Garden Woes

When we moved to our home in Oneonta, New York, 29 years ago our driveway was bordered by hosta and daylilies in a variety of colors. Tulips bloomed in the spring alongside daffodils and forget-me-nots. The kids liked to pop the hosta buds and the orange and yellow striped day lilies were Mark’s favorite flower. I was thrilled to have a good head start on the perennial flower beds I planned to have in abundance. Knowing that perennials would return every year, I figured I could look forward to many lazy summers once I had done the initial work of establishing my gardens.

I started by reading books on perennial gardening and how to plan a color scheme with continuous bloom from spring through early fall. I dug up my garden beds, amending the soil with the free horse manure Mark helped me collect from a local farm. Then I went shopping for plants!

The first few years I was very pleased with the results of my labors. Then strange things began to happen. Some of the perennials that I thought would last forever disappeared. Volunteer plants would show up in odd spots – ruining my scheme but looking too pretty to remove. Slugs nibbled holes in hosta leaves, powdery mildew mottled the leaves of phlox and beebalm, and aphids devoured my lupines. I tried to deal with each problem organically, but without success. Purchasing a package of ladybugs to kill the aphids, I followed the directions to pour coke on the ladybugs before releasing them into the garden so they wouldn’t fly away. Why would they want to leave when there was a feast of aphids just waiting to be consumed? But leave they did. The coke dried up, the ladybugs flew off, and the lupines had to be dug up.

One spring I found tulips petals lying on the ground, but I never discovered which garden pest lopped off blossoms just for the fun of it. When the deer invaded our neighborhood, they came to feast. Our hosta bed was their salad bar and the tulips were dessert. The demolished hosta were ugly and had to be removed. Digging up those colossal root balls was a formidable task. I posted an ad in the paper: “Deer-nibbled hosta. You dig it, you can have it.” Gardeners from deer-free neighborhoods came to take the hosta, and then the deer attacked my daylilies.

So much for the lazy gardening life I had anticipated. I learned that gardening is an ongoing challenge. Many of the plants I started out with had to be replaced with deer-resistant varieties. After Mark fenced in the backyard I was able to have hosta again, but the backyard is so shady that many of our favorites will not bloom there. I am still digging up daylilies, hydrangea, and other deer favorites in the front yard, replacing them with sage, ferns, fuzzy lamb’s ears, and other things that are distasteful to our ruminant neighbors.

The deer are not the only culprits that turn gardening from a labor of love to a battle with nature. Sometimes a flower that looks beautiful one year will be riddled with bugs the next. Plants with runner roots, such as lily-of-the-valley and creeping bellflower take over an entire flower bed. All of this digging is hard on the body of someone of a certain age and I have suffered back and hip pain as a result. Cutting back plants can be dangerous, too. One year I contracted tennis elbow after using my garden shears too enthusiastically. Another year I clipped off the end of my left pinky while shearing a clump of dead flowers.

Last year I conceded to myself that I can no longer maintain all of the flower beds I planted in my younger years. I started digging up three beds that I planned to cover with grass seed. This spring I commenced digging again. I found that I could not throw my beautiful plants in the compost pile, and with the daylilies and bellflower nearly gone, I thought, why not replant the empty spots with deer-resistant coreopsis and daisies? So I did, and I even added some annual marigolds and ageratum, to ensure long-lasting color.

While I have the time and ambition for the gardening challenge this year, I know I can’t count on continued health and energy as I age. So, I’m still digging up the one large bed next to our driveway – the one that used to bloom with Mark’s beloved daylilies. I work on it little-by-little – putting my spade down when my back starts to ache – and when I am done we will spread grass seed over this once colorful space. Next year I will have more time to tend the remaining beds and foil the invasion of pests and runner roots. At least that is my plan.