It's become clear to me through posts and PMs that there are some gardeners here just waiting for the chance to discuss gardening!
So, I was thinking... how do you use gardening, or how does it affect you if you need a break, need some respite, need to relax, need inspiration....how do you use it as a therapy tool in caregiving?
What are your activities: Do you go out and pull weeds, read a magazine, design new beds? Look through garden catalogues? Go to garden stores?
And what interests have you added to your gardening? Visit estate or garden displays? Do you go to garden shows?
Does anyone design and plant Knot Gardens? Raised bed planters? Assistive gardens? Pollinator gardens (and have you thought of ways to help the bees and butterflies?)
Are your gardens primarily for pleasure or food, or a mix of both? Do you grow plants for medicinal purposes? Which ones, how do you harvest and process them? Any suggestions?
Do you grow plants that can be used in crafts, such as grapevines for wreaths and lavender for lavender wands? Do you make herbal products such as creams, lotions, chapstick?
What else can you share about gardening and the means in which it nurtures your soul?
My grandmother would never have done any work in the garden. She made fabulous fig preserves from their fig tree.
The neighbors had a pecan tree and they would trade the fig preserves for pecan pies! Nice deal!
"You can't plant flowers
🌸🌸🌸🍀🍀🍀🌸🌸🌸
if you haven't botany."
I have a great picture of a Palo Verde tree in full bloom and it can't be posted here, just doesn't work, so I have experience with that :-)
Thank you in advance :-)
Cannas and amaryllis would be lovely indoors for Easter.
I do have a slightly cooler basement store room where I keep my potatoes, onions etc. I've wintered over stuff before but they tend to sprout by March, which is much too early.
Full on snow here now. Everything is getting buried in it including my front driveway. Snow Angels -where are you?
What do you all think, must I bring everything in now? (the longer I can put it off the better because I don't really have a cold room in my basement)
It drives me crazy that gutter is slowly creeping into use in advertising Canada, and that spell check tried to tell me that eavestrough wasn't a word.
(And it makes me even crazier when my great nephew insists the alphabet ends with zee😠. Nuh-uh.... it's ZED!!!)
Rain gutter?
The municipal leaf/yard waste collection ends next week and needless to say I haven't been raking, but then most of the leaves are still on the trees....
I did have some surprises. The little blue flowers, the name of which I can't remember right now, appeared again, and bloomed for a very short time. I've never figured out why they don't appear in the same site; it's as if they're a "traveling bloom".
The goldenrod moved again, appearing in 2 places, and bloomed well until just a few days ago. I forgot to collect seeds; would it be too late now?
I really gave up on a garden this year; too many other interferences, but I'll have a good chance to plan one over the winter. Then I only have to figure out how to get it done.
I have decided to stock up on sturdy plastic and solarize as much as I can. The garden is just too big to turn by hand, although I might pick up a small tiller at the end of the season.
Anyone else use a tiller, and have recommendations on which to consider? The yard now is overgrown with grass, but years ago it was tilled by Dad, and I double dug areas that were tilled. Now I have nonnative plants, lots of grass, and still some durable daylilies, but almost all of the irises and special plants I bought are gone.