I've started a small garden now that I bought a house with a good backyard. Have some blueberry bushes and strawberries that come back each year. Planted roses out front but need to learn more about them.
I've started a small garden now that I bought a house with a good backyard. Have some blueberry bushes and strawberries that come back each year. Planted roses out front but need to learn more about them.
Roses aren't difficult. Just keep them fed, watered and pruned. But get the specifics from local experts. Enjoy.
There is great satisfaction and peace about working in a garden. Nice growing flowers and shrubs, great if you can grow some of your own food, even if it's only a few salad leaves. World's oldest profession: "The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it" (Gen 2:15).
For me, I make my living that way, nowadays. I tend a large number of gardens.
For relaxation --- I tend my own garden. Permanent plantings include red-, black-, and white currants, gooseberries, two varieties of rhubarb, two varieties of dwarf apple trees, and several tubs of autumn fruiting raspberries. Annuals include radishes, carrots, salad leaves, spinach, runner beans; and this year, courgettes (zucchini). Sometimes leeks (not this year), parsnips. Onions and potatoes are cheap enough that the small vege plot can do without them. I planted three trees, all a bit close together - no, four: an acer, too, which is now big enough to have a nest in its dense canopy - and a small shrubbery, and have several borders with small flowering shrubs and half a dozen roses (most of the roses are in what was supposed to be a herb garden - herbs still there as companion planting). There are some hanging baskets too.
About 15 years ago, I planted a hebe which has long white flowers, prolific, don't know the variety. It's got very much bigger than I expected and really outgrown its space. However, when in flower (most of the summer), it's absolutely full of bees and other insects. Obviously the best bee restaurant in the area. So I haven't the heart to pull it out, just try to cut out selected branches so that it doesn't overtake too much of the garden.
Reading this, sounds like a lot, and a lot of work. But it isn't. Even in the belting heat we've had recently, I don't do much, just water occasionally, maybe once a week (containers more often). It's nice to pick my own stuff, but very often slugs, snails, pigeons, and other critters get to it before I do.
Other things I like to do are long-distance hiking (multi-day if possible, in wild mountainous or forested places), choral singing, and reading just about anything.
I should retire (I could actually be drawing my old age pension) and then I'd have more time for other things that I'd love to do, like learning to play a musical instrument. But if I did that, I may not have the money to go to the places where I like to do the multi-day hikes.
After my dad had been retired for a while, I remember him telling me he didn't understand how he ever got anything done while he had still a job. Now that I'm retired, myself, I'm beginning to understand what he meant.
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penguin2
I've started a small garden now that I bought a house with a good backyard. Have some blueberry bushes and strawberries that come back each year. Planted roses out front but need to learn more about them.
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Rocky
Roses aren't difficult. Just keep them fed, watered and pruned. But get the specifics from local experts. Enjoy.
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Twinky
There is great satisfaction and peace about working in a garden. Nice growing flowers and shrubs, great if you can grow some of your own food, even if it's only a few salad leaves. World's oldest profession: "The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it" (Gen 2:15).
For me, I make my living that way, nowadays. I tend a large number of gardens.
For relaxation --- I tend my own garden. Permanent plantings include red-, black-, and white currants, gooseberries, two varieties of rhubarb, two varieties of dwarf apple trees, and several tubs of autumn fruiting raspberries. Annuals include radishes, carrots, salad leaves, spinach, runner beans; and this year, courgettes (zucchini). Sometimes leeks (not this year), parsnips. Onions and potatoes are cheap enough that the small vege plot can do without them. I planted three trees, all a bit close together - no, four: an acer, too, which is now big enough to have a nest in its dense canopy - and a small shrubbery, and have several borders with small flowering shrubs and half a dozen roses (most of the roses are in what was supposed to be a herb garden - herbs still there as companion planting). There are some hanging baskets too.
About 15 years ago, I planted a hebe which has long white flowers, prolific, don't know the variety. It's got very much bigger than I expected and really outgrown its space. However, when in flower (most of the summer), it's absolutely full of bees and other insects. Obviously the best bee restaurant in the area. So I haven't the heart to pull it out, just try to cut out selected branches so that it doesn't overtake too much of the garden.
Reading this, sounds like a lot, and a lot of work. But it isn't. Even in the belting heat we've had recently, I don't do much, just water occasionally, maybe once a week (containers more often). It's nice to pick my own stuff, but very often slugs, snails, pigeons, and other critters get to it before I do.
Other things I like to do are long-distance hiking (multi-day if possible, in wild mountainous or forested places), choral singing, and reading just about anything.
I should retire (I could actually be drawing my old age pension) and then I'd have more time for other things that I'd love to do, like learning to play a musical instrument. But if I did that, I may not have the money to go to the places where I like to do the multi-day hikes.
What I hate to do: my housework.
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waysider
After my dad had been retired for a while, I remember him telling me he didn't understand how he ever got anything done while he had still a job. Now that I'm retired, myself, I'm beginning to understand what he meant.
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