Gardening as you age

I love a cold, blustery, snowy winter day because it’s a perfect excuse to just sit next to the fireplace and read a book all day long.

“Gardening for a Lifetime — How to Garden Wiser as You Grow Older” by Sydney Eddison, published by Timber Press, had been on my to-read list since it was published in the spring of 2010.

It is only natural when our bodies start experiencing a higher percentage of aches, pains, grunts and groans that we ask ourselves, “Are we still having fun?” If you are the gardener who can’t live without dirt under the fingernails, it may be time to look for some alternative ideas to make the season less exhausting. It’s all about the choices you make, but it’s plain that sometimes we need help with those choices.

The book doesn’t just appeal to a certain age group. The basic principles could apply to anyone with limitations caused by physical problems, lack of time or busy families. Eddison suggests gardening practices that encourage gardening as the joy-filled activity it is meant to be.

Eddison, now in her 80s, has lived and gardened on her acreage in Connecticut for 48 years. She is a well-known garden writer and lecturer, receiving many prestigious awards. The book follows her journey from lush lawns, high-maintenance borders and cottage garden plantings that required the assistance of others, to the mental and physical process of winnowing out the labor-intensive stuff.

The accounting of the varieties of plants she pulled, what she kept and what she replaced with a hardier substitute doesn’t necessarily apply to us as a road map for our area, but the basics she used are useful.

First, we need to recognize when it is time to change. Has the garden reached a size and complexity that is too hard to maintain without additional help? Has your health changed? Have you suffered the loss of your lifelong gardening partner? The answer of yes to all three of these questions confirmed to Eddison that she needed to bring her garden dreams into line with the realities of her life.

Garden management

A long-neglected clearing out of overstuffed closets, drawers and bookshelves brought her to the realization that the same process could be workable outdoors. “If I couldn’t bring myself to make the garden smaller, surely I could get rid of some things and make it simpler.” The following tips were selected and paraphrased from Eddison’s “Gleanings,” small sections at the end of each chapter:

• Take a hard look at the perennial borders.

The greater the variety of perennials, the more work you will have with staking, deadheading, cutting back or dividing. They will all need some sort of special attention during the season. Blue globe thistle, a favorite combined with her day lilies, requires staking and then cutting down after bloom. The replacement was anise hyssop, which brought satisfaction in color and form and is less demanding.

• Apply the good behavior standard.

The criteria used is that a plant must be healthy and exhibit the fortitude to endure dry summers without supplemental watering and cold winters without additional mulching.

A well-behaved perennial must maintain a tidy habit; no flopping, sprawling, no overtaking of neighbors or shading them out. It must not offer an invitation to predators, pests or diseases.

• Substitute shrubs for perennials.

Shrubs afford more value for less work. Most shrubs suitable for a border are compact varieties and need pruning only once or twice a year. Shrubs provide strong structural forms — cones, globes, mounds and other solid shapes to break up the softness of blossom — and add different heights to an undulating border. Consider evergreen shrubs for year-round color and deciduous shrubs for season-long color. Do research as to mature size by consulting reliable local nurseries or reference materials written by Michael A. Dirr.

• Make lists and establish priorities.

It is a known fact that when you feel overwhelmed with things to do either in the garden or in personal life, a list can help define what should come first. Keep the daily list for the garden short to allow for additional daily obligations. Keep a master list that can be crossed off as the daily list of jobs is completed. As you look at the crossed-off items at the end of the year, you realize how much can be completed in 30- to 60-minute increments. List-making helps to prioritize what is really essential on that day and what is not.

Accessible gardens for aging gardeners

Chapters in Eddison’s book include subjects such as developing an interest in bonsai, container gardening or planting in manmade troughs to keep the dirt under your fingernails, so to speak. Eddison suggests seeking out the native plants of the area or turning an area that is not in the forefront of the property into a wildflower garden that is allowed to reseed and die back naturally.

We need to accept imperfections in all aspects of our life. Rarely is life perfect. “Living things are always in a state of becoming. A seed becomes a mature plant, which enjoys a brief prime, ages, dies, and becomes compost to nurture a new generation. As that is how nature works, our best hope of a simpler way to garden lies in learning to go with the flow,” Eddison writes.

Many of my early garden philosophies were formulated years ago after being introduced to the writings of Ruth Stout in her book “How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back.” Stout pioneered the modern benefits of composting and the use of mulch. She could be classified as the quintessential character of down-to-earth, common-sense gardening wisdom and nonconforming methods.

My copy of Eddison’s book will reside next to Ruth Stout’s book on the shelf, and I’ll refer to it regularly. Eddison leaves us with the question, “How beautiful can you make your garden with the resources you still have at your command?”