Love in Dark Settings

I've heard a lot of this kind of thing from permaculturists, and having learned a bit about the principles myself, I'm looking forward to having a bit of earth soon myself to experiment with.

A permaculturist would probably say the first thing to do is observe, observe, observe. What's in your garden now might be perfectly capable of maintaining itself with minimal interference from you. Or, what you have might not be the kind of plants that can be perennial or self-sowing annuals or biennials in your area. Maybe they could be but they're missing some crucial soil nutrient, but you won't know what it is until you know what plants you have and what they need. In fact, you may need to plant some things, because it's likely that the garden you have was not designed to be a complete ecosystem in and of itself. Or, as you've discovered, you may need to get rid of some things.

You might need to invest a lot of work in the initial stages, to create a system that's balanced and can maintain itself without your interference indefinitely. But there's no way of knowing until you know what's keeping your garden from being that dynamically balanced system now. What else do you find yourself having to do?

For instance, if you have to water it too much, what's keeping it from living off rainwater? Is it full of plants that are too thirsty for your climate? You could: learn some natural irrigation techniques (look for "irrigating with ollas"), improve the soil to hold moisture better, invest time and money in a rain barrel and gravity-fed drip system, or gradually pull out the thirsty plants and replace them with drought-tolerant ones... or resign yourself to watering regularly. Or by observation you might find that when it does rain all the water ends up in one swampy corner, and you might have to dig some swales so that the rainwater spends longer in the other parts of your garden and soaks into the soil.

It sounds like your rose is doing just peachy, and pulling out that English ivy sounds like a great move if it's a nuisance. What else do you have to work with?

Toby Hemenway (http://www.patternliteracy.com/index.html)'s book Gaia's Garden (http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/gaias_garden_second_edition:paperback) may be of help to you. I don't have it yet; I think it'll be my next purchase.