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The Complete Guide to Landscape Design, Renovation,
and Maintenance
by Cass Turnbull
GARDENING: IS A VIRUS
Gardeners are sick, needy people. They can't drive past new nurseries
without stopping to browse. They sometimes speak in a dead language
(Latin); they crave ever more and choicer plants. It's a disease
I call phytophilia (Plant Lover's Disease--in Latin, of course).
Early symptoms include the removal of grass areas to include more
plants; phytophiles often hop the fence when they run out of land
and take over parking strips and neighboring bare patches. Sometimes
in a schizophrenic fit they disown last year's favorites, yanking
them out while pronouncing them all weeds, then start collecting
a new round of plants. They can drop two bills on spring bulbs alone.
Theirs can be an expensive habit to feed. I know of an otherwise
respectable librarian whom local police caught "fernnapping"
by the side of the road. She has been known to engage in midnight
pruning in her neighbor's yard as well.
Advanced stages of phytophilia include a morbid fascination with
feces and decomposing things, blood and bone meals, manures and
molds, and other substances. phytophiles congregate with others
of their kind to swap dirt recipes, speak in tongues, and do "ID."
Gardeners would just as soon never come in from the yard. My husband
has often had to point out to me that the sun has gone down and
it's too dark to work. During the final stages of this disease,
spouses find baggies and yogurt containers in the refrigerator containing
peat moss and seeds being stratified, or strange and hairy looking
bulbs, corms, and tubers. These late stages of phytophilia can be
dangerous for family members when the phytophile is driving the
car. He is apt to drive off the road while doing high speed or midnight
plant identification.
Thank heaven for the winter, because otherwise we phytophiles might
work ourselves to death. It gives us time to rest, but beware! You'll
find the advanced gardener in the throes of withdrawal, browsing
through the seed catalogs and poking around the yard in late winter,
turning over leaves, looking for the first shoots of spring, and
examining buds for imperceptible signs of swelling.
Consider the Benefits
Gardening is a sickness, but you won't mind catching the bug. In
fact, you're going to like gardening just the way I do because it's
so easy! I used to be envious of people who had really beautifully
decorated houses and hip clothes and who did creative things. Then
I discovered that when you buy a plant and put it in your yard,
and it does something neat, you get all the credit. I was amazed.
I redesigned my yard before I knew bapoot about plants, and you
can, too. And my friends and neighbors are impressed as hell. If
you've never found your creative niche, try gardening. The plants
do all the work; and just look at your competition. Only about one
out of fifty yards looks even vaguely interesting. You can be the
best in your neighborhood--easily. I tell people, "I'm an artist,
I work in dirt."
Another thing I like about gardening is that you're encouraged to
copy; it's part of the whole game. Good gardeners keep notebooks
to jot down good plant combinations to try out in their own yards.
And you also get full credit for serendipitous creations--that is,
when you throw in a bunch of things that you like, and four of them
bloom at the same time, and complement or contrast with each other
so well that you get credit as a creative genius. This happens a
lot in gardens--really, it happens a lot.
Furthermore, your mistakes are easy to fix. Usually, the plant dies,
and you can replace it with a good performer. You can move an unhappy
plant to a place it likes and where it looks better. Or, you can
give an unwanted one away to someone who thinks it's choice, even
though you think it's now too vigorous or just plain common. The
gardening world is not completely full of snobs; it's also full
of generous, gentle hearted people. They will help you troubleshoot,
and will be eager to share seeds as well as starts of treasures
from their yards.
Getting Physical
Gardening is also a great sport for the less vigorous humans, and
it will keep you well into your old age. Unlike snow skiing, the
gardening form of exercise takes no courage, will not break bones,
and is easy to do into your eighties and nineties, when you shouldn't
be driving into the mountains anyway. It will keep you young and
healthy. You always see those old ladies with their broad-brimmed
garden hats and the old gents in their overalls out there. They
aren't shut-ins. They are the experts! Outstanding in their field,
where you should be--out, standing in your field.
People pay attention to old gardeners. This is because gardening
is way behind everything else that's being scientifically tested.
Horticulturists are just now starting to test some old, wrong assumptions
and practices. A great deal of gardening is a guessing game. That's
because, when you are dealing with plants, you constantly find that
several factors can combine to produce any one effect. This makes
it very confusing; yet once you get the hang of it, it's fun, and
your opinion and experience are valid. It's easy to become a smarty
pants fast in gardening. With only a modicum of reading and investigating,
you will become the neighborhood expert. And, by careful observation,
you can become a sought-out real expert in your old age.
You'll Learn Fast
Don't be intimidated by all that Latin and all the names. Once you
get interested, you will be surprised at how much you learn in a
year. I remember being on a garden tour when I knew my shrubs but
not my flowers, and I asked someone, "Whatzzat?" He said,
"Cosmos." I was astounded. "How do you know all those
different flowers?" He said, "You just get to know them."
A year later, I knew all those flowers--at least, all the common
ones. It takes a lifetime to know all the flowers' names. It's like
a good novel that never ends. You'll love it.
You'll love gardening because through it you will return to the
surprise and wonderment of your childhood. You will regain that
connected to nature feeling. You will get the healing, enriching
perspective of the world where a tiny, infinitely complex bud moves
you. And, when you plant a tree that will probably live longer than
you will, you sense the entire web of living things of which you
are only a part. You will glory in the life-and-death drama that's
played out in your yard. You will feel like an Olympian god as you
watch the ants farming aphids for honeydew, or cheer as the ladybugs
decimate the aphids that decimated the maple. The boring round of
human routine is replaced with the ever fascinating change of seasons.
You will smell the frost in the air as a winter sun warms your cheek.
You will experience the incredible high expectancy just before spring
when the first early burst of bulbs and blossoms confirms that winter
is defeated and all the best is yet to come.
You will love those lazy, hazy days of summer that are like an old
friend you forgot, who returns again, bringing wafts of sweet scented
phlox or heliotrope. And it is confirmed that, yes, life is good.
And, at least once a year in the fall, you look up just as a breeze
sends a flurry of golden leaves like snow down to the ground. Even
in the winter as the snow gilds the fine branch patterns and textured
plants that you so carefully chose, you know that hiding just beneath
the soil (you forget just where) are the bulbs you planted, which
will surprise and delight you and your family come February, March
and April.
And For The Long Term ...
About your fifth year into gardening, some of the great philosophical
truths will begin to occur to you. You will see that good and bad
(weed vs. not weed) really depends on how you look at the plant
and at the situation; you will marvel at the incredible tenaciousness
of living things; you will fully understand that giving things what
they need according to their individual habit and type--rather than
controlling them and trying to make them do what you want--is the
real key to success and beauty. You can begin to train your eyes
and yourself to see what's needed and wanted in any situation--not
what you want. (And, if people ever treated each other or other
cultures this way, what a difference there would be.)
I'll tell you a secret. You will get what you need in the process.
Without ever intending to, you will learn the lessons of gardening.
All the things I didn't want to do, you'll do. You'll find out that
all things worth having and doing take work and maintenance, but
when you love the process, it's no problem. You'll learn--I still
hate this one--that it's important to make sure that living things
are kept healthy; and I hated this one the most--you'll learn patience.
But it won't hurt, I promise. The good things in life begin with
setting up an emotional bond between you and your kids, you and
your nice house, you and your pet, you and your beautiful, wonderful
garden. It all takes time.
SUMMARY
1. Several factors combine to create a good looking or bad looking
plant.
2. Gardening can be more fun than work.
Forward to The Science of Pruning
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