How has gardening changed for you over the years???

How have any of you changed your gardening habits?
My interests and fascinations have changed many times over the years, as have my physical abilities.

To compensate for my less active body, I have made some adjustments. Here’s what I am doing:

I have low maintenance perennials like clematis, potentillia and hostas. Mostly plants I don't have to do much more than prune and mulch.

I still love bulbs and always will. They aren’t a lot of work once you have them were you want them. Just thin them out every few years.

I love fuchsias but have had to focus on ones that are hardy for this area. It is so much easier than hauling them in and out every year. To compensate for fuchsias that I used to hang from my treelike, I now do begonias. I do not have to haul the entire pot in and out of the basement twice a year. I just dig up the tubers and store them for next year.

I have put well made, industrial strength wheels on all my larger potted plant stands. I can push my weight against anything, but when the wheels don’t turn…it doesn’t work. This was one of the best things I ever did,

I hate to admit this, but I have had to hire someone to cut my hedge. I just don’t feel comfortable up on a ladder anymore. Sure wish I had a son sometimes – lol.

I have learned to not take my garden so seriously. I used to want it to be perfect; it was a matter of pride. But now, I just want to enjoy it. And it doesn’t matter if some of the upkeep is put off a little longer than it should be.

Every year I marvel at nature. I hope that never goes away.

Very beautiful commentary, mstish. I really enjoyed reading it.

You mentioned not having a son---well, I have 3. But they are ages 2, 4, 6--so they aren't a lot of help, except they are very good berry pickers, which actually does help me. I guess I've been a lifelong gardener, as I have done it since I was a child with my mother. I have changed in that now I am teaching my own little gardeners. My oldest has his own garden. He's pretty into it.

I'm in a very passionate, energetic phase with gardening. I do often look at my yard and wonder how or if I will manage it when I am older. The soil will certainly suffer, because that is where I put most of my physical strength---digging in and hauling compost.

I gave up double digging for sheet mulching and no til methods. And learned to wintersow.

I gave over my too-large-for-two veggie garden to herbs, but am now circling the wagon and turning a raised planter into a small veggie garden (lettuce, scallions, beans) with tomatoes against a south wall.

I've also learned that an investment in truckloads of compost will save my wrists a lot of weeding agony.

My deck planters have evolved from annual flowers to perennial grasses.

My latest focus is to incorporate more native plants in my existing beds, often replacing finicky plants that need staking or coddlling. We've been slowly tearing down fences that are no longer needed as well, which has been very freeing.

kosk - I envy you being able to pass your love of gardening onto your children. I didn't discover gardening until I was in my 50's. I have been planting spring bulbs with my grandsons but I see them so seldom....
Gardening feeds my soul, nourishes my connection with nature and continually makes me marvel at life. I didn’t have the patience or time to stop and “smell the roses” when I was young but I am making up for it now.

I have planted more "yellow" plants, (foliage, not flowers). As my eyesight has worsened, I find I cannot see the greens so well but the yellows stand out, of course.


I am having cataract surgery soon. I hope to not want to rip things out and wonder how I ever thought THAT looked good!

I have moved from wanting to plant every 'cool looking' perennial and annual I find to wanting more shrubs that are lower maintenance. I've also slowed down on the seeds, although that could still be a slippery slope for me if I let it. Seems like everything goes through an expanding and contracting phase. My garden is currently in a contracting phase where I'm letting things settle, allowing the voles to have their way with many things that are already planted, and trying to focus on a broader picture.
I've also stopped being in 'zone denial' and trying to protect things over the winter, preferring to let the ones that can survive our weather stay in the garden and those who don't go the way of all flesh.
I have stopped planting anything without putting in a hefty couple of shovels of sharp gravel to protect the roots from voles.
Oh, and I no longer garden for days at a time in one position. I am conscientious about breaking up the time and keeping the body moving in ways other than squatting, crouching, and reaching.

Amen to all that Pixy

I have moved from exclusively growing vegetables in a community garden plot (while living in rentals),... to creating a large veggie garden at my current, more permanent home, ...to planting fruit trees and berry bushes,... to attempting to artfully landscape the acre of pasture around the first home that I have owned myself and could do whatever I wanted. I have made many mistakes and also discovered some serendipitous plant combinations. I am in the "buying cool perennials" phase that Pixy mentions above, and finding that it is burning a hole in my pocketbook far too rapidly and cannot sustainably continue. I am also trying to plant trees and shrubs to give my open pasture more of a protected garden feel, and learning that small plants do not survive on their own surrounded by infrequently mowed pasture grass. So, I am also in a phase of creating large, slightly raised beds that each contain a tree and some shrubs. Doing this by hand with a garden fork and wheelbarrow loads of compost is taking me an eternity.

