November 25, 2008
Advice from a Half-Assed Gardener
I like to read garden writing, particulary when it’s written by people of a literary bent: Katherine White, Jamaica Kincaid, and so on. But I don’t think I would be very good at it myself. I can be handy with the word part of it at times, but when it comes to the actual gardening I’m at best a happy fraud. So here’s my whole gardening book:
1. Don’t tell people ahead of time what you are growing.
2. Be generous with the produce you give away–and don’t be afraid to buy more at the store if you have to.
3. Get your wife to help you root things in a jar in a window.
4. Look in the compost bin to see what “dead” plants have started to feel better.
5. Don’t be discouraged when your mother comes over.
6. Don’t give any more cuttings to the jerk who wanted to “trade” for some of your purple irises and then never came back.
7. Don’t garden if you want to keep thinking that squirrels are cute.
8. Stuff that comes up again without you doing anything is good.
9. Let problem plants keep going at least until after the weather changes.
10. Don’t bother asking asshole down the street how he keeps his ____ looking so good.
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fucking squirrels.
I once asked my neighbor about his lawn, he said, “I don’t know, I just water it and cut it.”
“Water!” I said, “I knew I was missing something.”
I love a bit of gardening but try and keep it as straight forward as possible! 1.Everything has to be green.
2. I won’t tolerate the planting of annual flowers.
3. In an ideal world all plants will be evergreen, so cutting down on the picking up of leaves.
Regrets? I have a few (Would make a great line in a song)
Buying a house that is clinging to the side of a hillside and so makes every task so much more tedious.
The aches and pains of age – house on hillside!
Daryl – Sorry how rude of me, your observations were bloody great! You had me giggling at work which always seems so wrong! I would hate people to think that I enjoy it here.
Thanks Phil. House on a hillside? Sounds great. And a caution about evergreens: some of them do stay green all year but also shed their leaves. But you probably already know this. Live Oaks are bad about that here. And then there are some of the hollies with the sharp points on their leaves. Picking those up when they’re dry is like trimming rose bushes with your bare hands. Isn’t nature wonderful?–it wants to kill you.
Also–I share your love of green. I like green flowers in particular (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: “There could be a green rose….” ). And my favorite annual flower is the zinnia. I don’t suppose you get enough sun there to want to grow them…?
Cheers
Daryl: Damn, those dried Holly leaves get me every time…I try and be a good gardener but fail, I fear. I try not to be too anal about it…I like it to look a little tidy, I like it to look green.
Most mostly, I love the optimism of spring and the beautiful, aching sadness of autumn.