Well you posted on a highly specialized forum - Azalea & Rhododendron Forum - and their focus is their precious azaleas and rhododendrons not when or how to plant in lasagna beds. So given their focus I think it is natural to expect some skepticism from some of them. ;)

But yes, for many gardeners there is some degree of "gimmickery" associated with lasagna beds. Some of it because the concept is relatively new and traditionalists don't take quickly to new things. Some of it because many have had troubles with them, primarily because they haven't built or used them correctly - we see posts all the times from those who think it only needs to be some cardboard with leaves and some grass clippings piled on top of it. ;)

Some of the skepticism is also due to the fact that unfortunately millions of gardeners can't even conceive of composting much less building a bed out of compost and other layers!

And some of it is because lasagna beds do have their limitations. It was never intended to be, and shouldn't be considered, the ultimate solution for all gardening situations and it does require ongoing work to keep and maintain. For example, in my experience, lasagna beds work great for annuals and some vegetable plantings but it doesn't work all that well for a perennial/permanent planting bed simply because it does continue to decompose/shrink and root exposure and plant stability becomes a problem. Plus it is more difficult to keep adding new materials as required with permanent plants planted there. But that's JMO.

So as long as it works for you, go for it but don't be surprised if not everyone shares your enthusiasm for it. ;)

Dave

For some people Lasagna Beds are a new concept and new concepts are always greated with skeptisism. That comes from the school of "But we've always done it this way" and cannot change even though what they are doing has not always been done that way.

For those of you that are Ruth Stout fans, as I am, dosent this remind you of the attitude towards her way of gardening? I've followed her way for over 40 years, and it works. Composting, in my mind, is just a harder way to achieve the same results she had.
I believe this will be my first and last year with a big compost pile, once you get in your 70's, its too difficult to turn. If I get all my raised beds lined with concrete block, I'll do it directly on the beds.

You are not an idiot. You are a smart cookie. You are doing what works for you and from your statements it works quite well. Like they say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

The deep dark secrets about lasagna gardening that will come to haunt you one day will be beautiful plants which it produces and a great sense of personal satisfaction at what you see growing in your gardens.

Thank you for the thoughtful responses! I had read in a couple of places that this form of gardening was suitable for shrubs, but I guess that's not really true. Dave, since you read my original post over in the Rhodo. form and you know this method, what would you advise I do now? Should I remove most of the layered material, leaving maybe 4-6", and dig a more traditional hole with organic goodies in it? bpgreen, is this what you mean by a modified lasagna method?

Honestly, in our zone I think it is too late to plant rhoddies now since they won't have time to get established before the really dry winds and hard cold sets in but sounds like you already have the plants and need to get them in the ground, right? Got somewhere where you can tide them over in containers until late Feb. early Mar. and plant them then?

If not and you have to plant now then you are going to have to protect them well anyway. So, assuming your soil beneath the bed is decent stuff rather than gravel like mine, I'd slide the layers aside, dig holes the right size and at the right level for the plants, amend the holes well, plant them, and then pull all the lasagna stuff up into a mound around each of them to provide protection.

The lasagna stuff won't break down all that much until warmer weather so should protect them and then in spring you can re-arrange it around them as needed. Be creative with your re-arranging - use some of it as a mulch for the rhoddies and make a few smaller lasagna mounds in among the rhoddies and use them for planting annuals. ;)

You will have to watch your soil pH a bit - as the stuff composts it slide to neutral and as you know, rhoddies want acidic soil as much as possible.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Dave

It may help to understand how "lasagna gardening" got started. Many articles equate it to sheet composting but it is a bit different. It is a term coined by Patricia Lanza to describe a form of high-yield, intensive vegetable gardening that requires no tilling, somewhat akin to square foot gardening. It was not intended to be a method of generalized soil improvement although a fair number of gardeners have seen the benefit of creating planting beds by this method and have expanded on it to do exactly that. It was also not intended for anything other than annual cropping - vegetable gardening primarily.

While it is certainly not an 'experimental gimmick', it is also not the best method for for developing planting areas for traditional ornamental landscapes, simply because it takes substantial time to build up a good layer of soil (for lack of a better term) via this method, just as it takes time creating a decent soil through more traditional amending and tilling. This is not at all critical for single season crops like most annual veggies but it is for more permanent plantings, like shrubs and perennials. Short circuiting the time it takes using the lasagna method to create a proper planting bed for permanent ornamental plantings results in what was alluded to on the Rhodies and Azaleas forum and repeated here.......the natural decomposition of the components used to create the lasagna bed results in significant shrinkage - you need to keep repeating the layering over time before you achieve a relatively stable soil level. If you plant before the this level is reached, the result is plants with roots that become overly exposed to the elements (heat from summer sun, exposure to winter cold, insufficient soil moisture) or roots that get buried too deeply by the repeated adding of new layers of organic material. This is the kiss of death to very shallowly rooted plants like rhodies and azaleas. The other issue with lasagna gardening and permanent ornamental plantings is that lasagna gardening often results in nutrient imbalances as the materials decompose - this creates problems for these plants that are not nearly as significant when considering the growing of annual or single season vegetable crops.

