Gardening really isn’t as difficult as experts make it out to
be. I know we have garden books, garden events, radio and TV shows,
and even this little bitty weekly column, but
– let me say it again – gardening isn’t that difficult.
Gardening really isn’t as difficult as experts make it out to be. I know we have garden books, garden events, radio and TV shows, and even this little bitty weekly column, but – let me say it again – gardening isn’t that difficult.
I always go back to the philosophy of a garden columnist friend of mine, Felder Rushing. Felder is an eighth-generation Southern gardener from Mississippi who has served on the Garden Writers Association with me. Felder’s advice on how to plant a plant? A) dig hole, b) insert plant.
“Green side up,” he reminds, lest that point pass you by.
Felder abhors the term “horticulture,” preferring instead “gardening.” He says, “Gardening is not by the book. Horticulture is all by the book.”
“Have you ever fried Spam?” asks Felder, as if this might clarify the point. “It curls up. Anybody who has fried Spam knows, instinctively, you gotta cut the edge to keep it from curling. You don’t read that in a book, you just know it. Well, I heed the cooking-Spam approach to gardening.”
Dr. Allen Artmitage, a noted University of Georgia horticulture – ahem, I mean garden professor – exerts a similar garden philosophy. For instance, he hates what he calls “garden snobs.” These are people who insist on correcting your plant pronunciation. Who cares if you say cle-ma-tis or clem-atis? Everyone will know what plant you’re talking about.
“My design philosophy finds me with a plant in one hand and a trowel in the other, looking for a place to plant the sucker,” says Dr. Armitage.
I second that advice. Who cares if you’re not supposed to plant a certain plant with another? So long as you like it, go for it. Who cares if you’re not supposed to plant pink flowers next to red flowers because they’ll blend together? Who cares if pink plastic flamingos might be considered tacky? My garden lovingly features not only a pink plastic flamingo, but a pink plastic flamingo wearing gaudy beads and sunglasses. Borrowing from Felder, my garden also contains a “bottle” tree. This is a trunk and branches of a long-dead apple tree. On the branches hang several colorful glass bottles.
Adds Armitage, “There is no such thing as the perfect garden or a finished garden. It will always be a work in progress, and there will be some beautiful gems and some blemished rocks. But if it is your garden, and if you enjoy it, that’s all that counts.”
Finally, don’t work so hard in the garden that you don’t get a chance to enjoy it. I know that I’m guilty of this. I’ll take a cold beverage and a favorite book to the lounge chair on my back patio. But instead of enjoying my garden, I start puttering around, pulling a weed here, deadheading a flower there, etc. Life is good when you can play in the dirt, but remember to also enjoy that dirt.
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.
