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Review of Help for the Creaky Gardener

© Mary Casey

When I read Carol Wallace's "Help for the Creaky Gardener" I found myself smiling and nodding my head in agreement with her wonderful advice on planning and maintaining a garden when you are no longer a spring chicken.

The anthology begins with a chapter on her story of how she was dealt a series of unfortunate setbacks including an accident when she was in her twenties and fibromyalgia when she was a little older, and how she turned the pain and illness around to open new opportunities in her life. This chapter alone is worth reading for its positive message for all readers. She explains how her limited mobility made her research and discover easier and efficient ways to handle her gardens.

I was pleased to see the following chapters dealt with easy to maintain perennials, a 'no work' sunny garden and 'no work' shade garden ideas. Her picks of perennials included plants I was familiar with and have in my own garden, such as daylilies and coreopsis, and some new plants to me, such as peonies. I always thought the gaudy peonies were difficult plants, but after reading the anthology, I may try to grow some this spring.

I never thought of ground covers, such as sedum, or heath and heathers, as having so many positive attributes that also help the less than nimble gardener with daily tasks. A good groundcover, she explains, will help reduce the number of weeds, and will help keep moisture in the ground. Thus, less watering, and less weeding! Sounds good to me!

Other excellent tidbits of advice I found was the joy of gardening with raised beds (have to get my husband to build some for me!), well prepared soil and good knee pads or foam pads to take the pressure off of older joints when kneeling or sitting in the garden. She mentions several modified gardening tools available today in catalogs or gardening centers, that are ergonomically modified to help a person with limited mobility perform basic chores such as weeding or watering. Tools should be painted bright colors like pink or blue, and not green so they won't get lost in the greenery of the lawn or garden. I loved that hint. I have found tools outside in the middle of the winter that had been 'lost' all planting season.

Armed with foam knee pads and modified tools, the mature gardener can design and dig with less pain and more pleasure. In addition to this, the author cheers us up by mentioning the fact that plants are tougher than we think. I was chuckling when I read about the plants that sprung up without being planted formally. I threw bulb heads from my irises into the woods when cutting them back in the fall. This spring, I have three irises growing in the pine woods. My husband nicked my old-fashioned species rose bush, a chestnut rose, with the lawn mower. It produced more buds than before.

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