Consider your flower garden a work of art, outdoor artistry. The famous French painter Claude Monet considered his garden at Givenchy his most important work of art. His paintings that hang in galleries around the world attest to his love of his garden.
Gardening is an art form as it allows the gardener the freedom to pick and choose…complete creative license. How big or small, what colors, etc. Today’s nurseries hold untold wonders of plants from around the world. I look upon my own garden as an ever changing and evolving place to enjoy outdoor living. Each day, each week, and each month is a reward for all the planning, planting and patience, the labors of love and expression unfolding. My husband enjoys sitting on our deck that overlooks our backyard paradise. Like a painting in a fine gallery, savor the sight and sounds.
Gardening Tips: DECORATE…The Art of Growing
I’ve been asked about how to go about planning a garden? Decorate, decorate and decorate–make your garden a reflection of your own personal taste and personality. Preferably pick a site that can be viewed from inside your home (why plant for the neighbors?). Consider your site and the amount of sunlight to determine whether you will need sunny or shade flowers.
Soil preparation is important. This is where you discover the hardest part of establishing something new. You either have to dig out the old, or start by digging out the grass. This is the stage were you discover it is best to think small and colorful. My very sharp shovel works wonders. I like to skim a shallow layer of grass off in small clumps, toss them in a bucket or wheelbarrow and use them to fill in low spots somewhere in the yard. You can also put them in a washed out ditch and give mother nature a hand. Then with deep digging, I shovel down about 6 to 8 inches, turn the soil and chop it finely. This exercise will be exercise, but will expose the type of soil that your plants will be residing in. You dare not ask a plant that needs well- drained soil to thrive in an adverse setting…Shame, Shame. If you start reading plant labels, most will tell you that the plant needs well drained soil, thus the need for amendments such as peat or a planting medium.
Want to hear the good, new ya, ya? .It is your garden! Do what makes you happy! It is perfectly wonderful to look at garden magazines or books and see all of those photos. Hey, that is someone else’s labor of love…their love of nature and their time and money. Sitting beside one rose bush can be as rewarding as sitting beside a hundred. Well, that is a stretch, but you get my point.
The important thing to remember is decorate, decorate, and decorate. Flowers are the jewels of the Aarde Moeder (Earth Mother). She likes lots and lots of bright happy colorful zinnias, soulful shade loving hostas, rambunctious unruly riots of daisies, quiet little lilies of the valley, sweet tiny sweet woodriff, brass marigolds and wispy graceful cosmos and rambling creeping phlox. Think about the five senses–sight, sound, smell, touch and taste. A garden has all. Like the Nike ad say, “Just do it!”
I don’t have indoor garden rooms, but my whole backyard is a huge canvas that I can dab splashes of color here and there amongst the permanent frame of evergreen trees and shrubs. That is why I can change colors so easily every year. That is what makes it fun. I haven’t met a plant or a person that I didn’t like. I have been disappointed by some, but not many. Each spring it is so exciting to see the new things arrive at the nurseries. I need to get off my order to buy blue poppies.
I have nearly all of my spring cleanup done. The tulips are blooming. I am awaiting the spring rains to awaken everything from their winter slumbers.
I become so frustrated when I try to write about gardening. I guess all I can say is, that I am and I garden. I think I will go to the garage and bring out my decorative art pieces. I have a small collection of concrete angels that I tuck here and there…little surprises. I have a pottery bird bath, two Elis Nelson (local metal artist) cranes, my three new large ceramic planters, wind chimes, and pottery bird houses. You see, I do the same thing outdoors as indoors. Bring out the seasonal things and decorate, decorate and decorate.
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