potager garden – what’s otherwise known as that charmingly rustic French vegetable patch-and you’re wondering why that one lone tomato plant looks just so sad. Well, don’t freak out; we’ve all been there.
Now, unraveling these sun-kissed secrets, how-to-place-plants are an art, sort of, putting people to a dinner party. You would never want to put the chatty with the quiet one. Well, the same notion works for the plants because they all love the sun, just in different ways.
Think of your plants being the Jackson Five and the sun being the stage. There are those that are quite the diva and need the spotlights on them at all times, drinking in all available rays. Then again, some will simply camp out in the shade, and their leaves like not to bear the brunt of everything. Some like it all, and some a little of both. Of course, there are sun worshippers-the golden-tanned sunbathers of the plant world. Plants reportedly requiring full sun include tomatoes, basil, and sunflowers. They have to receive at least six to eight hours of direct sunlight to give an ultimate performance. Give them the top spot in the garden, and they will return with a song of lush growth and colorful blooms. Just keep this in mind: without sun, a tomato plant is the backwards little cousin at the family reunion; confused and leggy, with scraggly little branches.
Then, there are the ferns and the hostas-the secret agents of the vegetable mafia. Actually, they are shade lovers, early morning risers, fond of dappled light and the gentle strokes of early morning sun. Goldilocks of content: not too much, not too little, but just about right. Just think of those partly shaded plants gossiping away at their corner in the garden-cooler in the air. Partly shaded plants come somewhere in between. Here is where such plants as peppers and lettuces find comfort in this gray area: chameleons of sun requirements, capable of wearing different hats throughout the day. Put them in those positions that lounge around in those tantalizing hours of morning sun, offering some afternoon relief once the temperatures soar.
Maximize that morning sun!
The plants, if they could say so, would be obscenely loud about it.
Not because it develops a chemical reaction inside the leaf cells, or whatever; it just gives them that ideal dose of warmth right before the strong heat of noon kicks in. And then there’s the rearranging around your yard-pouring almonds from one pile to another-of plants. Rotate pots on your porch or patio to catch the rays in shifting seasons. Sometimes it’s art. You ever walk into a room, realize that bold red sofa was a tad too proximate to that white carpet, and you just can’t take your eyes off that radiant mismatch? Well, plants can clash, too.
Companion planting works wonders, and the path the sun takes is just the brush on your canvas of the plants. Thus, the window sills are mainly alien pieces of land. As much as Spider plants and other indoor treasures could do great in indirect bright lighting, it’s the succulents that can just bask under the direct rays and knowingly smile, storing each piece of sunshine in flesh reservoirs.
Sunkissed Secrets: Mastering Sunlight for Plant Health
Take care of them, and it is much like raising inquisitive toddlers: they get thirstier, finicky, and want their light just so. Give it a go with a potager garden, wherein the real magic in their growing starts happening once you master their sun requirements and watch them start to grow into little green giants!
A plant would just be in heaven lying under that golden heat, soaking it in. On the other side, too much sun makes them crispy and droopy. Ever try to leave a slice of bread in the toaster a bit too long? That is your plant if it gets too much sun. Most light will vary in importance, but that sweet spot between too little or too much sun just seems to be just right, like balancing on a teeter-totter. For instance, this huge and beautiful fiddle leaf fig adores bright, indirect sunlight. This, in direct sun, and you’re all but putting shades on it-it’s squinting faster than you can say “photosynthesis!” Sometimes finding a spot for a fiddle is just like finding a pair of jeans: trial and error. Trials-who ever heard of succulents that love the sun? Like these were made for the Sunshine State. Colorful, low maintenance-these are Labradors of the plant kingdom. Of course, they love the sun, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Leave them in that blazing afternoon sun with no shade? That’s not their idea of fun. Everything in balance, like a fine-tuned piano.
I knew once a friend who treated the flowers and plants as if they were princes and princesses of their kingdom. How did she? Well, she watched over them-just like “As the World Turns.” She swore, “If that leaf turned brown and dropped, it’s telling me that it’s sunburned!” Don’t laugh. Plants do talk-just not with words. Observe; note the little signs. A leggy plant often reaches toward the light like the sleepyhead in the morning raises its arm to bat at the alarm. The sunburned, wilted one looks like last week’s lettuce. Learn to read their signals, and you are the plant whisperer. That means furniture moving to you, but man, oh man-it pays dividends. Think musical chairs. Sometimes the sun, with the seasons, shifts ever so slightly. A patch of sunny morning light has turned into a pool of afternoon shadows. And who among us hasn’t pulled a chair across a room and plopped ourselves down in sun pouring through a window? The same adjustment should be made for plants. But the beauty of the potager can be the in simplicity-colorfulness of the coming together of edibles and ornamentals, of course. That means it is planning concerning the division of sunlight. While tasty vegetables, such as tomatoes, need much sun, other plants, such as parsley, have much lower demands in this respect. This should be a matching of different plants concerning the amount of sun they could stand; it could be a tapestry of colors and smells. Crop rotation or seasonal mobility of plants according to the growing season could be done.
