This post is a continuation of last week’s post, “Learning what to plant and when,” in which I tackled some of the questions I received from my recent workshop, on gardening in grief. I’m sharing the answers below, because they’re similar to the other questions I often get from beginning gardener friends, regardless of their reason for breaking new ground. I hope you’ll find them useful, or pass them on to someone who might!
Last week, I talked about the benefits of starting with seeds vs. already-started seedlings, where to plant things, and how to make sense of different kinds of soil and sun requirements. This week, I discuss where to find the best gardening info, how and where to grow the easiest flowers, and the least overwhelming way to simply begin.
That first snowdrop, the flowering of the rose you pruned, a lettuce you grew from seed, the robin singing just for you. These are small things, but all positive, all healing in a way that medicine tries to mimic.
— Monty Don
What’s a good resource to find gardening answers? The internet is overwhelming for me. Is there a site you consistently go to for information and/or seeds etc?
The internet is overwhelming.
I find that staying centered in my own gardening goals cuts down on the overwhelm. Like cooking or baking – you don’t need to know how to make every recipe, or master every technique, before you begin. You can learn through completing one project at a time. You can start with a single sunflower.
I also find that spending time with people who are good gardeners is as instructive or moreso than reading a book. I’ve been lucky to do this throughout my life – I wrote about my informal training as a self-taught gardener in this post – but it’s never too late to make new friends or pick up a new hobby. Or to hang out with an elderly relative or neighbor who may be delighted to share their hard-won experience with you.
Local nurseries and botanical gardens can be great resources, too, and they often offer gardening classes that are more tailored to your climate than a general book might be.
That said, the NOTES this week are full of further reading you can do on your own (see below). May your rabbit hole explorations here all prove fruitful!
What flowers are easiest to grow?
I will give you my purely anecdotal answers here.
From seed: I’ve found that sunflowers, marigolds, and nasturtiums are the lowest-maintenance flowers. If you pick off the flowers after they’ve bloomed and before they go to seed (also known as deadheading), they’ll bloom all summer long. They’re also great to plant alongside vegetables if you have limited real estate, as they keep bugs away from your crops, as do zinnias, calendula and cosmos.
As seedlings: Salvia is a favorite annual of mine. Probably because they’re on the cover of every novel for girls aged 8-12 featuring an English cottage garden, and I was a sucker for that stuff when I was 8-12. But also because they’re easy to grow in borders, they’re beloved by pollinators and ignored by most garden-dwelling animals (deer, rabbits), and you can find them later in the season than many annuals at your local nursery. Read: you can afford to waste away a few May weekends drinking cold rosé on warm patios, and still enjoy a few salvia flowers in the garden come June.
From bulbs: daffodils and alliums (aka ornamental onions) are fighters, and the least likely to be eaten by garden-dwelling animals. My alliums are kicking ass in a container right now. Tulips need to be planted deeper than other bulbs, which means they might survive your local horde of hungry squirrels better than flowers that require shallower planting, like crocuses. Hyacinths, despite their delicate appearance, are also surprisingly robust.
I want to incorporate ashes into my garden from a loved one. Yet I’ve heard that putting ashes on some plants can kill them. Is there any way to avoid this?
Choose plants that like acidic soil and bone meal to begin with.
In addition to the bulbs I mentioned above, here are a few other suggestions.
I have not had good results with bleeding heart bushes myself, but this is a favorite for memorial planting for a reason.
What is a not-overwhelming way to get started?
To recap what I’ve shared so far:
Decide on 1-3 plants you would like to be in relationship with this year.
Buy a few grow bags (see photo above). These come in all shapes, sizes and colors; you can opt for ones made from biodegradable hemp or recycled BPA-free plastic, whatever you prefer. They’re cheap, easy to move around, and well-sized for balconies and fire escapes (and the ones with handles can be zip-tied to the latter to avoid falling onto unsuspecting passerby). They’re inherently well-draining and good for keeping plant roots warm even during unexpected frosts.
Purchase already-started seedlings in April or May from your local nursery vs. starting things from seed.
Ask your local nursery people which soil(s) you should purchase along with your plants so that they stay happy.
