Are you a patient gardener?

Along time ago, I prayed for patience (just before my mother told me never to pray for patience!) and we waited 22 years to buy our farm - a very long hard lesson in patience. Waiting on a plant doesn't seem very hard anymore.

I am hopelessly impatient when it comes to my garden (not as much with the rest of life). I will often spend the extra money to buy larger plants/trees and I plant them far too close together so it looks fuller. I have gotten a tiny bit better over the years, however. Maybe because I am getting tired of having to move everything in a year or two when things get too crowded!

I want everything right now!!!
I manage by creating more garden beds than I can possibly maintain, so there is always plenty of work to distract me. Especially because the only things that always show up "right now" are the weeds!

You sound like me Jim. I have 18 garden beds on a ½ acre lot and still have way too much lawn and not enough bloomers. Oh yeah they bloom all in their own sweet time but I want flowers yesterday not next month so I keep making more garden beds. some for may june flowering then june/ july july/aug aug/sept spt/oct then its blasted winter and then I really have to wait....and wait....and wait...

Often time, I hurry up and wait. lol. I've patience to wait for flowers, for example I planted a Japanese Pagoda tree knowing that it won't bloom until it's over 10 years of age. I'll wait. Just like I planted my wisteria in big pot, after 5 years of waiting, it rewarded us with the most beautiful blooms! Nothing good comes easy, and fast, nothing that's enduring and long lasting anyway.

My patience runs low in late winter, early spring.... waiting for the first signs that the garden is waking up. After that, I love watching every stage of my plants growth. It is also hard waiting for a plant to bloom that is new to my garden that hasn't bloomed before.... can't wait to see what it looks like in full bloom.

Looking & thinking back on it, I should have picked the 1st option (guess I was too impatient to get on here lol)

I've waited 5 years to get "just the right hat", watch my tiny perennials grow and appreciate all their transitions along the way until they bloom. I found a bud on my Datura, yesterday, and am quite excited! :-) I've waited all winter for it to grow, then waited until it was warm enough to plant outside :-)

Drives me nuts when others want Instant Gratification and dig up my garden to put in their larger perennials......(I'm still angry that the perennials I was given for the church garden weren't waited for and got dug up by someone who put in perennials from their home garden, then said the church garden was "Neglected" - it was NOT!!)
There, you got my vent for the day!! Sorry about that, but I was about to explode today......

-Susan-

Once again - sorry for the vent - I hope I didn't insult anyone.

Someone stood up in church yesterday and talked about how the west garden was neglected and abandoned, then when I spoke to her about it afterwards said I was "not right" when I said I'd weeded and cut down dead branches from the tree in the area.
Guess I'm still burning about being called a liar.........
She'd started with at the church in Oct/Nov 2008 so doesn't know what the garden in the area looked like last summer....... "quel difference!"

There are so many variables that can affect a plant's progress, and I'm not really so much short on patience as I am long on worry. If something doesn't bloom or progress normally, I begin reviewing my planting procedures in my mind wondering if the problem is something I did or didn't do. Yuska

Kathleen, I'm with you!

I used to be so impatient I'd buy the biggest plants I could afford and would still be unsatisfied they hadn't filled in an area yet.

Now that I'm older *wink* I have no problems waiting for plants to reach maturity or to bloom.

I want land and a custom farmhouse to. And for the first time in my life I can patiently wait for that day that I've set a goal for now. I know things will happen eventually whether I frown or grumble about it so I'd rather not spend my days doing either.

I also learned to buy the smallest plant I can get, that way the hole to put it in is smaller, easier on the body to garden and then I can get more in in a year vs being burdened by huge pots and big holes to dig. Easier on the wallet is a nice side perk :)

For almost 30 years, we never spent more than 2-and-1/2 years anywhere, so I wanted my gardens to come on TODAY!
Now that we have been in a place long enought to have planted a persimmon tree and actually gotten fruit from it, do you think I have learned patience? NOT A BIT.
cece has more beds than I do, but I like the idea of May/April here, June there, etc.! I may give that a try!

I am impatient. That is why I plant lettuce and such. I don't eat much of it and give most aay but it gives me something to enjoy while I have to wait for the "good" stuff.

LOL I have a daylily that I got at kassia's roundup, the one where the real Dave showed up. Whoever brought it thought it might be 'Little Grapette' but she didn't know for sure. It has its first bud this summer and the mystery will now be solved! I could have been patiently waiting on a 'Stella D'oro'. but hey, that's part of the fun of gardening. My mystery daylily that I got at a plant sale last month is throwing a bud. It's a mystery because the husband of one of the plant sale ladies brought the daylilies to the sale in clumps and the husband of another of the plant sale ladies carved them up and potted them. the first husband didn't remember what his wife had said about the colors, so I paid a dollar and got a huge clump. hopefully it is something interesting.
I sold off my H. 'Joan Senior' because I was disappointed in the color. Not that it isn't pretty, but it wasn't the color I was going for.
Martha

The older I get, the more patience I seem to have. I can, and have, waited years for things to happen. "Everything in it's time." I can't make it grow faster, so, why pout?

Sometimes you get a reprieve when it comes to patience. I was prepared to wait years to get the chance to cross Alocasia odora and Alocasia robusta, but then happened upon a blooming specimen of A. robusta. My waiting was over! By contrast, I got an interesting Alocasia, one I'd never seen before, and ended up waiting a couple of years before, finally, this year one of them threw some blooms. I think patience and gardening are inextricably linked.

I think a garden teaches one patience. Nature does things in its own time. Any time I've tried to hurry things along like with a little more fertilizer or planting things too close to make them look bigger and better, nature has managed to reminded me that I am not in charge. I'm a very slow learner.

