Evergreen Care Advice For The Adaptive Gardener

June and July are the best months to prune evergreen trees and shrubs. This can be challenging for the adaptive gardener, unless you follow these tips for getting the job done by working smarter rather than harder:

• Don’t prune evergreen trees…or any trees for that matter…that are taller than you. You could get struck by a falling branch. You could fall when stepping on a springy branch. A springy branch could whip around and injure you with its sharp needles. Hire a professional arborist who has the training, experience and specialized equipment to do the job safely.

• When pruning evergreen shrubs, wait until the new growth has finished but before it hardens off. New growth can be identified by light green needles or leaves. When new growth is finished, the needles or leaves darken and the wood hardens, requiring more strength to make cuts. If you prune while the new growth is still growing, you’ll have to do again when it’s finished.

• Practice adaptive gardening time management whenever you work in the garden, including when you prune evergreen shrubs. Hopefully, you know how long your work blocks and rest blocks should be. Prune during the work blocks; sit, hydrate and rest in the shade during the rest periods. Don’t skip a rest break. If you’re nearly finished with a shrub, it’s OK to be a little late for a rest break but don’t skip it.

• In addition to a brimmed hat to protect your face, neck and ears from the sun’s harmful rays, wear a long sleeve shirt and gloves, especially when pruning shrubs with sharp, pointed needles. Exposed skin can get very scratched up by these plants. Eyewear is essential when pruning evergreens. Wear sunglasses on sunny days and safety glasses on cloudy days. Even better, wear safety goggles that can fit over your sunglasses or prescription glasses.

• Select tools that require the minimum strength to hold and lift and the least amount of effort to operate. When pruning evergreen shrubs, the tools you will need include pruning shears, loppers and hedge clippers, depending on what plants you’re pruning. If any of these tools are heavy to hold and difficult to use, look into one of the several brands of cutting tools with fiberglass handles, lightweight metal blades and gear assist at the pivot point. These tools are easier to use than power versions. For even easier pruning, choose pruning shears with ratchet instead of gear assist, and always be sure the blades are sharp.

• The same best practices that apply to tree pruning apply to shrub pruning. Try to avoid leaving stubs. Make your cuts just above forks or at least just above where a leaf is attached to a stem. If you want to keep a coniferous shrub the same size, make the cuts right at the start of the new growth. To remove broken stems, it’s best to reach in with loppers and remove them right at ground level. When pruning shrubs like yews (Taxus), be careful how far you cut into the sides or the top. The needles don’t extend the full length of the branches, and cutting too deeply can result in bare wood with no needles. Definitely unsightly.

• Don’t try to be fancy or cute. Prune your evergreen shrubs so that they retain their natural shape. Don’t wreck your landscape by ruining a beautiful plant. If you want to be creative, you might buy a shrub at your local garden center, bring it home and try your hand at topiary. If the results are satisfying, plant the shrub. If not, discard it and stick to retaining natural shapes when you prune. Or, you could always try your hand at bonsai.

Follow these adaptive gardening techniques and enjoy a comfortable experience and results you can be proud of. For even more ideas, read my critically acclaimed book, The Geriatric Gardener: Adaptive Gardening Advice For Seniors. You can order a copy at https://thepancoastconcern.com/the_geriatric_gardener

Annual-Planting Tips For Senior Gardeners

For many senior gardeners, planting annuals has been a rite of spring for many decades. As the years pass, I’m sure this task has grown more difficult. You don’t have to abandon your tradition; just adapt to the new reality. Plant your annuals in containers and convert your annual beds to shrubs and/or dwarf conifers.

Replace a painful experience with a creative experience. Intersperse dwarf conifers of various sizes, shapes and colors with containers of colorful annuals. Or plant a flowering shrub in the middle of a bed and them place containers of annuals around the perimeter. An interesting variation would be an oval-shaped planting bed with a foliage shrub in the center and clusters of attractive, decorative containers of colorful annuals on either end.

Garden centers have many decorative containers to choose from. They’re in all shapes, sizes and materials. Some are heavy concrete, ceramic, wood or terra cotta while others are plastic, often designed to look like one of the heavier materials. For the senior gardener, I recommend the lighter weight look alikes. In the photograph above, I challenge you to say for certain whether that container’s terra cotta or plastic. One of your objectives is to work smarter, not harder.

