Aging gardeners can still have great gardens if they adapt
The physical benefits of working in the garden are a perfect complement to the rewards of creating a beautiful space or harvesting the freshest vegetables. However, the physical demands of garden work can become a challenge with age.
A gardener whose body was up to the rigors of lugging bags of potting soil, pushing wheelbarrows laden with compost or digging holes to accommodate balled and burlap-wrapped plants has to adapt as the body balks at such chores. If you find that the challenges of gardening no longer align with your body’s reality, it’s time to re-evaluate how you work in the garden and adapt to those changes.
• Abandon perfectionism. This can be hard if you’ve held your garden to a standard that required gobs of attention and care. Prioritize areas where you spend time or are ever-present views from inside your home. Decide where the tended garden ends. Rethink areas that you rarely see or use. You can plant easy-care shrubs or weed whack those spaces a couple of times a season.
• Be a realist. Consider your time, budget and physical abilities, then prioritize. Your garden should be a pleasure, not a burden. It may mean eliminating areas you’ve tended in the past, and turning them over to less labor-intensive plantings.
• Ask for help. If you can afford a garden helper, go for it. Knowing that someone is coming for even a half a day each week is liberating and can keep you excited about working in the garden, rather than feeling like it’s a millstone around your neck.
• Embrace raised beds. Planting, maintaining and harvesting vegetables without straining your back will make your garden a pleasure rather than a burden.
Ornamental containers elevated from the ground allow you to tweak and maintain pretty vignettes without strain and hassle. They can punctuate areas you’ve simplified in hardscape or plantings that require minimal care.
• Employ containers as large as your space and budget allows. Think about the time required to maintain a 4-inch pot versus a 24-inch pot. One requires daily attention and the other gives you wiggle room, except for the hottest and driest times of the year. Better to care for a couple capacious containers than a passel of puny pots.
• Plant shrubs. Choose those that colonize and take over a bed in lieu of perennial plantings that require more time to maintain.
Carefully chosen, they can add interest the entire year. From lower growing plants such as ‘Grow-Low’ fragrant sumac ( Rhus aromatica) to larger options such as Carolina allspice ( Calycanthus floridus), there are plants that will shrug off deer, drought and poor soil, filling a space and adding interest without adding maintenance.
• Employ groundcovers. Once you’ve planted shrubs, add groundcovers to complement them. A sunny hillside planted with junipers or ornamental grasses can be underplanted with moss phlox or sedum species. Both will battle erosion and look beautiful throughout the growing season. Choose creeping phlox or bugleweed ( Ajuga) rather than bark under an old planting of rhododendron or boxwood and create a pretty vignette. A shady spot under a tree can hold ferns and Canadian ginger ( Asarum canadense). Both options look beautiful, suppress weeds and eliminate the expense of spreading bark mulch year after year.
• Work smarter, not harder. Tools abound to make chores easier in the garden. Look for kneelers and scooters as stooping and bending becomes a challenge. Extended or wider handles can make life easier for stiff backs or arthritic hands. Lightweight coiled or fabric hoses can make watering easier.
A proactive approach to meeting the challenges of age or physical changes can make your garden a pleasure, not a burden. Having a place to recharge and relax can bring health benefits not found in a bottle or at a doctor’s office, and can be a great way to keep your body at its best with age.
Carol Papas is a Penn State Master Gardener. This volunteer program supports the outreach mission of Penn State Extension. Have a gardening question? Email it, along with photos, to the Garden Hotline, staffed by the Penn State Extension Master Gardeners of Allegheny County at alleghenymg@psu.edu. They are answering emails from home.