Gardening has been steadily gaining in popularity since the 1970’s. I am certain that it has taken another giant leap in recent months due to the pandemic. Health and fitness have become a priority for more and more people and they are beginning to make the connection between gardening, and the quality of nutrition in the food that they eat. I dabbled in gardening in the early 1970’s; but I did not become a serious gardener until the early 1990’s, mostly because I was lacking in knowledge and experience. Everything that I learned was through reading and trial and error. In 2005, I took a master gardening course, which put me well on my way to becoming a proficient gardener. Those who are just beginning to take up gardening are fortunate. We now have information at our fingertips and YouTube videos to demonstrate and to answer every question we might encounter.
My biggest challenge has been the frequency with which I have had to move. I love growing flowers and herbs, which often take two or three years to really make an impact. It pains me to think of the peonies, rose bushes, and small shrubs that I have planted and had to leave behind. Still, I know that the space was greatly improved and has probably made many birds and insects happy. Someone else is enjoying the asparagus and the rhubarb that I had planted, but in spite of my personal loss, I will continue to strive for a garden that I can grow old with. I cannot NOT garden.
While I have some disappointments from my most recent garden, I am in awe at some of my successes. This year, for the first time, I started many herbs and flowers from seed. I have clumps of both flat leafed and curly parsley. One flat leafed clump is nearly a yard across! What makes it so gratifying, is that I started it from seed. I also started rosemary, of which I dug one up and brought inside for the winter. (It is a tender perennial.) The dozen lavender plants, that I also began from seed, will grace this property for coming years, whether I am here or not. Besides the personal sense of pride that comes with starting plants from seed, there is the savings. Purchasing a small, 4 inch potted herb will usually cost a minimum of $4. A quart sized perennial from a reputable garden center costs around $13. For a well designed garden, you need to plant perennials and bulbs in groups of 3 to 5. If you are buying annuals, they last for only one season. From a practical standpoint then, it makes sense to start as many plants as possible from seed. If you save your own seeds, you can save still more monetarily.
If you have a greenhouse or a room with a lot of south facing windows, you are fortunate, as light is essential for the germination of most plants; but if you do not have this luxury, many seeds can be started outdoors in the fall. Some can be tossed out after a hard freeze and they will come up the following spring. This provides the stratification needed before many seeds will germinate. My next endeavor is to grow trees from seed. I have been collecting juniper seeds and pinecones when I go for my walks, for that purpose. Nature has provided us with millions of seeds for free and nature needs our help now. I am already excited about the plants I will grow from seed for next spring.