Plants planted directly in the containers make the containers heavy and difficult to move around and maneuver into place without a plant caddy or dolly. I buy my plants in nursery pots that will slip right into the decorative container, as in the picture. If I have to buy the plants in six packs, I transplant them into nursery pots. If you don’t have the right size nursery pots, check with a landscape contractor or you garden center. You may be able to get them at little or no cost. Then begin building an inventory for the future.

Using the slip-in method, you can carry your lightweight decorative containers to the planting bed and position them. Then carry the plants in lightweight, easy-to-handle nursery pots and just slip them into their decorative containers and voila…instant annual garden.

During the growing season, you may want to change up your annual garden. Just slip the nursery pots out of the decorative containers and move them around anyway you want. If some annuals stop blooming before the others, you can easily swap them out for fresh ones. With all the changes that you’ll be making during the season, your neighbors will think you’re really working hard. Whether you tell them you’re just working smart is up to you.

Working smarter includes being able to sit down on the job to do the potting. This is an important consideration if you use a mobility aid, such as a cane or walker. And, at season’s end cleaning up is a cinch Remove the nursery pots and empty them into the compost pile. Wash the pot and disinfect it if necessary. Carry the lightweight decorative pots to their winter home and you’re done. Don’t be shy about asking for help carrying plants and pots.

Another benefit: during the season: you’ll even have time to sit and enjoy your containerized annual garden. And that’s what adaptive gardening’s all about.

Read more about containerizing your annuals in my critically acclaimed book, The Geriatric Gardener: Adaptive Gardening Advice For Seniors. You can order a copy at https://thepancoastconcern.com/the_geriatric_gardener

Adaptive Gardening Doesn’t Include Binge Gardening

Binge gardening is spending the whole day working steadily on strenuous activities. It’s also something that senior gardeners should avoid. It’s definitely not an adaptive gardening technique, and it’s not as productive as it may appear on the surface. Instead, actively manage your time in a way to extract every ounce of productivity from every minute spent gardening.

This may run counter to what you were taught but here goes. We were taught to work until we finished the task we started. Cast this aside as you get older, and work this way…

• Determine the amount of time you can work comfortably without getting too tired. For many senior gardeners, it won’t be more than 20 minutes or a half hour. A few of you may be able to stretch it to 45 minutes or even an hour. Begin the day with the most strenuous task on your agenda.

• At the end of each work block, rest for a comfortable period of time. Don’t skip rest periods. Set the timer on your phone or take a kitchen timer to the garden with you and, when it goes off, take your break. Find a shady spot in the garden if it’s a substantial walk back to the deck or patio. Under a big shade tree’s a nice spot. If there’s no such tree nearby, take a patio umbrella, a comfortable chair and a cooler of water. Rest periods should be 15, 20 or however many minutes are comfortable for you. Sit, rest and drink plenty of water. Reading a book’s OK if you like to read.

• Drinking water is very important during every rest period. Dehydration can result in balance problems, which can cause you to fall. Falling is one thing you want to avoid!

• When your rest period is over and you’re ready to go back to work, do a less strenuous task. Each time your return to work, do a progressively less strenuous task. It’s OK to continue with these progressively less strenuous tasks until your endurance level tells your body it’s time to call it a day. Don’t work until you drop.

This method may seem counter intuitive but if you track your productivity over the course of a week, I think you’ll find that you accomplished more than you would have if you completed each task before going on to the next one. It may take you longer to see the results but you’ll feel less tired in the end. Working to finish a job, even though you’re growing progressively more fatigued will result in you slowing down as you tire. Doing progressively less strenuous jobs during each work block, and following each work block with a rest period, means that you’ll be fresher at each. Don’t believe me? Try it; seeing is believing.

A chapter on time management begins page 56 of my critically acclaimed book, The Geriatric Gardener: Adaptive Gardening Advice For Seniors. Order your copy at https://thepancoastconcern.com/the_geriatric_gardener

Adapting For Safe Gardening This Season

Safety is an important aspect of adaptive gardening. You certainly don’t want to end a gardening session with aches and pains you didn’t take into the garden. Here are some things you can do to make your garden safer as you begin the new season. I’ll also remind you of some steps you can take to protect yourself. Please read and heed. Gardening should be enjoyable, not hazardous.

