• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Home Garden Companion

Home Garden Companion

Ilona's Garden Journal

  • Plant Library On The Journal
    • All Season Garden Color
    • Sitemap
  • Garden chores
    • Essential Garden Tools For Beginners
    • Garden Tips and Advice
  • Ilona’s Garden Home
    • Old House Blog
    • Garden Librarian
  • Ilona’s Garden Flavor Shop
  • Privacy Policy

When Gardeners and Their Gardens Grow Old

24.07.16 | Ilona Erwin | 2 Comments

Photo by: Coley Christine
Weeds grow, and so it goes

It is a fact of life. Like weeds. You don’t even notice how it creeps up on you, but suddenly it is there and it must be dealt with:

Age

Two things begat this post, the fact that the heat has forced me to stay indoors and updating a post that had very good advice for older gardeners.

Advice that I must now seriously take for myself.

Heat

The heat advisories would have been laughed at and lightly dismissed in my younger years as a gardener. Today I did not even venture out in the morning because yesterday’s piddling work was too much and I don’t want to repeat the experience.

Yes, I had to recover from watering my containers in the high humidity and 90 degree temps that feel like triple digits.

Weeding and tending the vegetable garden will have to wait for more reasonable temperatures.

I’m Old

If I was thinking of “getting the garden ready” when I wrote that post of garden advice for older gardeners, that day has now arrived.
When gardens and gardeners age, change comesOld Gardeners Should...

I hate the idea of giving up my large yard and dreams of flower gardens, but reality is that something MUST change. It doesn’t help my state of mind that I saw the movie, ‘Iris‘, starring Judy Dench. It drove home the fact that aging people too often procrastinate necessary changes to their living.

Even when health problems or losses don’t necessitate such changes, other circumstances often do.

A List Of Garden Changes

Things I see that must change:

  1. I need more help- hired help must be found next year. For the first time in my life I think I will need to engage someone to occasionally do some of the chores.
  2. Spring is more a time to pay attention to pruning than planting. A mature garden looks unkempt if bushes are growing will-nilly.
  3. A more permanent solution to the fieldstone walk. Polymeric sand  for the cracks between the stones.
  4. Redesign garden space near the house.
  5. Lots of other things that I will need to brainstorm this winter.

Are you planning for the day when the garden demands more than you might be willing to give it? Has aging interfered with how you dreamed your garden would look?

What’s going on in your stage of life and how does that affect the way you plan to landscape?

 

← Previous Post
Time In A Garden, Using Garden Blogs, And Museum Quality
Next Post →
Found Flowers

About Ilona Erwin

I was a garden blog pioneer, and began writing on this blog in 2003. Before that I had begun a garden website that has been at its own domain since 2006, Ilona's Garden.

I still love writing, gardening, and art after all these years, although travel and grandchildren have become a big part of my life, now.

DISCLOSURE: I may be an affiliate for products that I recommend. If you purchase those items through my links I will earn a commission. You will not pay more when buying a product through my link. Thank you, in advance for your support! Privacy Policy

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Robin says

    July 29, 2016 at 10:10 pm

    Yes, I am aging, and can’t work as hard or as long in the garden as I once did. Like you, I have been hiding out indoors during this heat wave. Watering leaves the garden, and me, drenched! The weeding can wait till the weather breaks. I don’t have a plan for gardening into my older years, other than moving into a smaller, easier place at that time. Traditionally, hubby and I manage the yard and garden together, but his new job is all encompassing, and now I’m on my own. Frankly, it’s too much. He did finally hire a lawn mower for the first time in our lives, and it helps, but there’s still an awful lot to do. I can manage for a few years I suppose, but I keep hoping that the new job will eventually settle down and we can go back to doing it together.

    • Ilona Erwin says

      August 4, 2016 at 8:22 am

      I totally sympathize with the situation of once present garden helpers moving on to other things. That is what happened as my children grew up and moved. In some ways we can’t imagine what life will like as we age- there are so many things that we don’t know! Maybe making plans for the garden has a spillover into the overall retirement planning? Your present garden ( I love the pictures you post of it) is so beautiful no one would guess that you are “hiding indoors”. Mine, otoh…LOL! So good to hear your comments 🙂

Primary Sidebar

Oh, hi there!

I was a garden blog pioneer, and began writing on this blog in 2003. Before that I had begun a garden website that has been at its own domain since 2006, Ilona's Garden.

I still love writing, gardening, and art after all these years, although travel and grandchildren have become a big part of my life, now.

Newest Postings Here

  • Hawaiian Flower Arrangements
  • HELLLOOOO, From The Other Side
  • February Gardening, Last of Winter in the Flower Garden
  • Compilation of Past Mini-Posts of 2003
  • Wayback in Ilona Garden Time

Visit for a Spell

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest

Mission

Finding your way home via the garden path

Books, Tools, Tips

Read reviews from the GardenLibarian

Portrait of a Gardener

gardener musings
Musings

What’s Wrong With Today’s Gardening?

Modern gardening
What Is Wrong?

Garden Journal

fine garden journal
Journal, Planner and Log Book
Shop Small Trees and More

Bonsai Trees
buy quality plants

You might also like

seeds

National Seed Swap Day in January

Garden advice

What Makes a Low Maintenance Garden?

Create A Child’s Garden, Grow Love For Nature

Growing Indoor Flowers In December

I Found Out About “She Sheds” And Coincidentally, About Friends

Newest Postings Here

  • Hawaiian Flower Arrangements
  • HELLLOOOO, From The Other Side
  • February Gardening, Last of Winter in the Flower Garden
  • Compilation of Past Mini-Posts of 2003
  • Wayback in Ilona Garden Time

Books, Tools, Tips

Read reviews from the GardenLibarian

Standouts

10 Useful Gardening Tips For Spring

Do You Grow Herbs? 10 Reasons To Love Them

10 Cool Season Annual Flowers To Plant

Standouts

August Gardening: Ten Suggestions

What are your ten top choices for perennial plantings?

ilonagarden

With village lights With village lights
Christmas decor #christmasspirit🎄 Christmas decor #christmasspirit🎄
Instagram post 17935013548845771 Instagram post 17935013548845771
Instagram post 17981374354427684 Instagram post 17981374354427684
Instagram post 17865517706595888 Instagram post 17865517706595888
Gift of flowers by my bedside Gift of flowers by my bedside
#mockorange #juneflowers #ohio #mockorange #juneflowers #ohio
Instagram post 18224713828022497 Instagram post 18224713828022497
Load More... Follow on Instagram

Topics

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Join Me

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Copyright © 2023 · Your Site Name

Hazel Theme by Code + Coconut