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SLOW GARDENING (R)
Slow gardening isn't lazy or passive gardening - it actually involves doing more stuff, carefully selected to be productive without senseless, repetitive chores. By focusing on seasonal rhythms and local conditions, it helps the gardener get more from the garden while better appreciating how leisure time - and energy are spent.
More than mere tips for easy gardening, it's more about thinking "long haul" and taking it easy. Life has lots of pressures - why include them in the garden?
Some ways of slowing down in the garden:
• Spread out your chores; do a little as you go, instead of loading up the weekend.
• Stop planting like farmers, all at once; plant what you need, when the season and weather are right. Plant raised beds and containers a little at a time, all year.
• Develop a long-term, relaxing garden pursuit such as bonsai or topiary, garden photography, seasonally-appropriate flower arranging, collecting or hybridizing cultivars of a favorite plant, composting, or bee keeping.
• Garden for all the senses - wind chimes are as important as nice fragrances.
• Right plant, right place - choose pest-resistant plants well-adapted to your local climate and soils, plant them well, and let them grow without being pushed. Try untested new plants in a small area.
• Have something in bloom every week, if not every day, of the year. Include plants that bloom in the evening, and notice the hawk moths that visit after dark.
• Carefully select and display sculpture or other garden art, for all-year inspiration.
• Grow your own - propagate enough plants for you and for friends or neighbors.
• Grow your own fruit. Make preserves to share with others.
• Lose some of the lawn, making edges and corners easier to mow with less backing up. Lighten up on the fertilizers and pesticides, enjoy a few wildflowers.
• Let some hedges grow informally, instead of keeping everything tightly sheared.
• Design your landscape for people-comfort. Include all-weather seating, dry paving, shade in the summer, and wind protection in the winter.
• Install a fire pit and waterfall, and use them as occasional relief from television.
• When practical, use quiet hand tools over noisy power equipment. Keep digging and cutting tools sharp and efficient.
• Get personal with your weather - use a rain gauge and outdoor thermometer.
• Enjoy the sun - put up a small clothesline for favorite t-shirts, and make sun tea.
• Garden to encourage year-round wildlife. Include a well-stocked bird feeder.
• Compost. Better yet, just keep a neat leaf pile, letting it work on its own schedule.
• Take it easy on vacation - visit public botanic gardens, and walk around older neighborhoods to savor what is grown locally by hands-on gardeners.
• Shop at a farmer's market for in-season, locally-grown produce.
• Take advantage of area garden lectures, seminars, and shows.
• Browse good gardening sites on the Internet. Check out recommended links.
• Ponder the mysteries of the universe, in the microcosm of your own back yard.
• Keep a garden journal, including photographs (digital is fast, easy, inexpensive).
• Share relaxing garden techniques and easy, rewarding plants with children.
Do better. As Steve Bender, senior garden editor for Southern Living magazine says, "Maybe you can't change the whole world. But by slightly modifying the way you garden, you can change your own back yard. And that's a start."
(Excerpts taking from the book 'Slow Gardening' by Felder Rushing) http://www.felderrushing.net/