As you venture into your awakening garden and your storage places, such as shed or garage, start by decluttering. Be sure aisleways are free of obstructions. Remove anything piled precariously that could fall on you. Check your tools and discard old rusty ones. This would be the perfect time to invest in new, lightweight and ergonomic tools. 

Be sure your cutting tools like pruners, loppers, hedge clippers and even the lawnmower blade is sharp. If they need a touch-up or a major sharpening, do this, or take them to a professional. Be sure they’re sharp before you try to use them. Dull blades are more dangerous than sharp ones.

Check your ladders to be sure they’re safe for climbing. If you’re a senior gardener, check them for the safety of whomever is going to be climbing then – young friend, family member or hired helper. But not you! If you’re retired, your ladder climbing days should also be over. I’d prefer you to be a follower than a statistic. Ladders are no place for senior gardeners!

In the garden, on the garden paths, deck, patios, driveways, walkways and pool surround, check for and eliminate any hazard that can cause you to slip or trip and fall. Falling is one thing senior gardeners want to avoid. 

All trip and fall hazards aren’t necessarily out in the garden. Look down at your feet. What kind of shoes are you wearing? If they’re clogs or other backless shoes, you’re courting trouble. They’re too easy to step out of. Your gardening shoes should be substantial, with sturdy backs and good arch supports. 

While on the subject of protecting your extremities, the job you’re doing should determine the type of gloves you’re wearing. For most gardening tasks, they should be comfortable with non-slip palms so you can firmly grasp tools, plants and other items. When working with roses, cactus or other plants that fight back, select a good pair of leather gloves with gauntlets to protect your hands and arms from the thorns.

Other items to keep you safe include a wide brim hat that shades your ears and the back of your neck, sunscreen applied to all exposed skin and reapplied every couple of hours, plenty of cold water, and sunglasses. The sun’s UV rays exacerbate cataracts and age related macular degeneration. Last but not least, remember to lift with your legs, not your back, don’t carry heavy objects like fertilizer or mulch bags, and always have you cell phone and/or medical alert device within easy reach.

For more tips on safe gardening, read my critically acclaimed book, The Geriatric Gardener: Adaptive Gardening Advice For Seniors. You can order a copy at https://thepancoastconcern.com/the_geriatric_gardener

What Do You Do When The Tulips Wilt?

Hopefully, your tulips and other spring-flowering bulbs have bloomed and welcomed spring. Hopefully, too, they haven’t faded already. Here’s some advice for senior gardeners for when those beautiful blooms turn yellow or brown.

When your tulips are finished blooming, the natural instinct is to ground level prune them – i.e. cut off the faded flowers and leaves. However, that’s not a good idea. The green leaves need to continue making food to store in the bulbs to sustain the plants until they’re ready to bloom again next spring. They also need lots of that stored energy to bloom again next spring.

Don’t get lulled into the false premise that fertilizing will give them the food they need. It’s a good idea to fertilize bulb plants even though they didn’t need any fertilizer when planted new. They’d appreciate some after expending all that energy to give  you their spectacular spring show of color. But remember, fertilizer’s job is to replace essential nutrients missing from the soil. These nutrients play a role in keeping plants healthy much like vitamin supplements help to keep us healthy. The real food making takes place in the reaction between the sun and the chlorophyll in the leaves. That’s why it’s so important to keep the leaves on the plant for as long as they’re green.

It’s OK to remove spent flowers when they fade. If possible, it would be a good idea to take photos of your bulb garden(s) while you can still distinguish the colors and identify spaces where no plant came up this year. That’ll help you select the right color plant to fill in the bare spots this fall.

If you’re still able to kneel or comfortably sit and garden, remove the spent flowers after you’ve taken your pictures. Using pruners, reach into the foliage as deeply as you can and cut off only the flower stem. Keep in mind that all flowers don’t call it a season at once so you can either cut them as they die or wait until they all die and then cut them all at once. If you follow the adaptive garden’s pacing yourself technique, it’s probably better if you cut several at a time, while adhering to your work/rest break routine.

