“I am still devoted to the garden. But though I am old, I am a young gardener.” – Thomas Jefferson
This time of year, my back and knees hurt when I don’t garden for days. Little do they know that my “garden-dedicated” brain is busy planning changes and planning a more perfect garden, just because I’m a young gardener too.
Most of my ideas and plans are already in my head and written on a list. But while ideas are easy to come up with, they’re hard to implement, so it’s inevitable that you’ll add more things to the list than you remove.
A list with many random thoughts and notes about which plants to check out is a big part of my yearly planning process. If you spend years thinking about things on your list, you’ll find that you generally fail less and get better results. I will give it to you. The changes I make from this process usually remove or harden items all together.
I read a lot of gardening magazines and articles. I look at the garden and listen to the gardener. All this is not only a source of joy, but also to give me ideas when I am out of ideas. If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, I have made many people happy through my gardening.
I discovered that there are several stages of planning in gardening. I don’t mean planning stages, but plans and plans that reflect both the garden and the maturity of the gardener. I have gardens that are very mature and settled and gardens that are immature and still need refinement and maturity.
As for gardeners, I am terribly mature, except for knowledge and thinking. I try to improve my knowledge while controlling my thoughts, but generally more than my physical maturity allows. For example, I still want to build a bed on the island in front of my house, but making these plans acknowledges my age and ability to build and maintain a relevant bed.
If you are a new gardener, an older gardener, or just an older gardener, carefully analyze your plans based in part on your physical abilities.If you are a new young gardener, while the sky is the limit , carefully analyze your plan. Hindsight is 20/20. If my knowledge had been more mature years ago, my garden would already be more age-friendly. You don’t have to work hard to create a more perfect garden in. Be careful what you want and what you plan.