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:
- 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.
- Spring is more a time to pay attention to pruning than planting. A mature garden looks unkempt if bushes are growing will-nilly.
- A more permanent solution to the fieldstone walk. Polymeric sand for the cracks between the stones.
- Redesign garden space near the house.
- 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?
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.
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 🙂