There’s no rule that you have to remove spent flowers right away. If it’s more comfortable to garden standing, you can wait until the leaves die and then use your string trimmer to remove both the leaves and the flowers. String trimmers don’t leave as clean a cut as other tools. If that’s a concern to you, you can sit down and use hedge trimmers to make a cleaner cut.

While you’re out in the tulip bed(s) taking pictures of bare spots that need new bulbs this fall, it’ll behoove you to find out why you have bare spots. If a bare spot looks disturbed, dig down to see if you can find a bulb. It’s unlikely that you will because it was probably dinner for a critter. Dig into undisturbed bare spots until you find the bulb. When you do, check to be sure it was planted root end down. The pointed end should face up. Also, squeeze the bulb If it’s squishy, it has probably drowned. Bulbs don’t like wet feet. Don’t plant the replacement bulb as deep.

Beds of mass plantings of tulips and other bulbs may be mesmerizing but don’t forget your adaptive gardening practices when tending them. Garden for enjoyment but do it safely.

For more information on safely tending bulbs, read my critically acclaimed book, The Geriatric Gardener: Adaptive Gardening Advice For Seniors. You can order a copy at https://thepancoastconcern.com/the_geriatric_gardener

Adapting To Some Subtle Effects Of Aging

Not all effects of aging manifest themselves with pain, as joint problems do. Some creep up on you subtly. When you feel any of the symptoms, treat them just as you would painful effects. Take them seriously and find out their causes and what you can do to relieve them.

Balance can go awry at any time. When you bend down to pull a weed in the garden. When you turn around quickly. Dehydration is one of the most common causes of balance problems. That’s why it’s so important to stay hydrated when gardening. Always keep cool water close and drink it.

Your balance problem may be serious and may require professional care if your rehydration efforts don’t return your balance to normal. It also may be time to consider a mobility aid. I’m speaking from personal experience. As my right knee wore out and arthritis took over, I began using a cane. At one point, my physical therapist recommended a walker since one leg was slightly shorter due to childhood polio, an idea I spurned.

Following post-stroke rehab in 2020, I was sent home with a walker and the goal of chucking it and returning to a cane. However, my balance can be rather wonky, so I’ve resigned myself to continuing to use the walker. It’s so easy to fall, and that’s the last thing you want to do when working in the garden.

Falls can be devastating, so it’s unwise to garden “incommunicado.” The photo is to remind you to take your cell phone and your medical alert device, if you have one. These communication devices could save your life, literally. The cell phone should be in your pocket or within easy reach. It may be too far away from where you’re working if you leave it in your tool caddy. If you have a medical alert device, wear it around your neck. It won’t be of any use to you if it’s in your pocket and you fall on the side where the device is.

Reduced depth perception & eye-hand coordination could be related to balance or eyes, and are more common among older people than you’d think. These problems can cause you to fall on steps, when gardening, and may even cause problems when driving. They can cause you to miss steps or reach for something in the garden and miss, resulting in a fall. When driving, it’s easy to misjudge distances. At the first hint of these problems, you should call your opthalmologist or other appropriate healthcare provider.  

Decreased muscle strength, slower reaction time & chronic pain are three other subtle effects of aging that you may be dealing with. The cause may be reduced activity, inadequate nutrition or falling. Slow reaction time may be due to physical changes in nerve fibers. A good place to start dealing with these problems is to take a look at your diet and exercise. Do you eat a healthy diet? Do you get adequate exercise? If not, it’s time to change.

If you’re under a doctor’s care, it’s not advisable to start an exercise routine you find on the internet. Depending on your health issues, “standard” exercises could do more harm than good. After examining you, your healthcare provider can give you a safe routine or refer you to a physical therapist with specific instructions. And while you’re at it, ask the doc for dietary recommendations. Even if you’re not under a doctor’s care, it’s a good idea to join a gym and have a trainer help you with an exercise routine. Many Medicare advantage plans pay for gym memberships. 