Gardening is the use of my right brain and it fills me with anticipation of creation. I love the labor and with all the rocks in our garden it will never end. Lifting rocks, composting, hauling manure, and soils where ever I find it keeps me in shape. I can labor at 57 still over 10 hour days and it makes me, a diabetic, happy and healthy. Like Pixy I have several projects going at the same time so I break up the muscle pain with different stages of labor. Collecting rocks on weekends allow Karen and I to share our hope of the next project. Then I can plan on what I have as it collects to build the next stage of rock-work. This summer is my heated grotto to use for a sauna, green house, winter storage, and sunset viewing. I have planned this one for over 3 years and now have the materials. Can't wait! I will pour the concrete base and sink the slate-like flooring this first melt. Then the walls go up with the posts I have collected from driftwood beams from an abandoned pier near our yacht club. I have 3 windows I found in old construction to have the SW front glazed glass in small 8X6" window panes that "cottage like" the large 6'X6' window. On top of the grotto is soil and thick with compost to grow annuals around our metal/wood bench to sit in while viewing our sunset.
I first wanted every thing and tried to over zone plant and I have learned with toooooo many deaths to stick to Zone 5 and below so the plant remains. My zeal for Maples has matured into a wonderful autum magisty. We have learned to mix seasonal groupings so each window is blessed all year long with garden delights. Winter has become a daily bird watching and IDing all our visitors. My mom now sits all day with binos filled with wonder the many visitors to our dead snag I planted last spring. So I have become a ornithologist studying the places these wonders come from and why are they here. Pheasants have set up daily strolls to feast on the spilled seed from the feeders.
Study is the source of my continuing joy as I build a world for all that God put on our planet. Stone work, Botany, ornithology, geology, soil and compost building keep my right and left brain smoking. Now how do I move this river and waterfall to my yard?

Sofer, with your love for rocks have you perused any of the books by Dan Snow, a stonemason in New England? I find him quite inspiring.

I have a book that I use all the time called "The Stoneworkers Bible" . It is a how to use all the different shapes to do all things from columns, walls, motar, dry stack, and fieldstone masonry. I at this time don't use any ideas because I have so many in my mind I want to construct. I have been collecting thousands of colored flat stones for a Mosaic tree that will be laid in my lawn for the finishing touch to my view out of my sunroom. This is a mower drawing of what I am planning. I will look up Dan Snow.

This is another part of it. I plan on using sedums for flower color in the tree interspersed with the grass. I am laying it over my drain field so I figure when I get it done I will have to dig up my drain field. LOL It will be complete with a root system at its base to the right lower of the tree trunk. I have purple, variable browns, red, yellow, grey, umber, and colors not found yet. They will be mostly large pieces of interspersed colors to give a light, dark, variation to give the tree sunny and shaded branches. It will use different fertilizers to darken the grass and Iron to change the colors of grass. I even will use mosses where I can to change the texture of the leaves. I think it will be my first masterpiece.

This message was edited Feb 25, 2011 9:42 PM

This message was edited Feb 25, 2011 9:44 PM

Steve, that is very cool and will look totally amazing! Also, the grotto will be enchanting! It sounds like a feast for the senses.

Steve, why are you not a landscape architect? I love what you are doing!

Sounds like a masterpiece to me. Amazing idea.

I told Dan Hinkley when he asked why I don't have a garden showing that I do my garden for our pleasure. To allow other persons, who do not know me, to "invade my garden" has no value for me. And to create other gardens would dissapoint me when they change it. We all know that creativity is for the soul, no soul can share with others who do not know them.
This is a 3 to 5 year project. These ceramic silos are no longer being made and they exist all over the midwest. They are many colors and glow with the reds and umbers of their beauty. It will make a most beautiful library off my house as I ascend stairs to reach the summit view and reading room. Kind of a light house/library built off my home.

A castle of one's own.

Well it won't be tall but rather a room with each end a half circle with spiral staircase at each end. It shall have post and beam inbetween. Kind of like a Twinkie

I didn't know that Twinkies had spiral staircases inside!!!!!! I shall have to try one one of these days!

LOL!

Seriously though, it looks very cool -- I know you'll enjoy it greatly.

WOW!!! That is so amazing---all of it, Sofer. I think with your skills and ambition, you can also have that waterfall in your yard. The mosaic rock tree is so gorgeous and inspiring already! Did you already acquire your ceramic silo.....is that yours in the pic? And, if so, how did you go about acquiring it? How did you transport it, and how much did it cost to purchase (if I might ask that question---don't answer if you want to). Very interesting and wonderful ideas. I want more land.

