Garden plan considerations

If you read gardening journals or flip through magazines for inspiration, then you might be led to believe that making a beautiful and productive garden is as easy as clicking your heels, sprinkling some fairy fertilizer and applying some holy rain.

I’m here to tell you that making a beautiful and productive garden is about as easy as losing 50 lbs., and sculpting your body into that super-model figure you’ve always dreamed of.

Magazines are full of breath taking photos - the best-of-the-best, you know, gardens of millionaires or those lucky enough to happen upon a corner of perfectly groomed paradise. I always find myself thinking h o w ? ? ? ? How exactly do they get these gardens to fruit like champions and bloom around the clock?

Really hard work - that’s how!

Perhaps you’ve been the person that fell for a miracle diet program, or a new product that cleans your home without much effort. How have these “solutions” worked out for you? Something tells me that a majority of you have not found such ‘miracle solutions’ to be as easy as advertised. Excellent gardens don’t happen without a lot of hard work — their is no gimmick or silver bullet that will take the work away.

Keep this in mind when you set out to design your garden space, because the result will be proportional to the level of effort you have to put in. Or maybe you’re just one of those lucky people able to afford a gardening staff, and if so, will you adopt me?

I’m sorry to be the one to rain on your parade, but I want you and your garden to be successful, and that means being realistic. I have a few tips to help you reach gardening nirvana.

Tip 1: Don’t take on more garden area that you can eat — it’s a sin you know! This has been a painful lesson for me to learn. I’m on the level of King Leopold the II — I’m all about dividing and conquering new sections of our yard. My partner attempts to get me to stop taking over additional space, because he wants us to have enough room to entertain guests. I say, FEWER FRIENDS! This ‘garden creep’ has led to more garden space than I can successfully manage with my current level of skill. I’ve stretched myself thin trying to plant every square inch as opposed to focusing on one area and perfecting my technique.

Tip 2: Just put down the seed catalogs! In other words, don’t go overboard, and order more plants than you can handle. This year in January (under the influence of SADS: Seasonally Affected Disorder), I ordered $180 worth of seeds. For the sake of quick computation, lets say the seeds were 2 bucks per pack. That’s roughly 90 varieties of plants I’m taking on this year. Seriously, I have a problem. Start small, don’t make the same mistake I have.

Tip 3: Do what makes you happy but in the context of ‘all things considered’. Take a look at the pictures in the magazines, but look very closely. Ask yourself, do I need to recreate that environment? Is doing so at the detriment of the environment? Perhaps building a cool water mountain stream in the middle of the dessert isn’t such a reasonable idea. As I always say, give me all the resources I need, and I can grow bananas on the article circle. Determine what it is you want, and consider the environment you are in, and what resources you have at your disposal. Put all of this in context, and soon you’ll be on your way to your own little controlled piece of paradise.

Life doesn’t have to be short — so take all the time you need to do something grand.

Enjoy ~

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Posted by Boe on April 26th, 2007 under Garden Planning

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