Abate Spring Fever with a Good Days Piddlin' (Page 1 of 1)

By Stephanie Manning

Too many people put gardening in the “chore” category. You know the story: It’s the weekend before Mother’s Day or Memorial Day, and you have people coming over for a cookout. There are shoots on the hollies. The front beds need to be planted and mulched. And there are weeds, so many weeds. Everywhere! Even in the gutters!

If those people see this yard, they’re going to hate you. They will flog you, and your children will be cast out of acceptable society. Your entire family will be assaulted with condiments, and your ears will ring with their angry hisses. So you get up at the crack of Saturday and attack the box store garden center like Visigoths plundering whatever is in bloom and on sale. You then go home and work on everything until it’s too dark to see. The next day, you’re too stiff to kneel and beg God for mercy. You now loathe gardening.

Oh, stop yourself. Gardening is fun if you have fun with it. Somewhere, somehow, along the way, gardening became a status symbol. The yard was to be conquered, manipulated, orchestrated and perfected. I’m not sure where blame should lie for this phenomenon — with Ms. M, 17th century aristocrats, the ancient Babylonians? Perhaps all are to blame. If all your friends are braiding daffodil leaves, does that mean you should, too?!

Scientific fact: Perfection does not exist in nature. Naaature — as in plants, animals, bugs. Gardening is naaature. Let this be your mantra.  For once you accept this to be true, Grasshopper, so your path to enjoyable gardening begins.

Spend time in your yard, and not just on sunny Saturday afternoons from April to September. And by “spend time,” I mean piddle. No timeline, no plan of action, no roll call and no tools, other than keen observation and cognitive learning. Walk around with your morning cup of coffee, or at twilight or even during a full moon. Sit on your porch or in an open garage during a rainstorm. Now, this is the hard part: Just be in the moment, as it is, right now.  Get to know your garden. Pay attention to when things bloom and for how long. Notice when and if things go dormant. Where does the water run during heavy rains? Don’t make any lists. Don’t look for things to be done. If something is glaringly bothersome to you, take care of it and move on. I don’t mean trim the entire hedgerow in a geometric wonder, either. Unless you’re planning on setting up an amusement park or have an orphaned, mutant, cutlery-handed boy living in your basement, it’s completely unnecessary.

What I mean is, if two or three branches are sticking a foot above the rest of the shrub, snip them off and carry on. Don’t pull every single little weed. Pull up the ones that are the most obvious. Do this on a regular basis, and your garden will never get to the point of chaos. Don’t look at the garden like you’re observing brush strokes on a Rembrandt, and don’t concern yourself that anyone else will either. Appreciate the grace and beauty of what is already there, and be humble in the knowledge that you had very little to do with it.

Get to know your plants. Know what to expect from them and accept from them. Touch them. Smell them. Look at them with a magnifying glass in all the nooks and crannies. This is how you catch pests and diseases before they get out of hand. Your plants will let you know what they need and when they need it. Lawns are over-fertilized and pesticides are over-sprayed simply because people don’t pay attention to their plants.  I could go on forever about what this has done to the environment, but the saddest (and perhaps funniest) thing is that these people are just creating more work for themselves.

Don’t be afraid to set the mood. Have a cocktail. You may want to invest in something with a lid or bendy straws. A Yellow Jacket to the lips is quite unpleasant. I would say that it’s a buzz-kill, but that would just be too knee-slapping corny.

Put on some music. Some folks prefer classical, but where’s the fun in that? I find that James Brown accompanies hole-digging and shrub-removal very well. Billie Holiday is good for rainy, March days. ABBA just seems to go with anything. If you are gardening at night (If not, why aren’t you?), have nice lighting. Tiki torches are lovely, cheap, and give off an impressive amount of light. But be creative. There are lots of interesting ways to light a garden. Dress comfortably and wear appropriate shoes. I like to wear pajama bottoms, T-shirts, and Wellies. I find it a stylish, yet functional ensemble.

And always, ALWAYS stretch out first… in a comfortable chair, with a cold libation, and observe the general state of things.

* The views expressed in Commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Knoxville Voice.