The silos exist everywhere in the Midwest. Many are only partial and free to the person who wants to dissasemble them. The cost is trucking. So my plans are to take one apart and load it on a semi to be shipped to here. If you saw the ceramics up close you would understand. Most incredable. The one featured is not as shiny and bright as many are. I think a good 1 week at most and it is ready to pick up by a trucker. Most are a threat to instability because they are unsupported inside. They are banded to hold the silo together. I will use a different post and beam for my addition. No castle look but a glass roofed semi-circle of insulated double wall ceramic structure so the beauty of this pottery is preserved. Both Karen and I climbed these pieces of art shoveling a fragrant brew of silage. Some precious memories that need not be put in a land fill.

Ooohhhhh, great inspiration.

I didn't really start gardening until mom and dad moved in with us in 98. We had a LARGE sandbox that originally was a pool when we moved into the house, then a play area for the kids with a huge fort for the boys, then it became a garden. Mom loved cut flowers, so that's what we started with, but I slowly moved to perennials also, cuz more gardens came intp existence and I couldn't keep up. (Sound familiar?) Now, I am adding the 'bones' shrubs and trees. I know, I know, I did it backwards, but I'm learning. This year I'm not doing annuals or a deck planting because we will be on a 'road trip' for probably 8 or 9 weeks. ( I am sooo looking forward to meeting some PNWers.
I am planting some veggies for my son's family to harvest while we're gone. They DO know that LOL. Their water bill has been horrendous - there has to be a leak somewhere, but the water co. says not, so I said she could plant her veggies at my house and use my water. I'll do anything to be a great MIL heehee.

Wow Sofer you really captured that waterfall in your photo. The grotto plan so intrigues me, ever since I read about garden grottos in a magazine years ago, I have wanted one.

Adding pics to go with my above post about getting my kids involved in the garden. These two pics are my favorite from last summer. My 2 year old (then 18 month old) eating a tomato from the garden like it's an apple.

Close up view of tomato munching with little hands.

Adorable!

That's so cute, Kosk! It would make a great painting, wouldn't it?

That is so cute. It's unusual for one so young to like tomatoes?

Yes the first bite of a fresh garden tomato. He will never like the store bought ones the rest of his life. You have created a gardener.
This is my Charlize a year plus ago doing her first pumpkin harvest.

Wonderful pic's of your beautiful little one and the beautiful tomato. We had a terrible tomato season last year here in Silverton. Amazing what a few miles makes when growing tomatoes.

Charlize & Mr Potato head, what can I say. Every child needs a Mr.Potato head. I was so happy when I received one for my birthday many moons ago. How fun! :)

Oops wrong picture.

Thanks! I love the Charlize pics, too!!! Yes, it is unusual I think for a little one to like tomatoes like that. He wandered around picking berries all summer. Cherry tomatoes were adjacent, and I think I had him fooled into thinking those were berries, too. Unfortunately, he has become much more finicky since then, so we'll see if he'll eat tomatoes this summer. Yeah, it was actually a terrible year for the tomatoes. Got a few good ones. Canned lots and lots of marinara sauce though.....about 50 jars of perfection. We only have 2 left though now. Hopefully, I'll be able to make more next summer. I'm planning to add ultra early tomatoes (Stupice) in the event that our summer is like last summer. With the way this spring is going.....I'm kind of thinking summer may be another cold one. Last year even my Oregon Spring tomatoes were not ready until mid August.

Happy you were able to get enough to make marinara sauce. I did not even get enough to ripen at once to make a small bowl of salsa. Had to rely on the Silverton Farmers market,which wasn't the greatest last year either. Hoping this year will be better for all that love tomatoes!
My blueberries were fantastic last year BTW.

I found that growing cherry tomatoes - or currant tomatoes last year - kept my GD munching happily, and now that she's a teenager she has branched out into full-sized tomatoes. She helps me taste-test my varieties every summer.

I got our yard service to send some guys down to help me spread wood chips for my garden paths and distribute the compost that we had ready for the rows. Gotta clean out the chicken coop to get enough to finish the rest. That will be a huge help, though, if we don't have to do that chore, and we're really ahead of ourselves this year. I just figure that if we can spare ourselves some of the heavier chores we'll have more energy for the remainder! A couple of years ago I found a helper when my husband was recovering from surgery, and that really spoiled me. Unfortunately she hasn't been available since, so I've had to go looking.

Glad you at least had the lawn service to help.

Yup; it will make a difference! Haven't gotten the bill yet, of course...

Spring SPRUNG today in Montana. Lots of sun and warm (40s). I got to walk through the melting snow and see what spring projects are waiting. Not too many this year. Some trimming and a little clean up and shredding and flip the compost when it thaws. Lots of plants to move due to my DW over planting. LOL

Yesterday was a glorious day outside and I had been soooo looking forward to continue the clean-up of the beds, but instead I spent it inside on the couch ALL day. I got something from the grandy kids. YUCK.