Follow the instructions that come with the plants for water and sun as best you can. Have a plan for how they’ll survive during summer vacations.
Enjoy your plant! That’s what it’s for. Celebrate its growth. Brag about it on Instagram. Sing to it if you like. Some studies suggest it helps. We used to live in a Brooklyn neighborhood where a tall, bald man would play his vibraphone outside for hours with a gigantic grin on his face, and I have to think that our good gardening luck in that apartment had something to do with it.
Finally, I would offer this advice: View your first year of gardening projects as a series of experiments that are designed to teach you in gentle ways about life and death – not as a matter of life and death. Or a referendum on your moral character. Plants die all the time, in good gardens and in bad. We are not in control of everything. And we can always try again.
NOTES:
Below are some of my favorite gardening resources and links.
The online Farmer’s Almanac sounds old-timey but is still very reliable for predicting things like the best time to plant. (It’s also a great source of information on Indigenous lore about each moon cycle. Tonight is the Pink Moon, thanks to its association with flowering phlox; it is also known as the Breaking Ice Moon to the Algonquin, the Budding Moon of Plants and Shrubs in Tlingit, and the Moon of the Red Grass Appearing to the Oglala people.)
The New Gardener’s Handbook is one of the best books I’ve read for truly new gardeners, and experienced ones too. The author is Daryl Beyers, one of the gardeners at the New York Botanical Garden, which is one of my favorite places to visit for gardening inspiration.
If you like the Great British Baking Show, you will like Monty Don, who is to English gardening and the BBC what Julia Child was to the American culinary scene in her PBS glory days. After a very exciting first career as a jeweler to the stars who partied with the likes of Boy George and even outfitted Princess Di, Don has settled into a marvelous second act as a garden show host. Series like Big Dreams, Small Spaces and Gardener’s World have given my husband and I many hours of anodyne viewing pleasure.
Don also has a gigantic gardening tome called The Complete Gardener that is worth picking up, though I find it’s better for enjoying on the couch with a fizzy drink than it is for taking into the garden for brass-tacks tasks.
In this class, one of our lovely class members also recommended @floretflower, who offers online courses.
The links above to gear are here for your convenience; I am not shilling for Gardeners.com. (Yet?) Full disclosure, though: the links to books lead you to my curated corner of Bookshop, which puts more money into the hands of indie publishers and offers me a small kickback, which further supports this free project. Do with this info what you will.
Experienced gardeners, I’d love to hear from you. What other must-have gear or info sources would you recommend? What keeps you from getting overwhelmed by all the things you want to plant?
Beginner gardeners, I’d also love to hear from you! What question about gardening have you always wanted to ask, and weren’t sure how or where to ask it? Let me know in the comments below.
Loving your stories about how you evolved as a gardener! My father worked in the nursery business for more than 50 years, and ultimately became a Master Gardener. I learned early about plants of all kinds. In our home, we have a complete library-sized section of books. I rarely look at them anymore, but I know exactly which one to open if I need a reminder about something. I did, fairly recently, use the Internet to find out about orchid care. I've always had pretty good luck with them, but I inherited a number of half-dead specimens that people at work were getting rid of. I followed a potpourri of online resources and put together a care plan. They all turned green, and have each bloomed at least once! Outside, things are much more difficult. We live in a Zone 3-ish region, at least in close proximity to the house. Our elevation is about 6,700 feet. It's quite dry in the summer, but we get more than 5 feet of snow in the winter -- more like 8 feet, this year -- and winter temperatures hang out well below zero for days (even weeks) at a time! I can't garden the way I once could. We might have 60 days a year without frost, but it's usually fewer than that. We've lived here for more than 14 years, and I'm still learning what will survive, and what I need to do to promote that survival. My beloved Siberian Iris really LOVE this climate (maybe because their ancestors were from Siberia?!?), but my Basil needs to live in a container perched on a garden cart so I can roll it into the garage on those summer nights when the temperature dips below 40º. We have huge numbers of birds that frequent our feeders and flowers, including 5 different species of hummingbirds (I also serve them homemade nectar). I've even seen Swallowtail butterflies in our yard, which isn't all that common around here. Must be doing something right!!!