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. (or you can read my column lower in this post)
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:
Garden column:
by Susan Mulvihill
I hate to say this but I’m not getting any younger. And chances are, I’ve got plenty of company. As we gardeners age, our favorite pastime can start to feel overwhelming. While my love for gardening hasn’t waned over the years, I’m looking for ways to make certain aspects of it easier and less time-consuming.
I find the most taxing activity is getting up and down over and over again. Many years ago, I discovered a wonderful tool called a kneeler/bench. When utilized as a kneeler, you use the handles to lower yourself down onto it and push yourself back up; this really gives the leg and hip muscles a break. Flip the kneeler over and you’ve got a small bench to sit on during tedious tasks such as deadheading or picking blueberries.
When purchasing hand tools, I look for those that allow me to keep my wrist straight and prefer pruners and loppers with a ratcheting action; that way, I don’t need as much hand or arm strength.
A watering timer is another valuable tool. It’s no fun dragging a hose around to different areas of the garden. In addition to potentially wiping out plants when the hose cuts across the corner of a bed, it’s very tedious. There are inexpensive, battery-operated timers available at home centers that can make watering a breeze. They should be programmed to water early in the morning when there will be the least amount of evaporation.
No gardener wants to spend time weeding. I mulch the surface of most of my vegetable and flower beds so it’s harder for weeds to come up. Any time I spot some, I yank them out as quickly as possible.
My goal this season has been to take a close look at everything I’m growing, from ornamentals to veggies. There are some plants that, to be frank, ask a bit much of us.
Many years ago, I had a knack for purchasing perennials that tended to be invasive. I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time beating them back to their allotted spaces instead of enjoying my well-behaved plants. Some of the troublemakers include anemone, lady’s mantle, gooseneck loosestrife, clustered bellflower, hardy geraniums, dead nettle (Lamium) and carpet bugle.
I intend to replace many of these plants with shrubs. Even though we all love perennials because they come back every year, they require more care than shrubs. Examples of wonderful blooming shrubs are hydrangea, Japanese Kerria, Aphrodite sweetshrub (Calycanthus), spirea, buttonbush, bluebeard, viburnum, mock orange, oceanspray, serviceberry, snowberry and American cranberry bush. The last five are native shrubs.
In the vegetable garden, some of the easiest crops to grow are carrots, zucchini, bush beans, lettuce and potatoes. That’s because they don’t require staking or special treatment.
While I love the diversity of crops we grow every year, I’m currently evaluating whether some of them yield enough to warrant the tender loving care we give them. One example is cauliflower. It doesn’t particularly care for our hot summers and requires either a layer of floating row cover or bridal veil netting to keep cabbage butterflies and aphids away. That’s one crop I’m crossing off the list for next year. Even though we have a large landscape, that doesn’t mean I can’t downsize it a bit by choosing low-maintenance plants. The result will be an increase in the joy I feel whenever I’m out in the garden.