A foray into gardening

With all this nice weather we’ve been having, I’ve been finding myself irristitably drawn to the outdoors. As a result, I’ve had many a moment of inspiration as to how I should alter my outdoor space to make it more appealing to this new focus. Unfortunately, my biggest obstacle right now is that I don’t technically own said outdoor space.

Being renters means we need to care for it, but we can’t really alter it in any meaningful way. And even if we did get permission to jazz things up, which I doubt would be denied, it seems rather pointless when the money comes out of your pocket but is contributing to someone else’s investment. For instance, I would love to build a small deck in our postage-size backyard. Something just big enough to have a BBQ on and a nice lounge set. Something with visual interest and a nice cedar stain. It would be perfect to lay on and soak up the sun, and have people over for dinner and entertaining. But I am not willing, if I were to get permission, to spend thousands on someone else’s home. That would be silly. So, we shall make due with the 4 or 6 square patio stones that make up our non-grass area of our outdoor space. At least the dogs have a lot of places to pee on…

In light of these restrictions, I’ve altered my outdoor space in the only reasonable fashion I could think of. I took a small unused plot in front of the house and turned it into a small “garden”. This patch was clearly placed there with a mind for some sort of landscaping. But since this house has only been rented out, no one has bothered to touch it. I guess the common sentiment is, “Why spend time and money on something that isn’t yours?”. But a quick trip to Home Depot’s garden centre and $20 later, I decided it was time to make something pretty.

I ended up planting a hydrangea and a small flowering bush thing with a name I’ve forgotten… It had the word ‘cherry’ in it and the flowers smell like bubble gum. Probably poor that I don’t remember since I can’t really look up “bubble gum smelling, flowering bush with cherry in the name”.

Upon venturing into this project, I’ve come across a few realizations…

One is a reminder that I have the blackest thumb around. If it lives in a pot and I’m supposed to care for it, it will die. The only plant I’ve been able to keep alive is a spider plant given to me by my mother-in-law a few years ago. They’re hardy plants and it has thrived despite my best efforts to kill care for it. For instance, we went on a month-long honeymoon to Europe (almost 3 years ago now) and forgot to mention to anyone that the plants needed some water. Well we came back to some sad plants, including a dying money tree (clearly a representation of the state of our finances at the time) and a shrivelled yellow thing, once a green spider plant. But with some persistent watering it thrived and came back in full force rather quickly. The money tree did eventually come back, and has grown to match our finances as well, but is still a little stunted and withered. The resilient spider plant sits in our kitchen, in a new pot, trying it’s best to stay alive. Very hardy.

Another thing that I’ve realized is how odd it is that older people like to garden. My back and knees felt arthritic after an hour spent digging up grass and mixing up soil. I kept having to stand up and do back bends to straighten my spine. Thanks to yoga, I knew to do counter poses to my “bent over grass patch” Asana :) (Side note: how can you garden when you hate bugs? There were so many spiders and crawling things coming out of the soil, I was repulsed!)

I’m not really sure if either of these poor plants will survive. They’re both supposed to be part shade plants. However, I over estimated the amount of sun that that little patch gets, so these part shade plants might have to do with mostly (read: only) shade. Also, the soil around here is terrible. The top layer was regular old dirt (and spiders) and then sand, and then I reached clay. So I mixed it all up together, added some black soil and popped in the plants. On the plus side, there was a lot of worms in there, and I know worms are good for the soil. Hopefully they’ll help things along. I was going to post a picture of my accomplishments, but then I looked at it objectively and realized there wasn’t much to look at. Two tiny plants in a rectangle of dirt with two solar lights between them. Picture it… and that’s about it.

With the odds stacked against them, I’m not counting on these first plants to make it. I will tend to them as I should, pretending like I’m not waiting for them to die. But I won’t mourn my efforts if they don’t make it. Instead, I will dig up the carcases and plant full shade, hardy non-flowering bushes. They will be less pretty, but at least it will look better than shrivelled greenery. I’ll keep you posted on their progress, for better or worse.

Now, if only there was something that could be done for our lawn…