The Extraordinarily Ignorant Gardener Who Plows Ahead Anyway.

And some tips on reaching 'Oh, well.'

I love flowers in profusion, covering my front, back, and side bits of land in Boston.

I have a less-than-little idea of what I am doing. (And swing between lying and exaggerating when neighbors ask for gardening advice.)

I grew up in Brooklyn, with a speck of dirt in the alley of the apartment house where I dug and made imaginary flowers. (Below, the plot as seen in a visit to the old country.)

My gardening career began in my forties when I discovered container gardening (easy days! My gardening mantra? overstuff), plus a tiny plot in the back of my townhouse. Had I been filmed, the name of my television show would have been The Extraordinarily Ignorant Gardener Who Plows Ahead Anyway.

I didn’t know the difference between annuals and perennials. 

Sun vs. shade? Huh?

What means this term, invasive?

‘Twas a weird little plot that praised my complete gardening ignorance. But, just as I had back in Brooklyn, I loved digging in the dirt. And now, my flowers weren’t imaginary! They were invasive (hello, my morning glories that ate Mission Hill, Boston) and unsuited to the area (welcome, rose bush that wanted water, room, and decent soil!).

Fast forward to a house on a plot that would be miserly in Kentucky but feels baronial in Boston. When we moved in, the backyard was rubble, there was no fence—though we did have a twenty-foot drop down—and angry old hostas (what are these things called hostas? I asked throughout the front yard. 

We hired a garden/tree guy whose hobby was arguing with me:

 He said: Get rid of the Rose of Sharon tree! It’s old-fashioned.

I said: No. I refused because what could come next? My children pulling me out of the ground for being too dowdy?

He said: Trust me, these red twig dogwoods will thrive in this deep shade!

I said: Wow, they look so pretty!! I should have looked it up. I suppose by thrive he meant, wow, you are so gullible.—thus paving the way for oops. The never-made-it-to-tree status became a straggly mass of ugly kindling. 

I backed my way into a massive garden (and massive chores) that could be called charming, weird, or themeless. Take your pick. But year by year, it grew into a space that charmed me, gave me hours of exercise, and, most of all, let me dig in the earth without the nail-biting I should have experienced. Oops, I missed the education!

Fourteen years later, it’s May, and I’m overwhelmed by weeds and unraked leaves. Without my ‘identify this plant,’ I would be pulling out ten-year-nurtured perennials. (The older I get, the more I don’t know or remember.)

By June, I’ll be happy.

I’ll be sick of it by July, but I’m grateful for the exercise and beauty.

By August, I’ll say, who cares, do what you want to do, to almost everything.

By September, it’s every plant for itself.

And, thus, I will have completed another year of being a Frank Sinatra gardener: 

If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.

Above, we have pandemic gardening: painted sticks, painted bamboo, painted rocks and turtles (getting the theme here?), logs from a fallen tree repurposed to bordering, and building a border from rocks and chunks of glass.

Basic best things for ignorant (and older people with wonky backs) gardening:

1. A strong hori-hori knife.

2. Local kids, you can pay to weed. This is what What’s App what invented for.

3. A yearly foray into Task Rabbit to find a strong young person to do the heavier weeding, raking, and, most of all, spreading that mulch. I would give up restaurants for a year to do this.

4. Tons of indestructible garden tubs. I use them for everything and never have enough.

5. An attitude of Oh well:

I planted masses of colorful, easy, beautiful impatiens in my shady backyard for years. That is the picture on top—sigh—a great moment. Then an impatiens blight hit the soil. (That’s the best I can explain, folks.) So, I learned my most important lesson: 

Accept, find something new, and move on.