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The Joy of Gardening?

O

OBIO

Retired SOH Admin
Who ever penned the expression "The Joy of Gardening" needs to be taken out and flogged. I just spent the last 5 or so hours up to my neck in the "Joy of Gardening". I have clods of dirt and clay stuck to my scalp and hair. I have sweat soaked balls of soil in my ear canals. I have humus and earth worm guts packed up under my finger nails. I have about a billion of those sharp spines on chestnut hulls embedded in my finger tips, palms and shins. My favorite comfy jeans have enough dirt ground into them to grow a bumper crop of radishes.

But I must say, after doubling the size of the flower bed, edging it with rock and old red bricks, removing all the grass and weeds and chestnut hulls from the new area, chopping up the rock hard soil to loosen it, mixing in some good humus (wood chips that have decayed to a nice rich nutrient base), dividing some hastas that had gotten too large, moving my Japanese Irises and dividing them...the garden looks much better. Still have 8 hastas to move to the other end of the house, 2 more overly large ones to divide and reset, a clump of bright yellow day lilies to divide 3 or 4 ways and reset, and a bunch of mulch to carry up from the wood chip pile and spread out in the garden, then plop in a couple shephard's rods with wind chimes, a couple giant quartz crystals/stones (think 20 pound diamond...pretty much what these quartz crystal thingies look like...beautiful when the sun hits them just right), the Garden Gnome (evil little bugger that he is....I don't trust him and will never turn my back on him) and the cherub statue (I don't trust him either...anyone who looks that sweet and innocent is surely up to no good) and the garden will be done for the year ...other than pulling a week here or there.

OBIO
 
I think most of the people who write books on gardening, have others do the digging and hard work.

:)
 
jmig said:
I think most of the people who write books on gardening, have others do the digging and hard work.

:)
Click to expand...

Yep, there's a definite difference between telling someone where to put something and putting it there yerself.

(Much like those guys on the home shows and the speed channels where they're constantly tearing stuff apart and in sparkling "eat off the floor" shops.)
 
Our flower garden is very low maintenance. Hastas, Japanese Irises, Dwarf Irises, a few types of hardy lilly, a few others...all come back year after year, all are hardy, low fuss plants. But after 5 years of growing, most of the plants have grown too large for the garden space we had. So, this year I had some real work to do: double the garden size, divide the over sized plants and move parts of them to the new areas, move some plants to a new spot on the other end of the house (so in actuality, I will be tripling the garden size). Once I am done with all this, the garden will go back to being a low maintenance, low toil garden...for another 5 years or so...at which point I will have to divide the plants again and find people who want some very pretty plants for free.

OBIO
 
I left the farm and joined the Navy at 17 to get away from that kind of stuff. A move that I've never regretted.

Nothing against farmers, but not everyone is cut out to be one.

Today, my main concern with plants is whether or not they're safe for my horse to eat.
 
theres 2 type of people in my most gardens:-

The gardener, normanly the wife/mum etc who "supervises"
the labour who does all the sodding work, which is normanly the husband/kid

at least thats how it works in me mums garden :blind:
 
When we get to big projects where the cost to let an outsider do the work is too much, I'll get to use my old "gardening skills" once in a while. :)

We were trying to do a building extention remodel project at work but this goofy tree was standing right in the way. It had been there for 15 years. The trunk at ground level was about 36" in diameter and it was sitting on top of a little 3' hill. To make matters a little tougher the original knuckle headed landscapers had it sitting directly on top of the main power cable to the building. The main power transformer is sitting just off from the right front tire of the SB Forklift.

To get her out of there we had to remove the front and 2 sides of the hill from around the rootball. I then pushed the tree forward off of the power cable. Her new home was in a hole 4' deep and 16' across. That's me standing there with the grin, mainly because most of the folks that came by didn't think we could do it.

When ya gotta go gardening, ya might as well go big! :)
 
Content to stand alone
Waiting, watching, guarding Granny's home
His face reflecting simple joy
But he is not a happy Plaster boy
"Careful sonny, not too close
Unless you want a lethal dose
Of hardening..."
Patiently waiting for some shade
Wishing he could run away
Supressing any urge to roam
Such devotion from a little gnome
I once saw a calico that thought he could fly
ANd then the lanky Doberman that tinkled in my eye
A pacifist by nature, with ample common sense
But if I had my druthers, I'd rather be a fence
Now Granny, she's a good one, she shines me now and then
ANd come around this springtime, I'm due for paint again
On keeping Granny comfy, I try and earn my keep
I'm just wishing I had some eyelids, so I could get some sleep

gnome-prank.jpg
 
LOL...I gotta chuckle...good one cheezy. :)

Yup, putting in a garden is a lot of work. "Is it worth it?" is the big question though.
For me...yes it is. I'm not much of a fan of sticking flowers in the ground, but fresh garden veggies are a must-have item here. To me, nothing in the world beats pulling a fresh carrot out of the ground, rubbing (most of) the dirt off of it, and eating it right in the back yard.

Like lifejogger & OBIO, I tend to take the low-maintenance approach.
My garden isn't kept as neat and weed-free as the ones you see on the TV shows. I plant em, pick em, & eat em, and I cuss at the cottontails cuz I'm too greedy to share all of it with em. Maybe that's why I enjoy a good pot of rabbit stew...everything fresh from the garden! :icon_twi:

Along with the fresh veggies, ya gotta freeze and can a few too...the winter up here is too long to go without homegrown garden stuff. Things just don't look right to me unless I've got four or five dozen jars of pickled cukes, beans, & peppers stashed away.
And when it's too cold outside, there is a five-gallon pail sitting in a south facing window with a cherry tomato plant in it. Fresh tomatoes year-round! Beats the pants off of those tasteless things you get from the store.

The few flowers I do are basically wild flowers...stuff native to ND like purple coneflower (echinacea), prairie coneflower, wild primrose, goldenrod, wild garlic, wild onion, flax, etc. All this stuff just helter-skelter in a couple corners just like you see it out in the pasture....and the patch reseeds itself so I don't have to plant it every year!
Mom does a few fancier things in her flower patch but I like the stuff that grows out on the grasslands since it takes care of itself.

Yeah, I think the extra work is worth it!
 
I think Joy of gardening happens after the work is done when one gets to sit back with a drink and just enjoy what you have done. It does suck when you first dig in after the winter months are done and spring kicks in.

Jim
 
A good friend of mine has developed over many years a wonderful garden 'setting' in his back yard. Every year he adds to it. New plants, new trees,...new shrubs. You name it. Plus a rock type waterfall that cascades water into an elongated goldfish pond. With lily pads and aquatic plants poking up along it's perimeter. When things are blooming and popping open the garden looks like something out of a Monet painting. Beautiful and restful. A visual delight to the eyes. It could be on the cover of 'Gardens Beautiful' magazine.
Now,...he asked sometime ago that I should get involved and do the same thing in my back yard. You know,....a little hobby of some sort. HA! I know the constant maintenance
that goes on during the summer and well into the fall and winter months. Plus being on the lookout for marauding raccoons and other varmints. His work ethic truly convinced me:isadizzy: NOT:isadizzy: to develop a back yard garden.
 
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