Gardening as therapy.
It's become clear to me through posts and PMs that there are some gardeners here just waiting for the chance to discuss gardening!
So, I was thinking... how do you use gardening, or how does it affect you if you need a break, need some respite, need to relax, need inspiration....how do you use it as a therapy tool in caregiving?
What are your activities: Do you go out and pull weeds, read a magazine, design new beds? Look through garden catalogues? Go to garden stores?
And what interests have you added to your gardening? Visit estate or garden displays? Do you go to garden shows?
Does anyone design and plant Knot Gardens? Raised bed planters? Assistive gardens? Pollinator gardens (and have you thought of ways to help the bees and butterflies?)
Are your gardens primarily for pleasure or food, or a mix of both? Do you grow plants for medicinal purposes? Which ones, how do you harvest and process them? Any suggestions?
Do you grow plants that can be used in crafts, such as grapevines for wreaths and lavender for lavender wands? Do you make herbal products such as creams, lotions, chapstick?
What else can you share about gardening and the means in which it nurtures your soul?
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Anyways im looking forward to not going away this spring and concentrate on things that need to be done around the house and a little garden, just feeling a little like I miss my south spring trip.
Daisy - maybe you need a trip south
In the last surgery it hit just when the garden jumped into bloom.
Have twice been out and yesterday almost cut one of the drain tubes. The little jasmine fence was so overgrown I was grabbing handsfull at the top of it, about waist level, and just clipping through, when I noticed a rather more red and thicket stem. Yup. Had grabbed a handful and one of my drain tubes.
GOD, that would be SO like me, to have to go to the ER and explain how I cut my drain tube off with a rusty old shears.
Somebody up there likes me, because I saw it. Yes, don't say it. I am gonna be more careful.
The garden of course looks ESPECIALLY exquisite to me, the electric Kool-Aid acid kit colors of the cineraria all coming in, the lilac full of blooms, the brugmansia dripping with huge yellow blooms that smell so great in evening. The jamine in early bloom and everything full of new green.
Snow is sparkling on the branches of the trees tall and brown.
But the flowers are not forgotten,
Spring will bring them all to light;
for the frost in dream has traced them
on my window last night.
It's been ridiculously difficult to find the words to this sweet little song, I've retained the melody since grade school. Yes it's snowing here again today but I don't really mind because I know it's only temporary.
Last year we got rid of are pool, kept the deck, and turned it into, what I call a "She Deck" this year, I'm making a flower garden in front of it.
That is going to be fun and a learning experience.
Cwillie, I'm doing a happy dance with you. 💃🕺💃🕺, but probably looks more like the Ellen dance from Seinfeld.
Golden, how's your snow, and temperatures going? Still blustery here, but so much better, I hope things are getting better where you are.
daughter - sounds so lovely. Nothing like spring flowers
Here I was looking at the field outside which is still partly snow covered but getting muddy as well, and thinking that I will be glad to see the weeds that grow until the farmer works it. Green is good!
Cwillie, There have been a few dragonflies over the years, but do not take up a permanent residence.
Last week, leveled out two bags of smooth rocks, jut under one inch in size.
Mixed colors, but many dark grey. Makes a difference, just small improvements.
There is rain today, a bit yesterday. Watering my little self-maintaining garden areas. We still have the big cape honeysuckle, thriving. And the same bouganvillia
struggling, then coming back, and looks a bit different daily. It cannot figure out the hot sunny days then rainy cold days. But it likes to live in the special place in the sun all day, plenty of air circulating around it.
Wanting to see more hummingbirds soon.
I do not like grasshoppers.
Eww! Dh says they are somehow beneficial too.
Reading-I am not going to kill them!
Not liking the idea to kill anything.
Going to try the "Live and let live method" to life for about two weeks.
That includes my neighbors.
Have you heard of the theory/book: "Let them"?
We want to attract pollinators.
We want to attract bugs that eat mosquitos.
We may want to attract bees (if we are not allergic).
Searching for plants to attract dragonflies (they eat mosquitos),
I ran across this:
These plants attract dragonflies, including ones that also attract the insects they prey on.
Attract more bugs?
I may need to go back and reread that.
boj - good way to go!
If the world ends,
I'll be in the garden, busy gardening.
Forgot to add that I have a poplar tree growing in my living room. My Schefflera (umbrella plant) is over 6' tall and needed some support or R said he could bring me a shoot he cut out of the farm lawn. Great!
The shoot is over 6 " tall and straight. We stuck it in the pot and forgot about it until I noticed a crown of green leaves at the top of it. I have a tall lamp with a grow light in it and it seems the poplar shoot loves it. I think I will just leave it there and hope it doesn't grow too much.
The hellebore is a phoenix. It sat for a while and looked dead so I asked R to clean out the roots so we could use the pot for the seeds. It was too root bound so we stuck the seeds in and they did nothing. But, I saw a small green shoot rising out of the old plant and brought it to his attention. "I pulled about 30 of those out when I was trying to get the root out", says he. "Aaargh," says I. "If there is life I always give it a chance."
So I kept it watered and that shoot died but not too long after another raised it's head and I now have 4-5 very healthy looking fresh green shoots a few inches high growing in the pot. Think what it would have been like with 30 more!!! I'm looking forward to seeing what it does. maybe it will even flower.
Two of the Catalpa seedlings are surviving. I think they have gone dormant as they haven't changed since December. I am hoping they will revive in the spring. If not we will germinate more seeds.
send - a terrarium would be great! Are you really going to try it? Less big muscle activity and more small muscle activity.
My poor spider plant is the object of kitty love. She so misses the outdoors and is crawling onto it and sitting or lying in it each day for a while, as well as munching on a few leaves. It's a bit flattened but is surviving. She nearly chomped a Christmas cactus flower but I caught her in time.
I beg your garden?
I am thinking about starting a miniature terrarium garden in tiny corked bottles for indoors.
Less physical labor, less watering. It could be a good hobby.