2 of 88

Write now Article Tools

Page 2 of 3

residence in that house. I discovered that I liked cutting grass and that I was pretty good at it. The lawn was lovely after a short while, but then came time for colour. The problem, or challenge as I prefer to call it, was that I didn't have any prepared beds for planting and the choices were endless. The yard was a huge, blank canvas.

Standing at the edge of my property I decided I'd get the most impact if I put some flowers on either side of the front steps. Lesson number three was a hard one; gardening is far more grueling than my grandmother let on. My newly revived lawn needed dug up. This didn't upset me in principle, so I got a spade and began trying to extract a small rectangle of grass from the right side of the steps. Ten minutes later, I was sweating, blistered, frustrated, and no further ahead. Jumping on the spade only seemed to make it, and me bounce off the sod. It looked a bit like a poor woman's pogo stick.

Not to be deterred, I got a kitchen knife and began slicing into the ground. That worked, but only in two-inch increments. An hour later, the shapes were laid out, but weren't budging from their earthly stronghold. Another light bulb moment led me to get the ice chopper from the garage. This worked a treat to make the cuts deeper and wider and enabled me to work the spade under the grass. Now after three hours, I had the flowerbeds I wanted. I also had blisters, sunburn, mosquito bites, sore muscles and an aching back.

Lesson number four followed soon after; soil is not the same as dirt. Under the sod lay sand and clay. It certainly wasn't anything like the black soil I'd pictured flowers growing in, and after all that effort, I wanted flowerbeds that would support plants. No problem, I thought. It was just a matter of picking up a couple of bags of soil at the greenhouse when I bought my flowers.

Lesson number five came as a shock; flowers and dirt cost more than mowers. Enthusiasm may have killed my pocketbook as much as the price of greenhouse plants grown in or shipped to a harsh climate, but to be fair, it was my first garden. I wanted colour, so I got some hanging baskets, fuchsia, to put up on either side of the door, directly above the newly fashioned beds. I thought these would look lost on their own, so I got two big planters filled with geraniums, supertunias, and other brightly coloured annuals, one for either side of the porch.

Not forgetting the soil, I bought two bags and proceeded to buy enough perennials and annuals to fill

• << previous page
• 1
• 2
• 3
• next page >>

Add your voice

Know something about True gardening stories: What my garden taught me - the hard way?
We want to hear your view. Write now!