So unless you have the luxury of time to properly develop decent soil/planting beds for permanent ornamental plantings using the lasagna method - like several seasons - I would not recommend it. Herbaceous perennials are more forgiving than shrubs or trees in this regards but they too can run the risk of becoming too deeply planted once the soil level becomes stabilized.

I'm not sure what to tell you do with your plants at this time, but I would not plant them in what you intend to continue as a lasagna garden or an area you will continue to need to layer with quantities of organic matter. If you need to amend, do so over a large area, not just individual planting holes. Amending small areas like individual planting holes results in marked differences in soil textures that creates drainage issues and inhibits proper root development. If it is impossible to amend a large area because of other existing plantings, dig and amend a very generously wide planting hole. Or better yet, dig and plant in unamended soil and apply the amendments as a mulch. And with rhodies, azaleas, camellias and other ericaceous plants, plant high - the top of the root ball should always be slightly above the existing soil level.

Wow, I see now that this is where I should have posted my original question! Thank you so much for such detailed and helpful responses (and thanks, gardengal, for explaining so well why it's not the thing for ornamental landscaping). I think I understand this method much better now.

Dave, at the moment I have them (still in pots) tucked into a little nook on the north side of our brick house, out of the sun and wind. I suppose I could try to nurse them through there, although I'm nervous about over- or under-watering them. It sounds like that may be less risky then planting them so late.

This is what happens when you let yourself get seduced by huge end-of-season markdowns and buy things before you're ready to deal with them....

lceh - I don't know a thing about the plants you were asking about nor do I know a thing about lasagna gardening but I'm right there with you on "end-of-season" sales LOL

I've found myself scrambling more than once to get things into the ground before winter. Now I try to avoid them just because I know how weak I am.

Val

I've been doing a version of lasagna gardening for daylilies and other perennials. The layers plus large amounts of planting medium in the holes in which I've been placing the plants. In some cases, it's obvious I didn't use enough, and roots are beginning to show as the rest of the material decomposes. Happily, I still have an enormous amount of mushroom soil and compost I can pile around the plants.

I plan to continue making lasagna beds for permanent plantings. However, I can - and will - easily add an additional step in the spring: dig down beneath the bottom layer of cardboard and replant each daylily or other plant into the soil. That soil should have benefitted somewhat from the months of decomposition, and it should be no trouble to then encircle the transplanted plants with the decomposing matter from this fall's and winter's lasagna beds (avoiding the crowns of course).

I don't see why new beds cannot be made in the fall and winter either for spring planting or as temporary planting areas to hold plants over the winter. Obviously, one needs to periodically check that plants have not been heaved out of the ground or otherwise have their roots and crowns exposed. But I'd do that anyway, especially with daylilies in their first year in the garden.

What a beautiful thread. Wonderful information.
And real timely help, too. Detailed. Enthusiastic.
Wow, you folks are REALLY good.
I'm so pleased to be part of this forum.
lceh, hope you'll stick around and contribute.

Robert

I'm glad this topic came up. I've been trying to expand my garden so I can thin a very dense patch of raspberries. Ive covered an area of grass with cardboard and leaves this fall, mostly just to kill the grass. I do have seven small piles of compost, some more decomposed than others. I was planning on spreading some of this compost over the leaves this spring. Then transplanting on top of the compost and covering with more leaves, grass cuttings, coffee grounds, etc. IÂm afraid there may not be enough compost for all the raspberries I have to plant and IÂd also like to save some of that compost for other parts of the garden.

Raspberries are a bit like weeds, so I imagine if some of them arenÂt planted deeply in compost that they will still survive (though not bear fruit for a while) if I continue the lasagna technique.

ItÂs important that I get these raspberries moved this spring because my cousin rents the house owned by my parentÂs where my vegetable/fruit garden is located. Her live-in boyfriend seems to think that since I havenÂt thinned these raspberries, that he should do something with them because theyÂve been "neglected." Everyone also seems to think they can help themselves to the fruits of my labor. So even though IÂm going to STRONGLY remind them not to eat from my garden, IÂd also like to have more raspberries to ensure I have some for my freezer.

Thanks,
Jennifer

"Lasagne gardening" sounds really strange at first, and maybe some people need to warm up to the idea. My experience has overall been very positive, although adjustments have been necessary from time to time, for example, when I layered the coffee grounds too thickly. I am creating many gardens and layering or piling organics in various schemes has made the job much easier without using machinery or nearly as much hand-digging.

