Date Submitted:

Apr 3, 2010, 1:36 AM

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1422

Why I want to blog for CanadianGardening.com:

I curled up on the couch today for a well deserved break and grabbed the latest edition of Canadian Gardening from the living room table where it has been waiting patiently for three weeks. Am I ever glad I did, because I almost missed this chance to combine two of my great loves: writing and gardening.

I like to save my CG, as I did this month, until I can savour it completely. I make mental and physical lists of all the ideas to try, projects to consider. I am inspired by the pristine lawns, lush potagers, the latest temperamental cultivars. Drooling over gardening books and magazines is for me a kind of masochistic pleasure, though, because the harsh reality of my own weedy plot is far from the fantasy land of this month’s Feature Garden.

I sound vaguely like a freckle-faced teenager looking at a Photoshopped supermodel as I whine to my husband about how the gardens in my magazines probably get weeded by a crew two hours before the photo shoot, and just outside this frame there's likely a tacky, run down shed just like ours, that they haven't gotten around to pulling down either.

And this is what I can bring to a Canadian Gardening blog: I garden in the real world.

1. I grow flowers, vegetables, trees, shrubs, moss, lichen, grass, and vines. I have mature trees and plants, and I have new stuff too (including three ninebarks put in last fall--still have my fingers crossed that they survived!) I also had a very nice crop of sowthistle and shepherd’s purse last year.

2. I have sun and shade, dry spots and damp corners. I deal with high winds, drought, and every couple of years, a spring flood. Winters can be brown or three feet of snow, depending on the week. Name a condition, and I've probably seen it.

3. The deer like me (they always seem to find the tulips before I find the chicken wire) and the rabbits enjoy my salad bar, but the cats only come to use the bathroom. I have workaholic ants. The earwigs laugh at my traps, but the mason bees and the ladybugs are on my side.

4. While I have very early memories of helping my grandpa in his Edmonton vegetable patch, my green thumb was mostly dormant until I moved to southern Alberta as a young mother and started a patch of my own. I have now been actively gardening for ten years, eight at our current 1.4 acre residence.
I have learned a lot from the aforementioned books and magazines, as well as the internet and my sister (a newly minted landscape designer and arborist). The more I learn, like a true Socratic, the more I realize how little I know.
5. I have kids. ("NO, dear, just pick the BEAN, not the whole plant.") 'Nuf said.

6. I have made all the mistakes: planted peonies too deep, put plants in the wrong light, let the weeds go to seed, and given away almost all my echinacea in the spring (mistaken for some unwanted daisies). Stay tuned, because I'm sure there's more coming.

7. I am in the middle of a major hardscaping project involving a new flower bed, new tree, trellis, steps, and pathway. I have next to no budget for this, so I am doing a lot of it myself, in stages. I am prepared to show everyone the process and the results, including the blisters on my hands.

I am in zone 3b, which I have pushed to zone 5 in corners and with the right mulch. I know what it's like to search for the right plant. I know what it's like to fall in love with a pretty cultivar only to realize it's out of your league. I can't just casually overwinter a banana in my garage like some people might. And if this sounds like I just ate some sour grapes, I'll have you know, grapes grow here just fine on the right south-facing wall!

9. As a final note, I consider myself a writer. I did a semester of Journalism in college before choosing another road. If that increases my qualifications, great. If it hinders them, pretend you never read this paragraph.

I'll never be "finished" my garden, even if the elusive weed free day ever arrives. There won't be a year I don't plant, or an end to the projects I want to try. My yard is far from professional, and my knowledge far from exhaustive, but that's not why I garden. Putting the "why" into words is not easily done though. There is pleasure in the process, pleasure in the product; something latent under my skin that needs dirt under my fingernails. Sharing the joys, passing on experience, building a community... trying to capture that something, and put the why into words: that’s what blogging for Canadian Gardening would be about for me.

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