But, you do learn.

kwanjin, well said.

lilium from seed has taught me patience in the garden. The waiting builds anticipation ;)

I voted Yes, I can wait as long as it takes for something to bloom, and it looks like many feel the same way. It's always exciting watching and waiting for the surprises we find in the garden! I have learned patience from gardening.

... there's an old saying about "Southerner's" being sloooow. I guess our way of life is very slow to some folks but I like to think it's just a patient way of life.

To be truthful, I don't have a lot of patience when it comes to certain people and situations in life. But, when it comes to gardening I have all the patience in the world! I can while away hours just sitting on the bench under the tree, sipping iced tea, gazing around trying to decide where in the garden I want to plant something, where it will grow best, the best location for viewing etc. Sometimes I while away so much time sitting on the bench daydreaming that things don't get done that need doing, but it's taught me patience.

In this rushed, hurried world of uncertainty, it's sometimes hard to find patience. I think everyone needs a little peaceful spot to sit and reflect. For some, it might be a plot of land, or even a container or two to plant and tend ... a little respite from all the worries and fast pace of daily life.

Wishing you all many blessings, peace and patience in your gardens.

Lin

I can have some patience, if I know there is an end in sight. Like when all the folks on the clematis forum taught me the mantra "First year they sleep, second year they creep, third year they leap." I can handle the lack of immediate gratification if I know that the reward WILL come.

It's the plants that just seem to sit and never do anything that frustrate me. I can start things from seed and know it will take a while for them to mature, and the bed to really look the way I want it to, as long as I see progress!

In the meantime, I shoehorn all kinds of things into the gaps, to help me wait. So. . .I guess that means I really am not patient after all.

I'd say that I am pretty patient about waiting for the good things in life to come, but not at all patient about waiting for the bad things to leave.

look at us. gardeners are the most patient people in the world. and optimistic. ain't we?

must be patient because Ive waited 5 yrs and still no blooms on wiesteria.Which I told take almots that. But looseing patience with it one more year then out iit comes

Was your wisteria grown from seed or from a cutting? Six years may be only partway toward bloom.......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisteria

dont know that I bought it online and never thought to ask will have to wait and see. It does go up about 10 foot from the ground .

Hehe...this was the question I suggested, based on all the impatient gardeners in the Upper Midwest forums. ;)

I'm impatient, but I tend to grumble and endure it. Good things come to those who wait (unless a critter snips your budding plants right down to the ground, as recently happened to my astilbe *mutter*).

I'm far more patient in the summer than I am in the spring. I can wait patiently for that first echinacea to bloom, but I can hardly stand waiting for daffodils to show their sunny faces. Winter brings out the worst in my patience level.

Artwestallis, I have a funny story about non-blooming wisteria. The first time I went to the local garden club, an older lady was telling stories on herself. She said she was so frustrated with her stupid wisteria that just would not bloom, that she grabbed her broom and started whacking at it, yelling at it, and telling it how mad she was. Lo and behold, it bloomed shortly afterward. She was pretty sheepish admitting that she battered her wisteria with a broom handle, but apparently it shocked it into action!

ROFLMBO !!! I am in tears just picturing that, Bookerc1! So much for tlc, huh?
Patients, yep, I have a few, and they're coming along just fine so far... ;)

I used to be patient. Living in North Dakota it takes patience for most things to mature due to the very short growing season. However, in the last couple years I'm finding my patience is growing shorter as I get older.

We built our house in 2002/2003 on a flat piece of the prairie. There used to be a home on this site long ago, so there were existing shelter belts...what's left of them anyway after dutch elm disease claimed a good portion of them.

Anyhoo, after we built the house we planted literally hundreds of trees around it to offer shade and protection from the winds. Now, 7 years later, over time we've replaced almost half of the original baby trees that couldn't handle the drought. Those that survived really haven't grown much either. At this rate I'm not going to live long enough to see mature trees in my yard.

I've decided that I'm done with patience and want to buy some BIG trees and hire a tree mover.

I love the challenge of growing plants from small beginnings (seeds) or rescuing plants sold on the "Need TLC" shelf at the nursery. Every day I walk my garden and enjoy congratulating those plants that are making headway. It's a great challenge and a great satisfaction for me as a gardener when I see these "babies" flourish. Nature at her finest!

Patience is something I have acquired with time. Like Joan above, I enjoy watching a plant grow from seed and am more than willing to wait a year or two for perennial I have nurtured to bloom. I am finding, though, that buying some larger shrubs & trees is sometimes a better way to go for survival, an also to have slower growing species amount to something in my lifetime.

I beleve I finally have patients. I received some bulbs from my moms freind last summer and planted them I donot know what they are but this summer I was gifted with a great show and the humming birds love them.I posted a picture of them. I also got a hollyhock from a thrift store it did not bloom during the summer but it servived the whole winter and gave me a great show. I hope it reseeds itself and keeps giving me more shows to come. Patients pays off in the long run.

I have patience - good thing! My Daturas are self-seeding and I have lots of babies again!
The onesI planted last year, in a pot and brought inside, have bloomed throughout the winter, and now are planted outside. One has a bloom on it, and there are more babies growing!

Anyone want some babies?

-Susan-

Wow, CherokeeGreg, I don' t know what it is, but I LOVE it! It just glows!

One of the little sayings we have at our house, when somebody says, "Have patience," is to respond, "Patience?! How long is that gonna take?" ;)

LOL I also like the cartoon of the vulture saying, "Patience my (rear end), I'm gonna KILL something!"

I have patience when waiting for plants grow, but very impatient to get new projects going while waiting for some $ to spend.

From Buffy the Vampire Slayer...

Anya..."I was patient but it took too long."