For more information on adapting to the subtle effects of aging, read my critically acclaimed book, The Geriatric Gardener: Adaptive Gardening Advice For Seniors. You can order a copy at https://thepancoastconcern.com/the_geriatric_gardener

Bring The Outdoors In

What did you do to keep your green thumb green over the winter? I tended my indoor garden. Specifically houseplants, many of them low maintenance air plants (Tillandsia). It sure beats looking out the window at that sea of white and longing for spring.

When spring arrives, we see all kinds of ads and news features urging us to move our indoor living outside. They’ll be selling everything from outdoor kitchens and patio furniture to pools and spas. It’s only fair that, as gardeners, we go in the other direction, too. Bring the outdoors in. The whole idea is to create a seamless environment all year long.

There’s a reason why houseplants have been flying off garden center shelves, even before the pandemic. They make their owners happy, even when we can’t go outside. As developers converted urban warehouses into lofts and repurposed downtown office buildings into luxury apartments, their occupants yearned for green foliage and colorful flowers. To rectify the situation, they flocked to garden stores and bought everything in the houseplant department.

Add a touch of the indoor garden to your outdoor environment when the weather improves. Come spring and summer, whenever the outdoor temperatures rise to the point that it’s safe to move some of your houseplants outdoors, you can place them on your deck or patio for the warm seasons. As a result, your garden will flow from indoors to outside in one seamless motion, depending on your plant palette. 

An indoor garden allows you to enjoy a greater selection of plants. Where I live, in New York’s Finger Lakes region, we can grow only a few desert plants outdoors year round. However, I can grow almost any variety indoors. (Granted, a Saguaro may make things a little crowded.) For tropical lovers, most warm weather plants won’t be happy growing outdoors in our Zone 5 climate but they’ll be fine indoors. Gardeners who live in warm climates but would like to grow cool weather plants can do so indoors in the air conditioning.

As container dwellers, houseplants provide you with a mobile garden. You can move the plants to different locations within the house. Or, you can move those that are hardy enough to live happily during certain seasons outside for vacation when the weather permits.

An indoor garden provides you with 12 month pleasure and allows you to create an environment completely foreign to what’s possible outdoors. Just think of it – the best of both worlds: native plants outdoors and exotic plants indoors.

Don’t worry about not finding the plant material that you want for your indoor garden. The demand has leveled off but houseplant sales are still brisk. As a result, the shortages that garden center customers experienced over the past few years have probably eased. You should be able to find the specific plants you’re shopping for, especially if you can find an independent garden center with an extensive houseplant department. 

As time takes its toll on your body, you’ll be thankful that you began splitting your time between your indoor and outdoor gardens in 2024. You’ll be even more thankful when circumstances make it easier to tend your indoor garden than your outdoor garden.

You can read three chapters on indoor gardening in my critically acclaimed book, The Geriatric Gardener: Adaptive Gardening Advice For Seniors. Order your copy at https://thepancoastconcern.com/the_geriatric_gardener

How Younger Gardeners Can Benefit From Adaptive Gardening

Adaptive gardening was created to help older gardeners continue their favorite activity even as the aches and pains of aging began presenting themselves. As I’ve written more and more posts for this blog, I’ve come to realize that adaptive gardening applies to gardeners of all ages. 

The sooner you begin caring for your body when gardening, the greater the chance that you can put off, or even eliminate, the onset of some of the problems we senior gardeners are dealing with. Also, making some adaptive modifications to your garden now, or as you renovate, can save a significant amount of money over waiting until you need these adaptations.

Some ways you can begin protecting your body include…

• Warm up and cool down exercises. Your body care should include warm up (stretching) exercises before you begin your gardening sessions and cool down exercises when finished. If you belong to a gym, the trainers can customize a regimen for you. There are also videos and other posts online that can help you develop your own routine. For gardeners under a doctor’s care, I recommend talking to them first. 

• Protect your knees. Knee pain is, arguably, gardeners’ major complaint. To reduce wear and tear, you should at least invest in a pair of strap-on knee pads, which are available at most home and garden centers. You can garden standing up or sitting down if you use raised or elevated beds or containers.

• Lift properly. Protecting your back is important at any age because backs can “go out” even in one’s teen years. Lift with your legs, not your back. If you have to lift something higher than your waist, do it in two motions. For further protection, don’t carry heavy items like bags of fertilizer or mulch. Use a garden cart or coaster wagon.

