Can you believe it’s actually 2007? With the New Year comes
resolutions
– garden style. I promise to try to keep these garden
resolutions in the coming year.
With the ease and popularity of contact weed killers such as
Round-Up and Finale, it’s easy to get trigger happy.
Can you believe it’s actually 2007? With the New Year comes resolutions – garden style. I promise to try to keep these garden resolutions in the coming year.
With the ease and popularity of contact weed killers such as Round-Up and Finale, it’s easy to get trigger happy.
I mean, all you have to do is walk around your garden, driveway and sidewalk, spraying weeds to your heart’s content.
However, my first garden resolution is to hand-weed more often, leaving the chemical weed killers behind.
After all, how hard is it to pull up those weeds instead of spraying them?
Hand-pulling weeds were fine for us when we were kids.
But all of a sudden, we’re too busy (or lazy) to hand-pull weeds.
Spraying weeds with contact killers still takes time and you’re left with brown, dying weeds that don’t look very flattering. I promise to pull weeds by hand in the coming gardening year.
My second garden resolution is to prune more often. Pruning is actually good for your plants in that they are rejuvenated and spring forth with new growth. Pruning, done correctly, opens up the middle of plants to allow sunshine and air circulation. Prune away criss-crossing branches, opening up the middle of the plant.
This will result in healthier plants, with fewer disease problems. Often times, novice home gardeners are reluctant to prune, thinking they might ruin a plant. But most plants are very resilient.
I promise they will come back and, usually, they come back stronger than ever. Related to pruning is dead-heading. I resolve to be more diligent when it comes to pruning away old flowers – whether we’re talking about old rose blooms or bedding plants like geraniums.
Old and dying flowers not only look unsightly on plants, but they’re not good for the plant.
Instead of putting its energy into new buds and flowers, the plant’s energy goes into the old flowers in trying to form seed. A flower’s one goal in life is to re-seed.
By deadheading old flowers, you’re fooling the plant into putting energy into new buds and flowers rather than seed.
I also resolve to try new varieties that I’ve never grown before. Part of the joy of gardening is trying new specimens. Sure, they’re not always successful, but sometimes you get surprised and find a diamond in the rough.
Instead of planting those same old impatiens in that shady flower bed this summer, try something you’ve never grown before. You can also try growing flower colors you haven’t tried before.
Instead of choosing mixed colors, go for an all-red flower scheme or maybe red and white, purple and white, yellow and white – you get the idea.
So there are my garden resolutions. Go ahead and borrow some of mine or think of a few of your own. Happy gardening in the New Year!
Keith Muraoka lives and works in Gilroy. He has written his award-winning column since 1984. E-mail him at ga*******@*ps.net, or write him at P.O. Box 22365, Gilroy, Calif. 95021.
