A couple weeks ago, you and I were talking about a chapter in Marjorie Harris' book, "How To Make A Garden: The 7 Essential Steps for the Canadian Gardener". The chapter talked about how we should be "pregardeners" and how to look at and evaluate what we wanted from the garden, and what we were willing and able to put into the garden.
The rest of the chapter told us how to do that, so I thought you and I could chat about that today. The days are significantly longer, now, so thinking about this year's garden is no longer just a mid-winter daydream; it's good, practical planning on our part!
Marjorie suggest that there are several points we should address when we're in our "pregardening" stage. The first is to look at our garden site. We have to look at it with realistic eyes: how much space do we have, are there any large features, like trees or slopes, that we have to work with, or even things like fire hydrants or air conditioning units. Love them or dislike them, they might be part of our landscape, and they're not going anywhere!
Next, we have to evaluate the amount of light that our patch receives. If our garden is surrounded by tall trees and full of shade, it might be more of a challenge to grow vegetables. And if we simply love shade plants but our garden gets full sun, we might have to re-evaluate.
Check out the water; not only availability of water to care for the plants, but also check if there are any low spots (or high spots) where water or lack of it might be an issue.
Marjorie suggests that we learn gardening terms; this is something that we learn from reading our gardening magazines, talking to other gardeners, and talking to the great, knowledgeable people who work at our garden centres and greenhouses. She mentions terms like hardscaping, softscaping, borders, raised beds, and focal points. They're all practical terms that we should know so that we can better ask for advice or ideas.
Next on Marjorie's list is our budget. We have to know how much we can spend on everything from plants to statuary to fences to rocks. Some features can cost thousands of dollars, especially if you have to bring in outside help. She suggests that we think long-range, and to do things in stages. Her suggestion was to do the back yard, our most private space, first; then worry about the front yard after that.
Her last point was to do some pregardening tasks, which we can't tackle until the snow melts, but here they are: tidy up the yard so that we get a really accurate picture of how it looks; don't remove any trees without careful consideration. Marjorie feels that no garden should be without an evergreen, because of the strong permanent structure that they lend to a garden, and because they give such a wonderful habitat for birds.
She also says we shouldn't be sentimental about plants; if something isn't working, replace it. And her last suggestion is that we feed the soil and help it to give us the best possible garden it can.
So that's our homework in the coming weeks! We might not be able to do some of these things for a while, but I'm sure we'll be out there before we know it! I know that being out in nature will be good for us, physically and spiritually.
The next Yorkton and District Horticultural Society meeting will be on Wednesday, March 16, and our guest will be Tyler Kaban speaking on growing grapes on the prairies, and some helpful hints about kiwis.
Have a good week!
