softhearted gardener
- To: "'perennials'"
- Subject: softhearted gardener
- From: S* C*
- Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 09:30:42 -0500
Often people write into the list because they need help growing a
particular plant. I think I have the opposite problem. Yup, most
everything grows too well for me and I'm too softhearted and the result is a
garden problem, so I need some advice and moral support.
The worse trouble softheartedness in the garden has gotten me into
was actually in a prior garden, when we had perfect germinating conditions
in a cool basement. The problem then was that we grew far too many
wonderful rock garden plants and border perennials from seed, the seedlings
survived too well, and the plants almost all made it, so we spent the entire
spring every year building new raised beds and planting--with no time left
for maintenance.
Okay, now in the new house there isn't a basement and we're not
doing seeding projects. But here we have made a gravel walk in between 14
raised beds (6 square, 8 rectangular) on the sunny east side. It turns out
that the gravel is a perfect medium for self-sowing! It is totally
impractical to allow seedlings to remain in the walk, so I am trying to
train myself to pull them out, but it's hard because I feel like each one is
a potentially great plant...
I try to deadhead, but it's a big job that needs doing on an
on-going basis and, incidentally, seems to always need doing when it gets
really hot and humid out there and lots of other activities are going on
too.
We've done some transplanting of course, and we try to pot things up
and give to friends,neighbors, and colleagues at work, but both of those
efforts take garden space for the transplants and the work to plant them or
time and energy (and people timing, which is tricky) for passing on plants
and it's a big garden and we have full-time jobs and other hobbies too
(except in spring, of course).
To make matters worse, besides the self-sown plants I have trouble
removing, I'm often loathe to pull something up that is growing in a bed and
unidentifiable to me. After all, sometimes a plant can seed and then die and
the seeds lie fallow for a while and it could be a favorite hard-to-find
alpine that I thought was lost forever ... but sometimes it's just a new
weed or one that doesn't look like itself until it's too late and it's taken
over and crowded out some of the plants that were supposed to be in that
bed!
Then there's the problem with creeping plants that creep too far.
It seems so harsh to just take a scissors to them and yet I know that they
cover other smaller plants and rob their sunlight. I guess I'm always
thinking I might overprune and kill them (sigh).
And, of course, there are the very successful perennials that get
bigger and bigger and bigger every year. I know, I know, you're supposed to
divide them, actually dig up perfectly rooted plants and chop them in
pieces!
This year is THE YEAR OF MAINTENANCE--we have decided. We will put
annuals in the containers (one of my joys in life) of course and put
perennials in place where something has disappeared if we find such a spot,
but we are building NO new beds and, mostly, buying few new plants (famous
last words...). We want to learn (after sooo many years of gardening that
it's embarrassing) to do garden maintenance.
So: How do you manage to do it? Please send advice to a
softhearted gardener. Thanks!
Susan and David in Urbana, Illinois, zone 5b (in bloom now: aubrieta,
arabis, alyssum, phlox, pasque flowers, species tulips, daffs, squills,
bloodroot, erythronium, fritillaries, anemones, hellebores, epimedium, wood
poppy, corydalis, pulmonarias, rhododendrons...and more)
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