Aug. 25 Column: Making Gardening Easier

As much as I love gardening, I have to admit I’m getting older. This means the concept of making gardening easier is starting to sound very appealing to me! That’s the topic for this week’s garden column in The Spokesman-Review: Tips to make gardening easier as we get older.

In the first part of the column, I discuss a few tools that make gardening more comfortable.

One of my favorites is the kneeler/bench. I have to admit I have three of them, not that you can use more than one at a time, but hey, I need to have them for different areas of the garden and sometimes for different tasks. You can see two of them in the photo to the left. When they are in the current position, you use the handles to lower yourself onto, and push yourself back off of, the kneeler. If you flip it off, you’ve got a nice small bench for tending to the more tedious types of tasks such as deadheading or picking berries.

I absolutely LOVE kneeler/benches! They cost $30 to $40 and are worth every penny because they really save your knee and hip muscles. I recently noticed that Gardener’s Supply has them on sale for under $30 and choose either a green or purple one! Here’s a link to the sale kneeler/bench.

Hand tools that allow you to keep your wrist straight (much less strain) include the Cobrahead weeder/cultivator. This is my favorite tool for weeding and making a furrow for planting seeds. (and no, I’m not being paid to tell you about these tools)

And speaking of weeds, I also mention how I do my best to stay on them. If you look at the bottom of today’s blog post, you’ll find my 2017 video on strategies for dealing with weeds. That’s where you’ll learn my secrets for keeping our garden looking fairly nice.

The other part of my column is about growing lower-maintenance plants. The goal is to have more time for the enjoyable aspects of gardening, rather than fighting plants that lean toward being invasive. If you’re wondering what the photo is at the very top of this post, that’s an American cranberry bush (Viburnum trilobum). Why did I include this? Well, shrubs are much easier to care for than many types of perennials, and this is one of them. It’s even a native shrub. I love its gorgeous lace-cap flowers, shiny green berries in the summer, red berries in fall and winter, and the breathtaking fall foliage.

For this week’s video, I decided to give you an update on how our pollinator garden is doing. This is the 2nd update since we first put in the garden in May. I can’t believe how well it’s doing! I hope you’ll enjoy it:

And, as promised, here’s my video about weed strategies: