Our local gardening email group recently received a message from a self-described newbie asking for help. Great, you’ve come to the right place. But what he really wanted was a very short version – via email, after all – of everything he should do to start taking care of his full and varied garden after doing nothing in his first three years living there. And a special request – how can he make his azaleas look better? Well, sure, no problem. We all learned to garden by reading an email message or two.
The group must have been dumbstruck because there was no response – a rare event – until I wrote to say "HUGE question," then suggest he read our website chockful of gardening information and hey, how about coming to a Hort Club event sometime? I was too shy to suggest he spend a few bucks and hire me to show him exactly what to do, despite the terrific encouragement I got right here when I posted about my coaching service.
One item in particular I suggested he read on our new site is "What to Do When in the Garden," a feature that’s become a nifty project for our whole Yahoo group – 200+ strong. Every month I’m sending the group a generic list from a source or two that I tweak for our locality, then include input from the group before uploading it for our readers. And from the looks of it, there are particular things gardeners do here only in March or only in April, but when all hell busts loose out there from May through summer it’s basically the same – watering and weeding. I call it General Growing Season Gardening Jobs. I see a T-shirt slogan in my future – To Garden is To Weed.
Take a look and if your climate is anything like the Mid-Atlantic, I’d love your suggestions, especially other late-flowering perennials that you hack back early in the season. We’re in Zone 7A, so dates may need tweaking but hey, summer’s summer.
[Photo: Amsonia hubrechtii, Heuchera villosa 'Autumn Bride,' and unidentified iris in my neighbor's garden.]
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Susan, the fact that so many people have a vague yen to have a garden–but no idea where to start suggests that there is something seriously wrong with the garden literature.
I like The Garden Primer by Barbara Damrosch very much as a reference book for beginners. But even that is a little thick and complicated for someone who’s not utterly committed.
And you don’t have to be utterly committed to make a pretty yard.
You ought to be taking notes on the work you’re doing as a gardening coach. And demystify this entire process.
Michele, do you see a book in my future? I’m keeping notes!
No joke. When I was tutoring college students many years ago, the grammar books’ comma rules drove me crazy–30 rules that these poor kids couldn’t remember, when really, about 7 rules would have covered that little piece of punctuation.
Same deal with gardening. It’s simpler than the books suggest, if not subtler.
Somebody needs to write a book that encourages people to garden–and not just to feel bad that their yards don’t look like the photos in British gardening magazines.