I still do a lot of digging - lasagne is slow, so for an instant bed, there's no choice but to dig (or rototill). When planting trees or shrubs I dig a generous hole into the existing soil, plant the shrub or tree, which needs to rest on firm subsoil, and then mulch with paper/compost/leaves after it's planted and well-watered.

For gardens paths I use a simple combination of cardboard and then 1-2 inches of wood chips. For meadow gardens I am creating in an extremely weedy area, I cut down woody stems, mow back a bit, and then smother it all by spreading paper leaf bags and then 2-3 inches of grass clippings, adding additional layers as this decomposes. This kills weeds and deprives the stumps of light, which will hopefully prevent re-sprouting of the stump.

Also had great success with a new a perennial bed this year that was created using deeper layers of organics and allowed to decompose for nearly 1 year. When planting the perennials I dig a bit to mix the soil. The plants (mix of transplants, nursery plants, and seedlings) grew extremely well in their first year.

{{gwi:261981}}

Hi. I felt obligated to post on this thread because terrene posted such a beautiful picture of me.

I use lasagna methods with perennials and shrubs, because the organic matter eventually works it way into the soil and it doesn't necessarily "raise" the soil level.

After the plants mature, I reduce the thickness of material layered at one time. But I continually add layers of OM year after year, especially on top of perennials that are cut back to the ground each year.

I will add thin layers of grass clippings and leaves around shrubs in the fall, by the following fall most of it is gone and they are ready for a new layer. Perhaps not exactly lasagne garden, but the concept is the same.

Lasagna layering may not be the preferred method for shrub borders but I have done it with great success. I had a border that was in awful soil (dry clay) that turned out well and was planted about 10 years ago. I still add a light layer of organic matter (compost or chips) every year but not much else is done to it. Here's what we did.

DD and I did some light tilling first and then put down newspaper and several layers of organic stuff and planted a few days later. Everything but one shrub survived and thrived. We did take care to be sure the organic layers were pulled away from the base of the new plants so there was little danger from voles and other hungry critters. And we would not have tilled if we could have waited several months before planting or if the existing soil had been just a bit looser. It was just so hard and compacted that the tilling made planting easier.

The preferred method for a shrub border would be to prepare the soil at least 6 months in advance. But this is not a perfect world and sometimes the plants are ready before the beds are finished. The plants you have will most likely be much happier and healthier in a new lasagna bed than crowded in their pots. Just take the few precautions suggested here and they should do fine.

Sandy

Sandy, I'm encourage to hear you've done this with shrubs! Did the shrubs have trouble when the layers settled? Did they seem firmly anchored enough? And did you do this in the winter (probably not, I know I should've gotten on this a lot sooner...)

No, not in winter. Actually, it was high summer and hot and dry!

I didn't have any problem with the shrubs when the layers settled because I dug down into the actual soil to plant them. A bit more than half of the root ball was in the soil and the rest was in the lasagna layers. That's another reason we tilled before putting down the layers.

But I have planted this time of year with good success, just not in lasagna beds. I don't think there's any time in our area (Richmond) that you can't plant if the ground is not frozen. It just takes extra care if it's out of the regular planting season. With evergreen shrubs planted late, the danger is from desiccation during the drying winter winds. They haven't had a chance to develop a strong root system and can't take up enough water. Protection from winter winds will help. Being sure the underlying soil is moist but not soaking wet will also help.

I read the replies and I did not see the hostility, or any learned replies. I posted there and explained that is the procedure that I employ. Perhaps those folk would understand it better if we described it as planting in a raised bed with a highly organic soil strata and a yearly plan to replenish, mulch, whatever you wanna call it

Merry Christmas

Hey Joepyeweed, that particular Joe pye weed was very happy to be moved to this new garden, at its previous location it was in dry bed competing with Silver maple roots. Naturally being a wetland plant, it was not thriving. Now the Joe Pye weed and some other wetland plants seem to be growing well in a nice rich organic bed, well mulched and receiving some supplemental watering during dry spells (and far away from greedy maple roots).

Nice pic Terrene!!

Actually, I confess; I do feel some slight (tons of) hostility toward the author of "Lasagna" gardening. I have always been irritated that Lanza gave not even a nod in her book to Ruth Stout, whose methods she flat-out copied. Lanza recounts the moment lasagna gardening occurred to her. I can remember the very moment it occurred to me, too. It was when I read one of the books that Ruth Stout wrote back in the 50s.

And Stout? She, herself, never took credit for her innovative methods, acknowledging that gardening in deep mulches pre-dated her.

