Re: softhearted gardener

I'm softhearted too. I hate to throw out a perfectly healthy plant, whether
I started it from seed or divided an existing plant.  The problem is that I
can't find anyone to take them any more.  The usual victims--oops,
recipients--have scaled back their gardens.  My Mom and Mom-in-law are
getting on and my sister finds it to difficult with a baby and a toddler.

Now that I'm past the initial stage of building my garden, I don't start
much from seed anymore. But, it still hurts to throw out divisions.  On the
bright side, Yarrow seems to make very good compost.

As for deadheading and other daily/weekly maintenance... I do most of that
as a "cool down" after my run. I spend 15 minuites deadheading, pulling
weeds, or watering. It works out great. I get 15 minuites of easy exercise
to drop my heart rate and some gardening gets done at the same time.  Over
the course of a week most of the garden gets tended to.

Other maintenance, like dividing and moving plants, I do 2 or 3 times a
summer, early on a Saturday or Sunday morning.  It's a comfortable time of
day to work and I enjoy the solitude.

I used to have the same problem with creeping plants but I'm over it now.
After 5 years they've lost their charm.  Actually, I plan to remove a lot
of my creeping plants as soon as I can see what survived the winter.

I don't think that leaving self sown plants is a bad thing.  I wish I could
get more of my plants to self sow. (I don't deadhead everything!)  My
cousin has a really interesting and charming garden. The only things she
pulls are weeds and some unknow invasive plant that her mother gave
everyone and is impossible to get rid of--grrrr.  There are some real
surprises, like columbine growing 3 metres from the original plant.
Everything looks so natural!

That reminds me of another garden.  A co-worker has a grape vine growing in
his yard that he didn't plant.  Several years ago, he and his wife were
doing some serious weeding after being out of town for a few weeks on
vacation.  Harvey came upon an plant that he didn't recognize as anything
they planted or a weed.  Jan agreed that it certainly didn't look like a
week so they left it to see what developed.  By the next spring they
figured out that it was a grape vine and moved it to a more appropriate
location.  Harvey calls it his "bird-poop" grape vine.

Another good reason not to remove unknown seedlings.

Leslie
zone 3, southern Manitoba
(30% chance of snow tonight and tomorrow)


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