Big Things I’m Doing Differently in 2018

Remember “The Beverly Hillbillies”? How about “The Brady Bunch”, or “Green Acres”, for that matter?

They are all TV shows that started out with a theme song that told their stories. For me, it could have been

“There once was a woman who homeschooled, With her ten kids, she moved out to the country and found she needed to keep her sanity.

She wanted something creative. Something that could be constantly interrupted, something at home, something that was cheap, but that inspired her and gave her some peace and quiet”

God knows, she needed that peace and quiet.

So all my efforts at many self-expressing endeavors boiled down to and centered around ~ta-da~ GARDENING. Then as a by product, blogging superseded even that obsession. I wrote and website-d about GARDENING.

But life changes, and I grew old. My kids have grown and many have moved to other parts of the country. It was inevitable that my garden life would change.

And, (understatement here) the internet changes. Goals for the blogging and websites changed, coalesced, and are undergoing rebirth.

Now What, I Have Been Asking

It started with a little break last year.

Which then morphed into a full blown hiatus. I know I haven’t posted here, or written many new gardening articles on Ilona’s Garden website, and I am not sorry – it was needed.

A similar thing has happened with my gardening.

Big Change #1

Refining and focusing. I’ve always been all over the place, but that inconsistency -while interesting- has not been sustainable. In my gardening, that means I have cut out what I can no longer sustain, and around here the garden is mostly undergoing pruning and cutting. I’m still debating how much of a garden I can reliably maintain.

True confession: While I loved seed starting, I just can’t do it with my present realities. I know how, but it’s not happening again this year.

When I don’t do something in real life it is hard to write about it. I must have more trust in the value of past experience. I’m not sure what that will look like for this blog.

Driving the changes behind the work of either blogging or gardening has been physical wear and tear. In the garden, it might be obvious, but blogging? Considering how much time is spent creating the writing/graphics/ and sites… it involved lots of sitting on my a__. ahem, backside. Plus skipping sleep, for years. That is unhealthy.

Maybe you ran across the info that sedentary lifestyle is as bad as smoking for your health? Yes, I’m testimony to that. That has to change.

Big Change #2

Widening horizons. Work on the computer and gardening arose from that need to stay at home. I was tethered to my house. That is different now- yes I actually go on annual vacations now. I travel to visit my kids. I am away from home!

Great for me and my family. Not so good for my garden.

I’m even considering tearing up my flagstone walk. I’ll give it this year to get it under control. Representative of the fact that our gardens must change.

Either I must hire help or simplify the garden. Wear and tear is no longer acceptable. My new view is that gardening should be pleasurable, and when it becomes burdensome it must change in its purpose.

Now I am “creating spaces”, rather than gardens. I’ve lost so many plants that required care or coddling, as well as those which are now crowded out. But this place has matured and invites more birds, so flowers are less of a feature and trees, bushes, seating and birdbaths are more.

The rhythms of my garden year have changed.

Big Change #3

I’m going to do more of what I like. When you are 65 years old it is high time to stop putting off the things that make life satisfying. I will still pay attention to obligations… maybe more quickly to get them out of the way; but I will not be such a stern taskmaster with myself.

If you read my blogposts, it is because you like me. If I write the posts, it is because I love something or just enjoy the act of writing. I’m a granny now, and my expertise is a result of the life I lived, not some grand maven influencer.

I have a lot of interest in history, family stories, experiencing nature. I’ll start there, and knowing me, who knows where we will end up?

In Sum

It is hard to let go of things. I love flowers so much, and want to grow so many, but they need my time and attention. I realize that as I go on in life it is a process of letting go. As a conservator at heart, it means I sense loss each time. The reality is that such change is opening doorways.

I must always garden in some way, but how that manifests will not be the model of the past.

I love my blogs… they are my creations, but they must change. I might move the “how-to” types of post to my website, and this will be my personal story place. Still gardening, but with a different outlook. It is in flux and evolving now.

Is your gardening changing? What part does the landscape around your home play for you? Do you blog about gardening? How has your vision for it evolved? I’d love to know, friends.