“Do as I say not as I do.”
I find myself saying this to my kids all the time. Well maybe not EXACTLY that way. More like, “Listen you little dope, I’m 38, your 8, and I know more than you do. I can eat cookies on the couch, you unfortunately cannot. Vamanos!” (Yes, an intentional Dora the Explorer reference).
This fun little saying (which by the way dates back to the late 1600’s), unfortunately applies to a lot of my so called gardening “skills”. Today’s example has to do with cutting back perennials for height control. I kid you not, I have an Excel spreadsheet with detailed instructions for each and every perennial I own. I am great at sharing this knowledge with my friends and family but guess how many of these “rules” I followed this year? A whopping 0.0. In most cases it works out OK but there are a few examples where this has gone awry.
Exhibit A your honor:
I have three of these planted, two were decimated by the monarch caterpillars (with my blessing of course) but this one exploded within the past few weeks and the blooms have toppled over.
Exhibit B:
I knew these needed to be cut back by half in June but nope, didn’t do it. They held up well for a while but then reached a height of about four feet and boom, they toppled on to the neighboring Miscanthus.
Exhibit C:
Should have cut them back by a third or even a half in June or at least have pinched the new shoots throughout the Spring. Again, nope, nada.
I have made a conscious effort to add more and more native plants and because they perform so well in their native and preferred locale, I really need to stay on top of these during the growing season.
Another gardening lesson learned.
Ciao
ONG
Fabulous post! So many only show the perfect in their garden, so refreshing to see the “human” side. I too have a tendency to put together spreadsheets and the like to tell me what to do when, and then life happens and it doesn’t. Thank you for making me smile. And I bet the local insect population doesn’t care that the plants are a little less than upright!
Can you send me a copy of your spreadsheet file. I thought it was a great idea, and possibly it might give me not oly helpful information, but also inspiration to add to it information on my plants. By the way, your Weigela information drew me to your sight and were quite informative. At any rate, Not being as organized as you, I print our information on what I’m currently abuzz about, which goes into stacks or folders, which later is a project to search out. Your spreadsheet may give new inspireation to my organizational flaws.
Roseann/ RoseFrancis250@aol.com