No shows and other mistakes that bedevil garden pros, too
For the Apollo moonshots, failure was not an option. In gardening, it’s a requirement.
And if not strictly required, messing up is certainly inevitable. When you’re dealing with dozens of plant species — each with its own growing preferences — an ever-shifting pattern of weather and climate, and your own lack of Editor: knowledge, the errors will mount.
Ideally, the mass of mistakes is confined to a few early years, and, with experience, the ratio of successes to flops grows to a point where both the garden and gardener take shape.
One of my callow missteps was
in planting a formal hedge as the
ornamental grasses growing among the stones. Built more than 20 years ago, the ponds’ trickling water offers a sonic backdrop of serenity.
“I like the sound,” he said. “If you have the windows in the house open, you can hear it all the way up in the rooms.”
Dusk-to-dawn lighting in both ponds ensures that Polite can keep an eye on the fish and frogs that live there. During the day, lilacs, daisies, hostas and daylilies add color and movement. Glacial boulders add to the yard’s natural vibe.
Concord grapes grow up a trellis near the back pond.
“I sprayed them so we should get a ton of grapes. There’s a lot on there now,” Polite said. “As long as we continue to get moisture, the grapes will come in good.”
Near the woods that line the property are two young redwood trees. Polite recently had to trim them, as the trees tend to grow tall and wide.
“They’re not overly common in this area, but they’re great for moist areas,” he said. “I put them in two years ago. They were half that size.”
With the woods so close by, herons aren’t the garden’s only wild visitors.
“An occasional water snake will get in. If I see him going after the fish, I’ll grab him with a little grasper and throw him out,” Polite said.
Deer also stop by, but they haven’t been too much of a headache.
“I try to stay away from the things that the deer will go after, so a lot of barberry,” Polite said. “All the boxwoods, those types of things, deer typically don’t bother.
“I do have a few things that I put in throughout the years that I learned that they do [eat], but typically when they eat them like that, it grows back harder.”
Polite said his wife, Sheryl, does more of the gardening and he focuses on lawn care — “kind of a tag team.”
“Now that our kids are all three grown, she has more time. So we like to do stuff in
the yard together — makes it go a lot faster,” he added.
When they moved in, he said the yard contained mostly weeds and thorny shrubs that Pittsburghers call jaggerbushes.
“I’ve always liked working outside,” Polite said. “When we bought the house, the people that we bought it from weren’t outside people.”
Polite said he often buys plants in the fall when bigbox stores have sales. He sources some of his plants from Brenckle’s Greenhouses in Meridian and Lake Forest Gardens in Fombell.
He has organized the garden strategically to cut down on maintenance.
“I don’t own a weed eater or a trim mower. Everything that I couldn’t mow with my tractor, I made a bed out of,
or I made a nice easy slope so I could just kind of drive it.”
Polite is looking forward to visitors and seeing the other gardens on the tour.
“Everyone has different ways of looking at space and different things they do with it,” he said. “It’s kind of neat to get ideas from others.”
Get $20 advance tickets for the July 24 garden tour by sending a self-addressed, stamped envelope and check payable to: Southern Butler County Garden Club, 842 Van Buren Blvd., Freedom, Pa 15042. Buy $25 day of tour tickets from 9 to 10 a.m. July 24 at the Cranberry Municipal Center, 2525 Rochester Road, 16066. Information: www.southernbutlercountygardenclub.