It’s hard to believe that another year has passed us by. Where
did 2002 go? It’s a good opportunity to reflect on what we didn’t
get done in the garden this past year and what we might resolve to
do this coming year.
It’s hard to believe that another year has passed us by. Where did 2002 go? It’s a good opportunity to reflect on what we didn’t get done in the garden this past year and what we might resolve to do this coming year.
For instance, I never did get my underground sprinkler system completed. The only portion of my garden without sprinklers is way out in the back atop a rocky hill. It’s one thing about digging into rock-hard adobe to plant a new shrub or tree, but it’s another to go through all that trouble digging trenches for sprinkler pipes. I just hate doing such work, and this translates to that portion of the garden that requires hand watering.
Of course, there’s something to say about the old-fashioned way of dragging a garden hose around the yard to water. I think part of me does not complete my sprinkler system because I enjoy watering by hand. You get an up-close-and-personal look at the garden. You can see where there are weeds popping up, a flower that needs to be deadheaded, a branch that must be pruned.
Another task that never seems to get done in my garden is staking large shrubs or trees. When a specimen begins to lean or grow in the wrong direction, I tend to prune it rather than stake it. I just don’t like trying to hammer in large stakes in that rock-hard ground or using twine to try to hold a specimen in place. My trusty pruner or lopping shears do the trick, albeit, only temporarily because that darn shrub or tree always wants to grow back in that wrong direction.
I also didn’t garden organically this year although every year I tell myself that I’m going to try. It’s just too easy to spray that chemical sometimes. I try to spray organic insecticidal soap to get rid of the aphids on my roses, but it takes many repeated sprayings to get the job done. This is compared to one spraying with a chemical insecticide.
And I tried to keep the snails under control in my garden by hand picking. I must confess that I have the bad habit of tossing snails into the street when I find them in the front yard. One morning, the street in front of the house was littered with snails. I felt so bad about the mess that I picked them all up and threw them in the compost pile. However, I did find a great snail bait called Sluggo that does not contain methaldehyde and, therefore, can be used safely around toddlers and pets. One small step toward gardening organically!
I’m not one to make New Year resolutions, but I’m going to try to enjoy my garden more in 2003. It’s fine to try to resolve to try to improve things in the coming year, but one will never get things precisely how one wants it. In other words, there is no such thing as the perfect garden.
And that’s OK, too, because we certainly wouldn’t enjoy the act of gardening if everything was perfect. After all, if everything in my garden was perfect and completed, there wouldn’t be any need for this column!
