There’s a problem with happy plants. They grow and grow some more. With credit to me due only to my stand back and enjoy attitude, many trees and shrubs in this thirty-four year old garden far exceed the upper end sizes stated by references.

Today, I notice two fringetrees (Chionanthus virginicus, above) are growing with exceptional vigor after a period of concern that they had become too shaded. I guess that both have pushed beyond their twenty foot maturity, so I now have a slight concern that the brilliant, deciduous azaleas beneath could be overwhelmed (below). The azaleas also rise above their upper end, with the result a joyous mass of color through mid spring.

Parts of this garden benefit from the fabled “moist, but we’ll drained” soil, and here I claim only the wisdom in selecting this property so many years ago. I’ve often witnessed the vigor of trees growing in the rich, bottom land of mountainous regions, and here, to a far lesser scale between hills, is a similar, ideal mix of clay and silt.

While the garden is not neglected, it is far from manicured. Fallen leaves are cleared (mostly) from paths, but left in place to decay. Soils are never amended for planting, and I haven’t mulched in decades. There is no fertilizing and barely any pruning. On occasion, a stray branch will be chopped that’s growing into a neighbor, or too far to obstruct a path. Exceptional growth cannot be attributed to my care, but perhaps to a lack of interference.

Today, I notice a purple leafed coral bell (Heuchera, above) growing from the base of a container that again this year holds a purple hyacinth vine that will scramble up through a tall nandina. A seedling coral bell also grows alongside the small vine, but the vigorous plant at the base of the pot is growing in the thin layer of accumulated soil and moss beneath the container. It’s been a while since the pot’s been moved, I guess.

The vigor of this coral bell in light shade, with roots growing only in a fraction of an inch of soil on top of synthetic decking, tells me that this plant needs nothing from me to survive. Over irrigated and fertilized plants become more dependent on the gardener, but here they’d be in big trouble to do so. Instead, by doing next to nothing, plants grow happily beyond expectations.