• Keep the sun at bay. Wear a long sleeve shirt and long pants. Slather sunscreen on all exposed skin and reapply it every couple of hours. Wear a wide brimmed hat that covers the tops of your ears and the back of your neck. A baseball cap only shades your face. Sunglasses are important, too. UV rays can exacerbate cataracts and age related macular degeneration, both of which can begin at a young age and manifest themselves later in life.

• Stay hydrated. Drink plenty of water when gardening. Dehydration can cause dizziness, and loss of balance. Falling is something you want to avoid at any age.

• Manage your time. Work for only the amount of time that’s comfortable, beginning the day with the most strenuous task and moving to less strenuous tasks as the day wears on. At the end of each work block, rest by sitting in a comfortable, shady spot. During those rest periods, drink plenty of water.

• Continue your gardening indoors. There’s a reason why houseplants are in such demand. Find out why. Start an indoor garden. My favorites are Tillandsia (air plants).

When renovating your garden, consider these modifications:

• Wider, smoother paths. Someday, you or a guest may need a walker or wheelchair. Planning ahead and widening the width of your garden paths to four feet and making them smooth and flat with materials like flag or blue stone set in concrete now will save you money over waiting until the need arises. Construction costs are only going in one direction – up. 

• Replace steps with gentle slopes. Slopes should be no more than five degrees and should have handrails on each side. The rails should begin far enough before and after the slope to provide warning. 

• Good lighting. Besides illuminating outdoor activities, you should also light for safety. Low voltage stake lamps are recommended for walkways, patio perimeters and water features, especially ponds.

• Embrace Imperfection. Nature isn’t perfect so why should you be. Regardless of your age, I doubt if you have time or energy to tend a formal garden. To enjoy gardening and still have time for your other interests and demands of life, garden as Mother Nature does – informally and imperfectly.

Adaptive gardening is gardening smarter instead of harder. I recall reading somewhere that gardens should be tended rather than toiled in. That should be a mantra whether it’s your first garden or your last. The time you have to work in your first garden is limited, and the energy you have to work in your last garden is limited. 

There’s lots more information for gardeners of all ages in my critically acclaimed book, The Geriatric Gardener: Adaptive Gardening Advice For Seniors. Order your copy at https://thepancoastconcern.com/the_geriatric_gardener

Groundcovers

As you spend time this winter thinking about the improvements you’re going to make to your senior garden this season, consider adding groundcover as one of your options. After all, your primary adaptive gardening objective should be to work less in your garden and enjoy it more.

Let’s start by defining groundcover. In her book, Groundcover Revolution, author Kathy Jentz defines groundcover, narrowly as “a plant that spreads across the ground and only grows a few inches high.” She then goes on to broaden the definition to include “any plant that covers the soil in a fairly dense manner.”

One way to simplify your senior garden is to rip out your lawn. The question that always arises is: “What do I replace it with?” The answer is groundcover. That sounds very simplistic, and it is. I recommend thoroughly researching the different types of plants available to you, their environmental requirements, sustainability, local availability and cost. 

In addition, Jentz recommends that you check with local authorities or your homeowners association (HOA) to be sure there are no local ordinances, HOA rules or other restrictions to doing what you plan. She also suggests that you advise your neighbors of your plans so they won’t be shocked by your radical transformation.

If you plan to replace your whole lawn, consider a carpet of moss. Talk to one of your garden center horticulturists to be sure your selection will grow in your landscape. Mosses prefer partial sun to full shade, making it a poor choice if the lawn you’re replacing’s in full sun all day. Mosses also prefer moist, slightly acidic soil. My soil is basic clay, making moss a poor investment. Pictures of mondo grass look nice, too, but it’s hardy in zones 6-10 and likes well drained soil. Not a good investment in my zone 5, clay soil environment. These examples are why due diligence is essential.

You don’t have to replace the whole lawn. You can reduce your mowing time and increase your safety by replacing turfgrass with a low growing, fast spreading ground cover in hard to mow areas like slopes, swales, shady spots. This may be a better idea than replacing the whole lawn if you still want some turf. The photo below shows the juniper on the hill behind my house.

