Wednesday, March 31, 2010

The Poop On Gardening



"Urban garden sharing" is the latest trend. It's a terrific idea: one urban dweller might have some land but no time, Urb Two might have time but no money, and a third Urb has money but no land. Ideally, they all get together and everyone gets a tomato.

My gardening hat is off to all those gentle souls able to make a go of garden sharing, and I'll try it too, just as soon as I finish shaking up this box of cats. In my experience, no two gardeners are likely to agree on a plan, and there will have to be a lot of compromising. I'm the only gardener at this house. If the flower garden were up to Dave, we'd have an expertly installed platform of concrete, stained green in the spirit of compromise. So I get the whole flower garden to my self.

Sort of. The bird population is also keen on planting, and they don't have the same vision I do. I would like to see a rolling, undulating celebration of color and texture, with each wave of perennial beauty giving way to the next, azaleas to peonies to penstemons to agastaches, spiced with bulbs and punched up here and there with the vivid spark of annuals. The bird population has in mind something more along the lines of a holly forest with a galloping understory of blackberry.


Our methods differ also. My method is to dig nice big holes, juice them up with homemade compost and maybe a shot of pumice, lay in healthy small plants, firm up the soil around their roots, water, and fertilize. This totally freaks them out and half of them die outright a few weeks later, and then I pull them out. I get compliments with this method. "You must know so much about plants! Everything looks so healthy!" is a typical comment. That's because I've pulled up everything that crapped out. Sometimes, if I'm pressed for time, I bring things home from the nursery and pitch them straight into the compost pile.

The bird population takes more of a blitzkrieg approach to planting. I sow, they strafe. I invest time, money and effort in a horticultural Marshall Plan. For the birds, it's Holly Seeds Over London. Their method is wildly successful. And a two-inch holly tree has a hell of a grip on life.

In my more philosophical moments, I realize I can learn from my fellow gardeners. They're not given to angst or self-doubt. Or second-guessing. Or constipation.

The neighborhood cats have been planting stuff too. I have also learned from them. I wear gloves all the time now.


20 comments:

  1. I have sweet dreams of my garden looking something akin to your top photo. My dogs seem to prefer the cratered moon landscape look. The dogs are winning.

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  2. Wow! Is that really your yard? We started with a parking lot around the old house we bought, and it's coming along, but I'm tired of waiting and want it to look just like yours right now.
    The chickens have other plans (they ate our asparagus yesterday), and my boss thinks I have better things to do than play in my yard all day. Patience, patience, patience...

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  3. In my dreams my yard (which is huge) looks like yours. In reality, it's a work in progress, due to be done about 100 years from now!

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  4. Glad to see you've added more photos; now your blog looks less like the front page of the Wall Street Journal. :>)

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  5. A gardening co-op, great idea. No good for me right now as one neighbour has died and the other is overseas. My planting method is definitely tough love. I just bung them in the ground, water them, that's it. If they're pathetic enough to die, too bad. If they're assertive enough to live, great, I'll admire them and read them bedtime stories.

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  6. I'm going to assume that the top two pictures are of your garden. what a fabulous job you have done (if it's not yours, don't spoil the illusion). I have some lovely things the birds brought me like my night blooming jasmine. the squirrels, on the other hand, keep planting pecan trees. thank you very much but I already have all the pecan trees I want. Pecan trees and holly must be related because if the sprout gets much above 3", it has to be dug up.

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  7. Great house and garden! How the heck did you get that gull(?) shot? Is it photoshopped??

    A friend of mine in SoCal 'rents' several 10' x 10' plots for $40 a year and has an amazing vegetable garden. The whole 'complex' is several acres with many different gardeners, each doing their own thing. They tend each other's stuff when on vacation, have garden parties, etc. Believe it or not, that actually works well for them.

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  8. lots of poop around here, don't get me started on cats...

    I've been laughing my way through your blog, nice to meet you Murr

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  9. Growing anything other than rocks in the desert is a challenge but Martha, a Minnesota farm girl, never gives up.

    Flowers don't do well here, except roses: they grow like weeds. And her citrus trees are already composted and fed (and bloomed). She had water up to the tree ring on the plum tree, only to find dumb dog #2 standing in it. It is also the neighborhood cat litter box.

    If that is your house and garden, it's beautiful. And shake a box of feral cats for the farm girl.

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  10. Hello Murr Brewster! I found you from Little House in the Suburbs - do love those crazy gals!

    I have a large yard that is, alas, full of holes. My puppy can't decide where he is going to put in the pond. He starts in one place, then for some unknown reason decides to try a different spot.

    Luckily, my two dogs LOVE cats so we do not have any even though we live in the country on a farm. (Well, there is that one large tom that has avoided the boys thus far. Good for him!)

    Check out my myspace blog to read how my dogs have thwarted my best efforts. Hope it gives a chuckle!

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  11. DUH! Oops the address is www.myspace.com/ahandful4u

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  12. I love the handle Handful. That's what my mom used to call me (because she was very polite and that's as strong as it got).

    The gull is not photoshopped. I don't know how to do that. I do know how to swipe stuff off the Internets. The other pics are my garden (and the birds' garden). It looks way worse today.

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  13. Gardening is so much fun. It is funny how everyone has their own method. My husband and I have our own sides of the flower garden in front of the house because that's one of the only things we can't agree on.

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  14. My luck as a gardener is zilch....and I think you have given me a clue as to why. I, like my feathered friends, tend to strafe rather than sow.

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  15. I have SEriOUS garden jealousy right now. Wow!

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  16. Gardening. I love other people's gardens, and I know I'm supposed to do it. I tried upside-down tomatoes when I moved here two years ago, and didn't try again last summer. Gardening requires being outside, and getting one's hands dirty, and weeding. I would rather be inside, reading or knitting or baking/eating brownies. I went as far as buying two giant black pots for container gardening last year. I have yet to drill holes in the bottom, so they are still business-end-down in the yard, killing the grass. I'm fine with that.

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  17. Last year I decided to get back into gardening -- slowly and cautiously. Good luck withyours.

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  18. I have SEriOUS garden jealousy right now. Wow!

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  19. Gardening is so much fun. It is funny how everyone has their own method. My husband and I have our own sides of the flower garden in front of the house because that's one of the only things we can't agree on.

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  20. I love the handle Handful. That's what my mom used to call me (because she was very polite and that's as strong as it got).

    The gull is not photoshopped. I don't know how to do that. I do know how to swipe stuff off the Internets. The other pics are my garden (and the birds' garden). It looks way worse today.

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