Welcome to my Misadventures in Gardening

I fell in love with my house when I first saw the little bridge that arches over its backyard fish ponds. When we bought it, I didn’t expect that I was headed for misadventures in gardening. But the fact that I had to hand my newborn over to the master gardener homeowner in order to tour her outdoor wonderland should have been a serious clue. My husband was in a hurry to get to the next property, hopeful he’d find a nice small yard that would be easy to mow. But I was enamored of this house’s tiered garden wall holding lush English ivy, poppies in the springtime, Black Eyed Susans in the late summer and elegant lillies. After we moved in, I still considered the garden to belong to Ginger, who planted and nurtured it. I kept inviting my new neighbors to come see “Ginger’s garden.” I’d take my baby on nature walks around it each day, pointing out new blooms, taking pictures of her next to the tulips. It looked fabulous that first spring with its five dogwood trees in bloom and its weeping cherry gone all pink like a prom dress. Ginger told me — as if to quiet my fears of yard work — that most of the flowers were simply “volunteers.” Being a novice whose former residence was a townhouse built on treeless field, I was unaware of the amount of weeding and watering that even perennials require. I came to discover that Ginger had planted a dozen flower beds back there, a good-sized vegetable garden and flowers and shrubs that wrapped around the house. The magnolia tree that dominated the front yard dropped leaves that required raking almost year-round. And the pumps that kept water circulating in the fish ponds needed to be cleaned almost weekly to keep the filters from clogging — a task I found similar to wringing out a dirty diaper (which I was doing a lot of inside the house.) Since I had two little kids to care for, I let nature take its course outside. Spring was lovely. But by mid-summer the garden had grown scary. I’d head outside dressed for the task, wearing garden clogs and wielding a trowel. Moments later, the weeds that towered over my head chased me back indoors, screaming. I started stalking Harford County’s Master Gardeners when they’d host a booth at the area’s summer events. I was hoping to convince one of these avid gardeners to visit my yard and tell me what to do with it. No one seemed interested. I’m sure a landscaper would have been happy to help, but I was still convinced that all I needed was a little free advice to set me in the right direction. Eventually, I began decoding my garden’s secrets. I drove the kids back and forth to the Harford County Cooperative Extension office bearing pictures of different weeds looking for a diagnosis of poison ivy. In time, I became a bit of an ivy-spotter, doing it for fun in my neighbor’s yards, whether they wanted me to or not. I’m still in the decoding process, but then what gardener isn’t? I thought I’d use this blog to share my misadventures in gardening. Hopefully, readers with greener thumbs than mine will weigh in to guide me. Please read. Thanks.

– Stacey A