Another work-reducing idea is to reduce to amount of turfgrass you have to care for with planting beds of taller, blooming groundcover. This doesn’t have to be done all at once. You can create one bed and see if you like it. If you do, then create other groundcover beds as time, endurance and budget allow. 

Groundcover Revolution has plant profiles for 40 plants that qualify as groundcover. This section includes low growing plants that we think of as groundcover like pachysandra (of course), stonecrop, lambs ear, hostas, sedum and strawberries. There are several with creeping in their name like creeping jenny, creeping phlox, creeping juniper, creeping rosemary creeping thyme and creeping raspberry.

Some plants that are taller and flower also qualify as groundcover. They include Black Eyed Susans, coneflowers, prickly pear cactus, bugleweed, hardy begonia, lily-of-the valley, hellebore, huchera and coral bells.  Sedge and ornamental grasses also make good accent plants in a groundcover planting bed. The photo above is a groundcover bed in my front yard. It includes ornamental grass, Black Eyed Susans, creeping phlox and a yucca. It was installed before the Groundcover Revolution book was written.

These are just a sampling of plants that qualify for groundcover. Besides profiling plants, the book also gives you design ideas, making it well worth the investment. Another book you’ll want in your library is my critically acclaimed book, The Geriatric Gardener: Adaptive Gardening Advice For Seniors. Order your copy at https://thepancoastconcern.com/the_geriatric_gardener

Repurposing For Unique Garden Features

Recycle, repurpose, reuse is a mantra of environmentalists. Hopefully, you’re already practicing the first and last of the “3Rs.” Recycling has long been part of our weekly trash pickup. I’ve long advocated for reusing, as in reusing plastic nursery pots. They’re light weight and easier to clean than your decorative pots. If you just slip a reused nursery pot into a decorative pot, you not only save some work but you save a nursery pot from the landfill. 

I even used a five-gallon bucket as my repurposed garden caddy. The one bucket did multi-duty as a tool caddy, trash bin, and aid for rising up from a kneeling position. When I wanted to work sitting down, it became a stool just by turning it over.

Today, I want to concentrate on repurposing. How many times have you seen unique planters and wondered why couldn’t you do that. Well, you can, and that’s repurposing. People are using unused livestock drinking troughs for raised beds, so much so that the manufacturers are making them in different shapes, sizes and colors for gardeners. New is nice but isn’t it better if you can rescue one from the trash, clean it up, give it a little love and watch it become a home for some of your garden plants?

I’m sure you’ve seen Madonnas of the Garden – statues of St. Mary in a bathtub turned on end. This may or may not be your idea of garden art but there are so many creative ways to display both plants and statuary using some cast-off items like wheelbarrows, coaster wagons, and anything else that strikes your fancy.

The photo is of one of my favorite repurposing projects. Our town operates a swap shop in conjunction with its recycling facility. When a friend was dropping off donations, she saw this antique soda cooler and immediately claimed it. Besides the unique wood exterior, the cooler had a galvanized metal interior and a drain hole. Perfect to hold plants.

After spending some time during the winter cleaning and antiquing it with white paint and a black overglaze, she had the nicest elevated planting bed. Today, the repurposed soda cooler is the focal point of her deck and patio container garden. With that garden, she doesn’t have to walk to the back corner of her two plus acre yard to plant, tend or harvest. She just steps outside the kitchen door.

Repurposing ideas are as many as you can imagine. They include such things as birdhouses made of hollowed-out gourds and other unique materials. In my back garden, we have numerous pieces hanging from wrought iron shepherd’s crooks. I’ve seen gardens planted in everything you could imagine, even pickup truck beds and the trunks of abandoned cars.

I’ve repurposed my indoor garden and office extensively. The desk that I’ve used for the last 40 years is a round top dining room table from my mother-in-law’s basement and the table behind me is a drop leaf from the same place. Some of my Tillandsia collection live in a piece of cactus log and others live in repurposed frozen food trays. 

Repurposing is fun but more importantly, it’s good for the environment. Best of all, it’s a great way to show off your creativity and whimsical sense of humor.

Read more in my critically acclaimed book, The Geriatric Gardener: Adaptive Gardening Advice For Seniors. Order your copy at https://thepancoastconcern.com/the_geriatric_gardener