New Gardeners Next Door

Our next door neighbors are new gardeners. They have lived in the house for a year as renters and have just now bought it. Signing on the dotted line has totally changed them. Last year, they were like guests in a strange garden, admiring the flowers, but not involved with any decisions made about its makeup or maintenance. Now the garden is theirs, and the ideas are flowing like spring snow-melt. This is the first house they have every owned and their gardening experience is very limited. They had lived for many years in California and are having to learn how to deal with a short growing season and much colder winter temperatures. I really enjoy working with them as they start projects that will make the landscape their own. Last week, I helped cut down and cut up the great, overgrown arborvitae and yews that had been planted too close to the foundation many years ago and allowed to grow unpruned until they were deformed by the eaves and blocking windows. Ground cover junipers on the corner embankment had become a view-blocking mass with a bird-planted mulberry tree growing out of the center. A previous owner had planted a group of rhododendrons in dry, sandy, alkaline soil with hostas dotted around them like checkers on a board. Now, only one struggling rhodie remains. In the sunnier front yard a large group of Asiatic lilies were crammed together in a 6 foot circular bed out in the grass. When they bloom, the effect is more like a giant bucket of cut flowers than a graceful lily bed.

The perennial border on the south side of the house is a riot of bulb flowers at present and, today, I showed them how to deadhead tulips and daffodils. They wanted to weed the bed too, but said they couldn't tell the weeds from the flowers. So, Weeding 101's homework for today consisted of pulling out what seemed to be thousands of lamb's quarters seedlings coming up in the leaf mulch. When they are done, they will know that weed forevermore. The next lesson will be elm seedlings.

Did you ever notice how hard it is to identify a plant or a problem for a new gardener without seeing what they are talking about? They haven't yet learned to either see or describe what they see in plant terms. This is always more of a barrier than not speaking botanical Latin. I had always tried to put my answers in terms that equated plant parts and processes with something similar in the animal world until I realized that they need to know that plants are not like animals. They must understand that plants don't need 'food' from us, they make their own. They need to know that plants use sunlight, air and water for this and that fertilizer is more like vitamins than a replacement diet. Once that is clear other things fall easily into place. Then, it's a very small step to the concept of right plant for the right place. Without that bedrock concept, non-gardeners are always asking things like "what kind of fertilizer can I use to make the grass grow under my Norway maple" or "why won't my hibiscus bloom indoors in winter, though I'm feeding it every week?" Learning the names of plant parts is a small thing compared to this concept.