Thank you all! Based on all this great advice, as soon as it dries out a bit from the constant rain(!) I'll pull back the layers where the shrubs will go; dig down in the original soil to plant 1/2 - 2/3 of the root ball; fill in the rest with soil and layers; and end with a thick mulch of additional layers pulled away from the trunk. The rest of the bed I'll leave in place to break down so I can plant perennials and annuals around them in the spring. I was also planning to spray the shrubs with Wilt-Pruf to help them survive the drying winter winds. Does this sound like a good plan?

Sandy, I'm in Charlottesville, and I think we're pretty safe to plant year-round here too.

Many, many thanks for this great thread. I've printed it out for my gardening files so I can reference it in years to come!

A bit of anthropology here: similar plant culture systems were developed independently in the Western Hemisphere, both associated with raised "beds" in wetlands. Often these started out as floating rafts on which organic matter and muck from the water body were piles. Crops were planted into the organic material. Eventually these floating "islands" grounded and became linear raised beds renewed each year. Some of those ancient bed sections at the south end of Lake Titicaca (Bolivia have been revived. Those that used to exist on the margins of the lake where Mexico City now sits are long gone.

The early Irish Celtic farmers created raised beds on boggy ground by first deeply trenching, infilling with organic matter and capping with saved soil. Each year they would add more organic material with soil topping.

I've taken the lasagna method and adapted it to my own use. I piled up layers of materials on top of some pretty heavy clay. I put it all right on top of the grass and weeds that were there. I started back in July when I found out that our landfill gives out the previous fall's leaf mulch for free. I piled it as deep as I could with as many loads as I could until I couldn't move anymore.

Over the summer and fall, it's sat there. I've planted a few things here and there throughout the fall. What I have noticed is that I have a lot more earthworms and pill bugs. I have also found that I can dig in the soil below my layers a lot easier than I could this past spring. Whenever I plant something, I makes sure to dig the hole down into the original soil, mix in and replace with some of the organic material, and even add a little garden soil from a bag. It might not be the perfect method, but my plants seem happy and that makes me happy.

Sure, I have weeds. I have some issues with too much moisture in shadier areas, and the beds that I actually tilled and mixed in the organic stuff seems much happier, but it's also in a different part of the yard. I can't say for sure it is the method or the original dirt.

I'm doing what works for me. My plants let me know when they need something. Hopefully, I can get into a cycle that allows ME to know before they tell me. My only concern from here on is how to keep everything working.

And now I read that I'm making drainage worse by filling the hole with material rather than just planting into the layers only. Crap.

Annpat - I haven't read the lasagne author's book, but I did read Ruth Stout in the 80's. The lasagne method strikes me as a refinement of Stout's "pile on anything and everything organic" method, because of the use of layers, but I agree an acknowledgement would be nice. It seems to me that whether it's lasagne or Stout or interbay mulch or islands of organic matter somewhere in South America, they are all variations on the same theme.

Token - in your shady wet area, you can always plant wetland plants. There are many gorgeous ones, plus you get peepers and frog and salamanders. Birds love it. You don't know how jealous I am of people who have wet areas in their yard. My lot is upland and well-drained - "sand and gravel as far down as you can dig" according to a guy at Board of Health. My Joe pye weed, Lobelia cardinalis, Filipendula rubra, and other wetland plants have to fudge it in a lasagne bed. :)

Roanoke, VA checking in! Last year I layered shredded leaves and coffee ground on an area that was primarily red clay. I continued the process all winter long and planted tomatoes last June. My neighbors watched all winter long, shaking their heads at me.
My husband said my tomato patch was like the corn field in Field of Dreams because when I'd go to collect produce, I'd disappear in the large healthy plants. Not easy to do since I'm over 6' tall! We had enough delicious tomatoes for all of the doubting neighbors and this fall, they brought me their bagged leaves. :)
You or gardener_Sandy might want to check out Craig's List if you are looking for a source of coffee grounds. A guy in the Richmond area is willing to share if you will pick them up. I was tempted but that's a little far for me to commute! :)

Interesting thread. What's so special about coffee grounds?

"What's so special about coffee grounds?"

AFAIK, there's nothing really special about them, but Starbucks has a corporate policy of giving them away for free, so they're an abundant source of free organic matter and mild nitrogen source (20:1 C:N ration, around 2% N) for people who have ready access to a Starbucks that follows the policy.

Whats special about coffee grounds is that they are already ground and moist, so they decompose quickly.

Lots of stuff that is added to compost is shredded or moistened to speed decomposition, coffee grounds are already the perfect consistently.

Terene: My Joe pye weed, Lobelia cardinalis, Filipendula rubra, and other wetland plants have to fudge it in a lasagne bed. :)

I have Joe Pye weed seeds and lobelia cardinalis I'm wintersowing. I'm planning to put these in the edge where it stays the wettest. And by wet, I mean it's moist, not really soaking wet.