Re: [SG] Low Maintenance Gardening

In a message dated 7/7/99 10:28:57 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
diehlr@INDIANA.EDU writes:

<< I ask because my husband and I have been working very intensively in our
 yard this spring and summer, and it definitely shows! But the hard labor
 is getting to us, particularly the weeding. Frankly, I don't know if we
 can keep this up year after year. We ain't gettin' any younger. Hiring
 help is one possibility, but I'm sure it would be difficult to find the >>

Hello Bobbi,

We have been through the same thought process.  Every bed has flowering
shrubbery put in at very small sizes.  We are hoping that the gardens will be
shrubberies in the future and we will have flowers in the spring.

Another strategy is grouping long lived perennials for future garden ease of
care.

We have had help in the garden for the past two summers.  We no longer mow
the lawns nor do the edging.  It is not difficult to teach edging to a
helper.  Get three or four light weight wheelbarrow and have the helper fill
them with mulch or manure or whatever you need and bring them to a garden
each day.  Forget watering, it is very time consuming and causes you to gaze
at unhappy plants, making you unhappy.

If you do not start watering, many genera will do fine on their own.

If some plant is a great deal of trouble to you, get rid of it.

For midsummer color use pots around the house, that is quite near to the
house.  If pots are close by the route you walk you will care for them more
often.  Pots offer you the opportunity to grow all kinds of exotica and add
the excitement gone when you give up a million borders.  Pots can be filled
by a helper all at once and stored one day in the fall all at once.  There is
no need to keep over plants today as the diversity available is huge.  I
think we have collected over fifty pots and containers and they are all
planted.

Garden help, if summer work for a student, will not assist you in weeding or
pruning or sprucing up but can relieve you of the chores that exhaust you.

Rethinking the garden is the ticket.  Please feel free to add ideas.

My property was owned by a mother and son who started the garden.  Mom lived
to 86 expiring in the peony patch and I intend to do the same.

Claire Peplowski
East Nassau, NY
z4
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