One of the best aspects of learning comes when you are able apply lessons learned to things near and dear. I was able to do this in one of the first lessons in my landscape design class. The assignment: learn the meaning of many of the epithets – the second word that adds some sort of descriptor to the first (genus) botanical name. Cool … I always wanted to be better versed in botanical names. So I headed for my stack of plant magazines, then my notebook of info about the plants in my own gardens, and started my list.
November 1, 2009. Ahh Fall. When trees so easily offer their leaves back to the earth. Leaves cover everything – porches, patios, lawns, and gardens. I continue miss the opportunity to collect enough of these leaves into accessible piles where they will naturally follow the steps of decomposition and become leaf mold. Often, at this time of year, my husband and I are strapped for time and anxious to get the next load of leaves off the lawn. So we blow or rake them into the adjacent woods. Sounds perfectly normal. But when I want to access what, after a couple of years, has become leaf mold, I have to struggle through fallen branches, rocks, tree stumps, and uneven, sloping grounds … and this is a Gardening Oops – what I call GOOPS.
August 1, 2009 - On the first of each month I confess, if you will, one of the many mistakes I've made in my three decades or so of gardening. I've dubbed this Gardening Oops – GOOPs – Day. I firmly believe that if you don't make mistakes, you're simply not gardening, and I'm happy to see that other gardeners feel the same. Those who read Steve Aitken's 'editor's letter' in the most recent issue of Fine Gardening (October 2009 – by the way, why is the October issue arriving in mailboxes in July?) saw this comment … A gardener – of any skill level – who can't admit to making mistakes is either a fool or a liar … included in Steve's list of hard truths of gardening. Steve, if you read this, here's my virtual - clap, clap, clap - applause. My friend Debbie, at A Garden of Possibilities, also got a kick out of Steve's list (see her post here).
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