Gardening is good for the body, heart and soul. Exercise keeps the body fit. The heart enjoys the beauty as a natural reward to all the hard work and the soul is satisfied to nurture something outside itself.
As we grow older the body tends to wear out before our ideas and love of gardening do. My great grandmother gardened the summer of her 96th year and I hope to do the same.
How do you keep the joy in and aches out? You may have to rethink how you garden. Begin by making things easy for yourself.
Tools
Use tools to keep you standing straight in the garden. One of the best is the winged hoe, which slides horizontally just under the soil's surface slicing off the weeds' roots rather than piling soil. The wings can be maneuvered between plants to lift out small weeds as well.
In the fall you may find a small auger, about 14-inches long, that can be used with a battery-operated drill. This will allow you to open up holes for bulb planting from a semi-upright position. But the auger could be used in the springtime as well, to open up holes for annuals.
Look in catalogs like Lee Valley Tools or Smith and Hawkens for a wide range of tools not always found locally.
Perennials are the mainstay of the garden but only a few varieties bloom all season long. People think that if they add lots of perennials to beds and borders, they won't have to plant annuals every year. The disadvantage of perennials is they bloom for two to three weeks and then only add texture and leaf color for the remaining months of the season.
Slow growing perennials
Some perennials are happy to remain in place for ten years or more. Some require transplanting every two to three years, and plants like chrysanthemums need transplanting every year for best production. To cut down on labor, choose perennials like peonies, bleeding hearts, showy sedums, Baptisia, Siberian iris, ornamental grasses or Dictamnus. With proper preparation of the growing site these plants will continue to grow slowly and perform well for ten years or longer.
Self-seeding annuals
Most annuals add color all season long because they have only one season to grow, bloom and set seed. If the idea of planting annuals yearly daunts you, think about annuals that reseed themselves. Shirley poppies, calendulas, bachelor buttons, love in a mist, forget-me-nots and violas tend to come back every season.
If you want tidy beds and borders, these annuals may drive you crazy, because while they do reseed themselves, there is no guarantee that they will appear exactly where you want them. If you like the effect of an English country garden, you will do fine with this method. If you like something more restrained, less of a riot, you will prefer to use annuals that stay where you put them and don't reseed readily.
Raised beds
Raised beds are an ideal solution for the person who no longer gardens on their hands and knees.
Castle stone blocks, cedar or redwood make excellent material for raised bed walls. The castle stone comes in two different sizes. Its one draw back is the weight of each stone. The small stones are quite hefty. This may be a good project to entice a teenage grandchild to help with or to hire a laborer for initial placement. The stone blocks have a couple advantages over the use of wood: the stone can be molded to curved beds and the stone does not rot away.
Do you want summer color but fewer perennials or annuals?
Flowering shrubs
Expand your garden palette with flowering shrubs. Most gardeners are well aware of the spring flowering shrubs like the lilac, snowball, Spirea, forsythia, and mock orange. A new shrub on the market is the nine bark 'Diablo', which blooms in late May and early June and offers a bronze colored foliage during the growing season.
Mid summer bloomers for late July and early August include Spirea 'Shibori' and the ash-leaf Spirea. A 'Blue Knight' Spirea blooms in late August and September as does the Buddelia.
Down-sizing
Cutting back the size of the garden may also be an option. Move your favorite plants into a small bed close to the house near a window where you can observe it or where you walk by it frequently.
Weed-free environment
If you can keep a weed free environment, you may be able to enjoy the rest of the gardening agenda. Kill out perennial weeds by using products like Poast or Roundup. In the early spring put down a herbicide like Preen. To use Preen correctly for best control rake into the soil and water it. If you pull up a weed or dig in the area, expect weeds to come up if you don't reapply.
Lay down layers of newsprint between plants and cover with compost or wood chips. Use only sheets with black and white print, since colored inks may contain heavy metals that plants may absorb from the ground. Laying down cardboard and covering with slices of old straw will hold back weeds for three to five years. If a weed comes up between cardboard sections, fold it down and push it under the straw and cardboard where it will be smothered.
Container gardening
Gardening in containers is also an option. To plant perennials and shrubs in a container remember that they need to be hardy two zones colder than what is listed for your area (so a USDA Zone 5 would require Zone 3 plants). Vegetables can be grown in containers as well as flowers. Mix and match. Fertilize once a week with a liquid fertilizer and feed twice a season with a slow release fertilizer like Ozmacote.
Start out your gardening regime with stretching exercises; change chores frequently so you don't tire. Begin gardening slowly and work into the routine.
Hire what you can't do and save the things you like to do. Remember that gardening should be something you enjoy.
Published in Fifty-Plus Living October 2004
